TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD USED IN NEW HAVEN, CONN., FOR EIGHT
SUBSCRIBERS

EARLY NEW YORK EXCHANGE

PROFESSOR BELL IN SALEM, MASS., AND MR. WATSON IN BOSTON,
DEMONSTRATING THE TELEPHONE BEFORE AUDIENCES IN 1877

DOCTOR BELL AT THE TELEPHONE OPENING THE NEW YORK-CHICAGO LINE,
OCTOBER 18, 1892

GUGLIELMO MARCONI

A REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OUTSIDE OF THE CLIFDEN STATION WHILE
MESSAGES WERE BEING SENT ACROSS TO CAPE RACE

MARCONI STATION AT CLIFDEN, IRELAND

PREFACE

This is the story of talking at a distance, of sending messages
through space. It is the story of great men--Morse, Thomson, Bell,
Marconi, and others--and how, with the aid of men like Field, Vail,
Catty, Pupin, the scientist, and others in both the technical and
commercial fields, they succeeded in flashing both messages and speech
around the world, with wires and without wires. It is the story of
how the thought of the world has been linked together by those modern
wonders of science and of industry--the telegraph, the submarine
cable, the telephone, the wireless telegraph, and, most recently, the
wireless telephone.

The story opens with the primitive methods of message-sending by fire
or smoke or other signals. The life and experiments of Morse are then
pictured and the dramatic story of the invention and development of
the telegraph is set forth. The submarine cable followed with the
struggles of Field, the business executive, and Thomson, the inventor
and scientific expert, which finally culminated in success when the
_Great Eastern_ landed a practical cable on the American coast. The
early life of Alexander Graham Bell was full of color, and I have told
the story of his patient investigations of human speech and hearing,
which, finally culminated in a practical telephone. There follows the
fascinating story of Marconi and the wireless telegraph. Last comes
the story of the wireless telephone, that newest wonder which has come
among us so recently that we can scarcely realize that it is here. An
inner view of the marvelous development of the telephone is added in
an appendix.

The part played by the great business leaders who have developed and
extended the new inventions, placing them at the service of all,
has not been forgotten. Not only have means of communication been
discovered, but they have been improved and put to the widest
practical use with remarkable efficiency and celerity. The stories of
these de