Telephone History Series

privateline.com's
Telephone History Series
by Tom Farley
215 19th Street
West Sacramento, California 95691
USA
http://www.privateline.com
http://www.privateline.tv
tom@privateline.com
tom@privateline.tv
Compilation and .pdf formatting
by
Dave Mock
http://www.geocities.com/dmock_1/
mavedock@yahoo.com

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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
Private Line's Telephone History
Part 1 -- to 1830
"We picture inventors as heroes with the
Intrigue aside for now, the story of the
genius to recognize and solve a society's
telephone is the story of invention itself.
problems. In reality, the greatest inventors
Bell developed new and original ideas but
have been tinkerers who loved tinkering for its
own sake and who then had to figure out what,
did so by building on older ideas and
if anything, their devices might be good for."
developments. Bell succeeded specifically
Jared Diamond
because he understood acoustics, the study
of sound, and something about electricity.
I. Introduction
Other inventors knew electricity well but
II. Early Telephone Development III. The
Inventors: Gray and Bell
little of acoustics. The telephone is a
shared accomplishment among many
pioneers, therefore, although the credit and
I.
Introduction
rewards were not shared equally. That,
too, is often the story of invention.
Telephone comes from the Greek word
" . . . an inspired black-
haired Scotsman of
tele, meaning from afar, and phone,
twenty eight, on the
meaning voice or voiced sound. Generally,
eve of marriage,
a telephone is any device which conveys
vibrant and alive to
sound over a distance. A string telephone,
new ideas." Alexander
a megaphone, or a speaking tube might be
Graham Bell : The Life
and Times of the Man
considered telephonic instruments but for
Who Invented the
our purposes they are not telephones.
Telephone
These transmit sound mechanically and
not electrically. How's that?
On March 10, 1876, in Boston,
Speech is sound in motion. Talking
Massachusetts, Alexander Graham Bell
produces acoustic pressure. Speaking into
invented the telephone. Thomas Watson
the can of a string telephone, for example,
fashioned the device itself; a crude thing
makes the line vibrate, causing sound
made of a wooden stand, a funnel, a cup of
waves to travel from one end of the
acid, and some copper wire. But these
stretched line to the other. A telephone by
simple parts and the equally simple first
comparison, reproduces sound by
telephone call -- "Mr. Watson, come here,
electrical means. What the Victorians
I want you!" -- belie a complicated past.
called "talking by lightning."
Bell filed his application just hours before
his competitor, Elisha Gray, filed notice to
A standard dictionary defines the
soon patent a telephone himself. What's
telephone as "an apparatus for reproducing
more, though neither man had actually
sound, especially that of the voice, at a
built a working telephone, Bell made his
great distance, by means of electricity;
telephone operate three weeks later using
consisting of transmitting and receiving
ideas outlined in Gray's Notice of
instruments connected by a line or wire
Invention, methods Bell did not propose in
which conveys the electric current."
his own patent.
Electricity operates the telephone and it
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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
carries your voice. With that important
speech electrically. And it wasn't until 22
point established, let's look at telephone
years later in 1876 that the idea became a
history.
reality. But before then, a telephone might
have been impossible to form in one's
Click here for a very large image
consciousness.
demonstrating how a telephone works
While Da Vinci predicted flight and Jules
Verne envisioned space travel, people did
not lie awake through the centuries
dreaming of making a call. How could
they? With little knowledge of electricity,
let alone the idea that it could carry a
conversation, how could people dream of a
telephonic future? Who in the fifteenth
century might have imagined a pay phone
on the street corner or a fax machine on
their desk? You didn't have then, an easily
visualized goal among people like
powered flight, resulting in one inventor
Modern telephones use electret
after another working through the years to
microphones for transmitters and
realize a common goal. Telephone
piezoelectric transducers for receivers but
development instead was a series of often-
the principle described is the same. Sound
disconnected events, mostly electrical,
waves picked up by an electret
some accidental, that made the telephone
microphone causes "a thin, metal-coated
possible. I'll cover just a few.
plastic diaphragm to vibrate, producing
variations in an electric field across a tiny
There are many ways to communicate
air gap between the diaphragm and an
over long distances. I have reproduced a
electrode."[B] A piezoelectric transducer
nice color diagram which shows the
uses material which converts the
Roman alphabet, the international flag
mechanical stress of a sound wave upon it
code, Morse Code, and semaphore
into a varying electrical signal.
signaling. Click here to view
Telephone history begins, perhaps, at the
II. Early Telephone
start of human history. Man has always
Development
wanted to communicate from afar. People
have used smoke signals, mirrors, jungle
drums, carrier pigeons and semaphores to
get a message from one point to another.
For more
But a phone was something new. Some
information on
say Francis Bacon predicted the telephone
Leyden jars,
including
in 1627, however, his book New Utopia
photographs
only described a long speaking tube. A
and
real telephone could not be invented until
instructions on
the electrical age began. And even then it
how to build
didn't seem desirable. The electrical
them, go this
page at the
principles needed to build a telephone
Static
were known in 1831 but it wasn't until
Generator site:
1854 that Bourseul suggested transmitting
http://www.alaska.net/~natnkell/leyden.htm
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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
based, as all batteries are, the battery
In 1729 English chemist Stephen Gray
improved quickly and became the
transmitted electricity over a wire. He sent
electrical source for further experimenting.
charges nearly 300 feet over brass wire
But while batteries got more reliable, they
and moistened thread. An electrostatic
still couldn't produce the power needed to
generator powered his experiments, one
work machinery, light cities, or provide
charge at a time. A few years later,
heat. And although batteries would work
Dutchman Pieter van Musschenbroek and
telegraph and telephone systems, and still
German Ewald Georg von Kleist in 1746
do, transmitting speech required
independently developed the Leyden jar, a
understanding two related elements,
sort of battery or condenser for storing
namely, electricity and magnetism.
static electricity. Named for its Holland
For an easy to read introduction and a link to a
city of invention, the jar was a glass bottle
comprehensive article on Volta, visit RjC's site:
lined inside and out with tin or lead. The
glass sandwiched between the metal sheets
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Classro
stored electricity; a strong charge could be
om/8835/index.htm
kept for a few days and transported. Over
In 1820 Danish physicist Christian Oersted
the years these jars were used in countless
demonstrated electromagnetism, the
experiments, lectures, and demonstrations.
critical idea needed to develop electrical
power and to communicate. In a famous
In 1753 an anonymous writer, possibly
experiment at his University of
physician Charles Morrison, suggested in
Copenhagen classroom, Oersted pushed a
The Scot's Magazine that electricity might
compass under a live electric wire. This
transmit messages. He thought up a
scheme using separate wires to represent
caused its needle to turn from pointing
north, as if acted on by a larger magnet.
each letter. An electrostatic generator, he
Oersted discovered that an electric current
posited, could electrify each line in turn,
creates a magnetic field. But could a
attracting a bit of paper by static charge on
the other end. By noting which paper
magnetic field create electricity? If so, a
new source of power beckoned. And the
letters were attracted one might spell out a
principle of electromagnetism, if fully
message. Needing wires by the dozen,
understood and applied, promised a new
signals got transmitted a mile or two.
People labored with telegraphs like this for
era of communication
many decades. Experiments continued
For an excellent summary of Christian
slowly until 1800. Many inventors worked
Oersted's life, visit:
alone, misunderstood earlier discoveries,
or spent time producing results already
http://www.mac-
med.com/M%26C%20FILES/04maccs.html
achieved. Poor equipment didn't help
either. Balky electrostatic generators
produced static electricity by friction,
In 1821 Michael Faraday
often by spinning leather against glass.
reversed Oersted's experiment. He
And while static electricity could make
got a weak current to flow in a wire
hair stand on end or throw sparks, it
revolving around a permanent
couldn't provide the energy to do truly
magnet. In other words, a magnetic
useful things. Inventors and industry
field caused or induced an electric
needed a reliable and continuous current.
current to flow in a nearby wire. In
In 1800 Alessandro Volta produced the
so doing, Faraday had built the
first battery. A major development, Volta's
world's first electric generator.
battery provided sustained low powered
Mechanical energy could now be
electric current at high cost. Chemically
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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
converted to electrical energy. Is that
small variations in voltage. The voltages
clear? This is a very important point.
are amplified for transmission over the
telephone line."
The simple act of moving ones' hand
caused current to move. Mechanical
<http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-
energy into electrical energy. Although
bin/g?DocF=macro/5006/18/5.html>
many years away, a dynamo powered
[Accessed 11 February 1999] 9
turbine would let the power of flowing
(back to text)
water or burning coal produce electricity.
Got a river or a dam? The water spins the
turbines which turns the generators which
produce electricity. The more water you
have the more generators you can add and
the more electricity you can produce.
Mechanical energy into electrical energy.
(By comparison, a motor turns electrical
energy into mechanical energy. Thanks to
A. Almoian for pointing out this key
difference.)
Faraday worked through different
electrical problems in the next ten years,
eventually publishing his results on
induction in 1831. By that year many
people were producing electrical dynamos.
But electromagnetism still needed
understanding. 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/fara
day1.html
Resources
[B]"Telecommunications Systems:
Telephone: THE TELEPHONE
INSTRUMENT" Britannica Online. "In
modern electret transmitters, developed in
the 1970s, the carbon layer is replaced by
a thin plastic sheet that has been given a
conductive metallic coating on one side.
The plastic separates that coating from
another metal electrode and maintains an
electric field between them. Vibrations
caused by speech produce fluctuations in
the electric field, which in turn produce
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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
Private Line's Telephone History
Part 2 - 1830 to 1870
In 1830 the great American scientist
Professor Joseph Henry transmitted the
first practical electrical signal. A short
time before Henry had invented the first
efficient electromagnet. He also concluded
similar thoughts about induction before
Faraday but he didn't publish them first.
From the December, 1963 American Heritage
Henry's place in electrical history
magazine, "a sketch of Henry's primitive
however, has always been secure, in
telegraph, a dozen years before Morse,
reveals the essential components: an
particular for showing that
electromagnet activated by a distant battery,
electromagnetism could do more than
and a pivoted iron bar that moves to ring a
create current or pick up heavy weights --
bell."
it could communicate.
In 1837 Samuel Morse invented
In a stunning demonstration in
the first workable telegraph,
his Albany Academy
applied for its patent in 1838,
classroom, Henry created the
and was finally granted it in
forerunner of the telegraph. In
1848. Joseph Henry helped
the demonstration, Henry first
Morse build a telegraph relay or
built an electromagnet by
rep eater that allowed long
winding an iron bar with
distance operation. The
several feet of wire. A pivot
telegraph later helped unite the
mounted steel bar sat next to the magnet.
country and eventually the world. Not a
A bell, in turn, stood next to the bar. From
professional inventor, Morse was
the electromagnet Henry strung a mile of
nevertheless captivated by electrical
wire around the inside of the classroom.
experiments. In 1832 he heard of
He completed the circuit by connecting the
Faraday's recently published work on
ends of the wires at a battery. Guess what
inductance, and was given an
happened? The steel bar swung toward the
electromagnet at the same time to ponder
magnet, of course, striking the bell at the
over. An idea came to him and Morse
same time. Breaking the connection
quickly worked out details for his
released the bar and it was free to strike
telegraph.
again. And while Henry did not pursue
electrical signaling, he did help someone
As depicted below, his system used a key
who did. And that man was Samuel Finley
(a switch) to make or break the electrical
circuit, a battery to produce power, a
Breese Morse.
single line joining one telegraph station to
another and an electromagnetic receiver or
For more information on Joseph Henry, visit
sounder that upon being turned on and off,
the Joseph Henry Papers Project at:
produced a clicking noise. He completed
http://www.si.edu/organiza/offices/archive/ihd/j
the package by devising the Morse code
hp/index.htm
system of dots and dashes. A quick key tap
broke the circuit momentarily, transmitting
a short pulse to a distant sounder,
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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
interpreted by an operator as a dot. A more
problem. After all, communicating over
lengthy break produced a dash.
long distances instantly was otherwise
impossible. Yet as the telegraph was
Telegraphy became big business as it
perfected, man's thoughts turned to speech
replaced messengers, the Pony Express,
over a wire.
clipper ships and every other slow paced
means of communicating. The fact that
This site has a small page on Samuel Morse:
service was limited to Western Union
http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/inventorsI-
offices or large firms seemed hardly a
Q/morse.html

In 1854 Charles Bourseul wrote about
speech could not be reproduced. The
transmitting speech electrically in a well-
problem was simple, minute, and at the
circulated article. In that important paper,
same time monumental. His telephone
the Belgian-born French inventor and
relied on its transmitter's diaphragm
engineer described a flexible disk that
making and breaking contact with the
would make and break an electrical
electrical circuit, just as Bourseul
connection to reproduce sound. Bourseul
suggested, and just as the telegraph
never built an instrument or pursued his
worked. This approach, however, was
ideas further.
completely wrong.
For more information on Bourseul and early
communications in general, visit this German
site:
http://www.fht-esslingen.de/telehistory/1870-
.html
In 1861 Johann Phillip Reis completed the
first non-working telephone. Tantalizingly
close to reproducing speech, Reis's
Analog transmission. The unmodulated carrier
instrument conveyed certain sounds,
is simply the electricity your phone operates
poorly, but no more than that. A German
on, the steady and continuous current your
physicist and schoolteacher, Reis's
telephone company provides. It carries the
ingenuity was unquestioned. His
conversation. Remember, the telephone is an
transmitter and receiver used a cork, a
electrical instrument; electricity works the
phone and it carries your voice. When you talk
knitting needle, a sausage skin, and a piece
the phone impresses your conversation on the
of platinum to transmit bits of music and
current the telephone company supplies.
certain other sounds. But intelligible
Conversation causes the current's resistance
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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
to go up and down, that is, your voice varies or
of invention, Reis did not realize his
modulates the carrier, the electricity operating
mistake, did not understand the principle
your phone.
behind voice transmission, did not develop
Below is a simplified view of a digital
his instrument further, nor did he ever
signal. Current goes on and off. No wave
claim to have invented the telephone.
thing. There was no chance the Reis
The definitive book in English on Reis is:
telephone could transmit intelligible
speech since it could not reproduce an
Thompson, Silvanus P. Phillip Reis: Inventor
analog wave, not by making and breaking
of The Telephone. E.&F.N. Spon. London.
a circuit. A pulse in this case is not a
1883
wave! It was not until the early 1960s that
digital carrier techniques simulated an
For other views and explanations of the Reis
analog wave with digital pulses. Even then
instrument, visit Adventures in Cybersound:
this simulation was only possible by
http://www.cinemedia.net/SFCV-RMIT-
sampling the wave 8,000 times a second.
Annex/rnaughton/REIS_BIO.html
(Producing CD quality sound means
sampling an analog signal 44,000 times a
second.) In these days all traffic in
America between telephone switches is
digital, but the majority of local loops are
analog, still carrying your voice to the
central office on a modulated wave.
Reproducing speech practically relies on
In the early 1870s the world still did not
the transmitter making continuous contact
have a working telephone. Inventors
with the electrical circuit. A transmitter
focused on telegraph improvements since
varies the electrical current depending on
these had a waiting market. A good,
how much acoustic pressure it gets.
patentable idea might make an inventor
Turning the current off and on like a
millions. Developing a telephone, on the
telegraph cannot begin to duplicate speech
other hand, had no immediate market, if
since speech, once flowing, is a fluctuating
one at all. Elisha Gray, Alexander Graham
wave of continuous character; it is not a
Bell, as well as many others, were instead
collection of off and on again pulses. The
trying to develop a multiplexing telegraph
Reis instrument, in fact, worked only
- a device to send several messages over
when sounds were so soft that the contact
one wire at once. Such an instrument
connecting the transmitter to the circuit
would greatly increase traffic without the
remained unbroken. Speech may have
telegraph company having to build more
traveled first over a Reis telephone
lines. As it turned out, for both men, the
however, it would have done so
desire to invent one thing turned into a
accidentally and against every principle he
race to invent something altogether
thought would make it work. And
different. And that is truly the story of
although accidental discovery is the stuff
invention.
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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
Private Line's Telephone History
Part 3 - 1870 to 1876
III. The Inventors: Gray and Bell
been the study of my life -- the study of
vibrations."
Elisha Gray was a hard working
professional inventor with some success to
In 1870 Bell's father moved his family
his credit. Born in 1835 in Barnesville,
to Canada after losing two sons to
Ohio, Gray was well educated for his time,
tuberculosis. He hoped the Canadian
having worked his way through three
climate would be healthier. In 1873 Bell
years at Oberlin College. His first
became a vocal physiology professor at
telegraph related patent came in 1868. An
Boston College. He taught the deaf the
expert electrician, he co-founded Gray and
visual speech system during the day and at
Barton, makers of telegraph equipment.
night he worked on what he called a
The Western Union Telegraph Company,
harmonic or musical telegraph. Familiar
then funded by the Vanderbilts and J.P.
with acoustics, Bell thought he could send
Morgan, bought a one-third interest in
several telegraph messages at once by
Gray and Barton in 1872. They then
varying their musical pitch. Sound odd?
changed its name to the Western Electric
I'll give you a crude example, a piano
Manufacturing Company, with Gray
analogy, since Watson said Bell played the
remaining an important person in the
piano well.
company. To Gray, transmitting speech
was an interesting goal but not one of a
Imagine playing Morse code on the
lifetime.
piano, striking dots and dashes in middle
C. Then imagine the instrument wired to a
Alexander Graham Bell, on the other
distant piano. Striking middle C in one
hand, saw telephony as the driving force in
piano might cause middle C to sound in
his early life. He became consumed with
the other. Now, by playing Morse code on
inventing the telephone. Born in 1847 in
the A or C keys at the same time you
Edinburgh, Scotland, Graham was raised
might get the distant piano to duplicate
in a family involved with music and the
your playing, sending two messages at
spoken word. His mother painted and
once. Maybe. But probably not. Bell didn't
played music. His father originated a
experiment with pianos, of course, but
system called visible speech that helped
with differently pitched magnetic springs.
the deaf to speak. His grandfather was a
The harmonic telegraph proved simple to
lecturer and speech teacher. Bell's college
think about, yet maddeningly difficult to
courses included lectures on anatomy and
build. He labored over this device
physiology. His entire education and
throughout the year and well into the
upbringing revolved around the mechanics
spring of 1874.
of speech and sound. Many years after
inventing the telephone Bell remarked, "I
Then, at a friend's suggestion, he
now realize that I should never have
worked that summer on a teaching aid for
invented the telephone if I had been an
the deaf, a gruesome device called the
electrician. What electrician would have
phonoautograph, made out of a dead man's
been so foolish as to try any such thing?
ear. Speaking into the device caused the
The advantage I had was that sound had
ear's membrane to vibrate and in turn
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Privateline.com's Telephone History Series by Tom Farley http://www.privateline.com
move a lever. The lever then wrote a
then replicate speech with another
wavelike pattern of the speech on smoked
membrane. Bell had discovered the
glass. Ugh. Many say Bell was fascinated
principle of the telephone, the theory of
by how the tiny membrane caused the
variable resistance, as depicted below.
much heavier lever to work. It might be
[Brooks] But learning to apply that
possible, he speculated, to make a
principle correctly would take him another
membrane work in telephony, by using it
two years.
to vary an electric current in intensity with
the spoken word. Such a current could
For information on how closely Amplitude Modulation relates to
the principle of variable resistance, click here
Bell continued harmonic telegraph
along but they would have their problems.
work through the fall of 1874. He wasn't
Sanders would court bankruptcy by
making much progress but his tinkering
investing over $100,000 before any return
gathered attention. Gardiner Greene
came to him. Hubbard, on the other hand,
Hubbard, a prominent Boston lawyer and
discouraged Bell's romance with his
the president of the Clarke School for The
daughter until the harmonic telegraph was
Deaf, became interested in Bell's
invented. Bell, in turn, would risk his
experiments. He and George Sanders, a
funding by working so hard on the
prosperous Salem businessman, both
telephone and by getting engaged to
sensed Bell might make the harmonic
Mabel without Hubbard's permission.
telegraph work. They also knew Bell the
man, since Bell tutored Hubbard's
In the spring of 1875, Bell's
daughter and he was helping Sander's deaf
experimenting picked up quickly with the
five year old son learn to speak.
help of a talented young machinist named
Thomas A. Watson. Bell feverishly
In October, 1874, Green went to
pursued the harmonic telegraph his
Washington D.C. to conduct a patent
backers wanted and the telephone which
search. Finding no invention similar to
was now his real interest. Seeking advice,
Bell's proposed harmonic telegraph,
Bell went to Washington D.C. On March
Hubbard and Sanders began funding Bell.
1, 1875, Bell met with Joseph Henry, the
All three later signed a formal agreement
great scientist and inventor, then Secretary
in February, 1875, giving Bell financial
of the Smithsonian Institution. It was
backing in return for equal shares from
Henry, remember, who pioneered
any patents Bell developed. The trio got
electromagnetism and helped Morse with
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