Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell sits at the New York end of the first long-distance telephone call to Chicago on October 18, 1892. Years earlier, Bell went to the Roosevelts for financial backing of his new invention. He hooked up a telephone so that young Theodore could talk from his desk to a room down the hall. Teddy concluded that while the device had potential as a toy, it had no real future.

The Granger Collection, New York.