Masters of Space / Morse and the Telegraph; Thompson and the Cable; Bell and the Telephone; Marconi and the Wireless Telegraph; Carty and the Wireless Telephone

by Walter Kellogg Towers

Nothing could appeal more to the genius of Franklin than the telephone, for not only have his countrymen built upon it an electrical system of communication of transcendent magnitude and usefulness, but they have made it into a powerful agency for the advancement of civilization, eliminating barriers to speech, binding together our people into one nation, and now reaching out to the uttermost limits of the earth, with the grand aim of some day bringing together the people of all the nations of the earth into one common brotherhood.

On the tenth day of March, 1876, the telephone art was born, when, over a wire extending between two rooms on the top floor of a building in Boston, Alexander Graham Bell spoke to his associate, Thomas A. Watson, saying: "Mr. Watson, please come here. I want you." These words, then heard by Mr. Watson in the instrument at his ear, constitute the first sentence ever received by the electric telephone. The instrument into which Doctor Bell spoke was a crude apparatus, and the current which it generated was so feeble that, although the line was about a hundred feet in length, the voice heard in the receiver was so faint as to be audible only to such a trained and sensitive ear as that of the young Mr. Watson, and then only when all surrounding noises were excluded.

Following the instructions given by Doctor Bell, Mr. Watson with his own hands had constructed the first telephone instruments and ran the first telephone wire. At that time all the knowledge of the telephone art was possessed exclusively by those two men. There was no experience to guide and no tradition to follow. The founders of the telephone, with remarkable foresight, recognized that success depended upon the highest scientific knowledge and technical skill, and at once organized an experimental and research department. They also sought the aid of university professors eminent for their scientific attainments, although at that time there was no university giving the degree of Electrical Engineer or teaching electrical engineering.

From this small beginning there has been developed the present engineering, experimental and research department which is under my charge. From only two men in 1876 this staff has, in 1915, grown to more than six hundred engineers and scientists, including former professors, post-graduate students, and scientific investigators, graduates of nearly a hundred American colleges and universities, thus emphasizing in a special way the American character of the art. The above number includes only those devoted to experimental and research work and engineering development and standardization, and does not include the very much larger body of engineers engaged in manufacturing and in practical field work throughout the United States. Not even the largest and most powerful government telephone and telegraph administration of Europe has a staff to be compared with this. It is in our great universities that anything like it is to be found, but even here we find that it exceeds in number the entire teaching staff of even our largest technical institutions.

A good idea may spring up in the mind of man anywhere, but as applied to such a complex entity as a telephone system, the countless parts of which cover a continent, no individual unaided can bring the idea to a successful conclusion. A comprehensive and effective engineering and scientific and development organization such as this is necessary, and years of expensive work are required before the idea can be rendered useful to the public.

But, vital as they are to its success, the, telephone art requires more than engineers and scientists. So we find that in the building and operation and maintenance of that vast continental telephone system which bears the name of Bell, in honor of the great inventor, there are at work each day more than 170,000 employees, of which nearly 20,000 are engaged in the manufacture of telephones, switchboards, cables, and all of the thousands and tens of thousands of parts required for the operation of the telephone system of America.

The remaining 150,000 are distributed throughout all of the States of the Union. About 80,000 of these are women, largely telephone operators; 50,000 are linemen, installers, cable splicers, and the like, engaged in the building and maintaining of the continental plant. There are thousands of other employees in the accounting, legal, commercial and other departments. There are 2,100 engineers located in different parts of the country. The majority of these engineers have received technical training in American technical schools, colleges, and universities. This number does not include by any means all of those in the other departments who have received technical or college training.

In view of the technical and scientific nature of the telephone art, an unusually high-grade personnel is required in all departments, and the amount of unskilled labor employed is relatively very small. No other art calls forth in a higher degree those qualities of initiative, judgment, skill, enterprise, and high character which have in all times distinguished the great achievements of America.

In 1876 the telephone plant of the whole world could be carried away in the arms of one man. It consisted of two crude telephones like the one now before you, connected together by a wire of about one hundred feet in length. A piece cut from this wire by Mr. Watson himself is here in this little glass case.

At this time there was no practical telephone transmitter, no hard-drawn copper wire, no transposed and balanced metallic circuits, no multiple telephone switchboard, or telephone switchboard of any kind, no telephone cable that would work satisfactorily; in fact, there were none of the multitude of parts which now constitute the telephone system.