Editing Alexander Graham Bell (section)

===Later developments===
[[File:Actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell in an AT&T promotional film (1926).jpg|thumb|An actor playing Bell in a 1926 film holds Bell's first [[microphone|telephone transmitter]]]]
On March 10, 1876, Bell used "the instrument" in Boston to call Thomas Watson who was in another room but out of earshot. He said, "Mr. Watson, come here – I want to see you" and Watson soon appeared at his side.<ref>{{cite book |last=Evenson |first=A Edward |date=November 10, 2000 |title=The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray-Alexander Bell Controversy and Its Many Players |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KiJJ7Bp-xtcC&q=Mr.+Watson+%E2%80%94+Come+here+%E2%80%94+I+want+to+see+you&pg=PA99 |publisher=McFarland |page=99 |isbn=0786408839}}</ref>

Continuing his experiments in Brantford, Bell brought home a working model of his telephone. On August 3, 1876, from the telegraph office in Brantford, Bell sent a telegram to the village of Mount Pleasant {{convert|4|mi|0|abbr=off|spell=on}} away, indicating that he was ready. He made a telephone call via telegraph wires and faint voices were heard replying. The following night, he amazed guests as well as his family with a call between the Bell Homestead and the office of the Dominion Telegraph Company in Brantford along an improvised wire strung up along telegraph lines and fences, and laid through a tunnel. This time, guests at the household distinctly heard people in Brantford reading and singing. The third test, on August 10, 1876, was made via the telegraph line between Brantford and Paris, Ontario, {{convert|8|mi|0|abbr=off|spell=on}} away. This test is said by many sources to be the "world's first long-distance call".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.telecommunications.ca/alexander-graham-bell-invention-telephone.htm |title=Alexander Graham Bell 1847–1922 Inventor of the Bell System |publisher=Telecommunications Canada |access-date=January 14, 2020 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1187 |title=Invention of the Telephone National Historic Event |publisher=Parks Canada |access-date=January 14, 2020 |quote=Bell made public demonstrations of his now patented invention, culminating in the world's first long distance call, to Paris, 13 kilometres away, on 10 August}}</ref> It proved that the telephone could work over long distances, at least as a one-way call.{{Sfn|MacLeod|1999|p=14}}

The first two-way (reciprocal) conversation over a line occurred between Cambridge and Boston (roughly 2.5 miles) on October 9, 1876.<ref>{{cite book|title=Popular Mechanics Aug 1912 |date = August 1912|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8t0DAAAAMBAJ&q=The+first+reciprocal+conversation+over+a+line+occurred+in+Boston+on+October+9,+1876.&pg=PA186 |location=New York |publisher=Popular Mechanics |page=186}}</ref> During that conversation, Bell was on Kilby Street in Boston and Watson was at the offices of the Walworth Manufacturing Company.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cambridgehistory.org/innovation/First%20Phone%20Call.html|title=First Phone Call}}</ref>

[[File:Alexander Graham Telephone in Newyork.jpg|thumb|Bell at the opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago in 1892]]

Bell and his partners, Hubbard and Sanders, offered to sell the patent outright to Western Union for $100,000, equal to ${{Inflation|US|100000|1876|fmt=c}} today, but it did not work (according to an apocryphal story, the president of Western Union balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lapsley |first1=Phil |title=The Greatest "Bad Business Decision" Quotation That Never Was |url=https://blog.historyofphonephreaking.org/2011/01/the-greatest-bad-business-decision-quotation-that-never-was.html |website=The History of Phone Phreaking Blog |access-date=2 February 2024 |date=8 January 2011}}</ref>). Two years later, he told colleagues that if he could get the patent for $25 million (equal to ${{Inflation|US|25000000|1878|fmt=c}} today), he would consider it a bargain. By then, the Bell company no longer wanted to sell the patent.<ref>{{cite web |last=Fenster |first=Julie M. |title=Inventing the Telephone—And Triggering All-Out Patent War |website=American Heritage |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/events/articles/web/20060307-alexander-graham-bell-telephone-patent-telegraph-elisha-gray-thomas-watson-gardiner-hubbard-western-union-thomas-edison.shtml |date=March 7, 2006 |archive-date=March 11, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060311000120/http://www.americanheritage.com/events/articles/web/20060307-alexander-graham-bell-telephone-patent-telegraph-elisha-gray-thomas-watson-gardiner-hubbard-western-union-thomas-edison.shtml |access-date=September 19, 2015}}</ref> Bell's investors became millionaires while he fared well from residuals and at one point had assets of nearly $1 million.<ref>{{cite book |last=Winfield |first=Richard |title=Never the Twain Shall Meet: Bell, Gallaudet, and the Communications Debate |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Gallaudet University Press |date=1987 |page=21 |isbn=978-0-913580-99-8 }}</ref>

Bell began a series of public demonstrations and lectures to introduce the new invention to the [[scientific community]] as well as the general public. A short time later, [[Bell Telephone Company#Early promotional success|his demonstration of an early telephone prototype]] at the 1876 [[Centennial Exposition]] in [[Philadelphia]] brought the telephone to international attention.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Webb |editor-first=Michael |title=Alexander Graham Bell: Inventor of the Telephone |location=Mississauga, Ontario |publisher=Copp Clark Pitman |date=1991 |page=[https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb0000webb/page/15 15] |isbn=978-0-7730-5049-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb0000webb/page/15 }}</ref> Influential visitors to the exhibition included Emperor [[Pedro II of Brazil]]. One of the judges at the Exhibition, [[William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin|Sir William Thomson]] (later Lord Kelvin), a renowned Scottish scientist, described the telephone as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20170407132609/http://www.ingenious.org.uk/See/Scienceandtechnology/Telecommunications/?target=SeeMedium&ObjectID={26E01AAD-9528-A037-3F8D-18F71C87E944}&s=S1&viewby=images& |title=Bell's centennial telephone transmitter, 1876 |publisher=National Archives UK |access-date=January 14, 2020 }}</ref>

On January 14, 1878, at [[Osborne House]], on the [[Isle of Wight]], Bell demonstrated the device to [[Queen Victoria]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.islandecho.co.uk/140-years-since-first-telephone-call-queen-victoria-isle-wight/ |title=140 Years Since the First Telephone Call to Queen Victoria on the Isle of Wight |date=January 14, 2018 |publisher=Island Echo |access-date=January 14, 2020 |quote=He made the UK's first publicly-witnessed long distance calls, calling Cowes, Southampton and London. Queen Victoria liked the telephone so much she wanted to buy it.}}</ref> placing calls to Cowes, Southampton, and London. These were the first publicly witnessed long-distance telephone calls in the [[UK]]. The queen found the process "quite extraordinary" although the sound was "rather faint".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/alexander-graham-bell-unveils-telephone/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/alexander-graham-bell-unveils-telephone/ |archive-date=January 11, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates the newly invented telephone |date=January 13, 2017 |newspaper=The Telegraph |access-date=January 14, 2020 |quote=one of the Queen's staff wrote to Professor Bell to inform him "how much gratified and surprised the Queen was at the exhibition of the Telephone"}}{{cbignore}}</ref> She later asked to buy the equipment that was used, but Bell offered to make "a set of telephones" specifically for her.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/magbell.30000106/ |title=pdf, Letter from Alexander Graham Bell to Sir Thomas Biddulph, February 1, 1878 |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=January 14, 2020 |quote="The instruments at present in Osborne are merely those supplied for ordinary commercial purposes, and it will afford me much pleasure to be permitted to offer to the Queen a set of Telephones to be made expressly for her Majesty's use."}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Stewart |title=Alexander Graham Bell |series=(Scientists who Made History) |location=New York |publisher=Raintree Steck-Vaughn |date=2001 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb00ross/page/21 21–22] |isbn=978-0-7398-4415-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexandergrahamb00ross/page/21}}</ref>

The [[Bell Telephone Company]] was created in 1877, and by 1886, more than 150,000 people in the U.S. owned telephones. Bell Company engineers made numerous other improvements to the telephone, which emerged as one of the most successful products ever. In 1879, the company acquired Edison's patents for the [[carbon microphone]] from Western Union. This made the telephone practical for longer distances, and it was no longer necessary to shout to be heard at the receiving telephone.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

Pedro II of Brazil was the first person to buy stock in the Bell Telephone Company. One of the first telephones in a private residence was installed in his palace in [[Petrópolis]], his summer retreat {{convert|40|mi|0|abbr=off|spell=on}} from [[Rio de Janeiro]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Dom Pedro II and America |website=The Library of Congress |url=https://memory.loc.gov/intldl/brhtml/br-1/br-1-5-2.html |access-date=March 7, 2018}}</ref>

In January 1915, Bell made the first ceremonial transcontinental [[telephone call]]. Calling from the AT&T head office at 15 Dey Street in New York City, Bell was heard by [[Thomas A. Watson|Thomas Watson]] at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. ''The New York Times'' reported:
{{blockquote|On October 9, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson talked by telephone to each other over a two-mile wire stretched between Cambridge and Boston. It was the first wire conversation ever held. Yesterday afternoon [on January 25, 1915], the same two men talked by telephone to each other over a 3,400-mile wire between New York and San Francisco. Dr. Bell, the veteran inventor of the telephone, was in New York, and Mr. Watson, his former associate, was on the other side of the continent.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0125.html |title=Phone to Pacific From the Atlantic |work=The New York Times |date=January 26, 1915 |access-date=July 21, 2007}}</ref>}}