Title: A History of the Telephone
Headings: A Brief History of the Telephone
A Brief History of the Telephone
Content: A History of the Telephone
A Brief History of the Telephone
The telephone was invented in 1876 by Alexander Bell, a British immigrant in Boston, or, at least, it was Bell who installed the world's first commercial telephone service in 1877. Bell's "acoustic telegraph" was first demonstrated at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Western Electric was founded in Cleveland (Ohio) in 1869 by serial inventor Elisha Gray and Enos Barton to manufacture electric components, mainly for the Western Union Telegraph Company. The company relocated to Chicago in 1872 and in 1876 Gray invented his own version of the telephone. In 1877 Thomas Edison developed a better telephone for Western Union. In 1878 Theodore Vail, hired as general manager of the American Bell Telephone Company, filed a lawsuit against Western Union over the patent of the telephone, obtaining Wester Union's technology (the one developed by Edison). From the very beginning Bell realized that it didn't make sense to sell telephones in pairs: one telephone needs to be connected to all other telephones in service. However his very first customers had to purchase a pair of phones and pay someone to physically lay the wires connecting the two homes. In january 1878 a telegraph office manager, George Coy, in New Haven (Connecticut) opened the first commercial telephone exchange with the first telephone "switchboard".