Apart from those internal characteristics mentioned above, Bell’s external social capital encompassing the financial support from his patrons, efficient assistant work by Thomas A. Watson and encouragement from other scientists and his families serve as an important role in his success, without which Bell alone might possibly not stand a good chance to materialize his creative ideas. Even if he could at last on his own, it must take a far longer time or perhaps when people talk about the invention of telephone today, the first one coming to our mind is someone else, but not Alexander Graham Bell. When working on the multiple telegraphs, Bell was financially supported by his future father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, an attorney in Boston. Besides this significant financial support offered by his patrons, he also had very resilient and skillful attorneys to help him. In June 1875, Bell tried unsuccessfully to transmit and receive vocal sounds. But on the basis of this experiment, he started preparing a patent application concerning the improvements in harmonic telegraph and included a claim for voice transmission via undulating currents. (Bell and Gray: Just a Coincidence) Getting some hints of the liquid transmitter, his lawyer added several words referring to the liquid transmitter to his application before handing it to the patent office, which got Bell some time to further his experimentation and finally invented the telephone successfully and obtained the telephone patent. Encouragement from other experts, like Joseph Henry, the reverenced director of Smithsonian Institution, who offered encouraging words after listening to Bell’s idea of a telephone, motivated Bell a lot in his tough research process of the invention of the telephone. His assistant, Thomas Watson’s effective cooperation should also be taken into account of the successful invention. Bell was so well connected that others helped him so much. And without those people, he could not have succeeded.
What’s more, the inspiration from his telephone patent competitorElisha Gray played a critical role in his successful invention of telephone. There have been disputes over who was the earliest inventor of the telephone since the day they applied for the patent was the same. Though now every schoolchild knows that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, many still believe that it was Elisha Gray who first invented the telephone and a lot of sound evidence has been given to substantiate the idea. It is generally said that “Bell beat Gray to the patent office by couple of hours and so was awarded the patent” when Elisha Gray filed his caveat and Alexander Graham Bell submitted his patent application on February 14th, 1876. However, many people argue that, “that is not how the patent office worked. Under patent of the time, patents were awarded on the basis of who was first to invent, not who was the first to file, so the order in which the two applications was received was not important.” (Bell and the telephone controversy). And further proof is provided that “Bell later admitted learning the essence of Gray’s variable-resistance claim on a trip to Washington when he met the patent examiner (an improper communication) on 26 February; an amendment requesting that unrelated items be changed was submitted on 29 February; and the patent was granted 7 March. In this final version it included a clause claiming credit for a variable-resistance transmitter, with specific reference to a device using acidulated water”. (Bell and Gray: Just a Coincidence?) Though Bell was said to know some details about the design of Gray, the accuracy of such evidence was doubtful. What’s more, those traces of Gray’s design in Bell’s notebook could possibly be regarded something inspired by Gray. Some researchers claimed that the device of a liquid transmitter never appeared in Bell’s previous recordings. However, even the fact was that Bell drew on Gray’s idea of liquid transmitter, it was fair to claim that Bell was deserving of the patent, since he was the first one to really put that into real practice and make it function properly. This liquid transmitter device departed notably from Bell’s previous work, the critical inspiration from Gray directly contributed to his attainment of the patent.
Though so much evidence was given to substantiate the idea that Alexander Graham Bell was a thief plagiarizing the design of Elisha Gray, another fact could not be ignored that Gray only had the plan to develop a device that would transmit speech sounds electrically via liquid transmitter, and he did not materialize his plan. He filed his caveat, but it was different from a patent application. According to the norms at that time, “A caveat provided an inventor up to a year with an exclusive right to turn his or her idea into a working, patentable invention. In those days, an inventor who had conceived of a device but had yet to build it could use a caveat to warn away would-be competitors.” (the theft of century) this difference between a caveat and an application was an important proof for Bell’s just claim for the telephone patent.
In the United States of America and across may parts of the world today, telephones are an indispensible part of people’s life, without which a host of people would even feel insecure. This great invention is generally credited with Alexander Graham Bell who successfully invented it in the year of 1876 with a critical device of liquid transmitter. Bell had very creative ideas from his young age and put them into implementationBell’s execution of his creative ideas, as well as his perseverance with a practical end and all kinds of support from the outside world helped him become the world-known inventor of the first working telephone. Though who is the first one to invent the telephone is still in dispute, it is doubtless that Gray’s design actually gave Bell some enlightenment or inspiration to help him in his invention of the telephone, which was very critical.
Annotated bibliography
Chamorro- Premuzic, Thomas, “The Five Characteristics of Successful Innovators”, Harvard Business Review, accessed February 15, 2017,
https://hbr.org/2017/10/the-five-characteristics-of-successful-innovators/ .
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a writer for the Harvard Business Review, describes the five characteristics needed for successful innovators. Specifically, he explains the criteria of innovation, and how innovation is executed. He also explores the significance of a mission with a practical end and a clear long-term plan and vision to build an innovative mindset. Based on scientific studies, discussions, and research, Premuzic summarizes the five characteristics of creative individuals. It is helpful in highlighting that every innovator should have an opportunistic mindset, formal education or training, proactivity and a high degree of persistence, a healthy dose of prudence, as well as social capital.
Seth Shulman, “Theft of the Century”
Seth Shulman…he looks at the long-standing dispute over the telephone patent. Specifically, he closely examines the notebook Alexander Graham Bell kept in his lab and then gives a lot of evidence to state that Bell plagiarized Gray’s design of the liquid water transmitter device and shows his respect to Gray, whose loss of credit for the development of the telephone was quite possibly due in part to his ineptitude as a tactician, but there is little room for controversy over his priority and contribution in it.
Bernard S. Finn, “Review: Bell and Gray: Just a Coincidence?”…
Bernard S. Finn, … he chronicles the events in the telephone patent dispute concerning Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray. Basedon plenty of studies and research, Bernard S. Finn provides a lot of sound evidence to prove that it is not a coincidence and that Bell drew on Gray’s idea of the liquid transmitter to vary the speech sounds.
Rebecca O. Bagley, “The 10 Traits of Great Innovators”
Rebecca O. Bagley….she emphasizes that the definition of innovation is about turning a vision into new products or services. She also explains the reason why Americans must increase their innovation capacity and also explores how to do that. She demonstrates at length the ten traits of great innovators. It is useful noticing that great innovators do things differently, innovators are authentic leaders, innovators understand innovation never happen in vacuum, are committed to diversity, lead by directing from the center of their organization, are not taking shortcuts, understand that it is not a one-time thing, are not afraid to break with the norms and contribute new and unconventional ideas of their own.
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