Celebrating 150 years of the history of the telephone!

A history-making night at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation, even as we were celebrating 150 years of the history of the telephone!

In March of 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded a patent for his new invention, a device for transmitting speech across telegraph wires. He had, not long before, uttered those famous words from the attic of 109 Court St. in Boston:

"Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!"

A century and a half later, and we all carry a form of this invention in our pockets wherever we go. It transformed the ways in which we communicate, connect, and transmit information over distances.

Friday, March 27, we co-hosted a commemoration of that pivotal, catalyzing moment that happened here in Boston. In attendance were two very special guests:

Sara Grosvenor, great-granddaughter of Alexander Graham Bell and President of The Alexander and Mabel Bell Legacy Foundation, and

Dr. Robert Mellors, great-grandson of Thomas Watson, and his wonderful family. This was the first time the two descendants had met one another.

We even got to take their photos in front of our 109 Court St. dioramas!

Another highlight - Graham Gifford of the New Hampshire Telephone Museum came all the way from Warner, NH, to share some of the special 19th-century phones of their collection with our guests.

On view nearby were handwritten letters by Alexander Graham Bell, on loan from the Boston University archives, as Bell was a BU professor at the time of his invention of the telephone.

That's why this event was a collaboration with the Ravi K. Mehrotra Institute for Business, Markets & Society, Boston University Questrom, and was particularly special to me as a proud Terrier. Kristal May and Caroline O'Connor crushed it - perfect planning and execution of such a multifaceted program!

We live-streamed two panel discussions, including one with Sara, Bell's great-granddaughter, and Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath.

On our museum side of things, the leadership, tech, archives folks, and all our interns and volunteers were amazing.