Who Invented the Telephone?
Who invented the telephone?
The answer to this question has been argued ever since Alexander Graham Bell filed his patent application for the telephone in 1876. Much of the argument has focused on whether Bell should be awarded the palm for its invention or whether it should go to Chicago inventor Elisha Gray, who was conducting experiments at the same time as Bell, was in contact with him, and who filed documentation with the patent office for a telephone device a few hours before Bell. Newspaper reporting at the time—noticeable especially in The Chicago Tribune (Gray lived in nearby Highland Park)—waffled in whether to attribute the new invention to Bell or to Gray.
Answering the question was and is important in the awarding of patents and because of the financial boon that accrues to the patent holder. In fact, the Patent Office and the courts long ago examined the claims of Bell and Gray, and when the smoke cleared, Bell had his patent. Nevertheless, historians Seth Shulman and Edward Evenson have recently wrestled with the evidence surrounding the competing patent claims and have concluded that Bell's application was unfairly strengthened through his inclusion of material describing, in effect, Gray's experiments, the knowledge of which, they argue, Bell gained either from the patent attorneys that he and Gray had engaged or from a corrupt Patent Office official. Thus, the controversy over the awarding of the patent continues, at least for historians.
Not only historians, however, wade into historical questions of who was first with this or that discovery or creation. Politicians are seldom shy about pronouncing on such issues—often, it appears, out of a desire to honor the achievements of people of particular ethnic backgrounds. In June 2002, for example, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a (non-binding) resolution honoring Italian inventor Antonio Meucci, who apparently did invent a delicate and primitive telephone some time in the 1850s. Ten days after the U.S. resolution, the Canadian Parliament "countered" by honoring the Scottish-born, long-time Canadian resident Alexander Graham Bell as the telephone's true inventor.
History would be easier if each invention had a single inventor. Sometimes this is the case—but often it is not, despite our tendency to identify a solitary genius in whose mind a great idea suddenly lit up fully-formed. Rather (more?) often, many people work on a problem at the same time, making incremental approaches toward a solution, and influencing each other in the process. In such cases, crediting one person with the solution or invention can seem arbitrary. The claim to invention per se is sometimes buttressed through impressive efforts at self-promotion or by successes in organizing the invention's commercial exploitation.
Alexander Graham Bell, Lab notebook, describing his experiments with the telephone, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr002.html.
Bell's patent application (174465, July 27, 1875) for the telephone, at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PAL….
Elisha Gray's patent application (166095, July 27, 1875) for an "Electrical Telegraph for Transmitting Musical Tones" at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PAL….
Elisha Gray's "caveat" filed at the Patent Office a few hours before Bell's patent application:
http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/GRAY_PATENT.html.
"Antonio Meucci Revisited":
http://www.chezbasilio.it/antenna.htm.
Lewis Coe, The Telephone and Its Several Inventors: A History (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1995).
A. Edward Evenson, The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray - Alexander Graham Bell Controversy and Its Many Players (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000).
Seth Shulman, The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret (New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 2008).
Image source: "Helen of Many Glacier Hotel, June 25, 1925," Bain News Service, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
The telephone was not invented in order to do what people eventually used it to do. It may seem obvious what a telephone is good for, but even its inventors—Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson—were not clear about it when they first demonstrated it. Nor were those who attended their demonstrations and gasped in astonishment at what they heard.
The lines might not be direct from point to point, but to and from ganglia in the form of central offices or stations, which have charge of the business, except where private parties see fit to maintain their own independent lines. Suppose this network to be established and in good working order. What a deal of running to and fro and of vexatious delay would be obviated! Smith in his office on State street, without moving from his chair, could say to Mrs. Smith at the Highlands, in his blandest tone of voice: "Going to New York tonight, my dear; have John take my carpet-bag to the Providence depot before 6 o'clock." Mrs. Smith's reply would be immediate and, of course, in a tone of cheerful acquiescence. Or Brown, in his store on Washington street, would ask a friend home to dinner, and communicate the fact to Mrs. Brown on the Back Bay, receiving at once a dutiful response which would be pleasant to the friend standing by and catching the sweet tones of her voice. Jones, in the midst of the distractions of his bills payable and bills receivable, would be interrupted for a moment by a familiar but far-away voice, informing him that his beloved wife was coming in town, shopping and would call at 2 o'clock for a little money, and then of course no pressing business elsewhere would keep him away from his counting-room at that hour. And equally, of course, his wife would receive a prompt and amiable answer, relieving her mind of all uncertainty. … The fancy will readily supply the thousand details of practical utility here suggested. State-rooms on steamboats, places in railway cars, room in a hotel, dinner from a restaurant, could be bespoken without the necessity of sending, and the satisfaction would be obtained which only a personal interview can secure. [2]
