The History of the Telephone

by Herbert N. Casson

OF INTEREST TO: readers of social history, students of technological innovation With the use of the telephone has come a new habit of mind. The slow and sluggish mood has been sloughed off. The old to-morrow habit has been superseded by "Do It To-day"; and life has become more tense, alert, vivid. -from "The Telephone and National Efficiency" This classic 1910 book-by one of the first stars of technology journalism-is a charming and highly readable overview of the impact of the telephone in its first quarter-century. Discover: . what led Alexander Graham Bell to his breakthrough . the early ridicule Bell's "toy" endured . the adventurous business pioneers of the new technology . the scientific refinements that made the telephone more useful . how the technology quickly shifted from a novelty to a necessity . how the telephone was revolutionized banking, industry, journalism, government, and even farming . and much more. Canadian journalist HERBERT NEWTON CASSON (1869-1951) contributed to numerous New York and London publications, writing mostly about business and technology. He is also the author of The Romance of Steel: The Story of a Thousand Millionaires. ALSO FROM COSIMO: Casson's Making Money Happily: Twelve Tips on Success and Happiness, The Crime of Credulity, and Creative Thinkers

Genres: History, Nonfiction

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Herbert Newton Casson (September 23, 1869 – September 4, 1951) was a Canadian journalist and author who wrote primarily about technology and business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert...

Reviews

[Kate]

An interesting read on the beginnings of the telephone. I didn't know how much doubt and distrust were involved when it came to the early investors. The public as well; everyone who tried listening for a voice was actually amazed when they heard something, as if they'd thought it was a joke. The book was published in 1910, so the phone was still a new and exciting concept, and the author points out that even the technological juggernaut that was America at the time hadn't yet put this invention to enough use.

[Kristin Holt]

From the preface: "Thirty-five short years, and presto! the newborn art of telephony is fullgrown. Three million telephones are now scattered abroad in foreign countries, and seven millions are massed here, in the land of its birth."

The History of the Telephone, by Herbert Newton Casson (1869-1951) was published in 1910 by A. C. McClurg & Company, Chicago. In 2011, when the copyright had ended, various editions became widely available in print, e-book, and pdf. It's also available entirely online, as well as a downloadable Word doc.

Amazon offers a free digital copy, though another option is illustrated and costs $0.99. Please note these are the same book. There's no reason to buy both, like I did, unless you're particularly interested in the images available in the $0.99 version... and already picked up the free book.

Note: Paperbacks have had many different cover images. If it's by Herbert N. Casson / Herbert Newton Casson, it's all (or should be all) the same content.

It's an incredibly readable resource. Entertaining, enlightening, an historic gem. I delved right in, entirely unaware that it had been written more than 100 years ago. It reads with the same clarity and ease as if it had been written recently, and by a gifted historian. It's that insanely well-written. And it should be.

During his lifetime, Casson published 168 books on business success. He authored The Crime of credulity (1901), Organized Self-Help (1901), The Romance of Steel (1908), The Romance of the Reaper (1908), Cyrus Hall McCormic: his life and work (1909), Ad and sales: A Study of Advertising and Selling (1911), The story of artificial silk (1928), and more.

If you love history half as much as I do, are researching period technology, or are simply curious, pick up either book and dive right in!

Please note these are the same book. The 99-cent version has illustrations the free version does not. The 8 to 10 illustrations (99-cent version) are simply color photographs of antique telephones, without labels, links, or specifics. Unfortunately, the 99-cent version is also poorly formatted, without discernible chapter breaks (no indentations and no blank lines between paragraphs). The $0.00 (FREE!) version is a much easier read.

http://www.kristinholt.com/archives/1986 on July 29, 2015.

[Susan Molloy]

Published in 1901.

That twang of the clock-spring was the first tiny cry of the newborn telephone, uttered sign-language which he [Alexander Graham Bell] called "Visible Speech."

I learned that Bell, “on his twenty-ninth birthday, [was when he] received his patent, No. 174,465—'the most valuable single patent ever issued’ in any country. He had created something so entirely new that there was no name for it in any of the world's languages. In describing it to the officials of the Patent Office, he was obliged to call it ‘an improvement in telegraphy,’ when, in truth, it was nothing of the kind. It was as different from the telegraph as the eloquence of a great orator is from the sign-language of a deaf-mute.” Until I read this book, I did not realize he was thatyoung when he received the patent for the telephone.

BOOK is filled with a cornucopia of facts, anecdotes, and history, and it is a very informative book, although I wanted to know a lot more about Alexander Graham Bell. However, that being said, there still is a lot of information I learned I heretofore did not know, including the legal fights and court decisions regarding the invention of the telephone.

So . . . it was not Don Ameche who invented the telephone -- ha ha ha!

🟣Kindle version.

[David McClendon, Sr]

Buy NOW from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2EeTIYD
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Pj3XIX-YSUA
If you have a Kindle or Kindle reading program, The History of the Telephone by Herbert Newton Casson will significantly add to the value you receive from it.

This book was written back when the telephone was a new device. You will learn how big of a turkey Thomas Alva Edison was. We know that he was a fraud. His name is on all sorts of inventions that he had nothing to do with. The electricity that comes into your home here in the USA is AC (alternating current). Edison went to extremes to prove that DC (Direct Current) was the only safe way to transmit electricity. He went so far as to electrocute an elephant and film as the elephant was dying.

Edison tried to claim the telephone for his own, as well.

In the History of the Telephone you will see how much of a fight Bell and his associates had on their hands to prove the telephone could be useful and wasn’t just a parlor trick.

I personally learned a lot from this book which was written while many of the people who were involved with the early days of the telephone were still alive.

We learn why Bell and his associated companies fought so hard to defend their patents. I know understand why back before telephone deregulation there were actual phone cops who would arrest someone for attaching anything to a phone line that wasn’t supplied by the phone company.

I found The History of the Telephone to be very educational and informative and you might enjoy it, too.

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Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Pj3XIX-YSUA

Buy NOW from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2EeTIYD

[Galicius]

Quite fascinating to hear the history of the very beginning of an invention of something completely new.

What follows is a far more detailed history of turning the telephone into popular use and the technologies involved in doing it.