Elisha Gray and the Telephone: On the Disadvantages of Being an Expert

"In the centennial year of 1876, Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil, attending the Philadelphia Exposition, sauntered up to the booth of young Alexander Graham Bell; he picked up the cone-shaped instrument on display there, and as he placed it to his ear Bell spoke through the transmitter. 'My God, it talks!' exclaimed His Majesty; and from that moment the telephone became the central feature of the Exposition." This is an account of the first demonstration of the telephone as presented by Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager in one of the most highly respected and widely used general American history textbooks (The Growth of the American Republic), known simply as Morison and Commager. Although the place, time, and individuals mentioned are correct, what is alleged to have happened simply did not. Bell's telephone, exhibited only for a few days, never "became the central feature of the Exposition." Yet this version continues to be told and retold at all levels of education. Other text-