The Telephone

The telephone has come along way since Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. Doing my own research I have found that Alexander Graham Bell may not have actually been the first to invent it. Antonio Meucci has also been recognized by the U.S. House of Representatives for his contributory work on the telephone and in Germany,Johann Philipp Reis is seen as a leading telephone pioneer who stopped only just short of a successful device. But becuase Alexander Graham bell was the first to patent the telephone, as an "apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically". So it seems the modern phone, we have today, is the work of many.

I found the following timeline, which is a brief history of the development of the telephone, in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_telephone ):

• 1667: Robert Hooke invented a string telephone that conveyed sounds over an extended wire by mechanical vibrations.
• 1753: Charles Morrison proposes the idea that electricity can be used to transmit messages, by using different wires for each letter.
• 1844: Innocenzo Manzetti first mooted the idea of a “speaking telegraph” (telephone).
• 1854: Charles Bourseul writes a memorandum on the principles of the telephone. (See the article: "Transmission électrique de la parole", L'Illustration, Paris, 26 August 1854.)
• 1854: Antonio Meucci demonstrates an electric voice-operated device in New York; it is not clear what kind of device he demonstrated.
• 1861: Philipp Reis constructs the first speech-transmitting telephone
• December 28, 1871: Antonio Meucci files a patent caveat No. 3353 at the U.S. Patent Office for a device he named "Sound Telegraph".
• 1872: Elisha Gray establishes Western Electric Manufacturing Company.
• July 1, 1875: Bell uses a bi-directional "gallows" telephone that was able to transmit "voicelike sounds", but not clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver were identical membrane electromagnet instruments.
• 1875: Thomas Edison experiments with acoustic telegraphy and in November builds an electro-dynamic receiver, but does not exploit it.
• 1875: Hungarian Tivadar Puskas (the inventor of telephone exchange) arrived in the USA.
• April 6, 1875: Bell's U.S. Patent 161,739 "Transmitters and Receivers for Electric Telegraphs" is granted. This uses multiple vibrating steel reeds in make-break circuits, and the concept of multiplexed frequencies.
• January 20, 1876: Bell signs and notarizes his patent application for the telephone.
• February 11, 1876: Elisha Gray designs a liquid transmitter for use with a telephone, but does not build one.
• March 7, 1876: Bell's U.S. patent No. 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
• March 10, 1876: Bell transmits the sentence: "Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!" using a liquid transmitter and an electromagnetic receiver.
• January 30, 1877: Bell's U.S. patent No. 186,787 is granted for an electromagnetic telephone using permanent magnets, iron diaphragms, and a call bell.
• April 27, 1877: Edison files for a patent on a carbon (graphite) transmitter. Patent No. 474,230 was granted on May 3, 1892, after a 15-year delay because of litigation. Edison was granted patent No. 222,390 for a carbon granules transmitter in 1879.
• 1877: First long-distance telephone line.
• 1915: First U.S. coast-to-coast long-distance telephone call, ceremoniously inaugurated by A.G. Bell in New York City and his former assistant Thomas Augustus Watson in San Francisco, California.

Looking at this timeline I can't help but feel that it is Robert Hooke who should be credited with how we came to have the modern phones we use today and not Alexander Graham Bell as if it were not for Robert Hooke inventing the string telephone in 1667 then Alexander Graham Bell may not have been awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876.

I also found, on Wikipedia, a timeline of the telephone, which you can find here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_telephone - It shows from 1884 right up to 2010 and tells of the first phone to the iPhone.

The following images show how the look of the phone changed from the original till now:


This phone is similar to one I remember from my own childhood as it was on the wall of a house we lived in when my dad was a dam keeper and he use to use it to ring through to the power station.

 And who wouldn't remember this phone?

The phone most of us have in our house holds today if we are still use a landline phone.

And just for fun, the following image is one that has been on Facebook showing a Cellular family potraiat, of a few generations: