Alexander Graham Bell at the opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago

Bell sits at the New York end of the first long-distance line to Chicago and inaugurates real long-distance telephone service in 1892. Like gas and electricity, the telephone began as a local service and kept spreading, until, by 1915, transcontinental service was a reality. Reproduction Number LC-G9-Z2-28, 608-B Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

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