On This Day: Alexander Graham Bell Patents Telephone

The U.S. government granted Bell a patent on March 7, 1876 for “an apparatus to transmit vocal and other sounds telegraphically,” now known as the telephone, according to the Lemelson-MIT Program.

Bell, whose mother was nearly deaf, had always been interested in sound and speech. His father developed the first phonetic alphabet.

Young Alexander experimented with sound even as a boy, obtaining a human inner ear from a medical school to observe how sound waves vibrated the bones.

Bell eventually created a “multiple telegraph” that reproduced sound waves using an undulating current transmitted over a wire.

The first successful trial of the device came three days after Bell received his patent. He asked his assistant, “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you,” in a now famous request recorded in his March 10, 1876, lab notebook entry, posted on the Library of Congress Web site.

A recent book by science journalist Seth Shulman, “The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret,” presents evidence that Bell stole the telephone patent from rival inventor Elisha Gray. Some question the claim, including one Bell biographer who “disputes it with a ferocity bordering on apoplexy,” reports The Washington Post. Still, Shulman’s research has inspired historians to revisit the debate.

Elisha Gray filed a caveat, a preliminary step to reserve the right for a patent, which described his invention “for transmitting vocal sounds telegraphically” on Feb. 14, 1876. Just two hours before, Bell had applied for an actual patent on a very similar invention, according to Oberlin College in Ohio. Gray went on to found the Western Electric Manufacturing Company, parent firm of the Western Electric Company. He eventually retired to continue his research and teach at Oberlin College.

But in an interview with Scientific American, Shulman did gave Bell plenty of credit. "I mean, he was an amazing guy; even if he did plagiarize the telephone, he also did a lot of amazing things and was a real visionary and really got the idea of the telephone right from the start," said Shulman.

But neither Bell nor Elisha Gray was the first inventor to come up with the idea of the telephone, according to the Library of Congress. Antonio Meucci, an Italian immigrant, was the first to develop the design of a “talking telegraph,” but due to financial difficulties was not able to follow through on the invention.

“Most of us were brought up on the story of Alexander Graham Bell, the romantic figure of an inventor with dash and charm,” writes the Italian Historical Society of America on a Web page featuring inventor Antonio Meucci. But “history must be rewritten” in order for justice to be done for the Italian immigrant, who only got as far as filing a patent caveat—a notice of intent to take out a patent—for the telephone he invented in 1871, the society says.

In addition to the telephone, Bell worked on hundreds of other projects throughout his life, including designs for airplanes, kites and helicopters, with members of the Aerial Experiment Association. He also patented the “photophone” in 1880, the the Lemelson-MIT Program writes.

He was also an advocate for the education of deaf children. Bell’s support of oral education changed the way deaf children were taught. The inventor also befriended and helped find a teacher for Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind, according to Gallaudet University.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation offers colorful facts about Bell, who lived in Canada for part of his life, including that he originally wanted to answer the phone by saying, “Hoy Hoy!” The greeting we use today, “Hello,” is thanks to Thomas Edison, who suggested the word as a variant of the British expression, “Hallo.” Bell also said, “Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do you will be certain to find something you have never seen before.”