The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret (v5) (23 page)

build an early prototype:
Watson,
Exploring Life,
p. 57.

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: O
PERATOR
A
SSISTANCE

paid a fateful visit:
AGB to his parents, October 20, 1874.

tutoring Mabel:
See, e.g., Lilias M. Toward,
Mabel Bell: Alexander’s Silent Partner
(Toronto: Methuen, 1984), pp. 19–20.

scarlet fever:
For a good discussion, see Helen Elmira Waite,
Make a Joyful Sound: The Romance of Mabel Hubbard and Alexander Graham Bell
(Philadelphia: Macrae Smith Co., 1961), pp. 36–49.

146 Brattle Street:
The house burned down long ago, but pictures taken in 1922 have survived in the Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection of Alexander Graham Bell Photographs, LOC. See neg. nos. LC-G9-Z3-126545-AB and LC-G9-Z3-126550-AB.

The well-heeled Sanders family:
Bruce,
Bell,
p. 98.

Gardiner Greene Hubbard:
Fred DeLand,
Dumb No Longer: Romance of the Telephone
(Washington, DC: Volta Bureau, 1908), pp. 124–27.

William Hubbard:
Ibid., p. 124.

first president of the Clarke School:
Ibid.

Gertrude McCurdy Hubbard:
Ibid., p. 125.

to learn Hebrew:
See Toward,
Mabel Bell
, p. xvii.

red velvet wallpaper:
Bruce,
Bell,
p. 126.

Bell gave Hubbard a demonstration:
AGB to Alexander Melville Bell, Eliza Symonds Bell, and Carrie Bell, October 23, 1874.

“I brought the subject”:
Ibid.

From earlier letters home:
See, e.g., AGB to his parents, dated only March 1874. In this letter, Bell writes: “I do not know if I told you that the gentleman who has introduced a Bill into Congress for the purchase of all the telegraph lines by the government on the English model is that father of one of my pupils…. Would it not be well to write to him about the telegraph scheme?”

“I am tonight a happy man”:
AGB to his parents, October 20, 1874.

manufacture of shoes:
W. Bernard Carlson, “The Telephone as Political Instrument: Gardiner Hubbard and the Formation of the Middle Class in America, 1875–1880,” in Michael Thad Allen and Gabrielle Hecht, eds.,
Technologies of
Power
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 25–55.

specialized saws:
See Edwin Jenney, “Machinery for Sawing Staves,” U.S. Patent 7,380, May 21, 1850.

compiled a report:
See “In the Matter of the Postal-Telegraph Bill,” Gardiner G. Hubbard’s presentation before the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, April 22, 1872 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1872).

Atlantic Monthly
:
Gardiner G. Hubbard, “Our Post-Office,”
Atlantic Monthly
(January 1875).

the Hubbard Bill:
See “In the Matter of the Postal-Telegraph Bill,” Gardiner G. Hubbard before the House Committee on Appropriations, April 22, 1872.

it would be run by a consortium:
Ibid.

caused controversy:
For an insightful discussion, see W. Bernard Carlson, “The Telephone as Political Instrument,” in Allen and Hecht, eds.,
Technologies of Power
, pp. 25–55.

“franking” privileges:
See Alvin F. Harlow,
Old Wires and New Waves
(New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1936), p. 336.

1876 presidential election:
For a fuller account, see C. Vann Woodward,
Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Cambridge Gas company:
DeLand,
Dumb No Longer,
p. 124.

Cambridge Railroad Company:
Robert W. Lovett, “The Harvard Branch Railroad, 1849–1855,”
Cambridge Historical Society Proceedings
, vol. 38 (1959–60), pp. 23–50, cited in Carlson, “The Telephone as Political Instrument,” p. 35. As Carlson notes (fn 28), partly as a result of Hubbard’s work to improve the transportation and utilities, the population of Cambridge nearly doubled in the 1850s, boasting some 26,000 residents in 1860.

speculating on wheat:
From an undated reminiscence by Mabel Bell in the files of the Cambridge Historical Commission, as detailed in Carlson, “The Telephone as Political Instrument,” p. 34.

“Mr. Thomas Sanders said”:
AGB to Alexander Melville Bell, Eliza Symonds Bell, and Carrie Bell, October 23, 1874.

Joseph Adams:
Bell,
The Multiple Telegraph
, p. 14.

the three men formed a team:
See Bruce,
Bell
, p. 129.

Pollok & Bailey:
AGB to his parents, February 21, 1875. As Bell wrote of Pollok and Bailey, “They are the most eminent men connected with the Patent Office.”

Hubbard urged Bell:
Gardiner Hubbard to AGB, November 18, 1874. Hubbard wrote, “I called…on Mr. Pollok and after discussing the matter with him, became satisfied that it was very unwise to file the Caveat, as it might do you great injury.”

“It is a neck and neck race”:
AGB to his parents, November 23, 1874.

as big as an upright piano:
Watson,
Exploring Life,
p. 62.

“perfect his telegraph”:
Ibid., p. 63.

would file his first patent:
Bell, U.S. Patent 161,739, filed March 6, 1875; issued April 6, 1875.

Bell’s book-length deposition:
The Bell Telephone: The Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell in the Suit Brought by the United States to Annul the Bell Patents
(cited hereafter as
Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell
).

“Most of the 149 volumes”:
Bruce,
Bell,
p. 501.

a most extraordinary admission:
Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell,
Int. 102, p. 82.

Bell worked out a separate agreement:
Agreement between George Brown, John Gordon Brown, and AGB, December 29, 1875, AGB Family Papers, LOC (Subject File Folder: The Telephone, Brown, George, 1875–1888).

George Brown had left by ship:
South Street Seaport Museum, New York, shipping records for the
Russia,
Cunard Line, cited in A. Edward Evenson,
The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2000), p. 70.

“did not hear from Mr. Brown”:
Bell Telephone Co. et al. v. Peter A. Dowd
, Circuit Court of the U.S., District of Massachusetts, filed September 12, 1878, p. 435.

“Mr. Hubbard, becoming impatient”:
Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell,
Int. 102, p. 82.

Hubbard was present:
MacKenzie,
Alexander Graham Bell
, p. 111.

“It is understood”:
Agreement between George Brown, John Gordon Brown, and AGB, December 29, 1875.

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: C
LEAR
R
ECEPTION

a newspaper article:
“Bell and Helmholtz Meet,”
New York Daily Tribune,

Wednesday, October 4, 1893.

“the danger of Whiggism”:
For an interesting discussion of the implications of Whiggism on the field of chemistry, see Jan Golinski, “Chemistry,” in Roy Porter, ed.
The Cambridge History of Science
, vol. 4:
Science in the Eighteenth Century
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 375–97.

Lord Rayleigh’s classic:
John William Strutt, Baron Rayleigh,
The Theory of Sound
(London: Macmillan & Co., 1877–78).

Manual of Magnetism
:
Daniel Davis, Jr., et al.,
Davis’s Manual of Magnetism
(Boston: Daniel Davis, Jr., 1842).

Wonders of Electricity
:
J. Baile,
Wonders of Electricity
(New York: Scribner Armstrong & Co., 1872). Bell mentions his use of this source in
The Multiple Telegraph,
p. 7.

“Some years hence”:
Bell,
The Multiple Telegraph
, p. 7. See also Bruce,
Bell,
pp. 104–05.

“The search for truth”:
MacKenzie,
Alexander Graham Bell,
p. vii.

“No finer influence”:
Watson,
Exploring Life,
p. 57.

from elocution to table manners:
Ibid., p. 58. As Watson colorfully puts it, “Up to that time, the knife had been the principal implement for eating in my family and among my acquaintances….”

“We accomplished little”:
Ibid., p. 57.

“my faith in the harmonic telegraph”:
Ibid., p. 61.

“never would have continued”:
AGB to Mabel Hubbard Bell, September 9, 1878.

8
: P
ERSON-TO-
P
ERSON

84
became a frequent visitor:
See, e.g., Gertrude Hubbard to AGB, August 20, 1875, in which she writes: “Shall we see you as usual on Sunday afternoon?”

generous helpings of roast beef:
Waite,
Make a Joyful Sound,
p. 85.

Bell’s feelings for Mabel:
For a personal account, see AGB to his parents, June 30, 1875, in which Bell writes, “It is now more than a year ago since I first began to discover that my dear pupil, Mabel Hubbard, was making her way into my heart.”

“did not think him exactly a gentleman”:
Mabel Hubbard Diaries, January 1879.

Mabel’s occasional letters:
Mabel Hubbard to her mother, Vol. 78, available at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, Baddeck, Nova Scotia.

“insisted on taking me to the streetcar”:
Mabel Hubbard to her mother, February 3, 1874. 85
“What do you think”:
Ibid.

Mr. Bell said today:
Mabel Hubbard to her mother, November 19, 1873.

attended a dance party:
See Toward,
Mabel Bell,
p. 22.

“with the greatest ease”:
Gertrude Hubbard to Gardiner Hubbard, February 14, 1874.

started a special journal:
A copy of this journal can be found as Journal by AGB and Melville James Bell, from 1867 to August 26, 1875, LOC (Series: Miscellany;

Folder: Miscellaneous Writing and Copies of Correspondence, 1868–1875).

“I do not know how or why”:
AGB to Gertrude Hubbard, August 1, 1875 (emphasis in the original).

“I value a gentle loving heart”:
Ibid.

a significant breakthrough:
AGB to his parents, June 30, 1875. See also Bruce, >
Bell,
pp. 145–49.

Bell guessed correctly:
Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell,
Int. 68, p. 59.