Elisha Gray

Elisha Gray made many contributions to the telegraph and telephone industries, including his invention of the telautograph, a forerunner of the modern-day fax machine.

Gray was born in Barnesville, Ohio, in 1835. Growing up on his family’s dairy farm, he developed an early interest in telegraphic communication. In fact, less than a year after the first telegraph line had been established, he built a working telegraph prototype when he was just 10.

Gray took a break from his education at age 12 after the death of his father, but he later completed Oberlin Preparatory School and then enrolled at Oberlin College. He pursued his college education for two years while supporting himself as a carpenter. Although he did not graduate, he established himself as an electrician, built laboratory equipment for Oberlin’s science departments, and even taught classes there in electricity and science.

In 1865, Gray constructed a self-adjusting telegraphic relay that automatically adapted to different types of insulation of the telegraph line. He filed for his first patent in 1867. By 1869, Gray had partnered with Enos M. Barton to establish Gray & Barton Co. in Cleveland – a business that supplied telegraph equipment to Western Union Telegraph Co. Western Union later bought out a third of Gray’s business, and the company would soon be known as the giant Western Electric Manufacturing Co.

In 1874, Gray sold his share of Western Electric to conduct his own research and focus on developing his own inventions. Pursuing his goal of advancing telegraph and telephone technology, Gray soon became engaged in a race with fellow National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductee Alexander Graham Bell to invent a telephonic transmitting device.

In 1876, Gray’s lawyer filed a caveat – an official intent to file a patent – for his invention of the telephone. On the same day, however, Bell had already filed his patent just hours before, leading to controversy and years of litigation.

Though Gray was not granted the patent on the telephone, his design is widely considered the most successful telephone prototype. Despite this challenge, he went on to pioneer other influential technologies including the telephone call box and speaking telephones.

In 1877, Gray designed the first electronic musical synthesizer by combining a small keyboard with electromagnetic circuits. To demonstrate the instrument, he staged a concert in Philadelphia, which played live through a telegraph in New York City.

Gray introduced the telautograph in 1887. This device could remotely transmit handwritten messages through telegraphic technology. Gray earned several patents for this device, which was later adopted by banks for signing documents from afar and by the military for sending handwritten commands when spoken orders would be inaudible.

Over the course of his lifetime, Gray published several books and earned more than 70 patents for his revolutionary technologies. His honors include the French Legion of Honor and an honorary master’s degree from Oberlin College, which he received in 1878. From 1880 to 1900, Gray taught electricity, telegraphy and their musical applications at Oberlin as an honorary professor of dynamic electricity.