Bell System
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The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell, as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $150 billion and employed over one million people.
1912 Bell System advertisement promoting its slogan for universal service
195 Broadway, AT&T headquarters for most of the 20th century
The Spirit of Communication as used on the Bell System's directories in the 1930s and 1940s
Manhole cover with Bell System logo
Bell Telephone Company
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The Bell Telephone Company was the initial corporate entity from which the Bell System originated to build a continental conglomerate and monopoly in telecommunication services in the United States and Canada.
The master telephone patent (174465), granted March 7, 1876
Gardiner Hubbard, first president and a trustee of the Bell Telephone Company, and father-in-law of Alexander Graham Bell
The Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, 1876, brought Bell international attention.
Alexander Graham Bell ceremonially inaugurating the first New York-to-Chicago telephone line in 1892