Outside the JFK Federal Building, Cambridge Street, Boston

Here, a waist-high stone pedestal with a plaque entitled “Birthplace of the Telephone” marks the former location of Charles Williams Jr.’s telegraph instrument factory. In June of 1875, in the attic of this building, Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell and machinist Thomas Watson discovered that a weak electric current could cause two linked receiver reeds to vibrate in concert. The experiment suggested to Bell how a modulated current might be used to reproduce the complex vibrations of speech at a distance. The following year, in a more private lab space at 5 Exeter Place in Boston, Bell would transmit the first distinct words sent over the telephone: “Come here, Mr. Watson, I need you.” To get a drawing of the invention to help with his patent application, Bell would later go up the street to the patent law office of Crosby, Halstead & Gould to enlist draftsman Lewis Latimer.

Guest speaker

Charlotte Gray, author, Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention (2011)