The Telephone
Inventor:  Alexander Graham Bell

Patent Number:  174,465

Date of Invention: 1874

  • Fall of 1872: Alexander Graham Bell begins experimenting with the multiple telegraph.
  • Summer of 1874: Bell first conceives of the idea for the telephone
  • 1874: Thomas Sanders and Gardiner Greene Hubbard enter into a formal partnership with Bell in which they provide financial backing for his inventions.
  • February 14th of 1874: Bell's telephone patent applitcation is filed at the United States Patent Office
  • March 7th of 1874: United States (Patent No. 174,465) is officially issued for Bell's telephone.

Invention Impact
Alexander Graham Bell's invention, the first device that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone), impacted on our lives in so many ways. It gave us the capability of speaking to someone in a different place through a device! This way, if we needed to get in touch with someone half way around the world, then it would for the first time ever, be possible!

Invention Evoloution .
The invention has evolved from a simple dial phone to the cord telephone, to the wireless telephone, and finally to the advanced cell phone.

Inventor Biography
Alexander Graham Bell achieved the first device that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). His success came directly as result of his attempts to improve the telegraph.

When Bell began experimenting with electrical signals, the telegraph had been an established means of communication for some 30 years. Although a highly successful system, the telegraph, with its dot-and-dash Morse code, was basically limited to receiving and sending one message at a time. Bell's knowledge of sound enabled him to consider the possibility of transmitting multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. Bell thought of the "harmonic telegraph", which was a device that allowed several notes to be sent at the same time, along the same wire if the notes or signals differed in pitch.

In 1874, Bell informed his father-in-law about the possibility of a multiple telegraph. He instantly offered Bell all the financial backing that he would need. So Bell continued on with his work on the multiple telegraph, but in the meantime, he and Thomas Watson explored the idea of a device that would transmit speech electronically. And then finally on June 2, 1875, Alexander Graham Bell discovered that he could hear sound over a wire. Finally, he put all his ideas and discoveries together, and created the telephone, now known as one of the most useful devices that we use today.

Links Bibliography Resources

How does a telephone work?
Evolution of the telephone
Telephone Experiment
History of the Telephone,