Cybertelecom
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History :: AT&T Patent Era
1872 - 1893 :: Invention and Disruption
Dont be a FOOL; The Law is Not DIY


Itis my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us all throughout the whole earth), may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone. - Mark Twain (Twainquotes citing Caroline Harnsberger's Mark Twain at Your Fingertips )

Prelude

1845: Theodore Vail born. "Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and Theodore Vail invented the telephone business." [THG] [PBS]

1847

March 3: Alexander Graham Bell born in Edinbugh, Scotland. He was educated at the Royal High School. As a boy he constructed a "speaking machine" at the encouragement of his father.. [IEEEVM ][About.com] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Kingsbury 19]

1864-65: Bell conducts experiments attempting to create the sounds of vowels as produced by the mouth. Helmholtz had already discovered these experiments and produced papers in 1863 on speaking machines that could produce vowel sounds.. [Kingsbury 20] [Wolff 42]

1867: Bell graduates from University College, London [Kingsbury 19]

1869:

Theodore Vail works for the Postal Service. [MIT] [THG] [PBS]

Shawk and Barton (aka Western Electric) established in Cleveland Ohio, taking over a former Western Union repair shop. One of the first customers was Elisha Gray. Shawk sold his interest to Gray. Gray and Barton opened at years end in Chicago, with investment from Anson Stager. [Iardella 27]

1870: Bell's family moves to Brantford, Ontario. [LOC Bell Family Papers]

1871

1872: Era of Invention

Bell opens first school for the deaf. [Coon 19]

Bell produces initial drawings of a "harmonic telegraph" Bell's initial interest is to develop the harmonic telegraph, not the telephone, which would result in multiple telegraph messages being sent over a single telegraph wire. [Wolff 43] Bell reflected:

"Instead of having the dots and dashes recorded upon paper, the operators were in the habit of observing the duration of the click of the instruments, and in this way were enabled to distinguish by ear the various signals. It struck me that in a similar manner the duration of a musical note might be made to represent the dot or dash of the telegraph code, so that a person might operate one of the keys of the tuning-fork piano referred to above, and the duration of the sound proceeding from the corresponding string of the distant piano be observed by an operator stationed there. It seemed to me that in this way a number of distinct telegraph messages might be sent simultaneously from the tuning-fork piano to the other end of the circuit, by operators each manipulating a different key of the instrument. These messages would be read by operators stationed at the distant piano, each receiving operator listening for signals of a certain definite pitch, and ignoring all others. In this way could be accomplished the simultaneous transmission of a number of telegraphic messages along a single wire, the number being limited only by the delicacy of the listener's ear. The idea of increasing the carrying power of a telegraph wire in this way took complete possession of my mind, and it was this practical end that I had in view when I commenced my researches in Electric Telephony." [Kingsbury 27]

Bell meets Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Hubbard is a vocal opponent of Western Union, arguing that telegraph service should be government owned. Hubbard will become Bell's financial partner, and Bell will marry Hubbard's daughter. [About.com] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Wolff 42]

Experiment description: "The form of the apparatus constructed at that time consisted of tuning forks arranged substantially after the manner of Helmholtz. The transmitting tuning fork was placed in a local circuit. Upon causing the wire to vibrate, the wire attached to the prong was alternately lifted out of the mercury and depressed into it again. The circuit of which the fork formed a part was thus made and broken at every vibration of the fork. The poles of the electro-magnet attracted the prongs of the tuning fork at each kae of the circuit, and release them when the circuit was broken. The intermittent attraction of the electro-magnet thus caused the transmitting fork to remain in continuous vibration, emitting continuously its musical tone. By the depression of a telegraph key, the current rendered intermittent by the vibration of the transmitting fork was directed to a line wire which passed to a receiving instrument consisting of an electro-magnet between the poles of which appeared the prongs of a tuning fork. Every time the prong of the transmitting fork made contact with the mercury below it, the prongs of the receiving fork were attracted by the poles of the electro-magnet, between which they were placed; and every time the prong of the transmitting fork broke contact with the mercury below, the prongs of the receiving fork were no longer attracted by the electro-magnet, but were allowed to move freely in the manner of a tuning fork left to itself. Thus, at every vibration of the transmitting fork, the prongs of the receiving fork were attracted by the receiving electro-magnet and released. When the receiving fork had normally the same pitch as the transmitting fork, the intermittent attraction of the electromagnet would cause it to be thrown into vigorous vibration, thus producing a musical sound of similar pitch to that occasioned by the vibration of the transmitting fork." [Kingsbury 28]

1873: Bell's experiments switch from tuning forks to "vibrating armatures consisting of single flat plates - really musical reeds." [Kingsbury 29]

1874: Bell partners with Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who provides financial backing for Bell's research. Bell meets Watson. [About.com] Bell meets Thomas Watson at Charles William's electrician shop in Boston. [LOC Bell Family Papers]

1875

The Patent Era

“That’s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”
- President Rutherford B. Hayes to Alexander Graham Bell 1876

1876

Improvements in Telegraphy

Having described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by letters patent is as follows:"

"1. A system of telegraphy in which the receiver is set in vibration by the employment of undulatory currents of electricity, substantially as set forth."

"2. The combination, substantially as set forth, of a permanent magnet or other body capable of inductive action, with a closed circuit, so that the vibration of the one shall occasion electrical undulations in the other or in itself, and this I claim whether the permanent magnet be set in vibration in the neighborhood of the conducting wire forming the circuit or whether the conducting wire be set in vibration in the neighborhood of the permanent magnet, or whether the conducting wire and the permanent magnet both simultaneously be set in vibration in each other's neighborhood."

"3. The method of producing undulations in a continuous voltaic current by the vibration or motion of bodies capable of inductive action, or by the vibration or motion of the conducting wire itself, in the neighborhood of such bodies, as set forth."

"4. The method of producing undulations in a continuous voltaic circuit by gradually increasing and diminishing the resistance of the circuit, or by gradually increasing and diminishing the power of the battery, as set forth."

"5. The method of and apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically, as herein described, by causing electrical undulations similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds, substantially as set forth."

"In testimony whereof, I have hereunto signed my name this 20th day of January, A.D. 1876."

"ALEX. GRAHAM BELL"

[Telephone Cases p 13 (1888)] A few hours later, Elisha Gray filed his telephone caveat.

"Be it known that I, Elisha Gray of Chicago, in the County of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new art of transmitting vocal sounds telegraphically, of which the following is a specification:"

"It is the object of my invention to transmit the tones of the human voice through a telegraphic circuit, and reproduce them at the receiving end of the line, so that actual conversations can be carried on by persons at long distances apart."

"I have invented and patented methods of transmitting musical impressions or sounds telegraphically, and my present invention is based upon the modification of the principle of said invention, which is set forth and described in letters patent of the United States, granted to me July 27, 1875, respectively numbered 166,095 and 166,096, and also in an application for letters patent of the United States filed by me February 23, 1875."

"To attain the objects of my invention, I devised an instrument capable of vibrating responsively to all the tones of the human voice, and by which they are rendered audible."

"In the accompanying drawings, I have shown an apparatus embodying my improvements in the best way now known to me, but I contemplate various other applications, and also changes in the details of construction of the apparatus, some of which would obviously suggest themselves to a skillful electrician or a person versed in the science of acoustics on seeing this application."

[Telephone Cases p 78 (1888)]

Bell's application did not mention the word "telephone" nor did it promise the transmission of voice. The principle of Variable Resistance was written into the margin of the application (it is not clear that Bell had done any experiments on variable resistance prior to the application). Bell had yet to successfully transmit voice. The Telephone Cases, 126 US 1, 535 (1888)

March 6: Bell, Sanders, and Hubbard form the Bell Patent Association. [Iardella p 9]

"The U.S. Patent Office issued patent #174,465 to Bell on March 7, 1876" for an improvement of telegraph (not telephone). [AT&T: Inventing the Telephone] Use the PTO Patent search engine to view Bell's patent. See also Who Invented the Telephone: Why Bell, of Course, Privateline.com; [Brands p 2] [Brenner p 1] [Brooks p 47] [Iardella p 9] [Wolff 45]

Alexander Graham Bell's Lab Notebook exhibited at the Library of Congress. You can look through all 55 pages.

March 10 “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” the first words that Mr. Bell spoke through his invention. This comment apparently was said as Mr. Bell had spilled acid while working on his experiments, and needed Mr. Watson's assistance. [Brooks p 49] This makes this both the first telephone call and the first emergency telephone call

April 6: Post Office grant's Bell's patent letters, Patent Number 161,739 for "a method of, and apparatus for, transmitting two or more telegraphic signals simultaneously along a single wire by the employment of transmitting instruments, each of which occasions a succession of electrical impulses differing in rate from the others, and of receiving instruments, each tuned to a pitch at which it will be put in vibration to produce its fundamental note by one only of the transmitting instruments, and of vibratory circuit breakers operating to convert the vibratory movement of the receiving instrument into a permanent make or break (as the case may be) of a local circuit, in which is placed a Morse sounder, register, or other telegraphic apparatus. I have also therein described a form of autograph-telegraph based upon the action of the above-mentioned instruments."" [Telephone Cases p 6 (1888)]

May 10, Bell presents paper, Researches in Telephony, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. [Kingsbury 49]

June 25: Bell demonstrates his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. [Brooks p 51] [IEEEVM] [LOC Bell Family Papers] [Kingsbury 50] [Iardella p 9] [Wolff 45] Western Electric receives five gold medals at the at the Centennial Exposition for its devices. [Iardella 28]

July 12: Experiments over a circuit from Boston to NYC and back, to two separate rooms in Boston, succeeded after short circuiting the loop. [Kingsbury 56]

August 10: First one-way telephone call over outdoor wires between Bell in Paris Ontario and his father in Brantford - using borrowed telegraph wires. [Brooks p 52] [IEEE History Center Voice]

October 9: First two-way telephone call over outdoor wires between Watson and Bell. [Brooks p 52] [Privatelines 1876-1879] Bell's salutation was "Hoy, Hoy" - which is how he believed the phone should be answered (this is how Mr. Burn's on the Simpson's answers the phone - playing with the theme of exactly how old is Mr. Burns).

On June 2, 1875, Bell and Watson were testing the harmonic telegraph when Bell heard a sound come through the receiver. Instead of transmitting a pulse, which it had refused to do in any case, the telegraph passed on the sound of Watson plucking a tuned spring, one of many set at different pitches. How could that be? Their telegraph, like all others, turned current on and off. But in this instance, a contact screw was set too tightly, allowing current to run continuously, the essential element needed to transmit speech. Bell realized what happened and had Watson build a telephone the next day based on this discovery. The Gallows telephone, so called for its distinctive frame, substituted a diaphragm for the spring. Yet it didn't work. A few odd sounds were transmitted, yet nothing more. No speech. Disheartened, tired, and running out of funds, Bell's experimenting slowed through the remainder of 1875.

During the winter of 1875 and 1876 Bell continued experimenting while writing a telephone patent application. Although he hadn't developed a successful telephone, he felt he could describe how it could be done. With his ideas and methods protected he could then focus on making it work. Fortunately for Bell and many others, the Patent Office in 1870 dropped its requirement that a working model accompany a patent application. On February 14, 1876, Bell's patent application was filed by his attorney. It came only hours before Elisha Gray filed his Notice of Invention for a telephone.

Mystery still surrounds Bell's application and what happened that day. In particular, the key point to Bell's application, the principle of variable resistance, was scrawled in a margin, almost as an afterthought. Some think Bell was told of Gray's Notice then allowed to change his application. That was never proved, despite some 600 lawsuits that would eventually challenge the patent. Finally, on March 10, 1876, one week after his patent was allowed, in Boston, Massachusetts, at his lab at 5 Exeter Place, Bell succeeded in transmitting speech. He was not yet 30. Bell used a liquid transmitter, something he hadn't outlined in his patent or even tried before, but something that was described in Gray's Notice.

-Tom Farley's Telephone History Series (cc)

January 30, 1877 Patent Office issued patent 186,787 for an improvement to the electric telephone [US v American Bell (1888)] [Telephone Cases (1888)] [Kingsbury 61] [Iardella p 9] [Wolff 45]

Missed Opportunities

"Buy when the stock is first offered." - Chauncey Depew.

Hubbard's $100,000 Offer to Sell Out to Western Union

In the early days in their partnership, facing competing patents and an incomplete invention, Hubbard allegedly floated an offered to sell the telephone patents to Western Union for $100,000. Western Union Pres. William Orton refused. Orton is attributed as proclaiming "What use could this company make of an electric toys?" By the turn of the century, there were a number of versions of this story that seemed credible. [Herbert Newton Casson, The History of the Telephone, p. 59 (1911) ("The rosiest hope that shine in front of Sanders and Hubbard was that the Western Union might conclude to buy the Bell patents, just as it had already bought many others. In one moment of discouragement they offered the telephone to President Orton, of the Western Union, for $100,000; and Orton had refused it. "What use," he asked pleasantly, "could this company make of an electrical toy?"")] [Michael Wolff p. 46 (in 1913, Watson recalled "At about that time Professor Bell's financial problems had begun to press hard for solution. We were very much disappointed because the president of the Western Union Telegraph Company had refused, somewhat contemptuously, Mr. Hubbard's offer to sell him all of the Bell patents for the exorbitant sum of $100,000. It was an especially hard blow for me, for while the negotiations were pending I had had visions of a sumptuous office in the Western Union Building in New York which I was expecting to occupy as Superintendent of the Telephone Department of the great telegraph company.")] [Report of The Committee of The Senate Upon Relations Between Labor And Capital and Testimony Taken By Committee, Vol. III, Testimony of Western Union Pres. Norvin Green 1883, p. 882 (GPO 1885) ("Mr. Hubbard, the father-in-law of Mr. Bell, came to see me once, and told me that we could take the whole of the Bell patent and control it for $100,000. We declined to do it, and now it has a market value of nearly $20,000,000.")] [Wolff at 237 (noting that a series of letters suggesting a protracted negotiation)] [Bell Telephone v Western Union (1879), The Guardian Aug. 6, 2007 ("When Alexander Graham Bell first invented the telephone, he and his cohorts offered to sell the patents to Western Union - then the world's most important communications company, thanks to its domination of the telegraph - for $100,000.")]

One popular version of the story is supported with reference to the following memo

Western Union memo, 1876.

Chauncey M Depew Esq
President, Western Union Telegraph Co.
New York City

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and his financial backer, Gardiner G. Hubbard, offered Bell's brand new patent (No. 174,465) to the Telegraph Company - the ancestor of Western Union. The President of the Telegraph Company, Chauncey M. DePew, appointed a committee to investigate the offer. The committee report has often been quoted. It reads in part:

"The Telephone purports to transmit the speaking voice over telegraph wires. We found that the voice is very weak and indistinct, and grows even weaker when long wires are used between the transmitter and receiver. Technically, we do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles.

"Messer Hubbard and Bell want to install one of their "telephone devices" in every city. The idea is idiotic on the face of it. Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States?

"The electricians of our company have developed all the significant improvements in the telegraph art to date, and we see no reason why a group of outsiders, with extravagant and impractical ideas, should be entertained, when they have not the slightest idea of the true problems involved. Mr. G.G. Hubbard's fanciful predictions, while they sound rosy, are based on wild-eyed imagination and lack of understanding of the technical and economic facts of the situation, and a posture of ignoring the obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy... .

"In view of these facts, we feel that Mr. G.G. Hubbard's request for $100,000 of the sale of this patent is utterly unreasonable, since this device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase."

Chauncey Mitchell Depew. Library of Congress.

See, e.g., [Javier Sanchez Lamelas, MARTKETING: The heart and the brain of branding 2016 ("In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell his telephone patent to Western Union for $100,000. The chairman of Western Union, Chauncey M. DePew, formed a committee to consider the request and to advise him on how to respond. What follows is claimed to be the report of DePew's committee. It was rediscovered by an AT&T patent attorney in 1992.")]

The memo is a fiction. Its fabrication appears to be an amalgamation of different versions of the story. The History of Phone Phreaking Blog traced the first publication of the Depew Memo to Richard C. Levine, "Chairman's Statement", IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Volume EM-15(2), pp. 55-56, June 1968. [The Greatest "Bad Business Decision" Quotation That Never Was, The History of Phone Phreaking Blog, Jan. 8, 2011] [Michael Wolff 46 (questioning the authenticity of this reported memo; noting that there is no record of the offer to sell AT&T's patents in either AT&T's letters or in Western Union's letters; further noting the Depew was not President of WU - Orton was. Finally the memo is unsigned)] [Field 249]

Chauncey M Depew was not, as the memo identifies him, President of Western Union. He was, however, an rather significant player in this story. At the time he worked as an attorney who worked for the Vanderbilts, a personal friend of William Orton, became a Senator from New York in 1899, and joined the Board of Directors of Western Union. Depew was the author of a famous 1896 telegraph around the world. Depew was also a story-teller - sharing the stage with the likes of Mark Twain - and one has to wonder if this did not help fuel the myth of the memo. [Chauncey M Depew, 12 Delightful Stories, One Each Sunday in the The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]), 29 Sept. 1922. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.] [The English Sense of Humor, The Hope pioneer. (Hope, N.D.), 29 Nov. 1906. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress (reporting on an ocean steamer banquet featuring Mark Twain and Chauncey Depew)] In 1897, at the time of Hubbard's death, Depew recounted the following interesting story:

Thirty years ago I was counsel for the Harlem road, and Gardniner G. Hubbard was railway mail inspector. In the course of our official duties we were thrown frequently into contact, and came to know each other well... one day Hubbard came into my office, and leaning against my desk said:

'Depew, I have a son-in-law. He is a bright young fellow named Bell... He has invented a talking telegraph. It is a wonderful sort of an arrangement.'

In those days Hubbard had no money, and I had only a little. He suggested to me that I take an interest in the invention, and made a proposition that I advance $10,000, for which he would give a sixth interest in the patent. I said I would think it over. The next day I went downtown and saw William Orton, who was at that time President of the Western Union Telegraph Company. I laid the matter before him fully. He said to me:

'Depew, you haven't got much money, and as a friend I dont want to see you lose what you have got. That invention is practically worthless. It will never amount to anything. If it should, however, we own prior rights upon the idea, of which Bell's patents are simply an infringement. Don't throw away your money.'

I took his advice, and now I am in a position to reflect. What would have been the result? I would be to-day, or my estate would be, worth something like $30,000,000...

[Mr. Depew's Narrow Escape, Electrical World., Vol. 31, p. 9 Jan. 1, 1898] [Chauncey M. Depew, My Memories of Eighty Years, p. 406 (ND) (manuscript) (recounting taking Ortons advice not to invest in Hubbard's telephone)]

Depew may not have been President of Western Union, but the President of Western Union had aced him out of an incredible investment opportunity. The Feb. 24th, 1916 edition of The Wallace Miner included a bunch of random quotes from celebreties including Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, and J.D. Rockefeller. The quote attributed to Depew was "Buy when the stock is first offered." [Antidote for Penury, The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho), 24 Feb. 1916. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.] In 1899, Depew was elected a U.S. Senator. In 1897, he oversaw the opening of the Pneumatic Tube Mail System in New York City, and was quoted saying

This is the age of speed. Everything that makes for speed contributes to happiness and is a distinct gain to civilization. We are ahead of the old countries in almost every respect, but we have been behind in methods of communication within our cities. In New York this condition of communication has hitherto been barbarous. If the Greater New York is to be a success, quick communication is absolutely necessary. I hope this system we have seen tried here to-day will soon be extended over all the Greater New York. ["Mail Tube is a Success". The New York Times. 8 October 1897]

Western Union President Orton hated Hubbard. Orton knew all about Bell's telephone; Bell had come and presented the invention to Orton directly. But dealing with Bell meant dealing with Hubbard; and Western Union had Elisha Gray and Thomas Edison on retainer, and Orton could set them on Bell's trail - based on Gray's and Edison's patents, Western Union would enter the telephone market in 1877. Michael Wolff in his excellent article concludes "This writer strongly suspects that Orton's whole attitude toward the telephone can be understood as resulting from a subtle combination of his dislike for Hubbard and his great confidence in Edison and the other inventors in Western Union's 'stable.'". [Michael Wolff p. 49] Western Union President Norvin Green, in his own way, agreed. "Indeed, he (Orton) would never meet Mr. Hubbard whenever he could decently avoid it.. I think this resulted in a loss of a great opportunity to our company. But for this repugnance I believe the Western Union would bave acquired a controlling interest in the Bell telephone at a very low cost compared with the great value it has since developed.") [Supplemental Statement of Norvin Green, June 9, 1890 at 6. See also p. 8 ("What is there but clap trap and humbug in the social phase of the telegraph business that so disturbs the quiet of Mr . Hubbard ?")].

1877 :: Patent Wars

Bell 1877 Advertisement:
"The proprietors of the Telephone . . . are now prepared to furnish Telephones for the transmission of articulate speech through instruments not more than twenty miles apart . . . Conversation can easily be carried on after slight practice and with occasional repetition of a word or sentence. On first listening to the Telephone, though the sound is perfectly audible, the articulation seems to be indistinct; but after a few trials the ear becomes accustomed to the peculiar sound . . ."
[Brooks p 60]

“I believe in the future, wires will unite the head offices of telephone companies in different cities, and a man in one part of the country may communicate by word of mouth with another in a distant place.” - Alexander Graham Bell, 1878

1877: "the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, a case that the Supreme Court found viable and remanded for trial" [H Res 269]

1877-1879: Western Union v. Bell Telephone

Other Patent Challenges

Western Union was "not alone. At least 1,730 telephone companies organized and operated in the 17 years Bell was supposed to have a [patent] monopoly. Most competitors disappeared as soon as the Bell Company filed suit against them for patent infringement, but many remained. They either disagreed with Bell's right to the patent, ignored it altogether, or started a phone company because Bell's people would not provide service to their area." [Farley at 4] [See also Mueller p 34] Some services may have been offered with inventions outside of Bell's patent, but the threat of litigation would terminate the venture. Naturally, Bell refused to interconnect with these competing services.

"Over the next decade, the Bell company would be involved in more than six hundred lawsuits for patent infringement, all of which it would win." [Brooks p 77]

1885: USG brings suit against Bell in the Southern District Court of Ohio, attempting to void his patents based on Antonio Meucci's prior caveats for the invention of the teletrofono. The suit is terminated in 1897 without resolution after Meucci died and the Bell patents expired. [Catania] According to author Basilio Catania, the motivation for the law suit was not so much from Meucci as from the USG which had grown weary of AT&T exercising its patent monopoly powers.

The Telephone Cases, 126 US 1 (1888) (challenging Bell's patents based on the work of Phillip Reis and Charles Bourseul published in Paris 1854 )

US v American Bell, 128 US 315 (1888) (suit challenging Bell's patent based on the work of Phillip Reis and others, granting defendants motion to dismiss)

1897: USG challenge to Bell's patents, based on Meucci's prior art, is terminated after the death of Meucci and the expiration of Bell's patents; it was terminated as moot without resolution of who actually invented the telephone.

Having secured its monopoly position, AT&T engaged in the 1880s in a series of rate hikes under the justification of expanding the service. The public faced with no alternative service responded negatively. Responses included establishing legal authority to regulate the rates (See Common Carriage) and also the establishment of municipal networks. [Mueller p 36]

Bell Telephone

An 1877 Circular:
The Telephone

"The proprietors of the Telephone, the invention of Alexander Graham Bell, for which the patents have been issued by the United States and Great Britain, are now prepared to furnish Telephones for the transmission of articulate speech through instruments not more than twenty miles apart. Conversation can easily be carried on after slight practice and with occasional repetition of a word or sentence. On first listening to the Telephone, though the sound is perfectly audible, the articulation seems to be indistinct; but after a few trials the ear becomes accustomed to the peculiar sound and finds little difficulty in understanding the words.

The Telephone should be set in a quiet place, where there is no noise which would interrupt ordinary conversation.

The advantages of the Telephone over the Telegraph for local business are: (1) That no skilled operator is required, but direct communication may be had by speech without the intervention of a third person. (2) That the communication is much more rapid, the average number of words transmitted a minute by Morse Sounder being from fifteen to twenty, by Telephone from one to two hundred. (3) That no expense is required either for its operation maintenance or repair. It needs no battery, and has no complicated machinery. It is unsurpassed for economy and simplicity.

The terms for leasing two Telephones for social purposes connecting a dwelling house with any other building will be $20 a year, for business purposes $40 a year, payable semiannually in advance, with the cost of expressage from Boston, New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis or San Francisco. The instruments will be kept in good working order by the lessors, free of expense, except from injuries resulting from great carelessness.

Several telephones can be placed on the same line at an additional rental of $10 for each instrument; but the use of more than two on the same line where privacy is required is not advised. Any person within ordinary hearing distance can hear the voice calling through the Telephone. If a louder call is required one can be furnished for $5.

Telegraph lines will be constructed by the proprietors if desired. The price will vary from $100 to $150 a mile; any good mechanic can construct a line; No. 9 wire costs 8 1/2 cents per pound, 320 pounds to the mile' 34 insulators at 25 cents each; the price of poles and setting varies in every locality; stringing wire $5 per miles; sundries $10 per mile.

Parties leasing the Telephone incur no expense beyond the annual rental and repair of the line wire. On the following page are extracts from the Press and other sources relating to the Telephone.

Gardiner G Hubbard
Cambridge, Mass, May 1877" [Kingsbury 67]

1877

1878

Telephone Operators: Boys II Women :

"When telephone companies began hiring operators, they chose teenage boys for the job [Image]. But the companies soon regretted their decision. Boys had done a great job working in telegraph offices. And they worked for low wages. But being a telephone operator was a tough job that required lots of patience -- something the boys didn't have. The boy operators quickly turned telephone offices upside down. They wrestled instead of worked. They pulled pranks on callers, and even cursed at them. In 1878, the Boston Telephone Despatch company began hiring women operators instead. Women, the companies thought, would behave better than boys. Women had pleasant voices that customers -- most of whom were men -- would like. And because society did not treat women equally, they could be paid less and supervised more strictly than men. [Image of women working at Atlanta switch]

"Much like many other American businesses at the turn of the century, telephone companies unfairly discriminated against people from certain ethnic groups and races. African American and Jewish women were not allowed to become operators."

-- Wayback Tech 1900, PBS Kids Go (FA). See also Lois Kathryn Herr, Women, Power and AT&T: Winning Rights in the Workplace (2002). [Brooks p 66 (1878: New England Bell in Boston hires first female operator, Emma N Nutt - who worked until 1911)]

Instructions to Agents No. 1 (Nov. 15, 1877)

In consequence of the difficulties that have arisen in different localities for want of uniformity in price for the rental of telephones the Bell Telephone Company has adopted the following rates for all its agencies, and prices are to be fixed in accordance herewith.

The annual rental for telephones shall be ten dollars each, payable in advance; not less than a pair of telephones must be used at each station, except as hereafter specified.

For social purposes, single telephones may be used at each station. By 'Social purposes' is mean the use of telephones as a matter of convenience between private houses; between a house and a private stable; a doctor's house and office, etc. etc.

For district telephone purposes a discount of twenty percent., and for house use a discount of fifty per cent. may be made, and the use of single telephones allowed at each station.

By 'house use' is meant all places where telephones are used in one building, or group of buildings, as, for instance, several buildings in the same yard used by the party; or, in fact, where telephones substantially take the place of speaking tubes. College lines may be included in this line.

The magneto bell calls may be sold for fifteen dollars each, or rented for five dollars each per annum.

[Kingsbury 181]

1879

Earlytelephones were leased in pairs to subscribers. The subscriber was required to put up his own line to connect with another. The first lines were point to point lines without switching capability in the middle. [See Atlanta for images of early phones].

In order to permit a phone to call other phones in the network, exchanges were installed in the network. At first, however, the exchanges did not operate through the use of telephone numbers. Telephone numbers did not yet exist. Operators memorized the names of the subscribers and their associated lines. However, in the Lowell, Massachusetts exchange, when wide spread outbreak of measles resulted in most of the operators being absent from work - along with their knowledge of who had which line - exchange owners realized the need to switch to a system less dependant on the operators memory - telephone numbers. [See also Brooks p 74]

Business may have acquired their own unique telephone number. However, the rule for residential subscribers was that they would share a telephone number and line, called a party line. When this number was called, all of the phones that were a part of that party line would ring in each phone. Everyone could pick up the phone and hear and participate in the conversation. In order to compensate for this, operators developed unique rings for each phone on a party line so that the subscribers could know who the call was for. [Atlanta]

1880

1881

1882

"In the critical ten years now under consideration, telephone service, which was daily proving itself to be of enormous public benefit, was being developed with energy and resource against difficulties of varied kinds. Wherever official or public action was taken it was repressive, calling for the exercise of additional energy on the part of the promoters to overcome the artificial resistance inserted by public authorities against the advancement of a public benefit." [Kingsbury p 273]

1883

1884

History of AT&T Part I

AT&T Established

1885

1886:

1887:

1888

1889: First pay phones, set up in Hartford. [Farley at 4] [Brooks 100]

The Progressive Era

1890: Sherman Anti Trust act

1891

Automatic Telephone Switch Invented 1891

Almon B. Strowger, a Kansas City undertaker, was reportedly motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators. He was convinced that the local manual telephone exchange operators were sending calls to his competitor rather than his business. He also suspected that the telephone operators were influencing the choice of undertaker when his business was requested. The origin of this suspicion reportedly arose from an incident in Topeka when a friend died and the family contacted a rival undertaker. Other stories claim that the wife or, possibly, the cousin of a rival was a telephone operator and Strowger suspected that the operators were telling callers that his line was busy or connecting his callers to the competition. On inventing his switch he said "No longer will my competitor steal all my business just because his wife is a BELL operator." Wikipedia Aug 2006. See also [Brenner p 4]

Stowger patented his device and founded the Automatic Electric Company in order to build and sell the switch in 1891. [Brooks 100] The first automatic C.O. was installed in LaPorte, Indiana. William von Alven, Bill's 200 Year Condensed History of Telecom, CCL 1998

"AT&T resisted the adoption of the automatic switch at first, largely out of the belief that it was inappropriate to be involving the customers in the switching process." [Sterling 67] "The Bell System did not embrace this switch or automation in general, indeed, a Bell franchise commonly removed "Steppers" and dial telephones in territories it bought from independent telephone companies. Not until 1919 did the Bell System start using Strowgers durable and efficient switching system. This tardiness contributed to Bell's poor reputation around the turn of the century." [Farley at 4] "One of the factors that finally caused Bell to change its direction was a major operator strike in 1920. This strike was devastating to the company and showed company management a vulnerability that they had not known existed." In Atlanta, the last manual exchange was taken offline in 1951. [Atlanta part 2]

Papers

  • RB Hill, Early Work on Dial Telephone Systems Bell Lab Records, Reprinted at Privateline.com
  • RB Hill, The Early Years of the Strowger System Bell Lab Records, Reprinted at Privateline.com
  • 1892

    1893

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