Following Alexander Graham Bell's 1876 patent, telephone exchanges spread rapidly through American and European cities in the 1880s and 1890s, giving merchants, brokers, and factory managers a way to coordinate orders and deliveries in real time over distances of tens of miles. Commodity exchanges, banks, and wholesalers were among the earliest heavy commercial users, since the telephone let them confirm prices and settle deals without waiting for a telegram to be carried, transcribed, and delivered. By the early twentieth century, telephone networks connected most major commercial centers within national markets, though long-distance and transoceanic voice calls remained limited for decades.
Relevance to Trade History
Real-time voice communication sped up order confirmation and price negotiation within national markets, complementing the telegraph's role in long-distance trade.
Read the full story in our article The Telegraph and Faster Commercial Communication.
Source: Smithsonian National Museum of American History. See our Sources & Methodology page for how we select and verify references.