Inventions & Discoveries · Communication and computing

Telephone

1861–1876 · 19th century

The telephone is a device that turns the voice into electrical signals and back into sound at a distance; Johann Philipp Reis demonstrated the first device to transmit a voice by electronic signals before the Physical Society of Frankfurt on 26 October 1861. Credit for the invention is disputed among Reis, Antonio Meucci, Charles Bourseul, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell, who in March 1876 received the first United States patent for the electric telephone. Bell's patent became the master patent from which others flowed, and switchboards soon linked telephones into exchanges and networks.

Telephone
Image: Unknown author · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

On the inventions tree

First known
1861
Where
Frankfurt
Credited to
Johann Philipp Reis · Alexander Graham Bell

NoteCredit is disputed among Reis, Antonio Meucci, Charles Bourseul, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell, who received the first United States patent in 1876.

Built onElectrical telegraph1816
Led toMobile phone1973

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Mentioned in 1 profile

Ancient GreekLegacy

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Telephone. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/telephone
MLA
“Telephone.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/telephone. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Telephone.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/telephone.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Telephone’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/telephone (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻