The Tin Can Communications Company

Today, we take telephones for granted. You probably have a telephone within arm’s reach as you read this. But just over 100 years ago, the idea of instantly chatting to someone anywhere in the world seemed impossible.

You may already know that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in the 1880s. But early telephones, more accurately called “mechanical acoustic devices” were being developed as early as the 1660s.

One of the best-known examples of this technology is called the tin can telephone. Justin Case is a Termination Agent for the Tin Can Communications Company in Chasing the Wendigo, the first book in the Justin and Friends brozy mystery series. It’s the same types of “phones” you created in elementary school when you were younger: you connect two tin cans (or “diaphragms”) using a taut string or wire. The mechanical vibrations from your voice travel down the wire before being converted back into sound energy at the other end of the line.

Mechanical devices faced some obvious restrictions. You couldn’t transmit sound over long distances. The sound didn’t come out perfectly. You couldn’t transmit through certain media. And you needed to be physically connected to the other “telephone”. But first, inventors had to create better electrical telegraphs.

One of the more puzzling parts about the invention of the telephone (at least to our modern way of thinking) is that when Bell first showed off his telephone, many people argued that we didn’t actually need such a device. Why would you want to hear someone’s voice when you could just send them a telegram instead?

Bell replied, “The telephone will be used to inform people that a telegram has been sent.”

The two biggest problems with the telegraph were its dot and dash Morse code system, which limited the device to only receiving and sending one message at a time, as well as its reliance on physical lines. A break anywhere in the line – including in undersea intercontinental cables – would disable the system.

Telegraphs were also limited by their reliance on repeaters, which needed to be placed along the telegraph line to ensure the signal could reach long distances. Repeaters weren’t just automatic relay stations: they were stations where a technician had to receive the signal, and then re-transmit that signal down the line.

Understandably, the world needed a telephone to improve global communications.

The world’s first telephone: the liquid transmitter had two inventors, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electronically.

Bell reached the patent office mere hours before Gray, and won the famous battle over the invention of the telephone when his patent was passed on March 7, 1876. The first words that were reportedly transmitted through the telephone receiver were “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” from Bell to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson.

By early 1877, the first official telephone lines were established as a part of Bell Telephone Company and the first regular telephone line was constructed between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts.

By the middle of 1878, the Bell Telephone Company had 10,000 phones in service. As the company’s subscriber base grew and grew, many Americans accused the company of running a giant monopoly over the American telephone industry.

Bell would face over 600 lawsuits for its allegations of monopolistic practices. It won every one of these lawsuits.

Lily Tomlin's "Ernestine" reminded us that, “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”

Over the years, we’ve had a few major types of telephones, including rotary dialing phones; candlestick phones; touch tones, cordless phones, cell phones and of course the ubiquitous smart phone.

I finally realized it. People are prisoners of their phones. That’s why they're called cell phones.

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