About

By the late 19th century, numerous innovators such as Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, and Charles Bourseul had conceptualized two-way voice communication. Alexander Graham Bell, however, obtained the first patent on March 7, 1876, for an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically,” thereby securing the legal rights to the telephone’s development. Ironically, Elisha Gray filed a patent for a telephone several hours after Bell. As the patents shared similarities, the conflict was brought to court, and Bell won the case. Several days after receiving the patent, Bell and his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, made their first successfully transmitted message using a crude liquid transmitter, in which Watson heard Bell exclaim, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you!” On October 9, 1876, Bell and Watson talked to each other over a two-mile wire stretched between Cambridge and Boston. In 1877, with partners, Bell formed the Bell Telephone Company.