A Physicist, Telephotography, and the Advent of Television

In ‘This Week in History,’ Herbert Hoover addresses a group of news reporters through what one newspaper claimed to be a ‘telephone with eyes.’

Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover listening to a radio receiver in 1925. The following year he conducted the first public long-distance television transmission. US Department of Commerce. Public Domain

Controversy long surrounded Alexander Graham Bell’s patent of the telephone. His patent application reached the U.S. Patent Office on Feb. 14, 1876. That controversy arose due to the fact that an electrical engineer and co-founder of the Western Electric Manufacturing Company, Elisha Gray, submitted his application on the same day―he did not, however, submit it at the same time, or, more importantly, before Bell.

On March 7, 1876, Bell received his patent (U.S. Patent No. 174,465) for “the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically, by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of air accompanying the said vocal or other sound.” Three days later, on March 10, Bell made the first phone call in history. It was to his assistant Thomas Watson, famously stating, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

A Centennial Showing

On May 10, 1876, Philadelphia hosted the Centennial Exhibition, a world’s fair celebrating the country’s 100th anniversary and predominantly the power of American innovations and inventions. The six-month exhibit witnessed approximately 10 million visitors, with about 180,000 on its opening day. The most notable guest was President Ulysses S. Grant who presided over the opening ceremonies. There were 200 buildings erected on the 236-acre lot, including the 35-acre Main Hall, which extended a third of a mile and was the largest building constructed in the United States at the time.