welcome to the ancestral findings podcast
the telephone was invented earlier than most people may realize by 1900 it was already
present in some private households let's learn more about this historical invention
the telephone was invented earlier than most people may realize
by 1900 it was already present in some private households the adoption of the use of the
telephone after its invention is interesting the white house had the first household telephone
while the first citywide telephone was in the frontier town of deadwood south dakota 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-1800s
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
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 tibitar 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 slowly other households usually of wealthy people began
to get telephones and could call each other the first households to get telephones were of people
who had dealings with the president then gradually their friends and family began to get telephones
the first town to get city-wide telephone service was deadwood south dakota in march of 1878.
it was on the edge of the american frontier at the time and the town just had one phone that
was made available to the whole town to use it had a line that connected directly to the white house
eventually deadwood had a telephone operator's office
and many of the homes and businesses in town had individual telephones for calling each other
gradually other towns started getting telephone service though it was usually only the big
cities in the beginning deadwood on the frontier remained the exception for the first few decades
of the use of the telephone the adoption of the telephone was gradual and many towns
just had one town phone for a lot of years before getting individual household phones
rural areas of the united states didn't get phone service until after world war ii this
was long after a trans atlantic cable was laid to make international phone calls possible
within just a few decades communication that would have taken months or more for our immigrant
ancestors with their families overseas could take place in real time and the world of communication
was changed forever leading to the mobile phone technology we enjoy all over the world today now
it's a rare person who doesn't own or have access to a telephone
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