ABSTRACT
In business terms, the Bell corporate legacy drew upon a trusteeship that collected the patents he developed with Watson, who was actually the one who built the first phone ringer, created the first phone switchboard, and designed crucial mechanisms necessary to transform Bell’s experiments into a marketable product. Bell’s future father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the father of one of Bell’s deaf students, Thomas Sanders, and Bell himself formed the core of the company. Bell Telephone incorporated in 1877 with Hubbard serving as its first president. It later acquired a controlling interest in Western Electric Company, and Theodore N. Vail, general superintendent of the Railway Mail Service who impressed Hubbard with his eloquence at hearings in Washington, D.C., was chosen to lead the company.
