History of the Telephone (Radio Edit)

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1:41Ahoy hoy and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner and I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today it is our 150th episode and so we are picking up the receiver and dialing back exactly 150 years to learn all about the invention of the telephone. And to help us with this special anniversary episode, we have two very special callers on the line. In History Corner, he's Professor of History at the University of Aberystwyth and he's an expert on the history and culture of Victorian science. You may have read one of his wonderful books, including How the Victorians Took Us to the Moon, and you'll remember him from our episode on vital electricity.

2:18It's Professor Yuan Morris. Welcome back, Yuan. It's a pleasure to be here again, Greg. Delighted to have you back. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award-winning comedian, writer, actor and podcaster. You may have seen her hilarious stand-up shows or on the TV, on Last One Laughing Island, QI, The Mash Report, Live at the Apollo. Maybe you've heard her Radio 4 show, Too Long, Didn't Read. But you'll certainly remember her from one of our many past episodes, including the history of general elections. And Julie Dobini, it is the wonderful Catherine Bohart. Hi, I'm so happy to be back. I feel like it's so nice if you do a list of my credits, but here I'm just a history nerd.

2:50I'm like, teach me something, I'm so excited. Science, you say? Science? Because I did study history, but pretty much every place I could chose to study social history. And so I'm out of my depth. But I'm excited. I'm guessing you own a telephone, Catherine. I mean, you know, we all have to, right, in the modern world? Yes. And I'm not sure I am one of those people who are like, if I didn't have to, I wouldn't. I think I'm a bit like, it's my special friend. Me and my special friend. Do you know anything about its invention, its early history? I mean, I've heard the words Alexander Graham Bell.

3:21Sure. And you'll hear them again. Yes. You know, I watch a lot of period dramas. I've seen a lot of calling an operator. And yeah, I have some sense of that, but I don't have any sense of the science of it. I don't know how that worked. I'm assuming tin cans and string. Is that right? So, what do you know?

3:45This is the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our loving listener, might know about today's subject. And like Catherine, you know what a phone is. But what about the phone's early history and invention? Maybe you've heard of Alexander Graham Bell, like Catherine had. Maybe you've seen period movies, where people are speaking to complicated-looking contraptions and asking to speak to the operator. But was Bell really the first inventor? How did people react to this novel communication technology? and what does it mean to get your wires crossed? Let's find out.

4:14Right, Catherine, our big anniversary year was 1876, at least for our purposes. OK. So we're going to rewind to before the telephone and get you up to speed on what came before. So how do you think people had previously communicated across long distances before the telephone? And of course, I'm going to discount sending post because that feels too easy. So presumably Morse code was a way of communicating over long distances, is that? Pigeons. Good, yeah. Pigeons were always pretty good, weren't they? Yeah, send a pigeon in the post. Yes. Is that kind of post? Yearning, I assume. Yeah, you're from afar.

4:50That one picked up from that vibe-wise, yeah. Like looking out windows. See, right. That's what I'm assuming. Right, sort of some Wuthering Heights energy. Yeah. Yeah. Sighing in a window seat. Did that not convey your message afar? I mean, sure. I mean, if you're a great romantic, maybe it did. Yeah, I think I am. put your heartbreak into the ether and hope that they heard you. How did people communicate over long distances before we're into electricity? The real answer is the electric telegraph. Beyond that, really, information travels essentially as fast as you can. You can send a letter at exactly the same speed that you could go if you went by horse carriage.

5:30It would have taken weeks for news to reach, months from Australia, weeks from Central Europe or America. Wow. Yeah, and so you're on, obviously, the telegraph machine. That is the crucial world-changing technology, isn't it? Yeah. From the beginning of the 19th century, people start trying to figure out, look, we can do all sorts of interesting, spectacular things with electricity, shocks, sparks, I mean, all sorts of stuff. If you can get that to happen at a distance, then you have some kind of way of communication. And that's what people were trying to do. In 1837, in the UK and London, Charles Wheatstone and William Fogel Cook take out what's the first patent for an electromagnetic telegraph, basically a gizmo that allows you to send information at a distance.

6:18pretty much at around by the same time, the side of the Atlantic. Samuel Morse invents his version of Telegraph. And in connection with that, he invented the Morse code, that kind of system of dots and dashes that translates into letters of the alphabet and allows you to send information that way. So by the end of the 40s, being the 50s, Telegraph lines proliferating across the UK, across Europe, across North America, typically following the railway lines. It's largely a kind of commercial tool conveying information about all sorts of commercial stuff. Yeah, it's just the old war stuff. That's kind of boring, man.

6:58Basically as quickly as possible. Where's the gossip telegraph? That's my question. Well, there's a chap called Mr Reuters who set up a news agency because he realised, hang on a second, I can make some money on this. OK, great. Really? Yeah. I don't think of Reuters as my gossip rag anymore. Sure. But maybe I'll start, Tim. It's not quite gossip stuff.

7:19Trying to get information more and more quickly. I mean, that's the telegraphic world of the 1860s, 1870s. That's where the telephone comes in. And that's where we meet Alexander Graham Bell, who you mentioned. Catherine, do you know where he was born? Do you know which country he was born in? No. I mean, Bell to me feels British, but maybe that's not true. I don't know. British is correct, but it's not England. Oh, is he a Scot? He is. Yeah, he's born in Scotland. He's born in Edinburgh in 1847. Yohan, his family are interested in speech and sound because his mother is deaf. And so he's interested in this sound technology for communication purposes.

7:57Yes, I mean, his mother is deaf. He comes, weirdly, from a family of Ilocutionists, people who teach you how to speak properly. That's the Bell background. His father, if I remember rightly, develops a kind of sign language that allows him to communicate with his wife. So Bell comes from a background that cares about speech, communication, conveying things in new ways. They go over to Canada and the States. Bell is a musician. He works as an percussionist. He works with deaf people, communicating to the deaf. Amongst other people, he teaches... He teaches a young lady. That's the point where I forget the name.

8:47Mabel, yes. Mabel, Mabel. A young lady called Mabel, who's the daughter of a chap called Gardner Hubbard. It's a good name, isn't it? Gardner Hubbard. Gardner Hubbard. Goodness me. And Mabel is deaf. And lo and behold, Belle marries her. Sort of problematic marriage klaxon time, I think, because... Yeah. Not the sort of thing that we'd be allowed to do. Yes, sorry, we've invested in that. This series, we've spent some money. Good for you. I'm surprised. It took this long. Honestly, everything I know about history says you should have really been ready to go. He did wait till she was after 18, which on this show is actually good.

9:18Pretty rare. I mean, I know it's a low bar, but you know. It is. I mean, late teens, always better than early teens. I can't help but fail. So he had a deaf mother, deaf wife. He's quite a complicated, controversial character in the deaf community today because later on in life he argues against sign language. He's not a great hero, but we don't have time to talk about that so much. So I'll just sort of move on and say telegraphy is a sort of ancient Greek modern compound word meaning faraway writing, tele, faraway, graphy, writing. Telephony is faraway sound. Is that what the new big exciting question mark is for Alexander Graham Bell?

9:52How do you get sound across a long distance? Yes, I mean, I think that's it. Exactly. There isn't really a very good way of doing that. Shouting. Hello. I love yearning. Yearning, I think it's great. What about yearning or screaming? Boys! Yearning had limited market value, I think, probably. Disagree! Okay, this is going on with the BBC. It's a channel of yearning. All right. There were things like the Enchanted Liar, L-Y-R-E, not the lying sort, invented by Charles Wheatstone, a telegraph chap, rab of 1860, Philip Rice, invents what he calls a telephone. So he invents the word telephone. He invented the word telephone and he invented an instrument that could electrically transmit sound over a distance, but not voice.

10:44Is Rice getting like muffled sound even from speaking of voice? Is he getting like you're in a tunnel on a train noise? Is he getting... Just getting buzz. So you're not putting your phone in Rice yet? Hello, hello, hello, anyone? No? I liked it. Two other big inventors we should mention. Have you ever heard of Elisha Gray or Antonio Meucci? No, but I'm hopeful that Elisha has a chance of being a woman. No. No. Okay. I was like, for a second, I was like, is it just Elisha? Is that basically what you're saying to me? Okay, no, I haven't heard of either of those other men. They are the two big names, I think, that we can put up as co - or rival inventors of the telephone, alongside Bell.

11:25Rival inventors, I think, very much. Certainly from their individual... Well, they're not collaborative. They're not allies. They're not collaborating. Rivals, yeah. Absolutely not. All three are rivals? Yeah. Okay, so say their names to me again. So Antonio Meucci is an Italian who I think moves to the States, I think. Yes, I mean, he moves to the States. He invents what he calls the teletrophone. Ah, beautiful. Teletrophone. Exactly. And takes out a patent in 1871, or a caveat for a patent. Let us just say a kind of promissory note. I haven't quite got there yet, but I'm laying dibs on this invention.

12:03Placeholder. I'm working on this. When it emerges. Looking at accounts of Mochi's invention, Canada, some things that a telephone can do, but there are weird aspects as well. I mean, for example, according to Mochi, users have to be insulated. They have to stand on glass stools. Oh, totally reasonable expectations. I mean, everybody has glass stools lying around, after all. What level of simultaneousness is this occurring within the three of them? This is 1871, so this is... This is all pretty close. He's the first to file in America a patent that we might say is telephonic. Fair? Yes. But is it his patent or is it him going, just hang the hang fire again, I'm totally going to get the patent?

12:49It is a caveat. Well, mind you, a lot of what's going on is kind of hang your fire. And also, he's gutted, Mauchi, he's not made of money, this guy. He can't afford to keep the patent. It's another$10, isn't it? Yes, I mean, I think the caveat lasts a few years and then you have to put your money down to keep it going. Yeah, it's$10. Mircea doesn't have$10, so the caveat lapses. You have to put credit on your phone. Yeah, you've got to. That's crazy. Pay monthly on your patent. So in the meantime, Elisha Gray. Gray is somebody who's made his money and is making his money. out of developing new kind of variations, new improvements on telegraph technology.

13:32He patents what's called a harmonic telegraph and a sound telegraph. So, yeah. What year is that? 1874. 1874. So, yes. And then in 1876, Bell goes, well, bing, essentially, and takes his stuff to the patent office and he gets his caveat on the patent to say, look, I can do this thing. This is the famous case, right? Because technically, Grey's the first one through the door. So Grey arrived first at the patent office, but what he submitted was a patent caveat, so not the full patent. An hour or so later, Bell turned up, or rather Bell's lawyers turned up, and they submitted the full thing, the full patent application.

14:17So Bell and Grey file on the same day, but Bell is awarded the patent.

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16:59Up to this point, I just want to say we've had telephone, we've had teleautograph, we've had teletrofono, we've had harmonic telegraph. They're lovely words for this new technology. Catherine, given your creativity, if I had to ask you to rebrand the phone with a new name, what would you redub the technology of a phone as? Man's best friend. And a little helper. Oh, charming. Yeah. So the legal battle literally went down to the wire. Grey didn't take that lightly. He filed legal actions. He tried to argue his case, but ultimately Bell was found to be the official winner. Whether he was a moral victor, Catherine, I'll leave up to you.

17:37I think the lesson here is that boys should learn to work together. That's my lesson is that actually they could have probably come up with it together earlier if they put their little brains together, but they decided to make it a competition as they must. And look what happened. We do know that Alexander Graham Bell does make the very first official telephone call. He demonstrates this by calling his assistant. Oh, he doesn't call Grey to be like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Is that what you would do? That's in my head what their vibe is. OK. But OK, so he calls his assistant. He does, yes. Where is his assistant?

18:13Well, not that far away. The assistant is in the next room. Oh, for goodness sake. And the first known telephone message is, Mr Watson, come here. I need you. I want you, isn't it? I want you. I want you, yes. I feel that's quite heated rivalry. I want you, I need you. Yeah. Also, Watts with Watson's always getting relegated to second. Yes. You always need a Mr. Watson as your assistant. I want you. I want you. That is romantic. We finally got to yearning. Electromagnetic yearning. Yeah. At last. Yuan, given that Bell could easily have just shouted into the next room, it hasn't really proved that this technology is effective over distance.

18:55It's proved that it's effective over 10 metres. So were people initially bedazzled by this invention or were they a bit like, well, that's just a parlour trick? If it's possible to be simultaneously bedazzled and unimpressed, then by and large people are bedazzled and unimpressed. On the one hand, wow. The other part is, what do we do with this? This doesn't, for example, solve the problem of being able to send even more information even more quickly than telegraph lines. because voices aren't actually that efficient as means of quick communication. I mean, all those dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, is a lot quicker, a lot more efficient than saying, Mr Watson, I want to be...

19:41Come here, I need you. That's their issue. They're like, oh, great, so now we have to listen to you yap on. Is this what we just want to get to the information? I don't know, because WhatsApp voice messages, they're basically mini-podcasts now. I've got friends who leave five-minute messages. It's like, come on, just send a text. This is such a male reaction to the opportunity to chat. I'm like, what are you talking about? How nice. OK, so they just think inefficient. It's not quite clear what this amazing technological novelty is for. There are technical problems, right? Buzzy interference, noisy.

20:14There's an issue of crossed wires, which is quite a literal thing. The wires get crossed. Yes, literally. Literally. If wires brush up against each other. So if two wires touch each other. then the messages might get confused, go in different directions. Reception with early telephones really isn't that good. It's buzzy, it's crackly. There are problems of being able to discriminate noise from the background. There is the whole business of you talking to the operator and then the operator putting you through. There's also the party line, isn't there? Yes. So a shared phone line. Though, mind you, party lines lasted for quite a long time.

20:54I can remember as a child in the 1970s. Yeah. Sorry, what is a party line? We're on a party line. You share the line with some of your neighbours. So if they're on the phone, you can't be on the phone. Can you hear what they're saying? Yeah. Bring it back. Bring it back. I was going to ask gently, Catherine, would you be interested in eavesdropping? And your reaction tells me perhaps. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mind. Bring it back. Are you joking? You can bring it back. That's fantastic. Why would anyone... Does anyone ever get off the phone? I'd be like, bring my meals to me. Who needs podcasts?

21:27I'm just listening in to the neighbours. Marriott number nine is, I'm making another call. From 1878, this is a brand new invention, the switchboard. Why is this important? As more and more people get phones, as more and more people are on the network, then connecting people gets more difficult, more important, more complicated. So switchboards are a way of, to a degree, automating the business of taking somebody's end and plugging it into somebody else's socket. Operating offices switchboards are entirely staffed by women. Before they started employing young women as telephone operators, they did try young men.

22:13After all, that was the history. The telegraph operators from the mid-1840s had typically been young men and they were typically a pretty raucous crew. And that kind of telegraph culture didn't really seem to work in the telephone exchange. Shocking. But women are, you'll be astonished to know, docile, well-mannered. They don't misbehave. They don't gossip. They don't do anything. They don't notice. This is a track. What are you doing then? They just sit there and they're obedient. They do as they're told. They're trusted, which is quite a rare thing in the 19th century for women to be given this level of trust in a commercial operation, actually.

22:58Yes, I'm not saying this is an important new kind of employment for middle-class young women. Yeah, it's huge. This is an independent job, something that allows degrees of financial independence and feeds into that kind of late Victorian, wow, technology of the future. I mean, it makes women like that part of that kind of technological culture. And they get a charming nickname. Do you know what the nickname is? Call Girls. I want a better name. You're not far off. That's slightly inappropriate, probably. The Hello Girls. Hello Girls. Yeah. I love that. That's from the 1880s. They're the Hello Girls.

23:36And initially you'd just say, can you just put my friend Jim on? And they'd be like, sure. And then obviously after a while, there's too many gems. And then they have to start asking you for actual details of the number. And the spread of the phone is really interesting. It spreads very quickly in America. So you get a very quick uptake in the States. It's really sort of popular in the cities. By 1882, there's a telephone for every 200 people in Chicago, which is amazing. In London, it's every 3000 people. Now, I said the hello girls, which obviously is a charming thing. Do you know where the word hello comes from?

24:08No. No. So it's the official telephone greeting. Okay. And it's not the one that Alexander Graham Bell wanted. Okay. Do you know what he wanted? No. I said at the beginning of the show. Ahoy, hoy. Yeah. Are you joking? He wanted... What if you're in a bad mood? Ahoy, hoy. I'm very angry. Ahoy, hoy. No, what are you talking about? Yeah, he wanted a hoy, hoy. And what was hello? His reaction when he heard he didn't get it. Hell. Oh. That's great. Thank you. That's really good. So where did hello come from? He was a hoi hoi. What a weird, rich boy. Ewan, why do we say hello on the telephone? Because it's one of the most popular words on the planet.

24:53I mean, like a hoi hoi. It's distinct. Hello. It's a word that hopefully is going to kind of cut through. It's Thomas Edison's idea, if I remember right. It's Edison who suggests that hello. would certainly be better than a hoi-hoi as a form of greeting when you're communicating. But they're both hailing words, aren't they? A hoi-hoi is what you say to a sailor when you're hailing them. Yeah, it feels very both. And in America, hello was a hailing word. Hello! Yes, but in the UK, hello was a phrase of surprise. If I bumped into you on holiday, if the two of us were in the same cafe in Italy, we'd be like, hello, what are you doing here?