_The_
BIRTH _and_ BABYHOOD
OF THE
TELEPHONE
_by_
Thomas A. Watson
_Assistant to Alexander Graham Bell_
(An address delivered before the Third Annual Convention of the
Telephone Pioneers of America at Chicago, October 17, 1913)
_Information Department_
AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY
[Illustration: _Thomas A. Watson_
1854-1934]
_Biography of
THOMAS A. WATSON_
Thomas A. Watson was born on January 18, 1854, in Salem, Massachusetts,
and died December 13, 1934, at more than four-score years. At the age of
13 he left school and went to work in a store. Always keenly interested
in learning more and in making the most of all he learned, every new
experience was to him, from his childhood on, an opening door into a
larger, more beautiful and more wonderful world. This was the key to the
continuous variety that gave interest to his life.
In 1874 he obtained employment in the electrical shop of Charles
Williams, Jr., at 109 Court Street, Boston. Here he met Alexander Graham
Bell, and the telephone chapter in his life began. This he has told in
the little book herewith presented. In 1881, having well earned a rest
from the unceasing struggle with the problems of early telephony, and
being now a man of means, he resigned his position in the American Bell
Telephone Company and spent a year in Europe. On his return he started a
little machine shop for his own pleasure, at his place in East
Braintree, Massachusetts. From this grew the Fore River Ship and Engine
Company, which did its large share of building the U. S. Navy of the
Spanish War. In 1904 he retired from active business.
When 40 years of age and widely known as a shipbuilder, he went to
college, taking special courses in geology and biology at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the same time he specialized
in literature. These studies dominated his later years, leading him in
extensive travels all over the world, and at home extending to others
the inspiration of a genial simplicity of life and of a love for
science, literature and all that is fine in life.
The Birth and Babyhood of the Telephone
_By_ Thomas A. Watson
I am to speak to you of the birth and babyhood of the telephone, and
something of the events which preceded that important occasion. These
are matters that must seem to you ancient history; in fact, they seem so
to me, although the events all happened less than 40 years ago, in the
years 1874 to 1880.
The occurrences of which I shall speak, lie in my mind as a splendid
drama, in which it was my great privilege to play a part. I shall try to
put myself back into that wonderful play, and tell you its story from
the same attitude of mind I had then—the point of view of a mere boy,
just out of his apprenticeship as an electro-mechanician, intensely
interested in his work, and full of boyish hope and enthusiasm.
Therefore, as it must be largely a personal narrative, I shall ask you
to excuse my many “I’s” and “my’s” and to be indulgent if I show how
proud and glad I am that I was chosen by the fates to be the associate
of Alexander Graham Bell, to work side by side with him day and night
through all these wonderful happenings that have meant so much to the
world.