Where would we be without the telephone? Of course, since the turn of the 20th century, we have been fortunate to have it readily at our disposal. So, the 'without a phone' experience will not be one for most of us, except the times when we leave home without the cell phone. The evolution of the telephone has been a phenomenal advancement in technology. However, it had to start somewhere so let's step back in time to its beginning.
With the patent becoming official, the idea only needed to be refined and tested. This was just the beginning of a form of communication that has developed into a massive force far beyond the expectations of Bell and his colleagues. Eventually a simple conversation from one room to another broadened into a means of connecting people across the globe.Bell's patent filing beat a similar claim by Elisha Gray by only two hours. Not wanting to be shut out of the communications market, Western Union Telegraph Company employed Gray and fellow inventor Thomas A. Edison to develop their own telephone technology. Bell sued, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld Bell's patent rights. In the years to come, the Bell Company withstood repeated legal challenges to emerge as the massive American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) and form the foundation of the modern telecommunications industry.
Source: This Day in History
Here are but a few earlier photos:
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| Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates speaking into the telephone using a model prototype in 1876. Early Office Museum |
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| Acoustic telephone ad, The Consolidated Telephone Co., Jersey City, NJ 1886 |
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| Bell placing the first New York to Chicago telephone call in 1892 |
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