Servant's Hall - Edison and Electricity

Servant's Hall - Edison and Electricity

It is well known that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.  However, many do not know that he was actually in a race in the New York City area with Edison to create something that they both knew was possible... sending voice over wires.

Bell wins the race and patents his invention.  But his phone was barely functional.  The biggest problem was the transmitter.  Users literally had to yell into it to be heard at the other end.

Edison, like he does so often with other people's inventions, knows he can make it better.  So with an associate named Blake they invent a much more sensitive transmitter that allows users to simply talk into the phone.  The pair make a small fortune retrofitting their transmitter onto Bell telephones.  The example here is an 1882 "Blake Transmitter" Bell telephone.

Appleton had the first telephone exchange in the state.  It had eight telephones!  The switchboard was in a downtown drug store (giving it a competitive advantage over the twenty other drugstores in town).

Note that the telephone is on the servants’ side of the house.  Rogers would not have used it, especially for business because it was a "party" line meaning that anyone could listen in on the conversation.  Rather, the phone was intended for servants like Mary Deimer to use.  It allowed them to be more efficient in doing their jobs (for example by calling the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker!).  Henry Rogers doesn’t get a phone in his downtown office for another seven years.