Museum of American Exceptionalism
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Boston, Massachusetts · 10 March 1876 · Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson

Mr. Watson, Come Here

Three days after his patent came through, Alexander Graham Bell shouted nine words into a wire and his assistant heard every one. Within Bell’s lifetime, more than ten million American telephones were ringing.

Bell’s laboratory notebook for 10 March 1876, recording the first sentence ever sent by telephone: “Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.”

The moment · 10 March 1876 · 5 Exeter Place, Boston

Two rooms on the top floor of a boarding house. Both doors shut. Watson presses the receiver to one ear and covers the other. In the next room Bell leans over his new transmitter and shouts. Moments later Watson is at his side. He heard every word.

Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.Alexander Graham Bell, as written in his notebook that day
Bell’s laboratory notebook for 10 March 1876, recording the first sentence ever sent by telephone: “Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.”. Alexander Graham Bell / Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
174,465Bell’s patent number
3 daysfrom patent to first sentence
10.5MAmerican phones by 1915
3,400 micoast to coast in 1915

In 1875 a telegraph wire could carry only clicks. Alexander Graham Bell, a young teacher of the deaf in Boston, believed it could carry the human voice itself. Backed by the fathers of two of his deaf students and helped by a machinist named Thomas Watson, he set out to prove it. Nobody had ever sent a spoken sentence over a wire.

  1. A teacher with an idea

    Bell comes to Boston in 1871 to teach at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes and is soon a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University. At night he works on a harmonic telegraph to send many messages down one wire. Two fathers of his deaf pupils, Gardiner Greene Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, pay for the work. On 27 February 1875 the three sign an agreement forming the Bell Patent Association.

  2. The twanging reed

    In the hot attic of Charles Williams Jr.’s electrical shop, Watson tends the transmitter springs while Bell tunes the receivers in the next room. One spring sticks. Watson plucks it. Bell bursts in. The stuck spring had sent a current that rose and fell exactly like the sound, and Bell heard its tone. He knows a wire can carry speech. Watson builds the first telephone the next day.

    Bell to Watson, as Watson remembered itWhat did you do then? Don’t change anything. Let me see!

  3. Patent 174,465

    Bell’s lawyer files his application at the Patent Office in Washington on 14 February 1876. On 7 March the government grants U.S. Patent 174,465, “Improvement in Telegraphy.” It covers a method of transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically by electrical undulations shaped like the vibrations of the air. Bell has the patent. Now he has to make the machine talk.

  4. Come here

    Bell now lives and works in two attic rooms at 5 Exeter Place. He has built a new transmitter: a mouthpiece over a fine platinum wire dipping into acidified water. Watson sits in the far room with the receiver against his ear, both doors closed. Bell shouts into the mouthpiece. Watson appears at his door and repeats the sentence back. Then they trade places, and Bell hears Watson ask, “Mr. Bell, do you understand what I say?”

    Bell, into the transmitterMr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.

  5. It speaks

    At the Centennial Exhibition, the nation’s hundredth-birthday fair, Bell shows his telephones to the judges. Watson has built them polished to a mirror shine. The emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II, holds the receiver to his ear while Bell talks from across the room. By the Bell company’s account, he cried out, “My God, it speaks!” The British physicist Sir William Thomson tries it too. Bell wins the Exhibition’s medal.

  6. Talking between towns

    Bell and Watson borrow the Walworth Manufacturing Company’s private telegraph wire, about two miles from its Boston office to its Cambridgeport factory. At first the line is dead. Watson finds a relay left in the circuit, cuts it out, and hears Bell’s voice call “Ahoy!” They talk until long after midnight, each writing down what he hears. The Boston Advertiser prints both records side by side the next morning.

  7. The Bell Telephone Company

    Western Union has already turned down Hubbard’s offer to sell every Bell patent for $100,000. So Hubbard organizes the Bell Telephone Company himself, as trustee, and decides to lease telephones instead of selling them, so the company keeps control. Two days later Bell marries Hubbard’s daughter Mabel. In January 1878 the first commercial exchange opens in New Haven, Connecticut, with 21 telephones.

  8. Building the system

    In May 1878 Hubbard hires Theodore Vail, head of the Railway Mail Service, as general manager. Bell’s patents survive some 600 lawsuits, and the Supreme Court upholds them in 1888. In 1885 the company forms American Telephone and Telegraph to build long-distance lines between cities. On 18 October 1892 Bell opens the line from New York to Chicago.

  9. Across the continent

    Bell sits at AT&T’s offices at 15 Dey Street in New York. Watson waits at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. Between them run 3,400 miles of copper on 130,000 poles through thirteen states. Vail listens in from Jekyll Island, Georgia, and President Wilson joins from the White House. Thirty-eight years after Exeter Place, Bell repeats his summons to Watson, now a continent away.

    Bell, center, at AT&T’s New York offices on 25 January 1915, opening the first transcontinental telephone line with a call to Watson in San Francisco.
    Bell, center, at AT&T’s New York offices on 25 January 1915, opening the first transcontinental telephone line with a call to Watson in San Francisco.. Irving Underhill / via Wikimedia Commons.

The inventors and the builders

Alexander Graham Bell, about 1895.Age 29
InventorAlexander Graham Bell

Edinburgh-born teacher of the deaf who came to Boston in 1871 and taught vocal physiology at Boston University. He worked out how a current could carry the shape of a voice, won the patent and spoke the first sentence. U.S. citizen from 1882.

Thomas A. Watson, photographed by J. E. Purdy in Boston, 1902.Age 22
Machinist and assistantThomas A. Watson

Salem-born machinist from Charles Williams Jr.’s Boston shop. He built every one of Bell’s early instruments, heard the first sentence ever spoken over a wire and ran the young company’s engineering. Later he founded the Fore River shipyard in Massachusetts.

Gardiner Greene Hubbard in the 1890s, cropped from a portrait with his wife Gertrude.Age 53
Backer and organizer, Bell Telephone CompanyGardiner Greene Hubbard

Boston lawyer and president of the Clarke School for the Deaf. With Thomas Sanders he paid for Bell’s experiments, then organized the Bell Telephone Company in 1877 and chose to lease telephones, not sell them. First president of the National Geographic Society.

Theodore N. Vail, president of AT&T, in 1913.Age 30
General manager; president of AT&TTheodore N. Vail

Ohio-born telegrapher who rose to run the federal Railway Mail Service. Hubbard hired him in 1878 to manage the Bell company. He defended the patents, became AT&T’s first president in 1885, returned to lead it in 1907 and drove the line coast to coast.

By the numbers

$100,000Hubbard’s price for every Bell patent. Western Union said no.
2 milesof borrowed wire carried the first two-way talk between two towns, 9 October 1876
21telephones on the first commercial exchange, New Haven, January 1878
48,000telephones in the United States by 1880, four years after the first sentence
About 600lawsuits Bell’s patents survived, upheld by the Supreme Court in 1888
130,000poles carried the 1915 transcontinental line through thirteen states
$20.70for a three-minute call from New York to San Francisco in January 1915
90.5%of American households had a telephone by 1970
Bell demonstrates the telephone to a packed Lyceum Hall in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1877, with voices carried by wire from Boston. Wood engraving from sketches by E. R. Morse.
Bell demonstrates the telephone to a packed Lyceum Hall in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1877, with voices carried by wire from Boston. Wood engraving from sketches by E. R. Morse.
Bell places the first call on the new long-distance line from New York to Chicago, 18 October 1892.
Bell places the first call on the new long-distance line from New York to Chicago, 18 October 1892.
Bell’s patent drawing for U.S. Patent 174,465, “Improvement in Telegraphy,” granted 7 March 1876.
Bell’s patent drawing for U.S. Patent 174,465, “Improvement in Telegraphy,” granted 7 March 1876.
Bell’s box telephone of 1876–1877, one of the first telephones offered to the public, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Bell’s box telephone of 1876–1877, one of the first telephones offered to the public, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Rows of operators at the switchboards of the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company in Washington, D.C.
Rows of operators at the switchboards of the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company in Washington, D.C.
Bell’s 1876 telephone receiver and transmitter, the type he showed at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. From The Story of Great Inventions, 1910.
Bell’s 1876 telephone receiver and transmitter, the type he showed at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. From The Story of Great Inventions, 1910.

Watch, listen, see

Films, photographs and first-hand accounts from across the web. Each opens in a new tab.

Still from The First Call, a 1930 AT&T film of the invention of the telephone.
Video · 11 minThe First Call

A 1930 film of the invention, introduced and narrated in part by Thomas A. Watson himself.

AT&T Archives
Still from Mr. Bell, the Bell System’s 1947 centennial film.
Video · 31 minMr. Bell

The Bell System’s 1947 centennial film of Bell’s life in Boston as he invented the telephone.

AT&T Archives
The 1885 wax disc that holds the only confirmed recording of Bell’s voice.
Video · 1 minHear Bell’s Own Voice

The only confirmed recording of Bell’s voice, made in 1885 and recovered by the Smithsonian with light.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Bell’s laboratory notebook for 10 March 1876, recording the first sentence ever sent by telephone: “Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.”
DocumentBell’s Laboratory Notebook

Bell’s 1875–1876 notebook, including the 10 March 1876 entry recording the first sentence by telephone.

Library of Congress
Alexander Graham Bell, about 1895.
Document“This Is a Great Day”

Bell’s letter to his father the same day: speech sent intelligibly, and telephones in every home to come.

Library of Congress
Bell’s patent drawing for U.S. Patent 174,465, “Improvement in Telegraphy,” granted 7 March 1876.
DocumentThe Telephone Patent Drawing

Bell’s signed patent drawing for No. 174,465, approved 7 March 1876, from the Patent Office records.

National Archives
Thomas A. Watson, photographed by J. E. Purdy in Boston, 1902.
DocumentWatson Tells His Story

Watson’s 1913 account of the twanging reed, the first sentence and the first conversation, in his words.

Project Gutenberg
Bell, center, at AT&T’s New York offices on 25 January 1915, opening the first transcontinental telephone line with a call to Watson in San Francisco.
DocumentCoast to Coast, 1915

AT&T’s 1915 booklet on the transcontinental line: the call, the route, the poles and the copper.

Internet Archive

“The day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas and friends converse with each other without leaving home.”

Alexander Graham Bell, letter to his father, 10 March 1876

After

Bell became a United States citizen in 1882. France awarded him the Volta Prize, and he used the money to found the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., where he and his associates improved the phonograph and invented the photophone. He later served as the second president of the National Geographic Society, which Gardiner Hubbard had helped found, and as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

The company Hubbard organized and Vail built became the Bell System. America had 3,000 telephones in 1876, 1.36 million in 1900 and 10.5 million in 1915, the year Bell called Watson across the continent.

Bell died on 2 August 1922. By 1970 Americans had 120 million telephones, and 90.5 percent of households had one. Every one of them traced back to nine words shouted down a wire in a Boston attic.

Primary sources