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01.
Feature
/
Continued
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Although
Nathan Stubblefield is best known as a
melon farmer who experimented with
wireless telephony, he initially became
famous around Murray, Ky., when he
established its first wired telephone
service. An examination of the records of
that business provides an interesting case
study in entrepreneurial behavior within
an industry based on emerging
telecommunications technology.
•••
By the mid-1880s, telephone service was
diffusing rapidly throughout the cities of
the United States. As many urban
franchises were already granted,
entrepreneurs were beginning to focus
attention on smaller communities. A common
challenge to all telephone ventures was
the near monopoly the Bell system had on
important patents for the electrical
telephone. Setting up a local telephone
system meant either paying a franchise fee
to American Bell Telephone or inventing
proprietary equipment that didn't conflict
with any of its numerous patents.
Otherwise, the venture had to wait until
1893 when the initial Bell patents would
become public property.
•••
Telephony always fascinated Nathan
Stubblefield more than telegraphy. While
the telegraph business was mature, the
telephone industry still had room for
innovation and profits derived
therefrom.
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•••
He could readily learn about the technical
aspects from periodicals. Stubblefield
found that he not only understood the
descriptions and diagrams but could
replicate the equipment and make it work.
He also had time for experiments,
especially in the winter when his garden
didn't demand his attention. Here was a
growth industry into which he could
channel both his inventive energy and his
desire to earn his own fortune. One easy
way to circumvent the Bell patents was to
build a non-electric, acoustic telephone
system. Similar to the tin cans and string
devices kids use at play, these telephones
were actually quite prevalent in the era.
The U.S. patent office issued dozens of
patents for variations of the technology
in the 1880s. One of those went to Nathan
B. Stubblefield and Samuel C. Holcomb
(Mechanical Telephone, 1888).
•••
Stubblefield called it a vibrating
telephone (see page 28). It consisted of a
metal can mounted securely on a wooden
backboard with a small round hole aligned
with the center of the can's open back. A
cloth diaphragm stretched across the open
face of the can. In the center of this
diaphragm was a button attached to a wire
that led through the hole in the back of
the device. The wire connected each phone
to its mate. A coat of varnish on both
sides gave the diaphragm structural
integrity so the installer could tighten
the wire and stretch the surface, like
tuning a drum. Finally, a small hammer
hung from the device. The caller hit the
button with the hammer to signal the other
phone, then stood close to the diaphragm
and spoke.
•••
Because wire was expensive, Stubblefield
tested an early mechanical telephone
connecting the instruments with waxed
string. When he told Duncan Holt in 1885,
"I've been able to talk without wires
… all of 200 yards … and it'll
work everywhere," (Hortin, 1972).
•••
Stubblefield was talking about his
vibrating telephone, which technically was
"wireless." Subsequently, writers picked
up that anecdotal comment and interpreted
it to mean Stubblefield was already at
work on electrical wireless telephone
systems, but it is unlikely that he had
access to key components or an
•
•
Wireless telephony is now an
assured fact. Indeed, just at the time
when the whole country is talking of the
wonderful success achieved by inventors
recently in wireless telegraphy, a test of
telephony by the wireless means has been
made with almost equally astounding
results.
.--
CLICK FOR MORE STORY01
02
/ 28
Journal of Business and Public Affairs
interest in wireless telephony by 1885. In
fact, he stated that his wireless efforts
began around 1890 (Stubblefield,
1902).
•••
Soon he abandoned the string connections
in favor of wire that was more resistant
to weather damage. Wind created particular
problems for this type of phone system. It
stimulated resonant vibrations in the
wires. Because the system was acoustic,
these vibrations were audible, sometimes
loud and piercing. Using more expensive
copper wire reduced but did not eliminate
the noise entirely. Moreover, the distance
between telephones was limited to short
lines, not over a mile, because the
connecting wire had to be stretched
taut.
•••
But within those limits, Stubblefield
claimed that the system was "capable of
transmitting a whisper" and voice or music
would have "such clarity as to be heard
100 feet away from the phone"
(Stubblefield's Mechanical Phone, 1888).
He offered a five-year warranty on both
equipment and installation. Despite its
low-tech design, this was the first
telephone system in Murray, and
Stubblefield experienced enough prosperity
from its novelty value to establish an
office on the town square. He and his
partner Samuel Holcomb sold the first pair
to Calloway County Court Clerk
•••
George W. Craig in late 1886. Craig wrote:
This is to certify that I have had in use
some months one of the Stubblefield &
Holcomb telephones which is giving
satisfaction. Therefore I do not hesitate
to recommend it (Craig, 1887).
•••
His affidavit is one of several that
Stubblefield collected for promotional
use. Early customers attested that it was
the best telephone that they had ever
heard, perhaps because it was the only one
they had ever used. A declaration from
A.H. Wear, druggist and publisher of the
local newspaper, stated: This is to
certify that Messr's Stubblefield and
Holcomb have put up for us one of their
telephones (the distance being about 3/4
of a mile) which works splendidly. When
there is no wind blowing, a whisper can be
heard perfectly distinct. This is to our
knowledge the best vibrating telephone we
have seen (Wear, 1887).
•••
Murray druggists Martin and Dale were also
satisfied customers: We take the pleasure
in recommending the Stubblefield and
Holcomb telephone. We have two of them in
our store, one leading from our store to
office above with four angles, and the
other a residence some 450 yards distant.
Both work satisfactorily (Martin, Dale,
1887).
•••
Samuel Holcomb's role in this enterprise
remains obscure. Apparently he was not
related to a Holcomb who was in the
acoustic business in Cincinnati at
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• FIGURE 1
Patent
Illustration for Stubblefield's Vibrating
Telephone, 1888 /// 2 Journal of Business
and Public Affairs 29 the same time. He
may have put up the money for the patent
application. Stubblefield sold and
installed the telephones himself around
Murray and nearby West Tennessee. He also
ventured farther south in 1887. One
customer was John Gage, a merchant in
Louisville, Miss. Stubblefield described
him: This man had a hereditary trait of
urbanity in him … a fat belly man,
jolly and clever. When his phone was put
in, it carried such an interest with it up
in his end of town that in order to hear
the wonderful thing talk the people came
in by the score and they came into his
parlor with mud on their feet until they
liked to have ruined a nice carpet
(Stubblefield, 1910a).
•••
On the same trip, he installed a system
for the Illinois Central Railroad at
McCool, Miss., where the railroad agent
wrote: Mr. Nathan Stubblefield of
Stubblefield and Holcomb Murray, Ky., has
just completed me a telephone line which
works admirably. Have tested the line by
playing harp or whispering at one office
which can be distinctively heard and
understood at other office. Anyone needing
a line can be accommodated by Mr.
Stubblefield who guarantees satisfaction
and has given it here (McKinnon,
1887).
•••
By January 1888, Stubblefield and his
vibrating telephone were well known in and
around Murray. Calloway County Judge W.B.
Keys, along with other county officials,
signed a testimonial that stated: This is
to certify that Nathan Stubblefield of
this town has from time to time during the
last 14 months put up quite a number of
the Stubblefield telephones in this town
and county which are giving general
satisfaction. ... We cheerfully recommend
them to the public (Keys et al.,
1888).
•••
For three months in that spring,
Stubblefield returned to Mississippi and
set up shop in Vaiden "at the best hotel
in town" (Stubblefield, 1910b). Numerous
affidavits attest to the success of this
trip. Stubblefield had a territorial deed
for any representative who wanted to
establish a local franchise elsewhere
using his system. One agent from
Tennessee, G.G. Westerbrook, was
successful at selling the "Vibrating
Telephones" as far away as Oklahoma. J.T.
Stubblefield had a franchise in the
Pacific Northwest. The most successful
representative was Ira Prichard of Murray,
who wrote colorful accounts for the Murray
Ledger of his sales trips throughout
Southern Illinois in early 1889 (Prichard,
1889).
•••
Installation cost varied, depending on the
length of the line and the number of poles
involved. But money was not common in the
rural United States of the late 19th
century. One customer, a Post
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•
FIGURE
2. Photo:
Advertisement
and price list for Stubblefield's
Vibrating Telephones, probably 1888 ///4 -
30 Journal of Business and Public Affairs
Office in Coffeeville, Miss., came up
short on a seventeen-dollar installation.
Stubblefield had to make special
arrangements: These people liked
[sic] about four dollars paying
for this but it was paid for by public
subscription, Mr. Brown taking
responsibility of collection. So I let him
beg off a little (Stubblefield,
1910c).
•••
No accurate count of the total number of
telephones sold exists, but the income was
adequate for Stubblefield to earn a living
from the enterprise for at least four
years.
•••
After Stubblefield received his 1888
patent, he devised an improved version
called the Laryngaphone. With it, the
caller could communicate without the phone
box by stretching a string tightly around
his throat or clinching it in his teeth
while talking (A New Invention, 1889). It
used a hearing tube attached to the side
of the metal can for better audibility and
included an electric bell for better
signaling. Although this electrical
circuit would increase installation and
maintenance cost, the new network would
put Stubblefield in better position to
enter the electric telephone business in
1893, when both his five-year warranty and
the initial Bell patents expired. In
preparation, he acquired copies of the
relevant patents, contacted equipment
manufacturers for price lists, and got
legal opinions on the validity of claims
made by the Bell Company and its
subsidiary Western Electric (Stubblefield,
1894).
•••
Providing telephone service to the Murray
newspaper undoubtedly helped Stubblefield
get favorable publicity. One article about
his work read: He is an inventive genius,
and his inclinations are to experiment
with electric appliances, etc. … Mr.
Stubblefield has about reached perfection
in the manufacture of telephones and has
his lines introduced throughout a large
scope of territory. He says he intends
building up a "telephone reputation" over
the name of Nathan Stubblefield (Murray
Ledger, 1890).
•••
The editorial support from the Murray
Ledger was welcomed because Stubblefield
now had competition in the telephone
business. In 1889, a group of Murray
doctors and businessmen, many of them
Stubblefield's subscribers, formed a
company to bring the Bell telephone system
to town (Morgan, 1971, pp. 58-60).
•••
With the latest improvements in sound
reproduction technology, it was now
superior in every respect to
Stubblefield's vibrating telephone. While
Stubblefield was marketing a novelty, his
competitors sold a versatile service that
had better prospects for return on
investment.
•••
A severe technical limitation of acoustic
telephones was that they were closed
circuit systems &emdash; one phone
connected to one other &emdash; without
provision for central switching or
networking. Customers needed a separate
telephone and line for each location that
they might want to call.
•••
Economically, this flaw limited
Stubblefield's income to the initial sale
of equipment and the low-margin business
of maintaining existing installations.
Because he could not establish local
telephone exchanges, he had no opportunity
to earn the substantial cash flow from
monthly billing for connections to local
and, eventually, long distance networks.
Within a year Stubblefield's telephone
business was finished. Understandably
upset at the prospect of failure just as
he was beginning to show results, he also
knew that he had expertise that was
valuable to his competitors. So he entered
into a contract with them to install Bell
telephones, and a system including five
miles of wire, a switchboard and central
office. But this arrangement proved
unpleasant, and by late 1890 Stubblefield
found himself back on the
•••
FIGURE 3. Photo. Exclusive Franchise
Agreement, 1888 Stubblefield had agents as
far away as the west coast under contract
to sell his vibrating, or mechanical,
telephones.
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•
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From a station in the law office of
a friend over a transmitter of his own
invention he gave his friends a greeting
by wireless telephony, and at seven
stations located in different business
houses and offices in the town the message
was simultaneously delivered. Music,
songs, whispered conversations could be
heard with perfect ease. --
CLICK FOR MORE
STORY02
03
/ ///5
Photo Only
•••
///6 - 32 Journal of Business and Public
Affairs farm, his independence but little
else intact (Miller, 1971, pp. 34-35).
•••
He made a few more attempts at wired
telephony. The first was a novel telegraph
device designed to work on telephone
lines. It was unique in that users could
dial up letters and numbers, rather than
using Morse code, to communicate with each
other. Similar devices, some with
printers, experienced modest success in
Europe but never caught on in the United
States. Like the Laryngophone,
Stubblefield's Bell Telegraph didn't get
beyond the design stage. Then in 1894, he
tried to bring the Viaduct electric
telephone to the area in competition with
the Bell system. For this he had grand
plans, beginning with replacing the few
mechanical phones that he still maintained
in Murray with the new electric ones. Then
he envisioned franchises in every state
and territory for the Stubblefield
Telephone, with prices ranging from $200
in Arizona and Montana to $5000 in New
York (Stubblefield, 1894). But his
competitors had already sucked up both
capital and customers. A charter from the
city of Murray was the extent of this
enterprise, and he finally sold that for
$50 to pay off debts.
•••
Nathan Stubblefield, the inventor,
perceived a window of opportunity for a
functional, but simplistic technology to
compete with the rapidly emerging and
well-publicized Bell telephone system.
Utilizing this perception and his own
ingenuity, he established a small
business. Its success was restricted,
however, because Stubblefield, the
entrepreneur, failed to recognize the
limitations of his telephone system. He
was also plagued by inadequate capital and
by a business plan that ignored the
prospects that improved technology
offered. Had he chosen to embrace the Bell
telephone technology in 1888, he had the
chance to retain his customer base and
possibly convert some of them into
investors.
•••
From his experience in the telephone
business, Stubblefield learned two lessons
that would stay with him for the rest of
his life. He began to think on a grand
scale of inventions that would have a
nationwide market. And he discovered that
even people he had known and trusted all
his life would sell him short in a minute
to make a profit. So when he had any grand
ideas, he'd best keep the details to
himself until they were ripe, like the
melons in his garden, and ready to
sell.
•••
In the meantime, Stubblefield had
encountered a technology that he felt
would allow him to recoup his losses. With
it he believed that he could establish a
telephone system at substantially lower
cost than any Bell franchise and provide
service to more customers, even those
widely dispersed throughout rural America.
It was a wireless telephone system, and it
would make Nathan Stubblefield the most
famous person ever to come from Murray,
Ky.
ByLine
/ Source
of Study
•••
• References
•••
• Many of the sources listed below
are documents from the Nathan B.
Stubblefield Papers (NBS Papers) in the
FIGURE 5 - Photo: Stubblefield's
Laryngophone, 1890 Never patented, this
was a variation on the Stubblefield
Vibrating Telephone. ///6 and Photo
•••
• Journal of Business and Public
Affairs 33 Special Collections at the
Pogue Library, Murray State University,
Murray, Ky. In particular, the records
related to the vibrating telephone
business are from a donation to the
archive from the estate of Vernon
Stubblefield Sr.
•••
• Craig, George (1887). Testimonial,
February 15. NBS Papers.
•••
• Hortin, L.J. (1972). Untitled
article from the Murray Ledger and Times,
March 28. NBS Papers.
•••
• Keys, W.B., George W. Craig,
R.F.
•••
• Hamlin, and G. Miller (1888).
Testimonial, January 17. NBS Papers.
•••
• McKinnon, J.A. (1887). Testimonial,
June 15. NBS Papers.
•••
• Martin, Dale and Co. (1887).
Testimonial, February 15. NBS Papers.
•••
• Mechanical Telephone (1888). U.S.
Patent 378, 183, issued to N.B.
Stubblefield and S.C. Holcomb, February
21.
•••
• Miller, David (1971). The Role of
the Independent Inventor in the Early
Development of Electrical Technology.
Ed.D. Dissertation, University of Missouri
- Columbia.
•••
• Morgan, Thomas (1971). The
Contribution of Nathan B. Stubblefield to
the Invention of Wireless Voice
Communication. Ph.D. Dissertation, Florida
State University.
•••
• Murray Ledger (1890). Clipping,
October 3, NBS Papers.
•••
• A New Invention (1889?). Newspaper
clipping. NBS Papers.
•••
• Prichard, Ira (1899?), Letters to
the Editor,
•••
• Murray Ledger, NBS Papers.
Stubblefield, Nathan B. (1894). Folder of
telephone patents with marginal
notations.
•••
• NBS Papers. (1902). Statement from
the article "Kentucky Farmer Invents
Wireless Telephone," St. Louis
Post-Dispatch Sunday magazine, January 12,
p. 3. (1910a). Marginal note to
testimonial of John Gage, June 30,
1887.
•••
• NBS Papers.(1910b). Marginal note
to testimonial of J.H. Peebles, November
24.
•••
• NBS Papers.• (1910c). Marginal
note to testimonial of W.W. Kelly, A.H.
Wimberly and John W. Brown, November 10,
1888.
•••
• NBSPapers. Stubblefield's
Mechanical Phone (1888). Advertisement.
NBS Papers.
•••
• Wear, A.H. (1887). Testimonial,
April 23.
•••
• NBS Papers.
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• FIGURE 6
Photo of
Stubblefield's Bell Telegraph, 1890
Designed for home use, this device used
letters of the alphabet rather than Morse
Code. Nathan never applied for a patent on
it. /// end
Messages by Water
/ The Collins System
•
•
Somewhat different from
Stubblefield's method is the system being
perfected by Prof. A .Frederick Collins, a
nimble- witted Yankee of Philadelphia.
(more story NBS
patent assignment to Collins)
•
•
To put the case in a nutshell, it
may be stated that he uses terrestrial
currents instead of metallic currents such
as are employed in the old-fashioned
telephone or ether waves which are
utilized by Marconi. --
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STORIES02
http://www.icehouse.net/john1/stubblefield.html
Etching: Shortly after the
publishing of the Daily
Herald, Delphos,
Ohio articcle, and after the March,
1902, NBS Philadelphia Demonstration,
Nathan Stubblefield's Wireless Company
signed a deal with Prof. A. Frederick
Collins to market the NBS Wireless
Telephony system.
See Photo of Collins with Nathan in the
Philadephia, Washington DC.
Photos.
/
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ABOUT THE COLLINS / STUBBLEFIELD DEAL -
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