The Story of Alexander Graham Bell

From Telegraph to Telephone

Bell’s fantastic invention of the telephone came as a result of his previous endeavors to improve the telegraph. Just like the telephone, the telegraph is a wire-based electrical system. It was also used as a means of communication, but it was limited to receiving and sending one message at a time.

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In the centennial year of 1876, Alexander Graham Bell sent his first telephone message. Here he is 16 years later, surrounded by executives, making the first call between New York and Chicago. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Bell wanted to make it possible to send multiple messages with the telegraph at a time. People have talked about the idea of multiple telegraphs, but no one had been able to come up with anything tangible—until Bell. Bells telegraph was based on the fact that several sound signals could be sent simultaneously if the signals had different pitches.

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