Profile America: First Telephone Call

History of the TelephoneFriday, March 10 — For many Americans, trying to envision life without our various telephones would be like trying to live without indoor plumbing. The crucial utility is 141 years old today. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first, local, telephone call in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over a wire to his assistant in the next room, Bell said, “Mister Watson, come here; I want to see you.” Now, the public has an insatiable appetite for multipurpose phones, and there are 118 cell phone subscriptions for every 100 people in the U.S. population. Of America’s 118 million occupied housing units, just 2.95 million, or about 2.5 percent, have no phone service available.

You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online here.

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