In the 1870s, inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both developed devices that could transmit voice electronically, the telephone. Amazingly, both men finished their designs within hours of one another, and both rushed to the patent office to have their invention verified as the original. Ultimately, it was Bell who arrived first, and is now credited with the invention, although Gray challenged this assertion for quite some time.
By 1876 Bell had devised a method to talk via electricity, which he marketed as the telephone. His invention was much more successful than attempts by other people to create something similar, and he ultimately wound up victorious as the true inventor of the telephone. This was partly due to his previous experience with the telegraph, which was a wire-based electrical system much like the telephone. Bell’s prototype ‘harmonic telegraph’ showed that sounds of different pitch could be sent across a telegraph, providing the basis for his work on the telephone. He uttered the first words by telephone on 10 March 1876 to his assistant Thomas A Watson: “Mr Watson, come here, I want you.”
- How It Works Book of Space