The First “Hello!”: Thomas Edison, the Phonograph and the Telephone – Part 2
By Allen Koenigsberg

The archivist's next suggestion was inspired - he recommended that I look through the huge published volumes which comprised the detailed minutes of the National Convention of Telephone Companies. The first one was held at Niagara Falls, NY, from Sept. 7 - 10, 1880. And there, nearly at the very beginning, the newly elected president, George L. Phillips of Dayton, Ohio, spoke (somewhat awkwardly) to the delegates: "I haven't any speech to make to you. We are all in the telephone business. I can make a short speech to you which would express a great deal. The shortest speech that I could make to you and that would express a great deal to you, probably would be the one that is on all of your badges - 'Hello!' [Applause] ... We ... will present statistics showing the use the telephone is put to; showing how it has entered into the life of the public in such a way that if we are wise in the management of our exchanges nothing can drive it out."

Nothing could be clearer at this point the word "Hello" had certainly entered the English language, with a certain sense of novelty too - witness the conventioneers' badges (have any of these turned up?). The number of telephones in the U.S. (Bell licensees) in early 1880 was over 60,000 - by 1881 the number had reached 132,000 - by 1882, there were 189,000, and by 1883, there were over a quarter of a million. Once the word was used, it spread like wildfire, perhaps coincidentally with the changeover from male to female operators.

Buy why were the phone companies using the word in the first place? After all, the inventor of the telephone - Alexander Graham Bell (and his associate Thomas Watson) - clearly preferred their own greeting believe it or not - "Ahoy!" (Bell scored another miss with his word many years later for a flying machine - aerodrome!)

The search continued in the AT&T Archives until paydirt was struck. Edison had written a short note on August 15, 1877 to T.B.A. David, president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of Pittsburg, Pa., who was preparing to introduce the telephone into that city shortly after Edison had invented the carbon button transmitter. The brief - and now historic letter - which refers to a model Edison was making for him, reads as follows:

"Friend David, I do not think we shall need a call bell as Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What you think? Edison - P.S. first cost of sender & receiver to manufacture is only $7.00."

This short message contains the first authenticated occurrence and spelling of "Hello" in the English language. If one analyzed the letter from a psychological point of view, an intriguing possibility arises. Was Edison's annoyance at Bell's prior invention of the telephone sublimated into an unconscious dislike of starting a conversation with a bell (a constant reminder of his rival)? Perhaps that is why he preferred an assertive word - Hello - which would signal the person being called because its own sound could be heard at a great distance. But the final puzzle remains - where did Edison himself get the word?

In the mid-nineteenth century, there was a word growing in use, mainly to express surprise - "Hullo". It was first used briefly by Charles Dickens in 1850 and then by Thomas Hughes in ‘Tom Brown's School Days’ in 1857, a book Edison probably read. This word was apparently related to another - Halloo - which was employed as a call to hounds or even as call for a ferryman. Interestingly enough, when Edison first discovered the principle of recorded sound (on July 18, 1877), the first word he yelled into the device (the strip phonograph) was "Halloo". A recounting of this incident, although with condensed chronology, appeared in the 1879 edition of J.B. McClure's ‘Edison and His Inventions’: "I tried the experiment, first on a strip of telegraph paper, and found that the point made an alphabet. I shouted the word 'Halloo! Halloo!' into the mouthpiece, ran the paper back over the steel point and heard a faint Halloo! Halloo! in return! I determined to make a machine that would work accurately, and gave my assistants instructions, telling them what I had discovered."

What can one conclude from all of this? It seems that a slang word "hullo" was developing in the mid-1800's to express surprise and as a means of calling attention, and that Edison was indeed the first to spell it "Hello" in the 1877 letter to T. B. A. David. This usage was picked up at Menlo Park where Edison continued to make substantial improvements to Bell's invention, especially in the transmitter. As Edison's inventions were incorporated into the growing Bell system (his patents for Western Union were turned over to Bell in 1879), his greeting (perhaps a misspelling of a word which he heard with difficulty) spread at the telephone exchanges which standardized introductions between strangers. By 1882, the first book was copyrighted in the U.S. with the word "Hello" in the title, and sheet music began appearing as early as 1884 with the same word of greeting - the most famous of which - Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven - appeared in 1901. The United States, and the world, had acquired a new word to go with a new invention, both with basic modifications from Edison's "idea factory".

The next time you say "Hello" - just think of the simple beginnings of this modest word and the role it has played in communications for more than a century. It is no longer a surprise when someone picks up the phone and contact is made, but imagine were it not for Edison's well-known difficulties with spelling and hearing, we might all be answering callers today with "Ahoy! Ahoy!" when the telephone rings.

Picture caption: It is very difficult to locate any picture of Edison on his telephone, but this Aug. 31, 1914 photo does show that he could be persuaded, at least for commercial purposes (shown here with his Telescribe, an early phone-recording device). Courtesy Edison National Historic Site – National Park Service.

Article and illustration courtesy of Antique Phonograph Magazine, Vol.VIII No.6