You Talkin’ To Me?

The evolution of the telecommunications device that was invented 141 years ago, permits 2 or more users to conversate when they are too far apart to be heard directly. This invention has transformed the way we communicate today. On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone.

For decades there has been the debate on whether Bell was actually the first to invent the telephone. Several controversies have long hovered over this invention. Many of Bell’s critics, including Elisha Gray, Thomas Edison and Antonio Meucci, all claiming to have invented the telephone first, accused Congressman Gardiner G. Hubbard, Bell’s father-in-law, of persuading the patent office to give Bell his patent over Gray.

Yet even in the midst of this ongoing controversy about the telephone patent, today we see the technology of telecommunications and mobility leap beyond the type of advancement we could ever dream. From wall mounted, to telephone booths, to desktop, to smartphones, and to wearable technology, the art and science of communications are taking us to a universe of innovation we never thought possible.

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Communications: Celebrating National Telephone Day

Today we observe National Telephone Day. The telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be heard directly. In 1876, Scottish immigrant Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be granted a United States patent for a device that produced clearly intelligible replication of the human voice. This instrument was further developed by many others. The telephone was the first device in history that enabled people to talk directly with each other across large distances. Telephones rapidly became indispensable to businesses, government, and households.

Yet, there was great controversy about whether or not Elisha Gray, an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company, was the true inventor. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois. Some recent authors have argued that Gray should be considered the true inventor of the telephone because Alexander Graham Bell allegedly stole the idea of the liquid transmitter from him; although Bell had been using liquid transmitters in his telephone experiments for more than two years previously. Bell’s telephone patent was held up in numerous court decisions. Of course inevitably, Gramham was granted the patent.

Today, this invention undoubtedly dominoed into the most communicable device in the history of inventions, the mobile or cellular phone. Many households and businesses still use landlines, and personally, I don’t think that is a bad thing. Landline phones have been a saving grace in many emergency situations where mobile signals are unable to reach.

So, with modern technology transcending the way we were with telephone usage 20 years ago, we have to credit the invention of the telephone as one of our most widely used and transformed devices ever! Happy National Telephone Day!