. Bulletin. Science. pany felt that it was in a sufficiently strong position to take action against Western Union's entry into the field of telephony and accordingly brought suit against an agent of one of Western Union's subsidiary com- panies. After two years spent collecting testimony and preparing to defend this case, the Western Union lawyer recominended that it be settled out of court. In exchange for agreeing not to enter the telegraph business and for giving 20 percent royalties to West- ern Union for 17 years, the Bell people obtained full rights to all telephone patents held by Weste
. Bulletin. Science. pany felt that it was in a sufficiently strong position to take action against Western Union's entry into the field of telephony and accordingly brought suit against an agent of one of Western Union's subsidiary com- panies. After two years spent collecting testimony and preparing to defend this case, the Western Union lawyer recominended that it be settled out of court. In exchange for agreeing not to enter the telegraph business and for giving 20 percent royalties to West- ern Union for 17 years, the Bell people obtained full rights to all telephone patents held by Western Union (including those of Gray, Dolbear, and Edison), as well as the right to purchase Western Union's 56,000 telephones and its associated telephone exchanges. This settlement and the Supreme Court decision of 1887 gave the Bell company control of the telephone business for the remainder of the duration of the Bell patents. At first the telephone simply replaced the telegraph in private-line telegraph circuits that already existed.^' For instance, in May 1877 E. T. Holmes of Boston showed how the new instrument might be connected to a telegraph burglar alarm system. Telephones were connected to the central station of the system during the day, and telegraphs were connected at night. However, Holmes' demonstration lasted only a few weeks, for problems were involved in connect- ing many telephones with one another that could not be handled in a telegraph central station. The first telephone switchboard that was used for regular commercial service was installed in New Haven in January 1878. In the same year Thomas A. Watson added to the telephone system the polarized ringer (fig. 78), a device for signaling between stations and calling the operator. In 1879 H. L. Roosevelt patented the automatic switch (fig. 79) that notifies the operator when a telephone is in use. The re- mainder of the century brought many changes in the telephone system, including the multiple and the comm
Size: 1149px × 2176px
Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorunitedstatesdepto, bookcentury1900, booksubjectscience
