We’ve often thought that while going to the moon in the 1960s was audacious, it was just the flashiest of many audacious feats attempted and accomplished in the 20th century. Imagine, for a minute, ...

From an unpretentious Manhattan headquarters, the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. runs a prodigious organization. The Bell System operates more than half of the world’s 208 million phones, reaps ...

In the years immediately after the breakup of the Bell System in 1984, a question arose: What was the purpose of this company—and what was the purpose of its laboratory, arguably the finest in the ...

During a study of evolving telephone designs for our new book, my coauthor Russell A. Flinchum and I came across two of Pratt’s distinguished alumni who had connections to the Bell Telephone System.

The acquisition of BellSouth Corp. by AT&T Inc. would bring more than half of the traditional telephone business back under one roof and into the company once known as “Ma Bell,” whose history dates ...

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1: Industrial design takes root -- Alexander Graham Bell's telephone in a box -- An unexpected configuration change -- Rapid domestication -- Part 2: A 20-year ...