telephone history series rev1

8/9/2019 Telephone History Series Rev1

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privateline.com's

Telephone History Series

by Tom Farley

215 19th StreetWest Sacramento, California 95691

USA

http://www.privateline.comhttp://www.privateline.tv

[email protected]@privateline.tv

Compilation and .pdf formattingby

Dave Mockhttp://www.geocities.com/dmock_1/

[email protected]
http://www.privateline.com/http://www.privateline.tv/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.geocities.com/dmock_1/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.geocities.com/dmock_1/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.privateline.tv/http://www.privateline.com/


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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com

Page 1

Private Line's Telephone HistoryPart 1 -- to 1830

"We picture inventors as heroes with thegenius to recognize and solve a society's

problems. In reality, the greatest inventorshave been tinkerers who loved tinkering for itsown sake and who then had to figure out what,

if anything, their devices might be good for."Jared Diamond

I. IntroductionII. Early Telephone DevelopmentIII. The

Inventors: Gray and Bell

I. Introduction

" . . . an inspired black-haired Scotsman oftwenty eight, on theeve of marriage,vibrant and alive tonew ideas." AlexanderGraham Bell : The Lifeand Times of the ManWho Invented theTelephone

On March 10, 1876, in Boston,Massachusetts, Alexander Graham Bellinvented the telephone. Thomas Watsonfashioned the device itself; a crude thingmade of a wooden stand, a funnel, a cup ofacid, and some copper wire. But thesesimple parts and the equally simple firsttelephone call -- "Mr. Watson, come here,I want you!" -- belie a complicated past.Bell filed his application just hours beforehis competitor, Elisha Gray, filed notice to

soon patent a telephone himself. What'smore, though neither man had actuallybuilt a working telephone, Bell made histelephone operate three weeks later usingideas outlined in Gray's Notice ofInvention, methods Bell did not propose inhis own patent.

Intrigue aside for now, the story of thetelephone is the story of invention itself.

Bell developed new and original ideas butdid so by building on older ideas anddevelopments. Bell succeeded specificallybecause he understood acoustics, the studyof sound, and something about electricity.Other inventors knew electricity well butlittle of acoustics. The telephone is ashared accomplishment among manypioneers, therefore, although the credit andrewards were not shared equally. That,too, is often the story of invention.

Telephone comes from the Greek wordtele, meaning from afar, andphone,meaning voice or voiced sound. Generally,a telephone is any device which conveyssound over a distance. A string telephone,a megaphone, or a speaking tube might beconsidered telephonic instruments but forour purposes they are not telephones.These transmit sound mechanically andnot electrically. How's that?

Speech is sound in motion. Talkingproduces acoustic pressure. Speaking intothe can of a string telephone, for example,makes the line vibrate, causing soundwaves to travel from one end of thestretched line to the other. A telephone bycomparison, reproduces sound byelectrical means. What the Victorianscalled "talking by lightning."

A standard dictionary defines thetelephone as "an apparatus for reproducingsound, especially that of the voice, at agreat distance, by means of electricity;consisting of transmitting and receivinginstruments connected by a line or wirewhich conveys the electric current."Electricity operates the telephone andit
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carries your voice. With that importantpoint established, let's look at telephonehistory.

Click here for a very large imagedemonstrating how a telephone works

Modern telephones use electretmicrophones for transmitters andpiezoelectric transducersfor receivers butthe principle described is the same. Soundwaves picked up by an electretmicrophone causes "a thin, metal-coatedplastic diaphragm to vibrate, producingvariations in an electric field across a tinyair gap between the diaphragm and anelectrode."[B]A piezoelectric transducer

uses material which converts themechanical stress of a sound wave upon itinto a varying electrical signal.

Telephone history begins, perhaps, at thestart of human history. Man has alwayswanted to communicate from afar. Peoplehave used smoke signals, mirrors, jungledrums, carrier pigeons and semaphores toget a message from one point to another.But a phone was something new. Some

say Francis Bacon predicted the telephonein 1627, however, his book New Utopiaonly described a long speaking tube. Areal telephone could not be invented untilthe electrical age began. And even then itdidn't seem desirable. The electricalprinciples needed to build a telephonewere known in 1831 but it wasn't until1854 that Bourseul suggested transmitting

speech electrically. And it wasn't until 22years later in 1876 that the idea became areality. But before then, a telephone mighthave been impossible to form in one'sconsciousness.

While Da Vinci predicted flight and Jules

Verne envisioned space travel, people didnot lie awake through the centuriesdreaming of making a call. How couldthey? With little knowledge of electricity,let alone the idea that it could carry aconversation, how could people dream of atelephonic future? Who in the fifteenthcentury might have imagined a pay phoneon the street corner or a fax machine ontheir desk? You didn't have then, an easilyvisualized goal among people like

powered flight, resulting in one inventorafter another working through the years torealize a common goal. Telephonedevelopment instead was a series of often-disconnected events, mostly electrical,some accidental, that made the telephonepossible. I'll cover just a few.

There are many ways to communicateover long distances. I have reproduced anice color diagram which shows the

Roman alphabet, the international flagcode, Morse Code, and semaphoresignaling.Click here to view

II. Early TelephoneDevelopment

For moreinformation on

Leyden jars,includingphotographsandinstructions onhow to buildthem, go thispage at theStaticGenerator site:

http://www.alaska.net/~natnkell/leyden.htm
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converted to electrical energy. Is thatclear? This is a very important point.

The simple act of moving ones' handcaused current to move. Mechanicalenergy into electrical energy. Althoughmany years away, a dynamo powered

turbine would let the power of flowingwater or burning coal produce electricity.Got a river or a dam? The water spins theturbines which turns the generators whichproduce electricity. The more water youhave the more generators you can add andthe more electricity you can produce.

Mechanical energy into electrical energy.

(By comparison, a motor turns electricalenergy into mechanical energy. Thanks to

A. Almoian for pointing out this keydifference.)

Faraday worked through differentelectrical problems in the next ten years,eventually publishing his results oninduction in 1831. By that year manypeople were producing electrical dynamos.But electromagnetism still neededunderstanding. Someone had to show how

to use it for communicating.

For more information on Michael Faraday,visit the Institution of Electrical Engineers

at:

http://www.iee.org.uk/publish/faraday/faraday1.html

Resources

[B]"Telecommunications Systems:Telephone: THE TELEPHONEINSTRUMENT" Britannica Online. "In

modern electret transmitters, developed inthe 1970s, the carbon layer is replaced bya thin plastic sheet that has been given aconductive metallic coating on one side.The plastic separates that coating fromanother metal electrode and maintains anelectric field between them. Vibrationscaused by speech produce fluctuations inthe electric field, which in turn produce

small variations in voltage. The voltagesare amplified for transmission over thetelephone line."

[Accessed 11 February 1999] 9

(back to text)
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Private Line's Telephone HistoryPart 2 - 1830 to 1870

In 1830 the great American scientistProfessor Joseph Henry transmitted thefirst practical electrical signal. A shorttime before Henry had invented the firstefficient electromagnet. He also concludedsimilar thoughts about induction beforeFaraday but he didn't publish them first.Henry's place in electrical historyhowever, has always been secure, inparticular for showing thatelectromagnetism could do more thancreate current or pick up heavy weights --it could communicate.

In a stunning demonstration inhis Albany Academyclassroom, Henry created theforerunner of the telegraph. Inthe demonstration, Henry firstbuilt an electromagnet bywinding an iron bar withseveral feet of wire. A pivotmounted steel bar sat next to the magnet.A bell, in turn, stood next to the bar. From

the electromagnet Henry strung a mile ofwire around the inside of the classroom.He completed the circuit by connecting theends of the wires at a battery. Guess whathappened? The steel bar swung toward themagnet, of course, striking the bell at thesame time. Breaking the connectionreleased the bar and it was free to strikeagain. And while Henry did not pursueelectrical signaling, he did help someonewho did. And that man was Samuel Finley

Breese Morse.

For more information on Joseph Henry, visitthe Joseph Henry Papers Project at:

http://www.si.edu/organiza/offices/archive/ihd/jhp/index.htm

From the December, 1963 American Heritagemagazine, "a sketch of Henry's primitivetelegraph, a dozen years before Morse,reveals the essential components: anelectromagnet activated by a distant battery,and a pivoted iron bar that moves to ring abell."

In 1837 Samuel Morse inventedthe first workable telegraph,applied for its patent in 1838,and was finally granted it in1848. Joseph Henry helpedMorse build a telegraph relay orrep eater that allowed longdistance operation. Thetelegraph later helped unite thecountry and eventually the world. Not aprofessional inventor, Morse wasnevertheless captivated by electricalexperiments. In 1832 he heard ofFaraday's recently published work oninductance, and was given anelectromagnet at the same time to ponderover. An idea came to him and Morsequickly worked out details for histelegraph.

As depicted below, his system used a key(a switch) to make or break the electrical

circuit, a battery to produce power, asingle line joining one telegraph station toanother and an electromagnetic receiver orsounder that upon being turned on and off,produced a clicking noise. He completedthe package by devising the Morse codesystem of dots and dashes. A quick key tapbroke the circuit momentarily, transmittinga short pulse to a distant sounder,
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interpreted by an operator as a dot. A more

lengthy break produced a dash.

Telegraphy became big business as itreplaced messengers, the Pony Express,clipper ships and every other slow pacedmeans of communicating. The fact that

service was limited to Western Unionoffices or large firms seemed hardly a

problem. After all, communicating overlong distances instantly was otherwiseimpossible. Yet as the telegraph wasperfected, man's thoughts turned to speech

over a wire.

This site has a small page on Samuel Morse:

http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/inventorsI-Q/morse.html

In 1854 Charles Bourseul wrote abouttransmitting speech electrically in a well-circulated article. In that important paper,the Belgian-born French inventor andengineer described a flexible disk thatwould make and break an electrical

connection to reproduce sound. Bourseulnever built an instrument or pursued his

ideas further.

For more information on Bourseul and earlycommunications in general, visit this German

site:

http://www.fht-esslingen.de/telehistory/1870-.html

In 1861 Johann Phillip Reis completed thefirst non-working telephone. Tantalizinglyclose to reproducing speech, Reis'sinstrument conveyed certain sounds,poorly, but no more than that. A Germanphysicist and schoolteacher, Reis'singenuity was unquestioned. Histransmitter and receiver used a cork, aknitting needle, a sausage skin, and a pieceof platinum to transmit bits of music andcertain other sounds. But intelligible

speech could not be reproduced. Theproblem was simple, minute, and at thesame time monumental. His telephonerelied on its transmitter's diaphragmmaking and breaking contact with theelectrical circuit, just as Bourseul

suggested, and just as the telegraphworked. This approach, however, was

completely wrong.

Analog transmission. The unmodulated carrieris simply the electricity your phone operateson, the steady and continuous current yourtelephone company provides. It carries the

conversation. Remember, the telephone is anelectrical instrument; electricity works the

phone and it carries your voice. When you talkthe phone impresses your conversation on the

current the telephone company supplies.Conversation causes the current's resistance
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to go up and down, that is, your voice varies ormodulates the carrier, the electricity operating

your phone.

Below is a simplified view of a digitalsignal. Current goes on and off. No wavething. There was no chance the Reistelephone could transmit intelligible

speech since it could not reproduce ananalog wave, not by making and breakinga circuit. A pulse in this case is not awave!It was not until the early 1960s thatdigital carrier techniques simulated ananalog wave with digital pulses. Even thenthis simulation was only possible bysampling the wave 8,000 times a second.(Producing CD quality sound meanssampling an analog signal 44,000 times asecond.) In these days all traffic in

America between telephone switches isdigital, but the majority oflocal loops areanalog, still carrying your voice to the

central office on a modulated wave.

Reproducing speech practically relies on

the transmitter making continuous contactwith the electrical circuit. A transmittervaries the electrical current depending onhow much acoustic pressure it gets.Turning the current off and on like atelegraph cannot begin to duplicate speechsince speech, once flowing, is a fluctuatingwave of continuous character; it is not acollection of off and on again pulses. TheReis instrument, in fact, worked onlywhen sounds were so soft that the contact

connecting the transmitter to the circuitremained unbroken. Speech may havetraveled first over a Reis telephonehowever, it would have done soaccidentally and against every principle hethought would make it work. Andalthough accidental discovery is the stuff

of invention, Reis did not realize hismistake, did not understand the principlebehind voice transmission, did not develophis instrument further, nor did he ever

claim to have invented the telephone.

The definitive book in English on Reis is:

Thompson, Silvanus P. Phillip Reis: Inventorof The Telephone. E.&F.N. Spon. London.

1883

For other views and explanations of the Reisinstrument, visit Adventures in Cybersound:

http://www.cinemedia.net/SFCV-RMIT-Annex/rnaughton/REIS_BIO.html

In the early 1870s the world still did not

have a working telephone. Inventorsfocused on telegraph improvements sincethese had a waiting market. A good,patentable idea might make an inventormillions. Developing a telephone, on theother hand, had no immediate market, ifone at all. Elisha Gray, Alexander GrahamBell, as well as many others, were insteadtrying to develop a multiplexing telegraph a device to send several messages overone wire at once. Such an instrument

would greatly increase traffic without thetelegraph company having to build morelines. As it turned out, for both men, thedesire to invent one thing turned into arace to invent something altogetherdifferent. And that is truly the story of

invention.
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III. The Inventors: Gray and BellElisha Gray was a hard working

professional inventor with some success tohis credit. Born in 1835 in Barnesville,Ohio, Gray was well educated for his time,having worked his way through threeyears at Oberlin College. His firsttelegraph related patent came in 1868. Anexpert electrician, he co-founded Gray andBarton, makers of telegraph equipment.The Western Union Telegraph Company,

then funded by the Vanderbilts and J.P.Morgan, bought a one-third interest inGray and Barton in 1872. They thenchanged its name to the Western ElectricManufacturing Company, with Grayremaining an important person in thecompany. To Gray, transmitting speechwas an interesting goal but not one of alifetime.

Alexander Graham Bell, on the other

hand, saw telephony as the driving force inhis early life. He became consumed withinventing the telephone. Born in 1847 inEdinburgh, Scotland, Graham was raisedin a family involved with music and thespoken word. His mother painted andplayed music. His father originated asystem called visible speech that helpedthe deaf to speak. His grandfather was alecturer and speech teacher. Bell's collegecourses included lectures on anatomy and

physiology. His entire education andupbringing revolved around the mechanicsof speech and sound. Many years afterinventing the telephone Bell remarked, "Inow realize that I should never haveinvented the telephone if I had been anelectrician. What electrician would havebeen so foolish as to try any such thing?The advantage I had was that sound had

been the study of my life -- the study of

vibrations."

In 1870 Bell's father moved his familyto Canada after losing two sons totuberculosis. He hoped the Canadianclimate would be healthier. In 1873 Bellbecame a vocal physiology professor atBoston College. He taught the deaf thevisual speech system during the day and atnight he worked on what he called aharmonic or musical telegraph. Familiar

with acoustics, Bell thought he could sendseveral telegraph messages at once byvarying their musical pitch. Sound odd?I'll give you a crude example, a pianoanalogy, since Watson said Bell played thepiano well.

Imagine playing Morse code on thepiano, striking dots and dashes in middleC. Then imagine the instrument wired to adistant piano. Striking middle C in one

piano might cause middle C to sound inthe other. Now, by playing Morse code onthe A or C keys at the same time youmight get the distant piano to duplicateyour playing, sending two messages atonce. Maybe. But probably not. Bell didn'texperiment with pianos, of course, butwith differently pitched magnetic springs.The harmonic telegraph proved simple tothink about, yet maddeningly difficult tobuild. He labored over this device

throughout the year and well into thespring of 1874.

Then, at a friend's suggestion, heworked that summer on a teaching aid forthe deaf, a gruesome device called thephonoautograph, made out of a dead man'sear. Speaking into the device caused theear's membrane to vibrate and in turn
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move a lever. The lever then wrote awavelike pattern of the speech on smokedglass. Ugh. Many say Bell was fascinatedby how the tiny membrane caused themuch heavier lever to work. It might bepossible, he speculated, to make amembrane work in telephony, by using it

to vary an electric current in intensity withthe spoken word. Such a current could

then replicate speech with anothermembrane. Bell had discovered theprinciple of the telephone, the theory ofvariable resistance, as depicted below.[Brooks] But learning to apply thatprinciple correctly would take him anothertwo years.

For information on how closely Amplitude Modulation relates tothe principle of variable resistance,click here

Bell continued harmonic telegraphwork through the fall of 1874. He wasn'tmaking much progress but his tinkeringgathered attention. Gardiner GreeneHubbard, a prominent Boston lawyer andthe president of the Clarke School for TheDeaf, became interested in Bell'sexperiments. He and George Sanders, aprosperous Salem businessman, bothsensed Bell might make the harmonictelegraph work. They also knew Bell theman, since Bell tutored Hubbard'sdaughter and he was helping Sander's deaffive year old son learn to speak.

In October, 1874, Green went toWashington D.C. to conduct a patentsearch. Finding no invention similar toBell's proposed harmonic telegraph,Hubbard and Sanders began funding Bell.All three later signed a formal agreementin February, 1875, giving Bell financialbacking in return for equal shares fromany patents Bell developed. The trio got

along but they would have their problems.Sanders would court bankruptcy byinvesting over $100,000 before any returncame to him. Hubbard, on the other hand,discouraged Bell's romance with hisdaughter until the harmonic telegraph wasinvented. Bell, in turn, would risk hisfunding by working so hard on thetelephone and by getting engaged toMabel without Hubbard's permission.

In the spring of 1875, Bell'sexperimenting picked up quickly with thehelp of a talented young machinist namedThomas A. Watson. Bell feverishly

pursued the harmonic telegraph hisbackers wanted and the telephone whichwas now his real interest. Seeking advice,Bell went to Washington D.C. On March1, 1875, Bell met with Joseph Henry, thegreat scientist and inventor, then Secretaryof the Smithsonian Institution. It wasHenry, remember, who pioneeredelectromagnetism and helped Morse with
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the telegraph. Uninterested in Bell'stelegraph work, Henry did say Bell's ideason transmitting speech electricallyrepresented "the germ of a greatinvention." He urged Bell to drop all otherwork and get on with developing thetelephone. Bell said he feared he lacked

the necessary electrical knowledge, towhich the old man replied, "Get it!"[Grosvenor and Wesson] Bell quitpursuing the harmonic telegraph, at leastin spirit, and began working full time onthe telephone.

After lengthy experimenting in thespring of 1875, Bell told Watson "If I canget a mechanism which will make acurrent of electricity vary in its intensity as

the air varies in density when a sound ispassing through it, I can telegraph anysound, even the sound of speech." [Fagen]He communicated the same idea in a letterto Hubbard, who remained unimpressedand urged Bell to work harder on thetelegraph. But having at last articulated theprinciple of variable resistance, Bell wasgetting much closer.

On June 2, 1875, Bell and Watson

were testing the harmonic telegraph whenBell heard a sound come through thereceiver. Instead of transmitting a pulse,which it had refused to do in any case, thetelegraph passed on the sound of Watsonplucking a tuned spring, one of many set atdifferent pitches. How could that be? Theirtelegraph, like all others, turned current onand off. But in this instance, a contactscrew was set too tightly, allowing currentto run continuously, the essential element

needed to transmit speech. Bell realizedwhat happened and had Watson build atelephone the next day based on thisdiscovery. The Gallows telephone, socalled for its distinctive frame, substituteda diaphragm for the spring. Yet it didn'twork. A few odd sounds were transmitted,yet nothing more. No speech.Disheartened, tired, and running out of

funds, Bell's experimenting slowedthrough the remainder of 1875.

During the winter of 1875 and 1876Bell continued experimenting whilewriting a telephone patent application.Although he hadn't developed a successfultelephone, he felt he could describe how itcould be done. With his ideas and methodsprotected he could then focus on making itwork. Fortunately for Bell and manyothers, the Patent Office in 1870 dropped

its requirement that a working modelaccompany a patent application. OnFebruary 14, 1876, Bell's patentapplication was filed by his attorney. Itcame only hours before Elisha Gray filedhis Notice of Invention for a telephone.

Mystery still surrounds Bell'sapplication and what happened that day. Inparticular, the key point to Bell'sapplication, the principle of variable

resistance, was scrawled in a margin,almost as an afterthought. Some think Bellwas told of Gray's Notice then allowed tochange his application. That was neverproved, despite some 600 lawsuits thatwould eventually challenge the patent.Finally, on March 10, 1876, one weekafter his patent was allowed, Bellsucceeded in transmitting speech. He wasnot yet 30. By coincidence or conspiracy,


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Bell used a liquid transmitter, somethinghe hadn't outlined in his patent or eventried before, but something that wasdescribed in Gray's Notice.

The Watson-built telephone lookedodd and acted strangely. Bellowing into

the funnel caused a small disk ordiaphragm at the bottom to move. Thisdisk was, in turn, attached to a wirefloating in an acid-filled metal cup. A wireattached to the cup in turn led to a distantreceiver. As the wire moved up and downit changed the resistance within the liquid.This now varying current was then sent tothe receiver, causing its membrane tovibrate and thereby produce sound. Thistelephone wasn't quite practical; it got

speech across, but badly. Bell soonimproved it by using an electromagnetictransmitter, a metal diaphragm and apermanent magnet. The telephone hadbeen invented. Now it was time for it toevolve.

How the first telephone worked

Simplified diagram of Bell's liquid transmitter.The diaphragm vibrated with sound waves,causing a conducting rod to move up anddown in a cup of acid water. Battery supplied

power electrified the cup of acid. As the rodrose and fell it changed the circuit'sresistance. This caused the line current to thereceiver (not shown) to fluctuate, which in turncaused the membrane of the receiver tovibrate, producing sound.

This transmitter was quickly droppedin favor of voice powered or inducedmodels. These transmitted speech on theweak electro-magnetic force that thetransmitter and receiver's permanent

magnets produced.

It was not until 1882, with theintroduction of the Blake transmitter, thatBell telephones once again used linepower. The so called local battery circuitused a battery supplied at the phone topower the line and take speech to the local

switch. Voice powered phones did not goaway completely, as some systemscontinued to be used for criticalapplications, those which may have beenthreatened by spark. In 1964 NASA used avoice powered system described as

follows:

"A network of 24 channels with a total of morethan 450 sound powered telephones, which

derive their power solely from the humanvoice, provide the communications between

the East Area central blockhouse (left) and thevarious test stands at NASA's George C.

Marshall Space Flight Center here. . ." Thecomplete article is here:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/scienceservice/007016.htm
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Resources

Brooks, John. Telephone: The FirstHundred Years. New York: Harper

and Row, 1975: 41(back to text)

Fagen, M.D., ed. A History ofEngineering and Science in the BellSystem. Volume 1 The Early Years,1875 -1925. New York: BellTelephone Laboratories, 1975, 6 (back

to text)

Grosvenor, Edwin S. and MorganWesson. Alexander Graham Bell :TheLife and Times of the Man WhoInvented the Telephone. New York:

Abrams, 1997: 55 (back to text)

Rhodes, Beginning of Telephony 4-5,13-14 Bell develops the idea for the

telephone


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IV. The Telephone Evolves

At this point telephone historybecomes fragmented and hard to follow.Four different but related stories begin: (1)the further history of the telephoneinstrument and all its parts, (2) the historyof the telephone business, (3) the historyof telephone related technology and (4) thehistory of the telephone system. Due tolimited space I can cover only some majorNorth American events. Of these, the twomost important developments were the

invention of the vacuum tube and thetransistor; today's telephone system couldnot have been built without them.

Progress cameslowly after theoriginal invention.Bell and Watsonworked constantlyon improving thetelephone's range.

They made theirlongest call todate on October 9,1876. It was adistance of onlytwo miles, butthey were sooverjoyed thatlater that nightthey celebrated,doing so much

began dancingthat their landlady threatened to throwthem out. Watson later recalled "Bell . . .had a habit of celebrating by what hecalled a war dance and I had got soexposed at it that I could do it quite as wellas he could." [Watson] The rest of 1876,though, was difficult for Bell and hisbackers.

Bell and Watson improved the telephoneand made better models of it, but thesechanges weren't enough to turn thetelephone from a curiosity into a neededappliance. Promoting and developing thetelephone proved far harder than Hubbard,Sanders, or Bell expected. Noswitchboards existed yet, the telephoneswere indeed crude and transmissionquality was poor. Many questioned whyanyone needed a telephone. And despiteBell's patent, broadly covering the entiresubject of transmitting speech electrically,many companies sprang up to selltelephones and telephone service. Inaddition, other people filed applicationsfor telephones and transmitters after Bell'spatent was issued. Most claimed Bell'spatent couldn't produce a workingtelephone or that they had a prior claim.Litigation loomed. Fearing financialcollapse, Hubbard and Sanders offered inthe fall of 1876 to sell their telephonepatent rights to Western Union for$100,000. Western Union refused.

(Special thanks to William Farkas of Ontario,Canada for his remarks and corrections)

On April 27, 1877 Thomas Edisonfiled a patent application for an improvedtransmitter, a device that made thetelephone practical. A majoraccomplishment, Edison's patent claim

was declared in interference to a Notice ofInvention for a transmitter filed just twoweeks before by Emile Berliner. Thisconflict was not resolved until 1886however, Edison decided to produce thetransmitter while the matter was disputed.Production began toward the end of 1877.To compete, Bell soon incorporated in


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their phones an improved transmitterinvented by Francis Blake.

Blake's transmitter relied on thediaphragm modifying an existing electricalcurrent, an outside power source. This wasquite different than the original inventionand its improvements. Bell's firsttelephone transmitter used the human

voice to generate a weak electro-magneticfield, which then went to a distantreceiver. Bell later installed larger, bettermagnets into his telephones but there wasa limit to what power the human voicecould provide, Myer indicating about 10microwatts. [COMING -- a more detailedexplanation of how the earliest telephones

worked]

On July 9, 1877 Sanders, Hubbard, and

Bell formed the first Bell telephonecompany. Each assigned their rights underfour basic patents to Hubbard's trusteeship.Against tough criticism, Hubbard decidedto lease telephones and license franchises,instead of selling them. This had enormousconsequences. Instead of making moneyquickly, dollars would flow in overmonths, years, and decades. Products werealso affected, as a lease arrangement

meant telephones needed to be of rentalquality, with innovations introduced onlywhen the equipment was virtually troublefree. It proved a wise enough decision tosustain the Bell System for over a hundred

years.

In September, 1877 Western Unionchanged its mind about telephony. Theysaw it would work and they wanted in,especially after a subsidiary of theirs, theGold and Stock Telegraphy Company,ripped out their telegraphs and startedusing Bell telephones. Rather than buyingpatent rights or licenses from the Bell,Western Union decided to buy patentsfrom others and start their own telephonecompany. They were not alone. At least

1,730 telephone companies organized andoperated in the 17 years Bell was supposed

to have a monopoly.

Most competitors disappeared as soonas the Bell Company filed suit againstthem for patent infringement, but manyremained. They either disagreed withBell's right to the patent, ignored italtogether, or started a phone companybecause Bell's people would not provideservice to their area. In any case, WesternUnion began entering agreements withGray, Edison, and Amos E. Dolbear fortheir telephone inventions. In December,1877 Western Union created the AmericanSpeaking Telephone Company. Atremendous selling point for theirtelephones was Edison's improvedtransmitter. Bell Telephone was deeplyworried since they had installed only 3,000phones by the end of 1877. WesternUnion, on the other hand, had 250,000

miles of telegraph wire strung over100,000 miles of route. If not stopped,they would have an enormous head starton making telephone service availableacross the country. Though Western Unionwas then the world's largest telecomcompany, with an unchallenged monopolyon telegraph service, Bell's shrewd Boston


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lawyers filed suit against them the next

year.

On January, 28 1878 , the firstcommercial switchboard began operatingin New Haven, Connecticut. It served 21telephones on 8 lines consequently, many

people were on a party line. On February17, Western Union opened the first largecity exchange in San Francisco. No longerlimited to people on the same wire, folkscould now talk to many others on differentlines. The public switched telephonenetwork was born. Other innovations

marked 1878.

For a detailed history of telephone exchanges,particularly dial, please see R.B. Hill'sexcellent history:

http://www.privateline.com/EarlyWork.html

On February 21, 1878, the world's firsttelephone directory came out, a singlepaper of only fifty names. George WilliardCoy and a group of investors in the NewHaven District Telephone Company at 219Chapel Street produced it. It was followedquickly by a Boston Telephone Dispatch

Company's listing. [First directory]

In 1878 President Rutheford B. Hayesadministration installed the first telephonein the White House.[First tele] MaryFinch Hoyt reports that the first outgoingcall went to Alexander Graham Bellhimself, thirteen miles distant. Hayes firstwords instructed Bell to speak more

slowly.[Hoyt]

In that year the Butterstamp telephonecame into use. This telephone combinedthe receiver and transmitter into onehandheld unit. You talked into one end,turned the instrument round and listened tothe other end. People got confused withthis clumsy arrangement, consequently, atelephone with a second transmitter andreceiver unit was developed in the sameyear. You could use either one to talk orlisten and you didn't have to turn them

around. This wall set used a crank to

signal the operator.

The Butterstamp telephone. Picture takenfrom a great page of telephone pictures.

Please visit:

http://www.voicendata.com/aug98/snap.html

For another great page on the earliestcommercial telephones go here:

http://www.cybercomm.net/~chuck/coffin.html

On August 1, 1878 Thomas Watsonfiled for a ringer patent. Similar to Henry'sclassroom doorbell, a hammer operated byan electromagnet struck two bells. Turning

a crank on the calling telephone spun amagneto, producing an alternating orringing current. Previously, people used acrude thumper to signal the called party,hoping someone would be around to hearit. The ringer was an immediate success.Bell himself became more optimistic aboutthe telephone's future, propheticallywriting in 1878 "I believe that in thefuture, wires will unite the head offices ofthe Telephone Company in different cities,

and that a man in one part of the countrymay communicate by word of mouth with

another in a distant place."

Subscribers, meanwhile, grew steadilybut slowly. Sanders had invested $110,000by early 1878 without any return. Helocated a group of New Englanders willingto invest but unwilling to do businessoutside their area. Needing the funding,
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the Bell Telephone Company reorganizedin June, 1878, forming a new BellTelephone Company as well as the NewEngland Telephone Company, aforerunner of the strong regional Bellcompanies to come. 10,755 Bell phoneswere now in service. Reorganizing passed

control to an executive committee, endingHubbard's stewardship but not his overallvision. For Hubbard's last act was to hire afar seeing general manager namedTheodore Vail. But the corporate shufflewasn't over yet. In early 1879 the companyreorganized once again, under pressurefrom patent suits and competition fromother companies selling phones withEdison's superior transmitter.Capitalization was $850,000. William H.

Forbes was elected to head the board ofdirectors. He soon restructured it toembrace all Bell interests into a singlecompany, the National Bell Company,incorporated on March 13, 1879. Growthwas steady enough, however, that in late1879 the first telephone numbers were

used.

On November 10, 1879 Bell won itspatent infringement suit against Western

Union in the United States Supreme Court.In the resulting settlement, Western Uniongave up its telephone patents and the56,000 phones it managed, in return for20% of Bell rentals for the 17 year life ofBell's patents. It also retained its telegraphbusiness as before. This decision soenlarged National Bell that a new entitywith a new name, American BellCompany, was created on February 20,1880, capitalized with over seven million

dollars. Bell now managed 133,000telephones. As Chief Operating Officer,Theodore Vail began creating the BellSystem, composed of regional companiesoffering local service, a long distancecompany providing toll service, and amanufacturing arm providing equipment.For the manufacturer he turned to aprevious company rival. In 1880 Vailstarted buying Western Electric stock and

took controlling interest on November,1881. The takeover was consummated onFebruary 26, 1882, with Western Electricgiving up its remaining patent rights aswell as agreeing to produce productsexclusively for American Bell. It was notuntil 1885 that Vail would form his long

distance telephone company. It was calledAT&T.

On July 19,1881 Bell wasgranted apatent for themetallic circuit,the concept oftwo wiresconnectingeach telephone.Until that timea single ironwire connectedtelephonesubscribers,just like atelegraph

circuit. A conversation works over onewire since grounding each end provides acomplete path for an electrical circuit. Buthouses, factories and the telegraph system

were all grounding their electrical circuitsusing the same earth the telephonecompany employed. A huge amount ofstatic and noise was consequentlyintroduced by using a grounded circuit. Ametallic circuit, on the other hand, usedtwo wires to complete the electricalcircuit, avoiding the ground altogether andthus providing a better sounding call.

The brilliant J.J. Carty introduced twowireservice commercially in October ofthat year on a circuit between Boston andProvidence. It cut noise greatly over thoseforty five miles and heralded thebeginning of long distance service. Still, itwas not until 10 years later that Bellstarted converting grounded circuits tometallic ones. And ten years after that

until completion.


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Depending on local conditions andeconomies, some independent telephonecompanies did not introduce two wire fordecades after. Consider this example fromthe Magazine Telephone Company ofcentral Arkansas: "After the end of WWII, the R.E.A. System was introduced to

the area. This electrification projectinduced noise into the one wire magnetosystem that was currently in use by theTelephone Company. Henry [Stone]converted the magneto system to a newsystem called common battery. Instead ofjust one wire, common battery required

two metallic wires for each circuit."

For a short but well detailed history of anindependent telco, visit the Magazine

Telephone Company:

http://www.cei.net/~magtel/Magtel/heritage.htm

On February 28, 1885 AT&T wasborn. Capitalized on only $100,000,American Telephone and Telegraphprovided long distance service forAmerican Bell. Only local telephonecompanies operating under Bell grantedlicenses could connect to AT&T's longdistance network. Vail thought this would

continue the Bell System's virtualmonopoly after its key patents expired inthe 1890s. He reasoned the independentscould not compete since they would beisolated and without long distance lines.With licensed companies providing localservice, Western Electric manufacturingequipment and AT&T providing longdistance, Vail's structuring of the Bell

System was now complete.

In September 1887, Vail resigned fromAmerican Bell. They lost a great man. Hewas at odds with Bell's Boston bankers andfinanciers, people who often ignored anarea if profits might be marginal. J. Edward

Hyde explained the situation best:

"The singular worship of profits sodisgusted Theodore Vail that he leftthe Bell Company in 1887. As a

parting shot, he wrote: 'We have aduty to the public at large to makeour service as good as possible andas universal as possible, and thatearnings should be used not only toreward investors for their investmentbut also to accomplish theseobjectives.' Bell management

thanked him for his comments andwished him a happy retirement.Those he left behind had neither hisvisionary business sense nor hissensible principles of customerservice. Ignoring the protests ofcustomers regarding exorbitantrates and the pleas of rural areas forservice at any price, Bell'sleadership plundered selectedprofitable areas during theremaining years of their exclusiveownership without realizing that theywere pinning a target on their own

chest in the neglected regions.Undoubtedly Bell's managementsuspected that bad times lay just onthe other side of the initial patentexpiration. Incredibly, they didnothing to prevent the deluge. In thecities where the Bell had its biggeststake, competitors appeared onnearly every corner."

In 1889 the first public coin telephonecame into use in Hartford, Connecticut.The first payphones were attended, withpayment going to someone standing

nearby.

In 1892 Bell controlled 240,000telephones. But the independents werecoming on fast, especially by using bettertechnology. The first automatic dialsystem began operating that year in LaPorte, Indiana. The central office switchworked in concert with a similar switch atthe subscriber's home, operated by push

buttons. Patented in 1891 by Almon B.Strowger, this Step by Step or SXSsystem, replaced the switchboard operatorfor placing local calls. People could dialthe number themselves. The firstautomatic commercial exchange began

operating in La Porte, Indiana in 1892.

Strowger's switch required differentkinds of telephones and eventually models
http://www.privateline.com/http://www.cei.net/~magtel/Magtel/heritage.htmhttp://www.cei.net/~magtel/Magtel/heritage.htmhttp://www.cei.net/~magtel/Magtel/heritage.htmhttp://www.privateline.com/


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with dials. A.E. Keith, J. Erickson and C.J.Erickson later invented the rotating finger-wheel needed for a dial. The first dialtelephones began operating inMilwaukee's City Hall in 1896.Independents were quick to start using the

new switch and phones.

The Bell System however, did notembrace this switch or automation ingeneral, indeed, a Bell franchisecommonly removed "Steppers" and dialtelephones in territories it bought fromindependent telephone companies. Notuntil 1919 did the Bell System start usingStrowgers durable and efficient switchingsystem. This tardiness contributed to Bell'spoor reputation around the turn of the

century. Almon Strowger went on to helpform Automatic Electric, the largesttelephone equipment manufacturer for the

independent telephone companies.

[First tele] From the official White House

web site biography on President Hayes:http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/rh19.html (2000) (back totext)

[First directory] Stern and Gwathmey.Once Upon a Telephone: An IllustratedSocial History. New York. Harcourt Braceand Company. 1994, 46 [back to text]

[Hoyt] Finch, Mary Hoyt "Hello, This isthe White House." Good Housekeeping,June 1986(back to text)

Watson, Thomas. Exploring Life: TheAutobiography of Thomas Alva Watson.

New York: D. Appleton and Company.1926, 95 (back to text)


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At this time we should look atStrowger's achievement, before continuingour narrative. The automatic dial system,after all, changed telephony forever.Almon Brown Strowger (pronouncedSTRO-jer) was born in 1839 in Penfield,New York, a close suburb of Rochester.Like Bell, Strowger was not a professionalinventor, but a man with a keen interest inthings mechanical. Swihart says he went toan excellent New York State university,served in the Civil War from 1861 to 1865(ending as a lieutenant), taught school inKansas and Ohio afterwards, and woundup first in Topeka and then Kansas City asan undertaker in 1886. This unlikelyprofession of an inventor so inspiredseems odd indeed, but the storiessurrounding his motivation to invent theautomatic switch are odder still.

Thanks to Joe Oster for supplying Strowger'sbirthplace

The many stories suggest, none ofwhich I can confirm, that someone wasstealing Almon Strowger's business.Telephone operators, perhaps in leaguewith his competitors, were routing calls toother undertakers. These operators,supposedly, gave busy signals tocustomers calling Strowger or evendisconnected their calls. Strowger thusinvented a system to replace an operatorfrom handling local calls. In the

distillation of these many stories,StephanLesher relates a story from Almon's timein Topeka:

"In his book, Good Connections,telephone historian Dave Park writesthat Strowger grew darkly suspiciouswhen a close friend in Topeka diedand the man's family delivered thebody to a rival mortician. Strowgercontended that an operator at the newtelephone exchange had intentionally

directed the call to a competitor -- anallegation that gave rise to tales that

the operator was either married to, orthe daughter of, a competingundertaker."

Whatever the circumstances, we doknow that anti-Bell System sentiment ranhigh at this time, that good telephoneinventions commanded ready money, andthat Strowger did have numerous problemswith his local telephone company.Strowger was a regular complainer andone complaint stands out.

Swihart describes how SouthwesternBell personnel were called out to onceagain visit Strowger's business, to fix adead line. The cause turned out to be ahanging sign which flapped in the breezeagainst exposed telephone contacts. Thisshorted the line. Once the sign wasremoved the line worked again. It may besupposed that this sort of problem wasbeyond a customer's ability to diagnose,

that Strowger had a legitimate complaint.But on this occasion Southwestern Bell'sassistant general manager, a one HermanRitterhoff, was along with the repair crew.Strowger invited the man inside andshowed him a model for an automaticswitch. So Strowger was working on theproblem for quite some time and was nonovice to telephone theory.

Brooks says that, in fact, Strowger

knew technology so well that he built hispatent on Bell system inventions. It mustbe pointed out, however, that everyinventor draws ideas and inspiration frompreviously done work. Brooks saysspecifically that the Connolly-McTighepatent (Patent number 222, 458, datedDecember 9, 1879) helped Strowger, afailed dial switchboard, as well as an early
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automatic switch developed by ErzaGilliland. But Strowger did not build theinstrument since he did not have themechanical skills. A rather cluelessjeweler was employed instead to build thefirst model, and much time was wastedwith this man, getting him to follow

instructions.

As with Bell, Strowger filed his patentwithout having perfected a workinginvention. Yet he described the switch insufficient detail and with enough novelpoints for it to be granted Patent number447,918, on March 10, 1891. And in afurther parallel with Bell, Almon Strowgerlost interest in the device once he got itbuilt. It fell upon his brother, Walter S.

Strowger, to carry development andpromotion further, along with a great man,Joseph Harris, who also helped withpromotion and investment money. WithoutHarris, soon to be the organizer andguiding force behind Automatic Electric,dial service may have taken decadeslonger for the Bell System to recognizeand develop. Competition by A.E. forcedthe Bell System to play switching catch-up, something they really only

accomplished in the 1940s with theintroduction of crossbar. And with only afew references to interrupt, let us return tothe narrative.

For those interested in a fine one pagesummary of Almon Strowger, visit

http://www.siemenscom.com/customer/9801/11.html

Need something technical on Strowger'swork? Try Hill's work which is in hardcopy.

Click here.I've put R.B. Hill's article on line:

http://www.privateline.com/Switching/EarlyYears.html

In 1893 the first central officeexchange with a common battery fortalking and signaling began operating inLexington, Massachusetts. This commonbattery arrangement provided electricity to

all telephones controlled by the centraloffice. Each customer's telephonepreviously needed its own battery toprovide power. Common battery had manyconsequences, including changingtelephone design. The big and bulky wallsets with wet batteries providing power

and cranks to signal the operator could bereplaced with sleek desk sets. I'll covertelephone design in another chapter, but,briefly, there were four great overlappingeras in telephone development: Invention,Crank, Dial and Handset. They went from,respectively, 1876 to 1893, 1877 to 1943,1919 to 1978 and 1924 to the present.

For more on common battery and the lastmanual switchboard to be retired in America,

click here

In 1897 Milo Gifford Kellogg foundedthe Kellogg Switchboard and SupplyCompany near Chicago. Kellogg was a"graduate engineer and accomplishedcircuit designer"[Pleasance], who beganhis career in 1870 withGray and Barton,equipment manufacturers for WesternElectric. There he developed WesternElectric's best telephone switchboards: astandard model and a multiple

switchboard. Both were invented in 1879and patented in 1881 and 1884,respectively. He retired from WesternElectric in 1885, "and began making andpatenting a series of telephone inventionsof his own, which work extended over aperiod of 12 years and which culminatedin the issue of 125 patents to him onOctober 17, 1897, besides which over 25had previously been issued tohim."[Telephony] He was also quite

political, successfully winning suitsagainst Bell and delaying other Bellactions to his benefit. Telecom Historycalled him "probably the man in theAmerican independent telephone businesswho first placed himself in opposition tothe Bell Company."[Telephony]
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His major accomplishment was the socalled divided-multiple switchboard, ofwhich two were built. One was sold to theCuyahoga Telephone Company ofCleveland, Ohio and the other to theKinloch Telephone company of SaintLouis. The Cleveland installation boasted

9,600 lines, with an ultimate capacity of24,000! Such large switchboards wereneeded to handle increasing demand. TheKellog boards were much larger than Bellequipment, mostly designed by CharlesScribner. Saint Louis and Detroitindependents started switching to Kellogboards, "threaten[ing] Bell's profitableurban markets."[Grosvenor] Under suchpressure and once again running out ofmoney, Bell regrouped.

In 1899 American Bell TelephoneCompany reorganized yet once again. In amajor change, American Bell TelephoneCompany conveyed all assets, with theexception of AT&T stock, to the NewYork state charted American Telephoneand Telegraph Company. It was figuredthat New York had less restrictivecorporate laws than Massachusetts. TheAmerican Bell Telephone Company name

passed into history.

In 1900 loading coils came into use.Patented by Professor Michael I. Pupin,loading coils helped improve long distancetransmission. Spaced every three to sixthousand feet, cable circuits were extendedthree to four times their previous length.Essentially a small electro-magnet, aloading coil or inductance coil strengthensthe transmission line by decreasing

attenuation, the normal loss of signalstrength over distance. Wired into thetransmission line, these electromagneticloading coils keep signal strength up aseasily as an electromagnet pulls a weightoff the ground. But coils must be the rightsize and carefully spaced to avoiddistortion and other transmissionproblems.

This is an excellent book on loading coils andearly long distance working -- a great read:

Wasserman, Neil. From Invention toInnovation: Long Distance Telephone

Transmission at The Turn of the Century. JohnHopkins University Press. Baltimore: 1985

In 1901 the Automatic ElectricCompany was formed from AlmonStrowger's original company. The onlymaker of dial telephone equipment at thetime, Automatic Electric grew quickly.The Bell System's Western Electric wouldnot sell equipment to the independents,consequently, A.E. and then makers likeKellog andStromberg-Carlson foundready acceptance. Desperate to fight offthe rising independent tide, the Bell

System concocted a wild and devious plan.AT&T's president Fredrick Fish approveda secret plan to buy out the KellogSwitchboard and Supply Company and putit under Bell control. Kellog wouldcontinue selling their major switchboardsto the independents for a year. At that timethe Bell System would file a patent suitagainst Kellog, which they wouldintentionally loose. This would force theindependents to rip out their newly

installed switchboards, crushing the largestindependents. The plan was discovered,aborted, and further scandalizedAT&T.[Grosvenor2]

By 1903 independent telephonesnumbered 2,000,000 while Bell managed1,278,000. Bell's reputation for high pricesand poor service continued. As bankersgot hold of the company, the Bell Systemfaltered.

In 1907 Theodore Vail returned to theAT&T as president, pressured by noneother than J.P. Morgan himself, who hadgained financial control of the BellSystem. A true robber baron, Morganthought he could turn the Bell System intoAmerica's only telephone company. Tothat end he bought independents by thedozen, adding them to Bell's existing
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regional telephone companies. The chartshows how AT&T management finallyorganized the regional holding companiesin 1911, a structure that held up over thenext seventy years. But Morgan wasn'tfinished yet. He also worked on buying allof Western Union, acquiring 30% of its

stock in 1909, culminating that action byinstalling Vail as its president. For his part,Vail thought telephone service was anatural monopoly, much as gas or electricservice. But he also knew times werechanging and that the present systemcouldn't continue.

In January 1913 the JusticeDepartment informed the Bell System thatthe company was close to violating the

Sherman Antitrust Act. Vail knew thingswere going badly with the government,especially since the Interstate CommerceCommission had been looking into AT&Tacquisitions since 1910. J.P. Morgan diedin March, 1913; Vail lost a good ally andthe strongest Bell system monopolyadvocate. In a radical but visionary move,Vail cut his losses with a bold plan. OnDecember 19, 1913, AT&T agreed to riditself of Western Union stock, buy no

more independent telephone companieswithout government approval and tofinally connect the independents withAT&T's long distance lines. Rather thanlet the government remake the BellSystem, Vail did the job himself.

Known as the Kingsbury agreementfor the AT&T vice president who wrotethe historic letter of agreement to theJustice Department, Vail ended any plans

for a complete telecommunicationsmonopoly. But with the independentspaying a fee for each long distance callplaced on its network, and with the threatof governmental control eased, the BellSystem grew to be a de facto monopolywithin the areas it controlled,accomplishing by craft what force couldnot do. Interestingly, although the BellSystem would service eighty three percent

of American telephones, it nevercontrolled more than thirty percent of theUnited States geographical area. To thisday, 1,435 independent telephonecompanies still exist, often serving ruralareas the Bell System ignored. Vail'srestructuring was so successful it lasted

until modern times. In 1976, on thehundredth anniversary of the Bell System,AT&T stood as the richest company onearth.

In 1906 Lee De Forest invented theelectron tube. Its amplifying properties ledthe way to national phone service. Longdistance service was still limited. Loadingcoils helped to a point but no further.Transcontinental phone traffic wasn't

possible, consequently, a national networkwas beyond reach. Something else wasneeded. In 1907 Theodore Vail instructedAT&T's research staff to build anelectronic amplifier based on their ownfindings and De Forest's pioneering work.They made some progress but not as muchas De Forest did on his own.

A nice De Forest biography is at:

http://www.cinemedia.net/SFCV-RMIT-

Annex/rnaughton/DE_FOREST_BIO.htmlThe site also includes the photograph below.

AT&T eventually bought his patentrights to use the tube as a telephoneamplifier. Only after this and a year ofinspecting De Forest's equipment did theBell Telephone Laboratory make thetriode, an amplifying electron tube, workfor telephony. Those years of research
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were worth it. The triode in particular andvacuum tubes in general, would makepossible radiotelephony, microwavetransmission, radar, television, andhundreds of other technologies. Telephonerepeaters could now span the country,enabling a nationwide telephone system,

fulfilling Alexander Graham Bell's 1878vision.

Recalling those years in an importantinterview with the IEEE, LloydEspenschied recounts "In May [1907],several of us had gone to a lecture that LeeDe Forest had given on wireless at theBrooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Inthis lecture, he passed around a queer littletube to all the audience. It was the first

three-element tube to be shown in public, Ifound out afterwards. He passed thisaround and everybody looked at it andsaid, "So what!" Even De Forest said thathe didn't know what it was all about. Helooked on it as a detector. Actually it wasan evolution of the Fleming valve, but hewould never give credit to anyone." Laterin the interview, Espenschied gives anopinion of De Forest shared by many atthe time, "No, he was no engineer. He was

just a playboy all his life. He's just plainlucky that he stumbled into the three-element device. Just plain lucky. But thatwas handed to him for persevering; hekept at it, grabbing and grabbing at all thepatent applications without knowing what

he was doing."

For more quotes like the above and a greatoral history of early electronic and vacuum

tube experimenting:

http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/

transcripts/espenschied11.html

The vacuum tube repeater ushered inthe electronics age. The device was a trueamplifier, powered by an external source,capable of boosting strength as high asneeded. A power source provides energyto a filament or cathode within a triodevalve or vacuum tube. That's the glow you

see in a tube. When heated the cathodegives off huge amounts of negativeelectrons. A positively charged plate asmall distance away draws the negativeelectrons to it, much like a negative andpositive magnet attract each other. Anelectrical field is formed, causing electrons

to leap across the gap. The triode's thirdpart is a grid or control grid, which carriesin our case a weak phone conversation. Itsits between the cathode and the plate, thecircuit so built that the grid becomesnegatively charged. As the positivelycharged plate collects electrons thenegatively charged stream from thecathode washes over the grid. The electronstream thus gathers the signal, impressingit on the outgoing flow. While the original

signal strength stays the same, it iseffectively amplified by being on a highervoltage. Take a moment to ponder thediagram.

Did you know? A triode is sometimes called athermionic valve.Thermions are electrons

derived from a heated source. A valvedescribes the tube's properties: current flowsin one direction but not the other. Think of a

faucet, a type of control valve, letting water goin only one direction.
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How does a triode work?

Special thanks to John Wong for his gracioushelp with this vacuum tube explanation

For more comments, read Ray Strackbein'scomments below

As evidence of the triode's success, onJanuary 25, 1915 the first transcontinentaltelephone line opened between New YorkCity and San Francisco. The previous longdistance limit was New York to Denver,and only then with some shouting. Two

metallic circuits made up the line; it used2,500 tons of hard-drawn copper wire,

130,000 poles and countless loading coils.Three vacuum tube repeaters along theway boosted the signal. It was the world'slongest telephone line. In a grandceremony, 68 year old Alexander GrahamBell in New York City made theceremonial first call to his old friendThomas Watson in San Francisco. In aninsult to Lee de Forest, the great inventorwas not invited to participate. This insult


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was carried over to the 1915 World's Fairin San Francisco, in which AT&T's theaterexhibit heralded coast to coast telephoneservice without mentioning the man whomade it possible. [Morgan]

In 1921 the

Bell Systemintroducedthe firstcommercialpanel switch,an odd beastif there everwas one.Developedover eightyears, it was

AT&T'sresponse tothe step by

step switch so favored by theindependents. It offered many innovationsand many problems. Although customerscould dial out themselves, the number ofparts and its operating method made itnoisy for callers. Ironically, someswitchmen say it was a quiet machineinside the central office, emanating "a

collection of simply delightful 'clinking,''whirring' and 'squeak, squeak, squeak'noises." Working like a game of Snakesand Ladders, the switch used selectors toconnect calls, these mechanical armsmoving up and down in large banks ofcontacts. When crossbar switching cameon the scene in 1938, panel switches wereremoved where possible, although someremained working until the mid 1970s.Panel became the first defunct switch in

the public switched telephone network.

For a wonderful history of early electronicpioneering, click here for a must read interview

with Ray Sears:

http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/sears.html

Resources

Grosvenor, Edwin S. and Morgan Wesson.Alexander Graham Bell: The Life andTimes of the Man Who Invented theTelephone. Harry N. Abrams, New York(1997) 167 Excellent. (back to text)

Grosvenor2. ibid, 167 (back to text)

Brooks, John. Telephone: The FirstHundred Years. Harper & Row, NewYork. 1975, 1976: 100

Hill, R.B. "The Early Years of theStrowger System" The Bell LaboratoriesRecord March, 1953: 95 (back to text)

Morgan, Jane. Electronics In The West:The First Fifty Years, National PressBooks, Palo Alto. 1967: p63. (back to text)

Swihart, Stanley. "The First AutomaticTelephone Systems" Telecom History:The Journal of The Telephone HistoryInstitute No. 2. Spring, 1995: 3 (back totext)

Pleasance, Charles A., "The Divided

Multiple Switchboard" Telecom History:The Journal of The Telephone HistoryInstitute 1 (1994) 102 (back to text)

"Well-Known Heads of Well-KnownHouses", Telephony (July, 1901) Asreprinted in Telecom History: The Journalof The Telephone History Institute 1(1994) 93 (back to text)

ibid 93 (back to text)

Ray Strackbein ofhttp:///www.strackbein.com adds thefollowing comments to the vacuumdiscussion:

"On your diagram of the VacuumTube, remove the reference to "120volts" on the filament. Some oldertubes used common filaments andcathodes, but a long time ago
http://www.privateline.com/http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/sears.htmlhttp://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/sears.htmlhttp://www.strackbein.com/http://www.strackbein.com/http://www.strackbein.com/http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/sears.htmlhttp://www.privateline.com/


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(certainly before 1950), someonediscovered that since filament voltagewas usually A.C., having a separatecathode would reduce the amount of60-cycle hum being amplified by thetube (whether diode, triode, tetrode, orpentode). The filament voltage wasusually 6.3 or 12.6 VAC that came off

of the filament winding of the samepower transformer that used adifferent winding to supply the systemplate voltage to a rectifier (often a 5U4vacuum tube) to be filtered withelectrolytic capacitors to becomereasonably pure DC of between about200 to 500 VDC."

"The first numbered part of a vacuumtube part number told the voltage onthe filament. For example, a 5U4 hada 5-volt filament, a 6SN7, 6AL5, and a6U8 had 6.3 volt filaments, a 12SN7,

12AX7, and 12AT7 had 12.6 voltfilaments. So simply remove that 120volt filament reference and you will befine."

Oh yes, I was once the Chief Engineerof a TV station that used 6 tubes inthe final circuit that each took 120Amps at 5 volts on their filaments.

They ran rather warm."(back to text)


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In January, 1927, commercial long

distance radio-telephone service wasintroduced between the United States andGreat Britain. AT&T and the BritishPostal Office got it on the air after fouryears of experimenting. They expanded itlater to communicate with Canada,Australia, South Africa, Egypt and Kenyaas well as ships at sea. This service hadfourteen dedicated channels or frequencieseventually assigned to it. The overseastransmitter was at Rugby, England, and

the United States transmitter was at Deal,New Jersey. [BLR] Nearly fifty yearswould pass before the first telephone cablewas laid under the Atlantic, greatlyexpanding calling capacity. In the nextyear The Great Depression began, hittingindependent telephone companies hard,including the manufacturer Automatic

Electric.

Although telephones had been used inthe White House for many years, theinstrument did not reach the president'sdesk until the Hoover administration at thestart of the Great Depression. "In 1929,when the Executive Offices wereremodeled the historic one-positionswitchboard which had served for so manyyears was retired from service and a newtwo-position switchboard, especially builtto meet the President's needs, wasinstalled. The number of stations wasmaterially increased in addition to manyspecial circuits for the use of the President.It was at this time a telephone wasinstalled on the President's desk for the

first time."[Hoover Library]

Thanks to L. Nickel for researching this point

In 1934 a New Deal measure enactedthe Federal Communications Commission,an agency that dogged the Bell System's

heels until its end. The FCC began

investigating AT&T as well as every othertelephone company. The FCC issued a'Proposed Report' after four years, inwhich its commissioner excoriated AT&Tfor, among other things, unjustifiableprices on basic phone service. Thecommissioner also urged the governmentto regulate prices the Bell System paidWestern Electric for equipment, indeed,even suggesting AT&T should let othercompanies bid on Western Electric work.The Bell System countered each point ofthe FCC's report in their 1938 AnnualReport, however, it was clear thegovernment was now closely looking atwhether the Bell System's structure wasgood for America. At that time AT&Tcontrolled 83 percent of United Statestelephones, 91 percent of telephone plantand 98 percent of long distance lines. Onlythe outbreak of World War II, two and ahalf months after the final report wasissued in 1939, staved off close

government scrutiny.

In 1937 coaxial cable was installedbetween Toledo, Ohio and South Bend,Indiana. Long distance lines began movingunderground, a big change from overheadlines carried on poles. In that same yearthe first commercial messages usingcarrier techniques were sent through thecoax, based on transmission techniquesinvented by Lloyd Espenschied and

Herman A. Affel. Multiplexing let tollcircuits carry several calls over one cablesimultaneously. It was so successful thatby the mid 1950s seventy nine percent ofBell's inter city trunks were multiplexed.The technology eventually moved into thelocal network, improving to the pointwhere it could carry 13,000 channels at

once.


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Much telephone progress slowed asWorld War II began. But one majoraccomplishment was directly related to it.On May 1, 1943 the longest open wirecommunication line in the world beganoperating between Edmonton, Alberta andFairbanks, Alaska. Built alongside the

newly constructed Alaskan Highway, theline was 1500 miles long, used 95,000poles and featured 23 manned repeaterstations. Fearing its radio and submarinecable communications to Alaska might beintercepted by the Japanese, the UnitedStates built the line to provide a moresecure communication link from Alaska to

the United States.

For more information on Lloyd Espenchied'sbrilliant career, go here:

http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/espenschied11.ht

ml

In 1938 retractile, spring, or spiralcords were introduced into the BellSystem. A single cotton bundle containingthe handset's four wires were fashionedinto a spiral. This reduced the twisting andcurling of conventional flat or braidedcords. Spiral cords were popular

immediately. AT&T's Events inTelecommunication History [ETH]reported that introduction began in April,with Western Electric providing 6,000cords by November. Still, even with W.E.then producing 1,000 cords a week, the

cords could not be kept in stock.

Thanks to Cliff Kennedy ofRoseville Telephone Company for helping

date the spiral cord's introduction

In 1938 the Bell System introducedcrossbar switching to the central office, asystem as excellent as the panel switchwas miserable. The first No. 1 crossbarwas cut into service at the Troy Avenuecentral office in Brooklyn, New York onFebruary 13th.This culminated a trialbegun in October 1937. [ETH]A detail ofa crossbar switch is shown on the right.

Western Electric's models earned aworldwide reputation for ruggedness andflexibility. AT&T improved on work doneby the brilliant Swedish engineer GotthilfAnsgarius Betulander. They even sent ateam to Sweden to look at his crossbarswitch. Installed by the hundreds in

medium to large cities, crossbartechnology advanced in development andpopularity until 1978, when over 28million Bell system lines were connectedto one. That compares to panel switchinglines which peaked in 1958 at 3,838,000and step by step lines peaking in 1973 at

24,440,000.

Note the crossbar's watch-likecomplexity in the diagram. Current

moving through the switch moved theseelectro-mechanical relays back and forth,depending on the dial pulses received.Despite its beauty, these switches werebulky, complicated and costly. The nextinvention we look at would in time sweepall manual and electro-mechanical

switching away.

Resources

[BLR] "The Opening of TransatlanticService on Shortwaves" 6 BellLaboratories Record 1928: 405 (back totext)
http://www.privateline.com/http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/espenschied11.htmlhttp://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/espenschied11.htmlhttp://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/espenschied11.htmlhttp://www.btinternet.com/~aero/tele321.htmhttp://www.btinternet.com/~aero/tele321.htmhttp://www.btinternet.com/~aero/tele321.htmhttp://www.btinternet.com/~aero/tele321.htmhttp://www.btinternet.com/~aero/tele321.htmhttp://www.btinternet.com/~aero/tele321.htmhttp://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/espenschied11.htmlhttp://www.privateline.com/


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[Hoover Library] Personal correspondencefrom the Hoover Library to L. Nickel(10/19/2000)" (back to text)

[ETH] Events in TelecommunicationHistory, AT&T Archives Publication:

Warren, New Jersey (8.92-2M), p53(backto text)


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On July 1, 1948 the

Bell System unveiled thetransistor, a joint inventionof Bell Laboratoriesscientists WilliamShockley, John Bardeen,and Walter Brattain. Itwould revolutionize everyaspect of the telephoneindustry and all ofcommunications. Oneengineer remarked,"Asking us to predict whattransistors will do is like asking the manwho first put wheels on an ox cart toforesee the automobile, the wristwatch, orthe high speed generator." Others wereless restrained. In 1954, recently retiredChief of Engineering for AT&T, Dr.Harold Osborne, predicted, "Let us saythat in the ultimate, whenever a baby isborn anywhere in the world, he is given atbirth a number which will be his telephonenumber for life. As soon as he can talk, heis given a watchlike device with 10 littlebuttons on one side and a screen on theother. Thus equipped, at any time when hewishes to talk with anyone in the world, hewill pull out the device and punch on thekeys the number of his friend. Thenturning the device over, he will hear thevoice of his friend and see his face on thescreen, in color and in three dimensions. Ifhe does not see and hear him he will knowthat the friend is dead." [Conly]Sheesh.

The first transistor looking as crude,perhaps, as thefirst telephone. Notice howsimilar the three leads orcontacts appearcompared to the triode below.The pointcontact transistor pictured here is nowobsolete.

Capitalizing on a flowing stream ofelectrons, much like the vacuum tube,along with the special characteristics ofsilicon and germanium, the transistordependably amplified and switched signalswhile producing little heat. Equipment sizewas reduced and reliability increased.


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Hearing aids, radios, phonographs,computers, electronic telephone switchingequipment, satellites and moon rocketswould all be improved or made possiblebecause of the transistor. Let's departagain from the narrative to see how atransistor works.

Transistor stands for transit resistor,the temporary name, now permanent, thatthe inventors gave it. Thesesemiconductors, like the triode, control theelectrical current flowing between twoterminals by applying voltage to a thirdterminal. You now have a miniatureswitch, presenting either a freeway toelectrons or a brick wall to them,depending on whether a signal voltage

exists. Bulky mechanical relays that usedto switch calls, like the crossbar shownabove, could now be replaced withtransistors. There's more.

Transistors also amplify. Like thetriode described before, a weak signal canbe boosted tremendously. Let's say youhave ten watts flowing into one side of thetransistor. Your current stops becausesilicon normally isn't a good conductor.

You now introduce a signal into themiddle of the transistor, say, at one watt.That changes the transistor's internalcrystalline structure, causing the silicon togo from an insulator to a conductor. It nowallows the larger current to go through,picking up your weak signal along theway, impressing it on the larger voltage.Your one watt signal is now a ten wattsignal.

Transistors use the same magneticprinciples we've discussed before, "theattractive and repulsive forces betweenelectrical charges." But they also use theproperties of semi-conductors, seeminglyinnocuous materials like geranium andnow mostly silicon. Materials like silverand copper conduct electricity well.Rubber and porcelain conduct electricitypoorly. The difference between electrical

conductors and insulators is theirmolecular structure, the stuff that makesthem up. Weight, size, or shape doesn'tmatter, it's how tightly the material holdson to its electrons, preventing them fromfreely flowing through its atoms.

Silicon by itself is an ordinary element,a common part of sand. If you introduceimpurities like arsenic or boron, though,you can turn it into a conductor with theright electrical charge. Selectively placingprecise impurities into a silicon chipproduces an electronic circuit. It's likemaking a magnetically polarized, multi-layered chemical cake. Vary theingredients or elements and you can makeup many kinds of cakes or transistors. And

each will taste or operate a littledifferently.

As I've just hinted, there are manykinds of transistors, just as there are manydifferent ki

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