TELEPHONE TECHNOLOGY

On January 25, 1915, a big celebration took place after the following conversation:

Alexander Graham Bell (sitting in New York, speaking into a telephone):  

"Mr Watson, come here.  I want you." 

Mr. Watson (Bell's assistant, listening in on a telephone in San Francisco): 

"It will take me five days to get there now!"

Prior to this history-making call, a trial phone call had already taken place in July, 1914, when Theodore Vail, the president of AT&T, spoke coast to coast with his voice being boosted in Pittsburgh, Omaha, and Salt Lake City. The company had been wanting to link the two coasts via phone, and finally found a device to make that possible - Lee DeForest's "audions," the first vacuum tubes. (pbs.org, "A Transcontinental Telephone Line")

If you have an interest in the technology that made this event possible, we invite you to stop by the Bullis Room and spend some time with these century-plus old books:

The History of the Telephone

by Herbert Newton Casson

published in Chicago by A. C. McClurg, 1911

and

The Telephone: An Account of the Phenomena of

Electricity, Magnetism, and Sound, as Involved in its Action.

With Directions for Making a Speaking Telephone

by A. E. Dolbear

published in Boston by Lee & Shepard, 1877

Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone changed his life, and its modern equivalent has become such a part of our lives, we wonder how we would function without it. So "thank you," Mr. Bell. Many, many thanks.