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The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret
A gripping intrigue at the heart of one of the world’s most important inventions. While researching Alexander Graham Bell at MIT’s Dibner Institute, Seth Shulman scrutinized Bell’s journals and within them he found the smoking gun, a hint of deeply buried historical intrigue. Delving further, Shulman unearthed the surprising story behind the invention of the telephone: a tale of romance, corruption, and unchecked ambition. Bell furtively―and illegally―copied part of Elisha Gray’s invention in the race to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued. And afterward, as Bell’s device led to the world’s largest monopoly, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, he hid his invention’s illicit beginnings. In The Telephone Gambit , Shulman challenges the reputation of an icon of invention, rocks the foundation of a corporate behemoth, and offers a probing meditation on how little we know about our own history.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 7, 2008
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318 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
February 15, 2008
I highly recommend this slim and engaging book.
Seth Shulman is a science journalist who was given a chance to spend a year in residence at MIT's Dibner Institute on the history of science.
He went there intending to do a comparison of the lives and work of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. But that was before he stumbled across a page from Bell's research notebook that got him wondering how the emigre Scotsman had suddenly achieved a key breakthrough that allowed him to be heard by his assistant Watson in their famous 1876 experiment.
More specifically, he found that the drawing Bell put in the notebook of a cartoonish head listening by the telephone receiver was an almost exact duplicate of one in a patent application filed by a more experienced inventor, Elisha Gray, who was already famous for his many telegraph inventions.
But it gets better, and by the time he is finished, Shulman has found strong circumstantial evidence that Bell may have stolen Gray's key idea to win his patent, and moreover, that he may have committed this uncharacteristic sin to earn enough money to marry the love of his life, Mabel Hubbard, the privileged daughter of his wealthy benefactor.
Shulman has expanded this into a book by not only laying out his evidence, but by letting the reader join him on his chronological quest for information. This "you are there" approach slows the book down in a couple places, but otherwise is an effective means of involving the reader in his sleuthing.
There is even some evidence that Bell felt terribly guilty about the way he acquired his extroardinarily lucrative patent (it led eventually to the creation of AT&T). After winning one of the most famous patents in history, Bell did almost no further work on the telephone.
Seth Shulman is a science journalist who was given a chance to spend a year in residence at MIT's Dibner Institute on the history of science.
He went there intending to do a comparison of the lives and work of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. But that was before he stumbled across a page from Bell's research notebook that got him wondering how the emigre Scotsman had suddenly achieved a key breakthrough that allowed him to be heard by his assistant Watson in their famous 1876 experiment.
More specifically, he found that the drawing Bell put in the notebook of a cartoonish head listening by the telephone receiver was an almost exact duplicate of one in a patent application filed by a more experienced inventor, Elisha Gray, who was already famous for his many telegraph inventions.
But it gets better, and by the time he is finished, Shulman has found strong circumstantial evidence that Bell may have stolen Gray's key idea to win his patent, and moreover, that he may have committed this uncharacteristic sin to earn enough money to marry the love of his life, Mabel Hubbard, the privileged daughter of his wealthy benefactor.
Shulman has expanded this into a book by not only laying out his evidence, but by letting the reader join him on his chronological quest for information. This "you are there" approach slows the book down in a couple places, but otherwise is an effective means of involving the reader in his sleuthing.
There is even some evidence that Bell felt terribly guilty about the way he acquired his extroardinarily lucrative patent (it led eventually to the creation of AT&T). After winning one of the most famous patents in history, Bell did almost no further work on the telephone.
May 29, 2008
Growing up, we probably all heard how Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and the first words spoken by phone were "Come here, Mr. Watson." This book takes issue with that idea, advancing the theory that Bell stole a key idea from a competitor and in all liklihood wasn't the inventor of the telephone. Like many great inventions or ideas, the idea of the telephone was "in the air" at the time Bell developed his. Probably others had built models that worked to some extent before he did, and he may well have stolen a key idea from someone else. The key issue is the whole concept of how history is made. It's really not as black and white as we sometimes think. The telephone was invented just 130 years ago, and the documentation that exists about it runs to the tens of thousands of pages. And yet, we really don't know for sure. The author's idea is interesting, if not fully persuasive, but it does cast light on how history is like a game of telephone.
March 10, 2011
What if one of the best known inventors stole his idea from someone else? What if it was only uncovered 100 years later by accident? This true story of the discovery of the intrigues behind the invention of the telephone will blow apart the story you've taken for granted since it was first told to you way back when. An amazing tale of historical research that reads like a detective novel. Highly recommended.
July 15, 2022
History needs to be challenged, even when it's an iconic tale. I was fascinated by the concept of this book. That history might not be what we think or what we were told.
The author investigated the invention of the telephone only to find that many men contributed to it's invention, though only one is remembered. Philip Reis, Elisha Gray, Alexander Bell, Thomas Edison and others were working on the same idea. Reid's transmitter worked, but her receiver needed amplification. Gray and Bell both conceptualized the telephone, but Bell's version didn't work without Gray's understanding of variable resistance and liquid transmitters. Gray didn't finish his model before Bell, nor did he create a working prototype before Bell's demonstration at the Centennial Exhibition. One man needed the other, but only Bell was remembered until now. Good presentation of facts and written or recorded evidence that Gray conceptualized the telephone, but Bell used Gray's information to make it a reality.
The author investigated the invention of the telephone only to find that many men contributed to it's invention, though only one is remembered. Philip Reis, Elisha Gray, Alexander Bell, Thomas Edison and others were working on the same idea. Reid's transmitter worked, but her receiver needed amplification. Gray and Bell both conceptualized the telephone, but Bell's version didn't work without Gray's understanding of variable resistance and liquid transmitters. Gray didn't finish his model before Bell, nor did he create a working prototype before Bell's demonstration at the Centennial Exhibition. One man needed the other, but only Bell was remembered until now. Good presentation of facts and written or recorded evidence that Gray conceptualized the telephone, but Bell used Gray's information to make it a reality.
November 25, 2020
A bit melodramatic. Shulman presents himself (implausibly) as a bit of a historical naïf. The Bell/Gray controversy is not so much forgotten as Shulman suggests. So his hero's journey to find the grail/smoking gun is a bit much. There are apologist on both sides of the controversy... Shulman early on decided Bell and/or his colleagues did a corrupt act. He doesn't weigh up much evidence to the contrary--which is sad. It would be a better book if he had--maybe not a better _story_ but better history. I'd recommend this as a way to plunge into the controversy and a jumping-off point for in-depth exploration. Check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_...
November 20, 2017
Shulman reviews the information readily available in Alexander Graham Bell's time that Bell stole the idea for the telephone from another scientist, Elisha Gray. But since that information has been largely overlooked in the ensuing years, this examination of evidence reads like a modern mystery. I had the ebook version, and all the diagrams that would have made understanding the technical aspects understandable had been left out. So I had to lower my rating.
November 3, 2018
Really good historical investigation about the 1800s patent process and the theft of the telephone. It raises many interesting questions.
November 12, 2018
A very intriguing account, not only of theft, but the cause of widespread belief to the contrary.
April 2, 2020
This book changed the way that I view Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone, and how we remember history.
August 30, 2021
This was a very eye-opening book. I had no idea there was ever any question of who invented the telephone.
February 28, 2023
Challenges everything you have ever learned about the invention of the telephone. Fascinating.
June 8, 2015
Hang up the phone,
Lose my number
Leave me alone
So I can cry.
--"The Moon just turned blue" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Alexander Graham Bell, the proven--in numerous court challenges--inventor of the telephone, might have been singing that song after his famous "Watson come here" moment--because, says Shulman, Bell stole the key idea that made his patent work, lied about, and got away with it. This guilty conscience, claims Shulman, explains why Bell wanted nothing to do with his invention after it was patented.
That is the gist of Shulman's interesting but inconsequential historical look at the evidence for Bell's shadowy crime; Shulman fleshes out this thin volume by replicating the progress of his research and his idea to its conclusion that Bell in fact stole the key technical component that made his patent work from the patent filed the same day by competing inventor Elisha Gray. Bell may even have bribed the patent examiner to get his illegal but fateful look at the competing patent; the evidence for this rests on a decade-later affidavit by the examiner, an admitted alcoholic whose final statement on the case contradicted several earlier statements and destroyed his credibility. None the less, Shulman's case hangs together on the weight of its documentary and circumstantial evidence of the evidents leading up to, and as I suggested in the opening, following the patent filing and the famous inventive moment.
Shulman, as might be expected with a book to sell, oversells the "secret" at the heart of his book. Almost from the day the patent was filed, the US government, other inventors, and other historians have had questions about the Bell patent which led to lawsuits and challenges that extended for years before Bell was declared the telephone's once and only inventor. Shulman's new insight that justifies his subtitle and his book is that Bell in fact copied the diagram from Gray's patent into a lab notebook (diagrams reproduced side by side on p. 36-37 here). The drawings are similar enough that one might have been a hasty freehand copy of the other, but they are not identical.
Still, Shulman's evidence mounts, and it may be his recounting of Bell's attitudes and actions after the patent and his notoriety from it that provides the circumstantial but finally compelling evidence. In the end, though, while perhaps elevating Gray to the level he deserves, the righting of the historical record is buried under the mass of money and subsequent technical innovation that came from this one invention.
Shulman himself asks the question of how the particular documentary evidence of the lab notebook copy remained detected in the hundred years and many legal reviews later. Apparently, the lab notebook had been "hidden in plain sight" in a mass of Bell documents donated to the National Geographic that were just made public in 1976, and only made widely accessible in digital form on the internet in 1999.
Lose my number
Leave me alone
So I can cry.
--"The Moon just turned blue" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Alexander Graham Bell, the proven--in numerous court challenges--inventor of the telephone, might have been singing that song after his famous "Watson come here" moment--because, says Shulman, Bell stole the key idea that made his patent work, lied about, and got away with it. This guilty conscience, claims Shulman, explains why Bell wanted nothing to do with his invention after it was patented.
That is the gist of Shulman's interesting but inconsequential historical look at the evidence for Bell's shadowy crime; Shulman fleshes out this thin volume by replicating the progress of his research and his idea to its conclusion that Bell in fact stole the key technical component that made his patent work from the patent filed the same day by competing inventor Elisha Gray. Bell may even have bribed the patent examiner to get his illegal but fateful look at the competing patent; the evidence for this rests on a decade-later affidavit by the examiner, an admitted alcoholic whose final statement on the case contradicted several earlier statements and destroyed his credibility. None the less, Shulman's case hangs together on the weight of its documentary and circumstantial evidence of the evidents leading up to, and as I suggested in the opening, following the patent filing and the famous inventive moment.
Shulman, as might be expected with a book to sell, oversells the "secret" at the heart of his book. Almost from the day the patent was filed, the US government, other inventors, and other historians have had questions about the Bell patent which led to lawsuits and challenges that extended for years before Bell was declared the telephone's once and only inventor. Shulman's new insight that justifies his subtitle and his book is that Bell in fact copied the diagram from Gray's patent into a lab notebook (diagrams reproduced side by side on p. 36-37 here). The drawings are similar enough that one might have been a hasty freehand copy of the other, but they are not identical.
Still, Shulman's evidence mounts, and it may be his recounting of Bell's attitudes and actions after the patent and his notoriety from it that provides the circumstantial but finally compelling evidence. In the end, though, while perhaps elevating Gray to the level he deserves, the righting of the historical record is buried under the mass of money and subsequent technical innovation that came from this one invention.
Shulman himself asks the question of how the particular documentary evidence of the lab notebook copy remained detected in the hundred years and many legal reviews later. Apparently, the lab notebook had been "hidden in plain sight" in a mass of Bell documents donated to the National Geographic that were just made public in 1976, and only made widely accessible in digital form on the internet in 1999.
April 20, 2008
The book was an excellent reminder about the importance of keeping in mind that history is just one person's perspective on what happened; indeed, history is really just a variety of perspectives of any single event, and the reader must sort through the different perspectives to develop their own version of the truth.
My problem with the book is that the author hides the ball throughout the book, saving some pretty important details until almost the end. As a result, the book made for impatient reading. I was constantly waiting for him to address these critical issues; by waiting until almost the end to state all the facts, the author's argument is severely undermined.
In the end, I think the author's premise is correct: Alexander Graham Bell was not the "true" inventor of the telephone. Instead, Bell probably stole it from a man by the name of Elisha Gray, who was a famous 19th century electrical engineer.
If you want to read this book, my advice is: don't read the Bell patent ahead of time.
My problem with the book is that the author hides the ball throughout the book, saving some pretty important details until almost the end. As a result, the book made for impatient reading. I was constantly waiting for him to address these critical issues; by waiting until almost the end to state all the facts, the author's argument is severely undermined.
In the end, I think the author's premise is correct: Alexander Graham Bell was not the "true" inventor of the telephone. Instead, Bell probably stole it from a man by the name of Elisha Gray, who was a famous 19th century electrical engineer.
If you want to read this book, my advice is: don't read the Bell patent ahead of time.
June 20, 2008
Did he or didn’t he? That is the question author Seth Shulman asks in his book “The telephone Gambit” about Alexander Graham Bell. Was Bell the sole inventor of the telephone? Shulman paints a pretty convincing picture that he was not. Loaded with facts aplenty, he painstakingly moves the reader through Bell’s personal history as well as inventor Elisha Gray who Shulman purports to be the true inventor of the telephone. The author gets lost in his subject on occasion though. We get long passages about inventors with only a passing influence on either Bell or Grey. And I could have done without the many excerpts from Bell’s love letters to Mabel Hubbard, the woman who would become his wife. While the book is an historical mystery piece it is also about the author’s personal journey to seek the truth through generations of fabricated “fact”. The famous “Watson come here, I need you” was probably never even uttered. Overall a fun read and fascinating hypothesis.
February 27, 2008
Seth Shulman's exposition of the shady tactics behind the invention of the telephone is an engaging read for anyone who has heard the one-sided tale of Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant toiling away at their workbenches.
Bell's background as a teacher of the deaf, the professional and personal pressure he faced to produce a working telephone and the underhanded actions of his business contacts to ensure that the most valuable U.S. patent ever granted was granted to Bell keep the story moving at an interesting pace. Shulman includes his discovery and research process as part of the story, so the book has a modern tone and isn't weighed down by too much discussion of 19th century technology.
I ended the book feeling bad for Elisha Gray, the forgotten pioneer of telephone technology and almost feeling worse for Bell, whose entire reputation is based on his lowest moment. A very interesting examination of a story few people ever question.
Bell's background as a teacher of the deaf, the professional and personal pressure he faced to produce a working telephone and the underhanded actions of his business contacts to ensure that the most valuable U.S. patent ever granted was granted to Bell keep the story moving at an interesting pace. Shulman includes his discovery and research process as part of the story, so the book has a modern tone and isn't weighed down by too much discussion of 19th century technology.
I ended the book feeling bad for Elisha Gray, the forgotten pioneer of telephone technology and almost feeling worse for Bell, whose entire reputation is based on his lowest moment. A very interesting examination of a story few people ever question.
Read
February 5, 2009In Unlocking the Sky (2003), Seth Shulman showed his knack for historical detection by making credible claims that aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss deserves the same accolades for his work as the Wright brothers for theirs. In The Telephone Gambit, Shulman, who researched the book while a resident scholar in MIT's Dibner Institute, sets his sights on Alexander Graham Bell. He comes away with a stunning and plausible conclusion as he discredits Bell's claim to the world's most valuable patent. Drawing on research from Bell's own notebooks and other sources, Shulman combines deft sleuthing and a nose for a good story with what every critic except the reviewer for the Los Angeles Times deems lively, compact prose. The Telephone Gambit is a necessary addendum to textbook history.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
November 19, 2009
This was really fun. I have Sam Ellis to thank for it. Sam is one of my daughters friends in our homeschool group. Sam has been interested in the telephone and he and his Mom arranged a field trip for all of us to the Telephone Museum in Seattle. While there, the tour guide told me about this book. I'm so glad I read it. It was a quick, fun read and I learned all about the history of the telephone. Even more, I learned how subjective history is and how easy it is for the true story to be buried under popular myths and outright deception. Alexander Graham Bell is not the sole inventor of the telephone as we've all been taught to believe.
December 7, 2009
This was an interesting book about the patent office and possible fraud on the part of the patent office, the attorneys for Alexander Graham Bell and Alexander Graham Bell in obtaining the patent for the telephone. While Mr. Bell constructed the first working telephone, it appears that he stole and idea of Elisha Grey to make the phone using a wire in a liquid. Despite a lawsuit by Mr. Grey, Mr. Bell was determined to have filed his patent prior to a caveat which was filed by Mr Grey on the same day in which Mr. Grey had a drawing of his potential machine. The researcher's analysis of this event was very thorough.
August 4, 2011
Finished this while waiting for my car at the Honda Barn this morning.
It's a gripping real-life historical detective story exploring the whether Alexander Graham Bell stole the key idea behind the telephone from Elisha Gray. It held my interest up until the author started speculating on Bell's guilt feelings later in life.
The evidence for patent skulduggery is compelling. The evidence for guilt feelings driving Bell's behavior later in life, not so much.
It was well-paced for most of the way and I really enjoyed all but the final chapter.
It's a gripping real-life historical detective story exploring the whether Alexander Graham Bell stole the key idea behind the telephone from Elisha Gray. It held my interest up until the author started speculating on Bell's guilt feelings later in life.
The evidence for patent skulduggery is compelling. The evidence for guilt feelings driving Bell's behavior later in life, not so much.
It was well-paced for most of the way and I really enjoyed all but the final chapter.
July 24, 2014
Shulman has a prestigious MIT history of science research grant and finds convincing evidence that Alexander Graham Bell had means, motive and opportunity to steal Elisha Gray's telephone technology and patent. The theft appeared to be common knowledge, but Bell had better lawyers and his father-in-law's fortune. The lawsuits continued for years and Bell wanted nothing further to do with the telephone after his successful patent application, the construction of a telephone a year later and the sale of the invention. Bell exposed.
--Ashland Mystery
--Ashland Mystery
November 26, 2021
Un libro interesante sobre los eventos que dieron lugar a la invención del teléfono.
A pesar de la creencia popular, Graham Bell no fue el inventor de esta tecnología. Fue, como mucho, el primero en patentarla. Pero, de acuerdo con las investigaciones de Shulman, incluso esta patente podría haber sido fruto de un plagio.
El libro me ha gustado no solo por los hechos que relata (personalmente, desconocía la historia del teléfono), sino por la manera en que está escrito. Shulman combina su propia historia de investigación con el relato de la vida del inventor, de manera que cada hecho sobre Bell aparece como respuesta a las pesquisas del periodista, es una pieza más del puzzle.
A pesar de la creencia popular, Graham Bell no fue el inventor de esta tecnología. Fue, como mucho, el primero en patentarla. Pero, de acuerdo con las investigaciones de Shulman, incluso esta patente podría haber sido fruto de un plagio.
El libro me ha gustado no solo por los hechos que relata (personalmente, desconocía la historia del teléfono), sino por la manera en que está escrito. Shulman combina su propia historia de investigación con el relato de la vida del inventor, de manera que cada hecho sobre Bell aparece como respuesta a las pesquisas del periodista, es una pieza más del puzzle.
Currently reading
March 22, 2009Just started reading this book. I have a special interest in Bell and the telephone. Brantford, Ontario Canada is where his family settled when they emigrated from Scotland and is my mother's hometown. It is called 'The Telephone City' - the Bell homestead is a museum. In addition, my great, great grandfather's cousin was Bell's tinsmith and helped with some of his initial experiments. I want to learn what Shulman discovered regarding the issues related to Bell's patent and Gray's. Good so far!
October 18, 2009
This book is just what I was looking for at the moment. I found it to be a quite engaging light read. Although there is still plenty of debate going on as to who invented what and how good Shulman's research was and this and that, its not as if this book is THE ANSWER. In my opinion it was never touted to be as such. To me it was more of a chronicling of Shulman's research which was very interesting to read if taken with a grain of salt. At the end I was left satisfied even knowing that we will probably never know exactly what happened. All in all it mad for a great story!
March 28, 2009
This is not the type of book I normally read, but it was great fun and well written. Interspersed with historical information about the development of the telephone (which, as it turns out, wasn't invented by the first person that comes to mind when you think "telephone") is an account of the author's year spent as a research fellow at MIT. I found both threads of the tale equally fascinating. A terrific read that made me want to research something... anything!
February 26, 2009
Fairly interesting on how Bell isn't the father of the telephone that we thought he was. It does get a little bogged down in the science of it. Patent office shenanigans and a man desperately in love made a mistake that explains his guilt/embarrassment/distancing from the most lucrative patent ever granted. Tom might find this interesting.
April 12, 2009
A book club book for next month... Julie, this better be good!!
I liked this book a lot. It followed the journey of the author essentially to unearth the truth behind Alexander G. Bell's discovery and patent for the telephone. It is a fascinating read and definitely made me rethink a lot of other "Stories" we hear about how things happened in history. Even the ones we read in our textbooks.
I liked this book a lot. It followed the journey of the author essentially to unearth the truth behind Alexander G. Bell's discovery and patent for the telephone. It is a fascinating read and definitely made me rethink a lot of other "Stories" we hear about how things happened in history. Even the ones we read in our textbooks.
August 4, 2009
This book is a convincing argument that the story we all read as children about how Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone is not true. The story reads bit like a mystery as Seth Shulman chases down evidence surrounding the first telephone patent.
I wish there had been more in the book about Elisha Gray, the man who should have had the credit as the true inventor of the telephone.
I wish there had been more in the book about Elisha Gray, the man who should have had the credit as the true inventor of the telephone.
June 29, 2011
This quirky non-fiction explores new evidence that questions whether Alexander Graham Bell really was the inventor of the telephone. The author is an excellent writer and draws the reader in as he relates his discovery of Bell's possible fraud. One tip: keep a notebook and dictionary nearby. Shulman peppers his writing with words that remind me that I should've done more than cram for the GRE.
February 10, 2008
Not really a "who-dunit" as the cover implies, but a convincing story - convinced me - Alexander Bell took credit (and achieved enormous wealth) for inventing the telephone via deceptions, omissions, and outright fraud. A pretty good read, especially because it was short and to the point.
April 27, 2008
Holy Don Ameche! Alexander Graham Bell did not invent the telephone! I still cannot explain how the telephone works and did gloss over some of the technical aspects, but the book was a very interesting look into life in another century and the exciting inventions that we now take for granted.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews