Today our main form of communication is by cell phones. Not necessarily talking on
them but probably texting more likely. Probably five years ago talking on the cell phone was
better than using a landline. Approximately ten years ago, people were using land lines or work
phones to get a hold of each other. This is when people weren’t in contact with each other 24/7.
Many years ago before the millennium, who would have ever thought the telephone would
change society like it has?
Around the 1840s time, there was a form of communication out there called the
telegraph. It was used by deciphering the Morse code that went with it. The downfall to the
telegraph was it could only send one message and receive one message at a time. It got messages
to other people but just not in a quick fashion. After dealing with the telegraph for about thirty to
thirty-five years, Alexander Graham Bell knew he could come up with a device that could carry
multiple messages at once on a single wire. Not only did he have the new thought going through
his mind, but he also knew that he knew information about electricity signals, the nature of
sound, and understanding of music.
Alexander Bell had come up with the invention of the telephone. He turned in his
blueprint plans to the patent office when just hours later Elisha Gray turned in plans also for
inventing the telephone. Bell was granted the invention of the telephone and his patent was
accepted on March 3, 1876. Now that the patent was accepted, Alexander Bell had to get busy
making the first telephone. As almost everything else does in the world, the telephone has a birth
date, March 10, 1876. When the telephone came out, it instantly replaced the telegraph that had
been around for approximately thirty years.
The telephone took off rather quickly that by the end of 1877, there were “three thousand
telephones in service” (Russell, 1998).People liked the idea of being able to send multiple
messages over one piece of wire at one time and not have to decipher the dot dot line Morse code
stuff. As more people started to indulge in the idea of being able to do so, when 1878 rolled
around a manual switching board was put together and set up to be ran by an operator. The
switch board was put together so multiple phones could be hooked up to one exchange to send
messages more clearly and faster. As technology changes, people’s brain start turning to think of
the next invention that could come along to make the process even more simpler. That is when
Almon Strowger decided to come up with an easier type of phone; he invented the early push
button phones in 1891. He did this not only to make the idea of the use of the telephone to seem
more simple but he got tired of operators not answering and hooking up to the person he wanted
to talk to.
The telephone has defiantly changed the social world. This was confirmed when
Alexander Bell was in one room and his partner Thomas A. Watson was in another room in the
same building. Mr. Bell picked up the telephone and said, “Mr. Watson – come here – I want to
see you” (Bellis, 1997). That was the first conversation ever held on the newly invented
telephone and since that conversation, the social life has changed. People are constantly getting
on the phones to call people because they get an instant response instead of waiting for a letter to
come in the mail or deciphering Morse code. As the telephone was starting to slowly expand on
the East coast there was a thought about how can we talk to other people in the country that are
on the West side. That is when a gentleman took the phone to the West coast and invented long
distance telephone calling. That was the best idea ever because now everyone can talk to whom
they wish and it can be over 3,000 miles away. Now that there is long distance calling, there was
a thought about how can we bring the telephone service to the other countries and be in contact
with them. This is when the telephone service got a little into the updated technology world;
wireless systems were used to connect to other countries.
Then the depression hit. The depression was bad for everybody and everything.
Everything was up for grabs and the use of telephone service took a major drop. Then there was
a massive union strike in 1968 that just tore up businesses. It caused the telephone service to
cripple, it forced the management to be split up and it crafted employees. Back in 1877, when
Alexander Bell created the Bell company, in which that was where the telephones were going to
be made and serviced through, in the late 1960s, the company was broken up due to a judge
didn’t like the business. He didn’t mind if it worked in smaller operations but he just did not like
that it was one huge business. This was a downfall for the business because this gave the
employees an opportunity to go work for someone and possibly bring the telephone service down
into the ground.
The attack of Pearl Harbor changed the country; most definitely society. When the attack
on Pearl Harbor hit, this seemed to be the second biggest rush for owning a telephone. The
telephone was used to call men into service consistently. This day seemed like the phone never
stopped ringing at places. Also due to Pearl Harbor, by the end of 1971, there were over onehundred phones in service.
The telephone invention had an impact on history but also on the future. It seems as if the
telephone makes an impact every day. In history, it impacted the way people communicated and
how fast messages were able to be sent and received. It was such a great idea that it killed the
telegraph almost immediately when the telephone came out for public use. It made advancement
through time because almost every household had a phone and that was considered a land line.
The only way a person could get in touch with another person is by calling the land line; there
weren’t cell phones back in 1970 needless to say back in 1870. Then if a person looks at today,
the landline is slowing fading away and cell phones are becoming each individuals personal land
line. The world went from being not being able to contact someone twenty-four / seven to being
able to constantly reach the person that they want.
“For over one-hundred years, telephone service has served as the basic communication
link in this country and the world” (Russell, 1998). Telephone service has definitely changed
how communication is spread today. Alexander Bell had the genius idea of coming up with a
better way to transfer messages. Today we still use the telephone but it’s the cell phone. Almost
everyone has one and it probably gets used more than just when they are at home. It also doesn’t
take a long time for messages to be transferred and coded. Today, instead of there being one
number for the house, there on average is anywhere between 4 to 5 different numbers for one
household because each family member has a different telephone number. I believe the telephone
was a splendid idea.
References
Bellis, M. (1997). The history of the telephone - alexander graham bell .
Retrieved from
http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/telephone.htm
Casson, H. (1910). The history of the telephone. Retrieved from
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Russell, G. R. . (1998). Telephone history. Retrieved from
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