Title: Modern Communication: A History of the Telephone | Ancestral Findings
Headings: Modern Communication: A History of the Telephone
Modern Communication: A History of the Telephone
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Content: Here’s how the telephone was adopted by cities and gradually made its way into households as a regular part of daily living for most Americans. Until the telegram was invented in the mid-1800’s, letters, which often took weeks or months to arrive at their destination, were the only way to communicate with people over long distances. It was this way for all of human history since the invention of writing up until that time. A couple of decades later, Alexander Graham Bell and other inventors were working on an improvement to the telegraph in the form of the telephone. While more than one inventor claimed to be the first to invent the telephone, Bell was the first to patent it, so he generally gets the credit for it in history. The patent was granted in March of 1876 and became the master patent, upon which all additional patents for improvements on the telephone followed. The telephone switch was invented just a few weeks after the telephone, and the patent was granted to Tivadar Puskas, a Hungarian inventor. The telephone switch allowed telephone exchanges to be formed, which led to the invention of telephone networks. President Rutherford B. Hayes installed the first telephone in the White House in 1879. It was the first use of a telephone in a residence.