 A telephone call, which for marketing purposes is claimed to be the first transcontinental telephone call, occurred on January 25, 1915, a day timed to coincide with the Panama&ndash;Pacific International Exposition celebrations. However, the transcontinental telephone line was first completed on June 17, 1914, and successfully first voice tested in July 1914. A 1998 U.S. postage stamp commemorates the completion of the line in 1914. 

 Left to Right: U.N. Bethell, Senior Vice-President Amercian Telephone &amp;amp; Telegraph Co., presiding; Hon.&amp;nbsp;George McAneny, President Board of Alderman, New York City;&amp;nbsp;John J. Carty, Chief Engineer, American Telephone &amp;amp; Telegraph Co.;&amp;nbsp;Alexander Graham Bell,&amp;nbsp;John Purroy Mitchel, Mayor of New York; C.E. Yost, President of Nebraska Telephone Co., Omaha; Hon. William A. Prendergast, Comptroller of the City of New York In front of Dr. Bell is the replica of his original telephone. In front of Mr. Bethell is the glass case containing a piece of the wire over which Dr. Bell and Mr. Watson carried on the first telephone conversation in the world.  

Old AT&T Building

1st transcontinental telephone call

"Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night."&nbsp;

The invention of the phonograph was fairly quick. &nbsp;According to some of the lab records, Edison experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kruesi, to build, which Kruesi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, "Mary had a little lamb." To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him.

First floor machine shop, located in Building 5 of the Laboratory Complex

Location of the new artifact storage area on the 3rd floor of Building 5.

The new phonograph exhibit area as it appeared before the exhibit was installed.

The 3rd floor music room as it appeared before renovation.

2nd floor Precision Machine Shop as it appeared before the renovation

Edison Lab

Scientific American

Invention of the Phonograph

Communication improved with formation of a new franchise, NY Telephone Company to rent telephone equipment to users who would use their own wires to connect them to each other.

Headquarters for the company starting 1927

New York Telephone Company Building

NY Telephone Company established

Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s and introduced the graphophone

Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876

A Scottish-born inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&amp;T) in 1885. 

Alexander Graham Bell

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