In this next part of our series on the history of the telephone we pick up with Bell's meeting with the director of the Smithsonian Institute, Joseph Henry. Up until March of 1875 Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson continued their work on the harmonic telegraph at the urging of Hubbard and a number of other backers. Bell certainly had plenty of support in his endeavor. In spite of this, in March of 1875 he met with Joseph Henry who was the director of the Smithsonian Institute. Henry listened to what Bell had to say about his idea and gave him some very encouraging words. It was actually Henry's encouragement that gave Bell the confidence he needed to go on with his experiments. Bell then returned home to Watson and they continued their work. Finally, in June of 1875 a device that could transmit speech electrically was about to be completed and tested. Bell had already proven that different tones, when transmitted, would vary the strength of an electric current in a wire. The only thing they needed to make sure this was successful was to build a working transmitter with a membrane that was capable of varying electric currents and a receiver that would reproduce these varying currents in frequencies that were audible to the human ear. On June 2, 1875, Bell had one of this major breakthroughs and discoveries. He discovered, while experimenting with a technique he called his "harmonic telegraph," that he could hear sound over a wire when he heard the sound of a clock spring. Bell's greatest accomplishment wasn't realized until March 10, 1876, when the telephone itself was born and the multiple telegraph was put to rest for good. Bell's demonstration of what this device could do, the ability to talk with electricity, was greater than anything that simply increased the capability of a dot and dash system. Thoughts of a multiple telegraph system were totally destroyed. On March 10, 1876, Bell made a notebook entry that describes this most successful moment with the telephone. He picked up the phone and spoke to his assistant Watson with these famous first words, "Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you" . Bell himself is probably one of the most famous inventors in our history. He was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the son and grandson of people who were very knowledgeable about speech, which is probably part of the reason for his interest in this area. He therefore educated himself to pursue a career in this area. His knowledge of sound not only led him to teach the deaf but also to invent the telephone. His knowledge didn't stop there. Bell's unstoppable curiosity led him to also invent the photophone, which Bell actually believed to be his most important invention. Unlike the telephone, which used electricity, the photophone used light to transmit messages. Little did anyone know at the time that from these humble beginnings of the telephone, an industry would emerge that would become one of the most important in all of civilization. |
