Title: The Telephone Switchboard Connected the Country | StateTech Magazine
Headings: The Telephone Switchboard Connected the Country
Hardware
The Telephone Switchboard Connected the Country
Without the switchboard system, telephones would have been next to useless.
HOW Did the Telephone Switchboard Come About?
WHAT Was the First Telephone Switchboard Like?
WHERE Is the Telephone Switchboard Now?

Content: While many of the switchboards were owned by private companies — initially Bell and then eventually companies like AT&T — state governments oversaw the resource to ensure it reached all citizens effectively. HOW Did the Telephone Switchboard Come About? Alexander Graham Bell unveiled the first telephone in 1876, a wondrous device that converted sound waves into an electric signal. While the first telephone was a remarkable breakthrough, its use was limited, and so the telegraph — a system that transmitted electrical signals via wire between telegraph stations through a code of dots and dashes — remained popular. That is, until Thomas Edison and a team of scientists improved on the device, inventing what they deemed the " carbon button transmitter ," which carried sound over longer distances, making the device commercially viable. Even still, the first telephones had limited use. They were bought in pairs and could connect only with each other, according to PBS. For this reason, manual central switchboard exchanges came onto the scene. WHAT Was the First Telephone Switchboard Like? The first-ever manual switchboard, constructed from “ carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire ” debuted in New Haven, Conn., in 1878.