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bicentennial Edition, July 4, 1976
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Nation's founding had important role Sn success of Graham Bell's invention
South Central Bell and the Bell System have double reason to celebrate during 1976.
It’s the nation's Bicentennial and also the 100th anniversary of the moment in Boston on March 10,1876, when Alexander Graham Bell accidently spilled acid on his clothing and, in his excitement, called out the first intelligible sentence transmitted by telephone.
“Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." was that historic summons, according to Bell's notebook. Watson wrote in his notebook, however, that the sentence was: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”
Whatever the words were, the significance of the moment was clearly understood by both men.
The nation’s observance of its own founding actually played a significant role in the success of Bell’s invention, for it was at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in June 1876 that the device first attracted public attention and acclaim. Soon, it was to change the way the world Communicated.
The telephone’s first century is being celebrated in a wide-rang-ing series of observances and special events, including:
— Open houses in Gulfport and Biloxi to
over a single wire. The telegraph was big business in those days, and an inventor who improved the service might reap a quick fortune.
Bell persevered, however, and his invention soon captured the public’s attention.
The early years of the telephone company were marked by rapid growth, a number of corporate formations, a long series of patent disputes ultimately decided in Bell’s favor by the U.S. Supreme Court, and continuing financial difficulties.
At the outset, Bell's father-in-law and financial backer, Fardiner G. Hubbard, made a key decision: The new Bell Company would lease, not sell, telephone equipment to the public. This policy, while unpopular with his partners, was vital to the growth and development of the telephone system in America. It meant the “service" instead of equipment.
Another significant development was the hiring of Theodore N. Vail as general manager in 1878. Under Vail’s leadership, the company grew from a struggling, Boston-based firm into a national telephone system.
Despite his successes, Vail’s relationship with the company's directors
technological innovation and development. This organization was incorporated as Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1925.
The Bell System today consists of nearly a
million employes and literally trillions of individual components— all working together to provide the finest telephone service in the world at a reasonable price.
Most of the equipment used throughout the Bell System is made by a subsidiary, Western Electric Co. A second subsidiary, Bell Telephone Laboratories, carries on research to
develop still better technology which is so necessary to keep costs under control. AT&T’s Long Lines Department manages the interstate telecommunications network. Also, with the
local telephone companies, such as South Central Bell, it handles the long distance service that connects across the nation, as well as overseas service.
The Bell System han-
dled more than 4 billiion interstate calls in 1975 and estimates that by the year 2001, about 40 billion interstate calls will be made — almost 10 times as many as last year.
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Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection, Library of Congress
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
First Coast phones in Bay St. Louis
Along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Bell telephone service began in
flexibility to our nationwide, long distance network.
phone, developed to	just plug new systems	we put any new system	demonstrate the abihty
expedite credit transac-	into our communica-	to work, it has to prove	to satisfy a genuine
tions involving stores,	tions network because	itself — that is, it must	need better than any-