The Bell Telephone : the Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell in the Suite Brought by the United States to Annul the Bell Patents.
Boston: American Bell Telephone Company 1908. First Edition. iv, 469, [1-blank] pages. 8vo. Publisher's red cloth with gilt titles, soiled and worn at the extremities. Date stamp on front endpaper, signature of James Rudolph Garfield (son of President Garfield) in purple ink on verso. Frontispiece of Bell from a photograph taken in 1876. Tipped in at the title page is a printed presentation notice: "With Compliments of Alexander Graham Bell, 1331 Connecticut Avenue, Washington D.C." Archival tissue repair to tear and associated creasing to pp 447/8. Otherwise generally clean internally with an occasional spot here and there. Good. Cloth. [26031]
"During the next decade several unsuccessful lawsuits challenging Bell patents were brought against Bell and his company. The present work consists primarily of the deposition given by Bell for the last of these lawsuits, filed in the name of the United States against Bell and the American Bell Telephone Company on January 13, 1887. The deposition includes a detailed history of Bell's work on the telephone, as well as technical descriptions and illustrations of Bell's apparatus. The two Bell patents are reproduced in full at the end of the deposition." (Origins of Cyberspace #117)
In addition to it's inherent importance for the contemporary review of Bell's litigation, this copy is signed by James Rudolph Garfield, son of President Garfield. Alexander Graham Bell tried using a primative metal detector in 1881 in an (unsuccessful) attempt to find the bullets that struck down President Garfield. So James Rudolph Garfield was certainly was aware of Bell and his scientific background. He was also a lawyer and politician himself, serving from 1903 to 1907 as Commissioner of Corporations at the Department of Commerce and Labor, and from 1907 to 1909 when he served in Roosevelt's Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. As Commissioner of Corporations, James Rudolph Garfield would have certainly been aware of the United States' legal proceedings against Bell, his telephone and it's subsequent application in industry. It is not surprising that Bell apparently sent a copy of this work to the younger Garfield as he was preparing to leave government to return to private practice. A nice association.
Copies are known with no presentation notice, some with presentation notice from "American Bell Telephone Company" and as here "With Compliments of Alexander Graham Bell".
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