![Bell System hires 1889 logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Bell_System_hires_1889_logo.PNG)
The Bell Telephone Company, a
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
joint stock company
A joint-stock company is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareholders are ...
, was organized in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
, on July 9, 1877, by
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...
's father-in-law
Gardiner Greene Hubbard
Gardiner Greene Hubbard (August 25, 1822 – December 11, 1897) was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader.
He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Tel ...
, who also helped organize a sister company – the
New England Telephone and Telegraph Company
The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was a very early, short lived company set up to develop the then-new telephone. It should not be confused with the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company that was formed a year later and was one ...
. The Bell Telephone Company was started on the basis of holding "potentially valuable
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
s", principally Bell's master
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
patent #174465. Upon its inception, the Bell Telephone Company was organized with Hubbard as "trustee", although he was additionally its ''de facto'' president, since he also controlled his daughter's shares by
power of attorney
A power of attorney (POA) or letter of attorney is a written authorization to represent or act on another's behalf in private affairs (which may be financial or regarding health and welfare), business, or some other legal matter. The person auth ...
, and with Thomas Sanders, its principal financial backer, as treasurer.
The two companies merged on February 17, 1879, to form two new entities, the National Bell Telephone Company of Boston, and the
International Bell Telephone Company The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) of Brussels, Belgium, was created in 1879 by the Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts, a precursor entity to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), initially to sell imported t ...
, soon after established by Hubbard and which became headquartered in
Brussels, Belgium
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
.
[Huurdeman, Anton A]
''The Worldwide History Of Telecommunications''
Wiley-IEEE, 2003, , , p. 179.[Stephen B. Adams, Orville R. Butler]
''Manufacturing The Future: A History Of Western Electric''
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press
A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
, 1999, p. 49, , . Theodore Vail
Theodore Newton Vail (July 16, 1845 – April 16, 1920) was president of American Telephone & Telegraph between 1885 and 1889, and again from 1907 to 1919. Vail saw telephone service as a public utility and moved to consolidate telephone networks u ...
then took over its operations at that point, becoming a central figure in its rapid growth and commercial success.
The National Bell Telephone Company merged with American Speaking Telephone Company on March 20, 1880, to form the American Bell Telephone Company, also of Boston, Massachusetts. The American Bell Telephone Company evolved into the
American Telephone & Telegraph Corporation
AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T, AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government ...
(AT&T Corporation), at times the world's largest
telephone company
A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunicat ...
.
Predecessor to the Bell Company
![USPTO Telephone Patent No](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/USPTO_Telephone_Patent_No._174465.jpg)
The Bell Patent Association (February 27, 1875 – July 9, 1877, a name later assigned by historians),
[Galambos, Louis]
Theodore N. Vail and the Role of Innovation in the Modern Bell System
''The Business History Review'', Vol. 66, No. 1, High-Technology Industries (Spring, 1992), pp. 95-126. Article Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3117054. was not a corporate entity but a
trusteeship
Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to t ...
and a
partnership
A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments o ...
. It was established verbally in 1874 to be the holders of the patents produced by Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant
Thomas Watson.
Approximately one-third of these interests were at first held by
Gardiner Greene Hubbard
Gardiner Greene Hubbard (August 25, 1822 – December 11, 1897) was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader.
He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Tel ...
, a lawyer and Bell's future father-in-law; Thomas Sanders, the well-to-do leather merchant father of one of Bell's deaf students (and who was the first to enter into an agreement with Bell); and finally by Alexander Graham Bell. Hubbard later registered some of his shares with two other family members. An approximate 10% interest of the patent association was later assigned by its principals to Bell's technical assistant Thomas Watson, in lieu of salary and for his earlier financial support to Bell while they worked together creating their first functional telephones.
The verbal patent association agreement was formalized in a memorandum of agreement on February 27, 1875. The patent association's assets became the foundational assets of the Bell Telephone Company.
Earliest division of Bell Company shares and corporate evolution
![Gardiner Greene Hubbard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Gardiner_Greene_Hubbard.jpg)
At the time of the organization of the Bell Telephone Company as an association (also known as the Bell Company), on July 9, 1877, as a joint stock company in 1877 by Hubbard,
who soon became its trustee and ''de facto'' president, 5,000 shares in total were issued to:
*
Gardiner Greene Hubbard
Gardiner Greene Hubbard (August 25, 1822 – December 11, 1897) was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader.
He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Tel ...
(trustee and president): 1,397 shares, along with
** Gertrude McC. Hubbard (née Mercer, likely Gertrude Mercer McCurdy Hubbard, wife of Gardiner Hubbard): 100 shares
** Charles Eustis Hubbard (the brother or nephew of Gardiner Hubbard):
[Brown, Charles L. (ed.]
The Bell System
in ''Encyclopedia of Telecommunications'', Marcel Dekker, 1991. Retrieved August 13, 2013.[Rippy, J. Fred]
Notes In The Early Telephone Companies of Latin America
The Hispanic American Historical Review, Duke University Press, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1946), pp. 116–118. JSTOR Stable URL
2507711
/ref> 10 shares
* Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...
(inventor and the company's 'Chief Electrician'): 1,497 shares
* Thomas Sanders (financier and treasurer): 1,497 shares
* Thomas Watson (head of operations, and its first full-time employee): 499 shares
The Bell Telephone Company was incorporated in Massachusetts on July 30, 1878, with 4,500 shares of stock. It then merged with the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company
The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was a very early, short lived company set up to develop the then-new telephone. It should not be confused with the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company that was formed a year later and was one ...
(incorporated on February 12, 1878) to form the National Bell Telephone Company (incorporated on March 13, 1879, with 7,280 shares, later increased to 8,500 shares in May 1880). A little over a year later it was reorganized to become the American Bell Telephone Company (incorporated on April 17, 1880, with 73,500 shares, which included 14,000 trustee shares held by National Bell Telephone). American Bell's outstanding stock rose to 258,863 shares by May 1900.
Two days after the company's formation, on July 11, 1877, Bell married Hubbard's daughter Mabel Gardiner Hubbard
Mabel Gardiner Hubbard (November 25, 1857 – January 3, 1923) was an American businesswoman, and the daughter of Boston lawyer Gardiner Green Hubbard. As the wife of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first practical telephone, she took th ...
,[Patten & Bell 1926, p. 17.] and made a wedding gift of 1,487 shares of his allotment to his new wife, keeping only 10 shares for himself. Bell and his wife left not long after for a tour of Europe that lasted over a year, during which time Mabel left her shares with her father under a power of attorney
A power of attorney (POA) or letter of attorney is a written authorization to represent or act on another's behalf in private affairs (which may be financial or regarding health and welfare), business, or some other legal matter. The person auth ...
, allowing him to become the new company's ''de facto'' president.
Both Hubbard's and Sanders' roles in the newly born company were pivotal to its early survival and its eventual growth to become a corporate giant. Hubbard's very early structuring of its telephone service by leasing, instead of selling telephones, was critical to its success. He based his decision on the previous legal work he performed for the Gordon McKay
Gordon McKay (1821–1903) was an American businessman and philanthropist.
Biography
He was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was trained as an engineer, worked on a railroad, and then on the Erie Canal before he purchased a machine shop. ...
Shoe Machinery Company, where its shoe sewing machines were leased, not sold, and royalties also had to be paid to the Gordon McKay Company based on the numbers of shoes produced. Hubbard insisted that leasing was the better option, even if it significantly raised the need for initial capital expenses. Sanders for his part, a wealthy leather merchant, provided most of the financing for both Bell's research and the young company, eventually amounting to expenditures of some $110,000 "before he received any reimbursement" by the sale of his shares.
Not long after the National Bell Telephone Company was established, it required substantial new capital in order to maintain its majority share ownership of its affiliate telephone companies and to provide further funds for expansion of its overall telephone infrastructure. On April 17, 1880, National Bell was split into the American Bell Telephone Company, led by Theodore Vail
Theodore Newton Vail (July 16, 1845 – April 16, 1920) was president of American Telephone & Telegraph between 1885 and 1889, and again from 1907 to 1919. Vail saw telephone service as a public utility and moved to consolidate telephone networks u ...
as general manager, and with the International Bell Telephone Company The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) of Brussels, Belgium, was created in 1879 by the Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts, a precursor entity to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), initially to sell imported t ...
(IBTC) as a holding company for its international subsidiaries. IBTC's first non-North American subsidiary was the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company (BTM), established by Hubbard at Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, , Belgium, in 1882. The Bell System's Bell Telephone Company of Canada subsidiary, wholly owned by the National Bell, had been established two years earlier.
Alexander Graham Bell's ten shares of Bell Telephone Company stock were later converted into a ''single'' share of the American Bell Telephone Company, and still later into ''two'' shares of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. AT&T President Frederick Fish later returned Bell's single American Bell Telephone Company share to him as a memento after it had been converted and canceled.
Of the Bell Company's original shareholders, Thomas Watson resigned his position in 1881 with his shares making him a millionaire, thereafter living a colorful life as a Shakespearean actor and later as a shipyard owner and ship builder—always retaining his friendship with Bell. Thomas Sanders, whose entire personal fortune was virtually depleted during the Bell Telephone's first formative years (until a historic settlement was reached with Bell's fierce competitor Western Union
The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...
on November 10, 1879), quickly sold his Bell shares for almost $1,000,000 but then lost most of his wealth with an investment in a Colorado gold mine. He also remained a confidant of Bell, who later helped ensure the welfare of Sanders' deaf son in his adulthood.
Hubbard was satisfied to leave the head of the Bell Company to another major investor, William Forbes, who was brought into the company as its president and as a member of its board of directors in late 1878. Under Forbes' leadership, a new executive committee was created at its corporate level to reorganize and run the overall company with professional management. The company was also recapitalized, with Vail continuing as its head of operations. After leaving the offices of what became the American Bell Telephone Company, Hubbard created the National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world.
Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...
as its president, with Bell succeeding him the next year.
Ownership of American Bell was transferred to its own subsidiary, American Telephone & Telegraph Company
AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
(AT&T Company) on the second to last day of 1899. AT&T had been incorporated on April 17, 1880, as American Bell's " long lines" division to handle its long-distance telecommunications. On January 1, 1900, AT&T, a publicly traded corporation, owned the major assets of American Bell and thus became the head of the Bell System
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...
. By December 31, 1900, it had 569,901 shares of stock outstanding, which rose to 18,662,275 shares at the close of 1935.
Early promotional success
Alexander Graham Bell's fiancée Mabel Hubbard was the indirect source of the Bell Telephone Company's early commercial success after his creation of the telephone. The U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
in 1876 brought Bell's newly invented telephone international attention. Exhibition judges Emperor Dom Pedro II of the Empire of Brazil
The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and (until 1828) Uruguay. Its government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Dom Pe ...
and the eminent British physicist William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) recommended his device to the Committee of Electrical Awards, which voted Bell the gold medal for Electrical Equipment, helping to propel him to international fame. Bell also won a second gold medal for his additional display at the exposition, Visible Speech —developed earlier by his equally famous father Alexander Melville Bell.
Pivotally, late in the evening moments after the main group of tired judges and newspaper reporters had quickly looked over and derided Bell's telephone display, Emperor Dom Pedro, who was straggling, entered the fair's Education Building where Bell's two displays were located. As the main group started moving on to the next exhibit to be reviewed, Dom Pedro came upon the displays and called out to Bell in his booming voice: "What are you doing here?" The emperor had met Bell before in Boston while visiting schools for the deaf in the United States.[Huurdeman, Anton A]
The Worldwide History of Telecommunications
Wiley-IEEE, 2003, . "....it was around seven o'clock when the 50-person delegation of judges, scientists, reporters and other officials arrived at the Department of Education. Tired and hungry, they hardly looked at the telephone, made some jokes at Bell's expense, and wanted to leave the exhibition quickly when suddenly, Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil from 1840 to 1889, with his wife Empress Theresa and a bevy of courtiers, entered the room. Dom Pedro recognized Bell and exclaimed "Professor Bell, I am delighted to see you again!" The judges at once forgot their tiredness and wondered who this young inventor was who was a friend of an emperor. Dom Pedro had once visited Bell's class of deaf-mutes at Boston University and initiated the first Brazilian school for deaf-mutes in Rio de Janeiro.".... ....The judges stayed the next three hours with Bell. Bell's telephone became the star of the centennial...."[Coon, Horace. ]
American Tel & Tel: the story of a great monopoly
', Ayer Publishing, 1971, p. 24, , . "On a hot Sunday afternoon, June 25th, Sir William Thompson (later Lord Kelvin) and many other distinguished guests inspected the exhibits. Few paid much attention to Bell, tinkering with his crude instruments. At last the party approached his booth. Among them was Dom Pedro de Alcantara, the Emperor of Brazil. He had met Bell a few weeks previously in Boston and spoke to him as an old friend."[Sammartino McPherson, Stephanie & Butler, Tad]
Alexander Graham Bell
Lerner Publications, 2007, p. 28, , . "Dom Pedro had met Alec at a school for the deaf in Boston. When the emperor greeted Alec, the judges took note. They wanted to see what the emperor's friend had invented."[Cardoso, Fernando Henrique]
The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir
PublicAffairs, 2007, p. 11, , . "The centerpiece of the emperor's trip was the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. There, Dom Pedro II sought out a young, relatively obscure teacher at the School of the Deaf named Alexander Graham Bell, with whom he had exchanged letters."[Wheeler, Edgar C]
The Laughed at Him, But He Gave Us the Telephone
Popular Science, Bonnier Corporation, February 1926, Vol. 108, No. 2, p. 21, ISSN 0161-7370.
Startled by the emperor's enthusiastic response to Bell's telephone demonstration—during which the emperor exclaimed "My God! It talks!", the crowd of judges and press members became energized and vied to take turns communicating with Bell over his invention.
Bell, who was then a full-time teacher, had not planned to exhibit at the fair because of his heavy teaching schedule and preparation for his student's examinations. He went to Philadelphia only at the stern insistence of Mabel Hubbard, his then-fiancée and future wife and who was an expert multilingual lip reader, deaf
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an Audiology, audiological condition. In this context it ...
since age five.[ Gray, Charlotte]
Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell
HarperCollins, Toronto, 2006, ,
Mabel had understood Bell's reluctance to go to the exhibition and display his works, so she secretly bought his train ticket to Philadelphia, packed his bag, and then took the unknowing Bell to Boston's train station, where she told her shocked fiancé that he was going on a trip. When Bell started arguing, Mabel turned her sight away from him and became literally deaf to his protests.[Winefield, Richard]
Never the Twain Shall Meet: Bell, Gallaudet, and the Communications Debate
Gallaudet University Press, 1987, pp. 72–77, , .
Worldwide expansion
In 1879 Gardiner Hubbard
Gardiner Greene Hubbard (August 25, 1822 – December 11, 1897) was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader.
He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Telep ...
founded the International Bell Telephone Company The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) of Brussels, Belgium, was created in 1879 by the Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts, a precursor entity to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), initially to sell imported t ...
in order to promote sales of its telephone equipment throughout Europe. During his tour of the continent, the Belgian government offered him the greatest financial incentives to establish his European subsidiary's headquarters in their country.[StowgerNet Museum]
BTMC And ATEA—Antwerp's Twin Telephone Companies
StowgerNet Telephone Museum website. Retrieved 20 August 2010.
The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) shortly evolved into a holding company for its various telephone service and production divisions, with its major manufacturing arm being the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company (BTMC), which was founded in Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, , Belgium, on 26 April 1882. BTMC was created as a joint venture by the International Bell Telephone Company of New York and the Western Electric Company
The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
of Chicago, Illinois. BTMC then established la ''Compagnie Belge du Téléphone Bell'' (''Bell Telephone Company of Belgium'') in the same year as its Belgian operating subsidiary for telephone service, one of several companies that provided such service in the country, the others having evolved principally from telegraph carriers.[Kingsbury, John E]
The Telephone And Telephone Exchanges: Their Invention And Development
Longmans, Green, and Co., New York/London, 1915.
BTMC eventually came under complete ownership by Western Electric, and also established other divisions as national companies across Continental Europe
Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
and Russia. Western Electric was itself later majority owned by the American Bell Telephone Company
The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1877, by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company – the New Englan ...
, returning indirect control of BTMC back to the Bell organization.
Divestiture of most international divisions
At the close of 1899, the American Bell Telephone Company was acquired, for business purposes, by its own subsidiary, the American Telephone & Telegraph Company
AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
(AT&T), which then became the head of the monolithic and monopolistic
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a spec ...
Bell System
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...
.
Significant criticism of AT&T (a monopoly) had emerged in the United States that domestic telephone system rates were higher than they needed to be, and that AT&T was using those revenues to subsidize its European operations. Due to that reason and others, and also due to the U.S. Government's regulatory intervention, AT&T president Walter Gifford divested almost all of its international interests in 1925, with the exceptions of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada (now called Bell Canada
Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in t ...
), and Northern Electric (now called Nortel
Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in Montreal, Quebec, ...
).
In 1925, the European division and its subsidiaries were sold to the International Telephone & Telegraph Company (IT&T, unaffiliated with AT&T) of Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, at the start of that company's meteoric rise in the international telecommunications industry The telecommunications industries within the sector of information and communication technology is made up of all telecommunications/telephone companies and internet service providers and plays a crucial role in the evolution of mobile communication ...
.
Acquisition by AT&T
By 1881, American Bell had acquired a controlling interest in the Western Electric
The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
Company from Western Union
The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...
. Only three years earlier, Western Union had turned down Gardiner Hubbard's offer to sell it all rights to the telephone for US$100,000 (approximately $ in current dollars). In only a few years, Western Union's president would acknowledge that it was a serious business error, one that nearly led to his company later almost being swallowed up by the newly emerging telecommunications giant into which Bell Telephone would shortly evolve. Western Union was saved from demise only by the U.S. Government's anti-monopoly interventions.[Bruce 1990]
A year earlier in 1880 the management of American Bell had created what would become AT&T Long Lines
AT&T Communications, Inc., was a division of the AT&T Corporation that, through 23 subsidiaries, provided interexchange carrier and long-distance calling, long-distance telephone services.
History
AT&T Long Lines
The American Telephone & ...
. The project was the first of its kind to create a nationwide long-distance network with a commercially viable cost-structure. The project was incorporated in New York State
New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...
as a separate company named American Telephone and Telegraph Company on March 3, 1885. Starting from New York City, its long-distance telephone network reached Chicago, Illinois, in 1892, with its multitudes of local exchanges continuing to stretch further and further yearly, eventually creating a continent-wide telephone system.
On December 30, 1899, the assets of American Bell were transferred into its subsidiary American Telephone and Telegraph Company (formerly only the long lines company); this was because corporate laws were very restrictive, and limited capitalization to $10 million, forestalling American Bell's further growth. With this assets transfer on December 30, 1899, AT&T became the parent of both American Bell and the Bell System
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...
.
John Elbridge Hudson
John Elbridge Hudson (August 3, 1839 – October 1, 1900) was a United States, U.S. lawyer, telephone businessman, and president of AT&T from 1889 to 1900.
Early life
Hudson was born in Lynn, Massachusetts to John Hudson and Elizabeth C. (née Hi ...
joined Bell Telephone as counsel in 1880 and served as president from 1889 to 1900.
In 1947, there was a large strike across the US against the company's long hours and low pay by its workers.
In 1984, the US Justice Department forced AT&T to divest its local phone companies.
In 2005, AT&T would later be acquired by one of its former local phone companies SBC Communications
The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell ...
which became the new AT&T.
Memorials to Bell's invention
In 1906 the citizens of the City of Brantford
Brantford (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River (Ontario), Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by County of Brant, Brant County, but is politically separate with ...
, Ontario, Canada and its surrounding area formed the Bell Memorial Association to commemorate the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in July 1874 at his parents’ home, Melville House, near Brantford.[Whitaker, A.J]
''Bell Telephone Memorial''
City of Brantford/Hurley Printing, Brantford, Ontario, 1944.[Osborne, Harold S. (1943]
''Biographical Memoir of Alexander Graham Bell''
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
: Biographical Memoirs, Vol. XXIII, 1847–1922. Presented to the Academy at its 1943 annual meeting. Walter Allward
Walter Seymour Allward, (18 November 1874 – 24 April 1955) was a Canadian monumental sculptor best known for the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. Featuring expressive classical figures within modern compositions, Allward's monuments evoke them ...
's design was the unanimous choice from among 10 submitted models, winning the competition. The memorial was planned to be completed by 1912 but Allward did not finish it until five years later. The Governor General of Canada
The governor general of Canada (french: gouverneure générale du Canada) is the federal viceregal representative of the . The is head of state of Canada and the 14 other Commonwealth realms, but resides in oldest and most populous realm, t ...
, Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire
Victor Christian William Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire (31 May 18686 May 1938), known as Victor Cavendish until 1908, was a British peer and politician who served as Governor General of Canada.
A member of the Cavendish family, he was ed ...
, ceremoniously unveiled the memorial on 24 October 1917.
Allward designed the monument to symbolize the telephone's ability to overcome distances. A series of steps lead to the main section where the allegorical figures of '' Inspiration'' appears over a reclining male figure representing '' Man, the inventor'', and also pointing to the floating figures of ''Knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
'', ''Joy
The word joy refers to the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, and is typically associated with feelings of intense, long lasting happiness.
Dictionary definitions
Dictionary definitions of joy typically include a sense of ...
'', and '' Sorrow'', positioned at the other end of the tableau. At each end of the memorial there are two female figures mounted on granite pedestals representing ''Humanity'', one sending and the other receiving a message.
The Bell Telephone Memorial
The Bell Memorial (also known as the Bell Monument or Telephone Monument) is a memorial designed by Walter Seymour Allward to commemorate the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell at the Bell Homestead National Historic Site, in Br ...
's grandeur has been described as the finest example of Allward's early work, propelling the sculptor to fame. The memorial itself has been used as a central fixture for many civic events and remains an important part of Brantford's history, helping the city of Brantford to style itself as'' 'The Telephone City'.''
The Bell Memorial Association also purchased the Bell family's former farmhouse, Melville House, and its orchard at Tutela Heights, opening it as a museum to the family and to the invention of the telephone. In 1996, it was declared a historic landmark, and is now known as the Bell Homestead National Historic Site
The Bell Homestead National Historic Site, located in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, also known by the name of its principal structure, Melville House, was the first North American home of Professor Alexander Melville Bell and his family, includin ...
.[''Bell Homestead National Historic Site (brochure)'', Brantford, ON: Bell Homestead Society, undated, c. 2009.][Ibbotson, Heather. "A Day Fit For A Queen: Thousands Enjoy Royal Visit To Bell Homestead", '']Brantford Expositor
The ''Brantford Expositor'' is an English language newspaper based in Brantford, Ontario and owned by Postmedia. It provides the readers with coverage of local news, sports and events to the community as well as coverage of provincial, national a ...
'', 30 June 1997.
See also
* American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
* Bell, Alexander Graham
* Bell Telephone Company of Canada, founded in 1880 after its predecessor was sold by Graham Bell's father, Alexander Melville Bell, to the National Bell Telephone Company
* Bell, Mabel Hubbard, wife of Alexander Graham Bell.
* Bell System
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...
, a name and trademark formerly used by AT&T.
* Bell Telephone Memorial
The Bell Memorial (also known as the Bell Monument or Telephone Monument) is a memorial designed by Walter Seymour Allward to commemorate the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell at the Bell Homestead National Historic Site, in Br ...
, a large monument by Walter Allard dedicated to the invention of the telephone
* Hubbard, Gardiner Greene
* International Bell Telephone Company The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) of Brussels, Belgium, was created in 1879 by the Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts, a precursor entity to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), initially to sell imported t ...
, the Bell Telephone Company's European division
* Regional Bell Operating Companies
The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of '' United States v. AT&T'', the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company (later known as AT&T Corp.). On January 8, 1 ...
, which were divested from the Bell System in 1984
* Telephone Cases, the numerous court cases contesting the validity of the Bell patents
* Watson, Thomas Augustus, Bell's assistant
* Western Electric
The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
, co-founded by Bell's early rival Elisha Gray
Elisha Gray (August 2, 1835 – January 21, 1901) was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois. ...
, acquired by the Bell Company's rival Western Union, and finally acquired by the Bell Telephone Company, it became the Bell Company's key manufacturing arm, enabling its rapid expansion across the continent.
References
Footnotes
Citations
Bibliography
* Brooks, John
''Telephone: The First Hundred Years''
Harper & Row, 1976, , .
Bruce, Robert V. ''Bell: Alexander Bell and the Conquest of Solitude''
Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press
The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...
, 1990. .
* Patten, William; Bell, Alexander Melville
''Pioneering The Telephone In Canada''
Montreal: Herald Press, 1926. N.B.: Patten's full name was William Patten, not Gulielmus Patten as credited elsewhere.
* Pizer, Russell A.
''The Tangled Web of Patent #174465''
AuthorHouse, 2009, , .
Further reading
* Tosiello, Rosario. "The Birth and Early Years Of The Bell Telephone System, 1876–1880" (dissertation), Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
, 1971.
* Larned, Larry
Birth of The Blue Bell Telephone Signs: The History of the Blue Bell Telephone Sign as implemented by New England Telephone and Telegraph
BellTelephoneSigns.com website, February 26, 2007. Retrieved January 12, 2010.
* Wu, Tim
''The Master Switch : The Rise and Fall of Information Empires''
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
External links
The Bell Telephone Co. of Buffalo logo
{{Authority control
Alexander Graham Bell
Bell System
AT&T subsidiaries
Telecommunications monopolies
Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States
American companies established in 1877
1877 establishments in Massachusetts
Telecommunications companies established in 1877
American companies disestablished in 1899