Today in Technology History

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January 25

The first telephone call from one end of the American continent to the other was made 87 years ago, on January 25, 1915.

Telephone was invented in the 1870s by Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922). The first transmission of voice over a wire came in 1876, when Bell called to his assistant -- Thomas Augustus Watson (1854-1934), who was in the next room -- with these words: "Come here, Watson. I need you."

Cities were soon being wired for telephone communication. At first, many of the competing phone networks were incompatible, so subscribers to one phone service often couldn't call subscribers to another service.

Over time, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) began to standardize the phone systems and connect the cities. The AT&T phone network reached Chicago in 1892, and in 1915 it finally reached from coast-to-coast. AT&T held a party to inaugurate the new transcontinental phone system on January 25.

The first voice to travel by phone across the continent was that of 67-year-old Alexander Graham Bell in New York City. At the other end of the line was his former assistant, Watson, in San Francisco. After some preliminary remarks, they re-enacted the first phone transmission of four decades earlier: "Come here, Watson," said Bell, "I need you."

"It would take me a week to get to you this time," Watson answered.

At one point, Bell thought he heard static coming from the phone. In fact, the phone calls across thousands of miles in 1915 were much clearer than Bell's original transmission to the next room; the sound Bell mistook for static was the applause of the audience in California.

Related links:

• Click here to read the 1915 New York Times article describing the transcontinental phone conversation.

• Click here to see Bell's invitation to the historic party.

• Click here to read about the history of AT&T.

 

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