Communication Was Changed Forever

Bring bring!!! Bring bring !!! Bring bring!!

“Hello, London calling.”

“Hey, baby, how are you doing? I am in New York now, just landed.”

"Lovely to hear your voice."

Who would have thought a great invention started on Valentine’s Day and is celebrated on March 8?

March is the month of many celebrations and memorable events. One of which I was not aware until recently was that Patent Number 174,465 was awarded on March 7, 1876.

What was this patent for - Alexander Bell’s telephone?

The telephone has always blown my mind, definitely one of those things that makes your head hurt. How you can talk to someone on the other side of the world and get a reply within seconds is nothing short of amazing.

The telephone changed the world forever. There are now more telephones in the world than there are people.

The man credited with inventing the phone didn’t want one in his study. He feared it would distract him from his scientific work. Instead, on his desk was a photograph of his beloved Mabel. Written on the back was "the girl for whom the telephone was invented."

As with many inventions, there was no clear path. Bell’s determined lawyer burst into the patent office. He demanded that his client’s patent for the new telephone be registered immediately.

The lawyer’s urgency was well-founded. Owning the rights to a working phone system could bring great wealth. Others were also racing to create their own versions, so time was crucial.

Two key figures were Antonio Meucci, an Italian immigrant, and Elisha Gray, an American. They both filed a caveat (a preliminary patent) for a similar device. Unfortunately, it was filed after Bell’s patent application.

Patent Number 174,465 was awarded in March. It became the most profitable patent ever. He gave the Bell Telephone Company, later known as AT&T, a monopoly on this technology.

On March 10, just three days later, Bell spoke the first clear sentence over the phone. His crackly voice called his business partner, Thomas Watson, from another room.

'Mr. Watson, come here; I want to see you.’

By shrewdly applying for patents in the UK, his firm, AT&T, would eventually become a corporate giant. Bell spent a lifetime fighting lawsuits. He won all 587 lawsuits against him, including five in the Supreme Court.

At a young age, Bell taught the family’s Skye terrier, Trouve, to growl. By moving its lips, he made it say, “Ow ah oo ga ma ma,” which roughly meant, “How are you, grandmama?”

His father was a top elocutionist. He drew inspiration from George Bernard Shaw's *Pygmalion*. His mother, Eliza, was a pianist who became profoundly deaf. Alexander Graham Bell began his career after his father taught deaf people to speak by sight rather than by speech.

When his family moved to Canada, Bell continued to teach the deaf. He started tutoring a lovely deaf teenager, Mabel. She was the daughter of Gardiner Hubbard, a well-known and prominent lawyer.

His love for sound science drew him to the new field of communications technology. Within a few years, he was talking about electric speech. By 1875, he was transmitting his voice to his colleague.

Mabel's worsening hearing loss prompted him to apply for a telephone with Hubbard's help. A year later, he married the love of his life, Mabel. For the wedding, he gave her a silver telephone pendant and all but ten of his 1,507 shares in his new telephone company. The couple's marriage lasted 45 years, and they had two daughters. She recovered from her deafness, which was temporary and due to scarlet fever.

His invention had made him wealthy, and it helped to fund a lavish lifestyle in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Alexander Bell died in 1922, aged 75, from diabetes complications. He had not long received a patent for the fastest watercraft—the hydrofoil.

A truly remarkable man. After his funeral, every phone in North America was silenced for a minute in his honour.

Apart from his inventions, he was also remembered for what he said and wrote. Two of my favourites are:

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”

"When one door closes, another opens. But often, we focus too much on the closed door. We regret it so much that we miss the new opportunities waiting for us."

The telephone that forever changed the way humans communicate was born in March with Bell's patent. One wonders how it might have turned out if Bell had not gotten to the Patent Office first.

Submitted for Mikeydred’s March unofficial challenge.

Till next time,

Calvin