It began with the telegraph. For centuries, people wanted to communicate across long distances, and the idea of a machine to do it dates back to the 1700s. However, it wasn’t until the 1900s that the telegraph was developed. This invention led to the invention of the telephone 150 years ago today.
Morse began working on his version of the electric telegraph in the 1830s. He started his career as a painter and was a successful artist. Then, while he was away from home working on a commission, his wife died suddenly. Because of how far he was from home, by the time he found out, she had already been buried.
Morse decided we needed a quick way to send news. Later, while on a ship, he overheard fellow passengers discussing electromagnetism, which gave him the idea for how a telegraph might work. Using multiple wires, he demonstrated to Congress what he could do and was given funding to do it. With the funding, he connected Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles. His first message, heard loud and clear, was “What hath God wrought?”
The Telephone 150 Years Ago Today
Alexander Graham Bell is best known as the inventor of the telephone, and his story is far richer than most people know.
He was born on March 3rd, 1847. To a father who was a speech elocution professor and a mother who was almost deaf. Alexander became very interested in sound. Bell’s wife, Maple Hubbard, was also deaf. He initially used visible speech to teach deaf people, including Helen Keller and his future wife, Mabel. He developed his father’s work and lectured around the country because of his work with the deaf and careful study of how sound is transmitted via the human voice.
Bell’s invention of the telephone was an outgrowth of his interest in communicating sounds. He had some beliefs that conflicted with the deaf community, such as that deaf people shouldn’t marry because their children might become deaf.
Bell taught something called oralism. He wanted deaf people to become like everyone else, but they couldn’t. It put him at odds at times with the deaf community.
Alexander Graham Bell began inventing as a child
At 12, he invented a device to remove wheat husks, and by 16, he was studying speech mechanics. In the 1870s, he worked to improve the telegraph, creating a “harmonic telegraph” that could send multiple tones over the same wire. This work led him to consider transmitting human speech over multiple wires.
Alexander Graham Bell made the first phone call to his assistant, Thomas Watson, on March 10, 1876. It led to the establishment of the Bell Telephone Company.
Bell received his first telephone patent on March 7, 1876; three days later, Bell and Watson made their first phone call at their lab in Boston. The message was “Watson, come here; I want you!”
The phone used was a cone-shaped device with a liquid transmitter that carried Bell’s voice, converted it into an analog signal, and sent it through the phone wire to a receiver in another room.
The first phones we used were private lines for businesspeople, lawyers, and doctors to communicate in their offices. Then came the switchboard, which made it possible to communicate and connect entire communities with phones.
And now everyone walks around staring at their phone !
How times have changed !
Mindless automatons.