Alexander Graham Bell and The Telephone | Free US History Documentary

The West and the Gilded Age

Episode 76 - The Telephone

Between 1860 and 1900 the American population more than doubled, the economy grew nearly fivefold, and a single generation produced the typewriter, the light bulb, barbed wire, the elevator, the skyscraper, and the phonograph. This episode follows the invention David McCullough said would change our whole way of talking to each other. Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh in 1847 to a deaf mother and a father who invented a phonetic alphabet, spent his twenties teaching deaf students to speak, and that training in pitch and resonance led him from the harmonic telegraph to the human voice on a wire.

It covers the February 14, 1876 patent race with Elisha Gray, the first words spoken by telephone on March 10 at 5 Exeter Place in Boston, how the liquid and electromagnetic transmitters worked, the Centennial Exposition, and the climb from 5 percent of American homes in 1900 to 97 percent in 2000. The telephone arrived in the same years as the transcontinental railroad, the cattle drives of Cowboys, Longhorns, and Railheads, and the Gilded Age politics of Boss Tweed; it was shown to the public at the centennial of the Declaration of Independence, and the telegraph it grew out of had carried the news of the golden spike seven years earlier.

Key Takeaways

The last four decades of the nineteenth century saw extraordinary change. In 1860 the American population was close to 31.5 million; by 1900 it was over 76 million. Gross domestic product, the total market value of all goods and services produced inside America, rose from about 4.4 billion dollars to about 21 billion.
The same period produced the typewriter, the light bulb, riveted blue jeans, the refrigerated railroad car, electric street cars, barbed wire, the elevator, steel-frame skyscrapers, and the phonograph. The historian David McCullough said one invention would change our whole way of talking to each other: the telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 as a citizen of Great Britain working in Boston. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1882.
Bell was born March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh. His mother, Eliza Grace Symonds Bell, was nearly deaf and an accomplished pianist. His father, Alexander Melville Bell, was an elocutionist who invented Visible Speech, a written phonetic alphabet whose symbols show the position and movement of lips, tongue, and throat, so a reader could reproduce a sound without having heard it. The Bells used it to teach deaf students to speak.
Bell assisted his father as a teenager, taught Visible Speech to deaf pupils in London from about 1868, moved to Boston in April 1871 to train instructors at Sarah Fuller's Boston School for Deaf Mutes, opened his own School of Vocal Physiology in 1872, and became professor of vocal physiology at Boston University in 1873.
Telegraph wires were expensive, and the race was on to send several messages over one wire. Bell was among the first to devise a harmonic, or musical, telegraph in which each message rode its own pitch. Years of studying how the mouth, tongue, and larynx produce distinct pitches gave him an unusually sharp ear for frequency and resonance.
In 1874 and 1875 Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson realized the same principle could carry the continuous, varying waveform of speech. In January 1876 Bell leased two rooms at 5 Exeter Place in Boston, living in one and experimenting in the other.
On February 14, 1876, lawyers for Elisha Gray of Illinois filed a caveat, a notice that he was working on a telephone design. The same day Bell's lawyers filed a full patent application titled Improvement in Telegraphy. Examiner Zenas Fisk Wilber held up Bell's application around February 19 to give Gray time to convert his caveat into a competing patent. Gray never did. Bell received U.S. Patent 174,465 on March 7, 1876.
On March 10, 1876, using a liquid transmitter, Bell called to Watson in the next room: Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you. Watson heard and understood the sentence. In the liquid transmitter, a diaphragm vibrated with the voice, a needle attached to it dipped into a cup of acidified water, and the strength of the current rose and fell with the sound; a receiver at the other end turned the varying current back into sound.
The liquid telephone was poor for everyday use. In June 1876, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Bell showed an electromagnetic transmitter in which a vibrating diaphragm moved a metal piece near a magnet, inducing a faint current in a coil. Bell's receiver stayed in use for decades; carbon transmitters soon replaced his microphone, and by the 1880s the combination defined the telephone for a century.
At first the telephone was the privilege of the wealthy and of businesses; doctors and pharmacists were among the first subscribers. In 1900 roughly 5 percent of American households had a telephone. By 2000 the figure was over 97 percent.
Alexander Graham Bell died on August 2, 1922, at seventy-five. At the hour of his funeral, telephone service across North America was silenced for one minute.

Questions & Answers (FAQ)

Q1: Who invented the telephone?

Alexander Graham Bell, a Scottish-born teacher of the deaf working in Boston, received U.S. Patent 174,465 for the telephone on March 7, 1876, and on March 10 spoke the first sentence over a wire to his assistant Thomas Watson. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1882.

Q2: What were the first words spoken on a telephone?

On March 10, 1876, at 5 Exeter Place in Boston, Bell spoke into a liquid transmitter and called to Watson in the next room: Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you. Watson heard and understood the sentence.

Q3: What was Visible Speech?

A written phonetic alphabet invented by Bell's father, Alexander Melville Bell. Its symbols show the position and movement of the lips, tongue, and throat for each sound, so a reader who knew the system could reproduce a sound without having heard it. The Bells used it to teach deaf students to speak.

Q4: How did teaching the deaf lead Bell to the telephone?

Years of teaching Visible Speech and studying how the mouth, tongue, and larynx produce distinct pitches gave Bell an unusually sharp ear for frequency and resonance. That made the harmonic telegraph, in which each message rode its own musical pitch, natural to him, and in 1874 and 1875 he and Watson realized the same principle could carry the varying waveform of speech.

Q5: Did Elisha Gray invent the telephone first?

On February 14, 1876, Gray's lawyers filed a caveat, a notice that he was working on a telephone design, and Bell's lawyers filed a full patent application the same day. The examiner held Bell's application around February 19 to give Gray time to file a competing patent. Gray never did, and Bell received the patent on March 7, 1876.

Q6: How did Bell's first telephone work?

In the liquid transmitter, a thin diaphragm shook with the caller's voice, and a needle attached to it dipped into a cup of slightly acidified water, so the electric current rose and fell with the sound and a receiver turned it back into sound. At the Centennial Exposition in June 1876 Bell used an electromagnetic transmitter instead, in which a vibrating diaphragm moved a metal piece near a magnet and induced a current in a coil.

Q7: How quickly did Americans get telephones?

At first the telephone was a privilege of the wealthy and of businesses; doctors and pharmacists were among the first subscribers. In 1900 roughly 5 percent of American households had a telephone. By 2000 the figure was over 97 percent.

Q8: How did America mark Bell's death?

Bell died on August 2, 1922, at seventy-five. At the hour of his funeral, telephone service across North America was silenced for one minute.

Four Decades of Change

The last four decades of the 19th century saw extraordinary change in America. In 1860 the American population was close to 31 and a half million people. By 1900, there were over 76 million Americans. In 1860, the nation's Gross Domestic Product, that is, the total market value of all goods and services produced inside America, was about 4.4 billion dollars. At the dawn of the American Century, GDP had soared to about 21 billion dollars.

The Inventions of an Age

In the same period, there were great inventions that forever changed American life: the typewriter, the light bulb, riveted blue jeans, the refrigerated railroad car, electric street cars, barbed wire, the elevator, steel-frame skyscrapers, the phonograph. The historian David McCullough says there was one invention that would change our whole way of talking to each other. The telephone.

Born in Edinburgh

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, he was a citizen of Great Britain, working in Boston; he became a naturalized American citizen in 1882. Bell's development of the telephone was born from a lifelong devotion to human communication. He was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His mother, Eliza Grace Symonds Bell, while nearly deaf, was an accomplished pianist. His father, Alexander Melville Bell, was an elocutionist and inventor of Visible Speech.

Visible Speech

Visible Speech was a written phonetic alphabet. The symbols show the position and movement of the speech organs, lips, tongue, throat, when a sound is produced. A reader who knew the system could look at the symbols and reproduce the sound, even without having heard it. The Bells used it mainly to teach deaf students to speak, not with sign language, but orally.

Teaching the Deaf in Boston

The younger Bell gravitated to teaching the deaf. He began assisting his father as a teenager, and later taught Visible Speech to deaf pupils in London starting in about 1868. In April 1871 young Bell moved to Boston to train instructors at Sarah Fuller's Boston School for Deaf Mutes. He later opened his own School of Vocal Physiology in 1872, and became professor of vocal physiology at Boston University in 1873.

The Harmonic Telegraph

At that time, Bell also worked on a research project intended to improve the American telegraph. Telegraph wires were expensive. Instead of creating more of them, the race was on to see who could devise a way to send multiple telegraph messages across a single telegraph wire. Bell was among the first to devise a musical telegraph: each message rose on its own musical pitch. That way, several frequencies could share the wire without mixing.

Years of teaching Visible Speech and studying how the mouth, tongue, and larynx produce distinct pitches gave Bell an unusually sharp ear for frequency, resonance, and the difference between a pure tone and a complex sound such as a vowel. That acoustic knowledge made the idea of a harmonic telegraph natural to him. In 1874 and 1875 he and assistant Thomas Watson realized the same operating principles could carry the continuous, varying waveform of speech.

5 Exeter Place

In January 1876 Bell leased two rooms at 5 Exeter Place in Boston: he lived in one and experimented in the other.

The Patent Race with Elisha Gray

There were rivals racing to get the patent for the telephone. Among them was Elisha Gray from Illinois. The race was close, but, in the end, Bell won. On February 14, 1876, lawyers for Elisha Gray submitted a caveat, a notice that he was working on the telephone design.

On the same day Bell's lawyers submitted a full patent application titled Improvement in Telegraphy. Under U.S. patent law, a caveat is more of a placeholder than a full patent application. Examiner Zenas Fisk Wilber noticed the overlap between the two inventions and a possible conflict between the applicants. Around February 19, Wilber held up Bell's application to give Gray time to convert the caveat into a competing patent. Gray never did. Bell received U.S. Patent 174,465 on March 7, 1876.

Mr. Watson, Come Here

Then came the great moment. On March 10, 1876, using a liquid transmitter, Bell called to Watson in the next room: Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you. Watson heard and understood the sentence.

How the Liquid Transmitter Worked

How did the liquid transmitter work? A thin membrane called the diaphragm sat like a drumhead. The caller spoke into it, which caused the diaphragm to shake. A needle or wire attached to that sheet moved, then dipped into a cup of slightly acidified water; acid makes the water conduct electricity.

A louder or stronger sound moved the needle, which allowed the electricity to flow more easily. So the strength of the electric current rose and fell with the sound of the caller's voice. That changing current is what traveled down the wire. At the other end, a receiver converted the varying electric current back into sound. The original phone was poor for everyday use. The water level had to stay just right, and the overall setup was messy.

The Centennial Exposition, 1876

In June 1876 Bell showcased his device at America's centennial exposition in Philadelphia, only this time, he used an electromagnetic transmitter. When someone spoke, a thin diaphragm vibrated. A metal piece attached to it moved toward and away from a magnet, changing the magnetic field through a nearby coil of wire. That change produced a faint electric current that rose and fell with the vibrations of the voice.

At the receiving end, the changing current made another diaphragm vibrate, reproducing the sound. Bell's original electromagnetic receiver stayed in use for decades, but more practical transmitters, using carbon, quickly replaced his microphone. By the 1880s the combination of Bell's receiver and an improved transmitter defined the telephone that would remain recognizable for a century.

From 5 Percent to 97 Percent

At first, Bell's invention was the privilege of wealthy individuals and businesses. Doctors and pharmacists were among the first to sign up for phones. In 1900, only roughly 5 percent of American households had telephones. By 2000, however, that number had soared to over 97 percent.

One Minute of Silence

Alexander Graham Bell died on August 2, 1922. He was 75. At the hour of his funeral, telephone service across North America was silenced for one minute.