Actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell in an AT&T promotional film (1926)
Today in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell gave a public demonstration of his new invention, the telephone, at the Centennial Exhibition, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Steven Lubar in InfoCulture: “Bell demonstrated three induction telephones to a select jury that included Sir William Thomson, perhaps the best-known British electrical scientist and Dom Pedro, emperor of Brazil. It made an enormous hit: Dom Pedro expressed everyone’s astonishment with the new machine by exclaiming (so legend has it), ‘My God, it talks!'”
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Great website. Lot’s of good information. You might want to change the photo on the “My God, it talks” page. That is NOT Bell, it’s a still photo of an actor in an early AT&T promotional movie. I am the author of a biography of Bell, and a descendant.
Regards, Edwin Grosvenor
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Corrected. Thank you for your kind words. Coming from you, it’s a tremendous encouragement for me. Gil
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