The First Telephone Engineers

It may well have been Alexander Graham Bell’s successful demonstration on March 10, 1876, of what was later claimed to be the world’s first demonstration of the electronic transmission of intelligible speech—enshrined in Bell’s historic call to his assistant: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you”—that set in motion what eventually became a major step forward in communication at distance. However, the history of the invention of the telephone is complex and Bell’s was by no means the only contribution.