The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts on July 9, 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company — the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. The Bell Telephone Company was started on the basis of holding "potentially valuable patents", principally Bell's master telephone patent #174465.
The two companies merged on February 17, 1879 to form two new entities, the National Bell Telephone Company of Boston, and the International Bell Telephone Company, soon-after established by Hubbard and which was headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Theodore Vail then took over its operations at that point, becoming a central figure in its rapid growth and commercial success.
The National Bell Telephone Company subsequently merged with others on March 20, 1880 to form the American Bell Telephone Company, also of Boston, Massachusetts.
Upon its inception, the Bell Telephone Company was organized with Hubbard as "trustee", although he was additionally its de facto president, since he also controlled his daughter's shares by power of attorney, and with Thomas Sanders, its principal financial backer, as treasurer. The American Bell Telephone Company would later evolve into the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), at times the world's largest telephone company.
Read more about Bell Telephone Company: Predecessor To The Bell Company, Earliest Division of Bell Company Shares, Early Promotional Success, Worldwide Expansion, Acquisition By AT&T, Memorial To Bell's Invention
Famous quotes containing the words bell, telephone and/or company:
“One of the most difficult aspects of being a parent during the middle years is feeling powerless to protect our children from hurt. However “growthful” it may be for them to experience failure, disappointment and rejection, it is nearly impossible to maintain an intellectual perspective when our sobbing child or rageful child comes in to us for help. . . . We can’t turn the hurt around by kissing the sore spot to make it better. We are no longer the all-powerful parent.”
—Ruth Davidson Bell (20th century)
“Women who marry early are often overly enamored of the kind of man who looks great in wedding pictures and passes the maid of honor his telephone number.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)