The Telephone Gambit
Imagine my surprise, then, when only a few quick pages into this remarkable little volume I learned that both of the truths I thought I knew—and had no doubt had repeated in my own classes—were probably incorrect. Not only was it entirely likely that Bell had in fact not invented the telephone (that was his “secret”) but the words I thought he had spoken to Watson were more likely the fanciful invention of an early textbook author anxious to put human form to this technological achievement.
The plot thickened and the depth of my interest grew. Seth Shulman, an investigative journalist serving as the first science writer in residence at the Dibner Institute of Science and Technology at MIT, weaves a tantalizing research story that explains how a chance find in Bell’s 1875-1876 notebooks led to questions about the origins of his insight, which, Shulman shows, become increasingly suspect. For one thing, a well-respected inventor, Elisha Gray, had filed a patent on the same day as did Bell, and yet Bell was granted exclusive patent protection. For another, Bell’s drawing of the telephone device was strikingly similar to the one offered by Gray. Was this coincidence or foul play?
Bell at the time had been a Professor of Speech at Boston University, a third-generation elocutionist born in Edinburgh but relocated to the United States via Canada after losing his siblings to TB. His experiments into sound magnification were dedicated to his real passion—treating deafness. He had no particular interest in transmitting messages across distances, nor did he have any evidence anywhere in his meticulously detailed notebooks of the sudden—and inexplicable—insight about electrical conductivity that he miraculously possessed after an eventful 12-day visit to the Patent Office in Washington. What, pray tell, happened?
That is the tale Shulman tells with an investigative reporter’s eye for corroborating evidence and with the aid of professional historians at Dibner who prodded his suspicions into better questions and who led him to consult the sources that would eventually allow him to resolve this historical drama. Along the way we see how Bell’s love of teaching the deaf—the only thing he really wanted to be remembered for—and his love for Mabel Hubbard—the woman with whom he would share his life, contributed to the process. We also learn how Mabel’s father, the wealthy and influential attorney with whom Bell formed the partnership that became the Bell Telephone Company and later AT&T, played a significant role in the patent application and apparent favoritism shown to Bell.
Poor Elisha Gray! I came away from this story moved by the obvious scientific injustice done to a man robbed of the proper credit, the attendant fame—and enormous wealth—associated with his invention. One of the lessons of recent historical inquiry is that when researchers take the time to recover the voices of those who have been marginalized a very different, and much richer, sense of “what happened” is the result. Truly that is the case in this fine recovery of Gray’s invention. But what distinguishes this account from what could easily have been a more heavy-handed and politicized interpretation of Bell’s secret is the deft touch that Shulman exhibits in his handling of Bell’s lifelong guilt over his ethical failure. By story’s end, Bell is a more sympathetic, even pathetic, character than as he otherwise might have been depicted. And the age-old temptations of love and high ambition within a rapidly changing American culture made up of scientific progress, capital greed, the power of mediated celebrity, and desire for public spectacle that made Bell’s failure, his secret and his success, not only possible but inevitable.
