The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret (v5)

by Seth Shulman

  British Post Office: As detailed in Aitken, Who Invented the Telephone?, citing “The First Telephone,” Post Office Electrical Engineers’ Journal, vol. 25 (July 1932), pp. 116–17.

  a detailed series of experiments: Letter from L. C. Pocock, Standard Telephones & Cables, Ltd., to W. T. O’Dea, assistant curator, Science Museum, October 4, 1946, copy courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

  STC was negotiating: For a full review of the incident, see Liffen, “Precursors of the Telephone,” unpublished talk. See also Liam McDougall, “Official: Bell didn’t invent the telephone; ‘top secret’ file reveals that businessmen suppressed the identity of the telephone’s real inventor,” Sunday Herald (Glasgow), November 23, 2003.

  11 : TAPPING THE PHONE

  Furthermore, by 1874: Hounshell, “Bell and Gray,” Proceedings of the IEEE, p. 1308.

  a forty-three-page booklet: Transcript of “Complimentary Reception and Banquet to Elisha Gray, Ph.D., Inventor of the Telephone,” at Highland Park (Chicago: McRoy Clay Works, 1904), November 15, 1878.

  “The citizens of Highland Park”: Quoted in ibid., citing The Interior, a weekly Presbyterian newspaper in Chicago, p. 7.

  “If the press and the public”: Gray reception booklet, p. 10. Bingham’s remarks were part of the second toast, entitled “The Telephone in Its Origin.”

  astonished parishioners became: Ibid.

  George Prescott: Ibid., p. 38.

  “in coming up with”: Bruce, Bell, p. 170.

  plenty of evidence: David A. Hounshell, “Two Paths to the Telephone,” Scientific American, vol. 17, no. 3 (January 1981), p. 161. As Hounshell puts it, “By this time [1875] Gray and Bell were playing cat and mouse with each other. Each suspected that the other was spying on him….”

  According to Gray’s own account: See “Deposition of Elisha Gray,” in Speaking Telephone Interferences, The Case for E. Gray (Washington, DC, 1880), pp. 41–42.

  “electrotherapy” machines: For a wealth of documents and photographs of electrotherapy machines, see the online electrotherapy museum at http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com.

  Gray showed the device: Bruce, Bell, p. 116.

  widely reported in newspapers: Ibid., p. 118.

  Gray patented his version: See Elisha Gray, U.S. Patent 165,728, “Improvement in Transmitters for Electro-Harmonic Telegraphs,” July 20, 1875.

  two boys in Milwaukee: For the most detailed account given by Gray, see Elisha Gray, Nature’s Miracles, vol. 1 (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1900), p. 141: “I noticed two boys with fruit-cans in their hands having a thread attached to the center of the bottom of each can and stretched across the street…my interest was immediately aroused. I took the can out of one of the boy’s hands…putting my ear to the mouth of it I could hear the voice of the boy across the street. I conversed with him a moment, then noticed how the cord was connected at the bottom of the two cans, when, suddenly, the problem of electrical speech-transmission was solved in my mind.”

  “water rheostat”: “Deposition of Elisha Gray,” pp. 48–49. See also Hounshell, “Elisha Gray and the Telephone,” Technology and Culture, p. 153.

  “One of Gray’s staunchest supporters”: Coe, The Telephone and Its Several Inventors, p. 71.

  Taylor’s one published article: Lloyd W. Taylor, “The Untold Story of the Telephone,” American Physics Teacher (December 1937), pp. 243–51, reprinted in Coe, The Telephone and Its Several Inventors, Appendix 9, p. 206.

  “was the first embodiment”: Lloyd W. Taylor, “The Untold Story of the Telephone,” unpublished MS, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH, chap. 2.

  “in a confidential document”: Taylor, “The Untold Story of the Telephone,” American Physics Teacher, p. 246.

  a book-length manuscript: Coe, The Telephone and Its Several Inventors, p. 73.

  fortresslike library: The archives are on the top floor of the Seeley G. Mudd Center, the central library facility for Oberlin College.

  Oberlin’s extraordinary history: See Marlene D. Merril, “Daughters of America Rejoice: The Oberlin Experiment,” Timeline: A Publication of the Ohio Historical Society (October–November 1987), pp. 13–21.

  “There is no suggestion”: Taylor, “The Untold Story of the Telephone,” American Physics Teacher, p. 247.

  “made and publicly used”: Ibid., p. 245.

  Bell had priority: See, e.g., Bruce, Foreword, in Wesson and Grosvenor, Alexander Graham Bell, p. 6.

  “Gray had made and exhibited”: Taylor, “The Untold Story of the Telephone,” American Physics Teacher, p. 251.

  “Gray’s loss of credit”: Ibid.

  12 : BAD CONNECTION

  Taylor contacted Gray’s descendants: See Lloyd W. Taylor, correspondence, 1921–1948, Untold Story of the Telephone, Folders 1–4, Lloyd W. and Esther B. Taylor Papers, courtesy of the Oberlin College Archives.

  the editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: See correspondence between Lloyd W. Taylor and Walter Tust, editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, August–October 1945, Lloyd W. and Esther B. Taylor Papers, courtesy of the Oberlin College Archives.

  a long-forgotten trove: See Lloyd W. Taylor, correspondence, 1921–1948, Oberlin College Archives.

  a revealing letter: Elisha Gray to AGB, March 2, 1877.

  the Chicago Tribune: “Personal column,” Chicago Tribune, February 16, 1877. The article stated, in part, “The real inventor of the telephone—Mr. Elisha Gray, of Chicago…concerns himself not at all about the spurious claims of Professor Bell….”

  “I do not know the nature”: AGB to Elisha Gray, March 2, 1877.

  “Zenas Fisk Wilber”: Zenas Fisk Wilber affidavit, October 21, 1885; Zenas Fisk Wilber affidavit, April 8, 1886, Thomas W. Soran, Notary Public, in Lloyd W. and Esther B. Taylor Papers, courtesy of the Oberlin College Archives.

  “I am convinced”: Wilber affidavit, October 21, 1885.

  in the same regiment: Ibid.

  Columbian College Law Department: George Washington University Law School, “Marcellus Bailey and the Telephone,” available online at http://www.law.gwu.edu.

  “Professor Bell called upon me”: Wilber affidavit, October 21, 1885.

  Wilber’s affidavit is extremely problematic: See, e.g., Affidavit of John F. Guy, September 18, 1885, Elisha Gray Collection, National Museum of American History, reprinted in Evenson, The Telephone Patent Conspiracy, p. 175. See also Bruce, Bell, p. 278. Without citing any particular evidence, Bruce dismisses Wilber’s October affidavit this way: “…Zenas Wilber (probably liquored up or bribed, or both, by agents of the Globe Telephone Company) made affidavits that he had allowed Bell to examine Gray’s caveat in full.”

  five separate affidavits: As reviewed in Taylor, unpublished manuscript, chap. 11.

  Lloyd Taylor analyzed: For transcriptions of Zenas F. Wilber’s affidavits, October 21, 1885, and April 8, 1886, see Taylor’s unpublished manuscript, Appendix III.

  One statement by Wilber: Wilber affidavit, October 21, 1885.

  “my faculties were not”: Wilber affidavit, April 8, 1886.

  “Extract from a letter”: As recounted in Taylor, unpublished manuscript, Appendix III, p. 2.

  “I have thus concluded”: Wilber affidavit, April 8, 1886.

  “In conclusion”: Ibid.

  13 : ON THE LINE

  published in The Washington Post: “Affidavit of Alexander Graham Bell in reply to that of Zenas Fisk Wilber,” Washington Post, May 25, 1886.

  Bell’s sworn retort: Ibid.

  “I knew that some interference”: Report from AGB and Mabel Hubbard Bell to Gilbert Grosvenor, undated, available in the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, LOC.

  the Dowd case: Bell Telephone Co. et al. v. Peter A. Dowd, Circuit Court of the U.S., District of Massachusetts, filed September 12, 1878.

  “As I knew nothing”: Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, Int. 266, pp. 194–95.

  is written into the margin: See file copy of AGB Patent Application filed February 14, 1876, LOC, reprin
ted in Coe, The Telephone and Its Several Inventors, p. 6, and Baker, The Gray Matter, p. A76.

  “Strange, isn’t it”: John E. Kingsbury, The Telephone and Telephone Exchanges: Their Invention and Development (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1915), p. 213.

  “without the leading character”: Aitken, Who Invented the Telephone?, p. 100.

  Bell spent the evening of January 12, 1876: AGB to Gardiner Hubbard, January 13, 1876.

  “that burglars did not enter”: Ibid.

  “Almost at the last moment”: Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, Int. 103, p. 86.

  The following day: Bruce, Bell, p. 165.

  “I have so much copy work”: AGB to Mabel Hubbard, January 19, 1876.

  Bell, Hubbard, and Pollok met with Brown: Bruce, Bell, p. 165.

  George Brown’s copy: George Brown’s copy of AGB’s Patent Application of 1876 resurfaced as a key issue in telephone patent litigation that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is available at U.S. Reports 126US 88, October term, 1887. It is also reprinted in full in Evenson, The Telephone Patent Conspiracy, pp. 245–52, and in Baker, The Gray Matter, pp. A60–A63.

  Bell and his legal team argued: Evenson, The Telephone Patent Conspiracy, p.180.

  “I sailed for Liverpool”: George Brown to AGB, November 12, 1878.

  Brown never did succeed: See John Gordon Brown to AGB, February 27, 1876, in which he breaks the news that his brother had learned from “thoroughly competent parties” in Britain that Bell’s patent application would not be viable there. See also AGB to his parents, March 10, 1876. As Bell explained: “George Brown has thrown up telegraphy as it cannot be made a commercial success in England—telegraphy being there a government concern.” MacKenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, p. 111, notes that “Bell never forgot and never forgave” Brown for failing to pursue his patent in Britain.

  “Whatever the reason”: Bruce, Bell, p. 164.

  swore to before a notary public: Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, Int. 102, p. 82. As Bell states, “The American application was sworn to in Boston, on the 20th of January, 1876 and was sent to Washington and placed in the hands of my solicitors there…”

  Baker went to great lengths: See Baker, The Gray Matter, pp. 117–22.

  “It is my firm conclusion”: Ibid., p. 132.

  “I have read somewhere”: AGB to Gardiner Hubbard, May 4, 1875.

  so-called spark arrester: Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, Int. 103, pp. 83–88.

  “For instance, let mercury or some other liquid”: AGB, U.S. Patent 174,465.

  “This application of the spark-arrester principle”: Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, Int. 103, p. 87.

  no drawing or model would be necessary: Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, Cross-Int. 410, p. 265. As Bell notes in his testimony, Zenas Wilber had made the following notation on the file wrapper of his application: “The dwg. And Specn in this case are sufficient for the examination.”

  “How did you come”: Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, Int. 266, p. 195.

  “I do not know what it was”: Ibid.

  “On this gossamer thread”: Taylor, unpublished manuscript, chap. 7.

  14 : CALL WAITING

  “all the Speaking Telephones…Mr. Gray’s”: Prescott, The Speaking Telegraph, Talking Phonograph and Other Novelties, p. 34.

  the terms of the settlement: According to Evenson, The Telephone Patent Conspiracy, p. 198.

  165 “all the Speaking Telephones…Mr. Bell’s”: George B. Prescott, Bell’s Electric Speaking Telephone: Its Invention, Construction, Application, Modification and History (New York: D. Appleton, 1884), p. 34. This version is, with several noteworthy deletions and changes, the same as his earlier work, The Speaking Telegraph. (Much more widely distributed than its predecessor, it was most recently available in an edition by the Arno Press, formerly a subsidiary of the New York Times Co., 1972.)

  “From the reading of the text”: Prescott, The Speaking Telegraph, p. 73, note 1.

  even the title of his book: Prescott, Bell’s Electric Speaking Telephone.

  “struck him a smart blow”: See Isaac d’Israeli, Curiosities of Literature (Paris: 1835), p. 24. For more on the apple myth, see also James Gleick, Isaac Newton (New York: Pantheon Books, 2003), pp. 54–57. Gleick calls it “the single most enduring legend in the annals of scientific discovery.”

  “The apple myth”: George Smith, “Myth versus Reality in the History of Science,” unpublished proposal, February 2005, quoted courtesy of the author.

  Irving Fang’s textbook: Irving Fang, A History of Mass Communications: Six Information Revolutions (Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 1997), p. 84.

  The Nobel Book of Answers: Gerd Binning, “How Does the Telephone Work?,” in Bettina Steikel, ed., The Nobel Book of Answers: The Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Shimon Peres, and Other Nobel Prize Winners Answer Some of Life’s Most Intriguing Questions for Young People (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2003), p. 121.

  “On 7 March 1876”: Ian McNeil, ed., The Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 719.

  Famous Americans: Famous Americans: 22 Short Plays for the Classroom (New York: Scholastic Books, 1995), p. 93.

  Herbert Casson: Casson, The History of the Telephone (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1910), p. 10.

  Understanding Telephone Electronics: Joseph Carr, Steve Winder, and Stephen Bigelow, Understanding Telephone Electronics (Woburn, MA: Newnes, 2001), p. 1.

  “A pile of tools”: Victoria Sherrow and Elaine Verstraete, Alexander Graham Bell (On My Own Biographies) (Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 2001), p. 43.

  Bell made no mention of his first: Baker, The Gray Matter, p. 62, citing congressional hearings, 1886.

  Bell does touch upon the story: Taylor, unpublished manuscript, chap. 2.

  in August 1882: Ibid.

  “Watson dashed down the hall”: MacKenzie, Alexander Graham Bell, p. 115.

  Bell’s first public speech about the telephone: Bell, “Researches in Telephony,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, May 10, 1876.

  Scholars normally describe: See, e.g., Karl L. Wildes and Nilo A. Lindren, A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882–1982 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), p. 25.

  a far more primitive apparatus: AGB to his parents, May 12, 1876.

  “The meeting at the Academy”: Ibid.

  “I do not know that I can recall them”: Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, Int. 118, p. 85.

  Instead, he switched his focus: AGB, Laboratory Notebook, 1875–1876, pp. 81–83.

  a “magneto-electric” transmitter: Bruce, Bell, p. 185.

  Bernard Finn: See Bernard Finn, “Alexander Graham Bell’s Experiments with the Variable-Resistance Transmitter,” Smithsonian Journal of History, vol. 1, no. 4 (1966), pp. 1–16.

  Bell notes that it is difficult to hear: AGB, Laboratory Notebook, 1875–1876, pp. 12–13.

  including most notably Thomas Edison: See Thomas A. Edison, “Improvement in Speaking-Telegraphs,” U.S. Patent 203,015, filed August 28, 1877; issued April 30, 1878. It is one of the great ironies of the history of the telephone that Bell’s rival, Thomas Edison, with his invention of the carbon-button transmitter, finally perfected a commercially viable telephone design. This fact would play a large role in the final settlement of the Dowd suit between Bell Telephone and Western Union in November 1879.

  “Upon the variable-resistance transmitter”: Bruce, Bell, p. 185.

  MIT Archives: Minutes of the May 25, 1876, meeting at MIT, “The 197th meeting of the Society of Arts,” available courtesy of the MIT Archives, Cambridge, MA.

  the Boston Transcript: Boston Transcript, May 31, 1876, courtesy of the MIT Archives, Cambridge, MA.

  “at last found the solution”: AGB to Alexander Melville Bell, March 10, 1876.

  15 : PARTY LINE

  Grand Villa Hotel: AGB to Mabel Hubbard, June 21, 1876.

  More than
30, 000 exhibitors: For a concise overview of the exhibit, see, e.g., “Progress Made Visible: The Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876,” Special Collections Department, University of Delaware Library. Available online at http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/fairs/cent.htm.

  “I really wish you could be here”: AGB to Mabel Hubbard, June 21, 1876.

  Some thirty-seven nations: An in-depth review is available in Robert C. Post, ed., 1876: A Centennial Exhibition (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1976).