Almon Brown Strowger

Almon Brown Strowger (* October 19, 1839 in Penfield, New York, † May 26, 1902 in Saint Petersburg, Florida), developed in 1889 the electromechanical Hebdrehwähler, which is the technical foundation for the world's first automatically operated telephone exchanges.

Curriculum vitae

About his early life little is known. From the traditional white grave stone with the inscription ' Lieut. A. B. Strowger, Co.A, 8NY Cav. ' shows that he was a veteran of the U.S. Civil War. It is believed that he took part in the second battle of Bull Run, near Manassas, Virginia.

After the Civil War he seems to have been first country school teacher before becoming a funeral director. According to various sources he has in El Dorado (Kansas), Topeka (Kansas ), and finally lived in Kansas City, Missouri. It is not known where he got the idea of an automatic exchange, but the patent documents identify him on March 10, 1891, the citizens of Kansas City.

Strowger is consistently referred to as the undertaker of Kansas City, who invented the automatic telephone switching system.

It is said that he had been motivated to develop an automatically operating telephone exchange, because he had trouble with the staff of the then customary manual switchboard. He was convinced that the agency staff the local exchange calls preferred led to its competitors. He also had the suspicion that the mediators influence the selection of the undertaker by the telephone customer if such services were required. This suspicion had its origin died in an incident in Topeka, as a friend and the family contacted a competitor. Other traditions, according to the wife or possibly the cousin of a competitor as a phone mediator worked. The exact course of events can no longer be reconstructed. Historians tell us that those who have known Strowger, who described him as eccentric, choleric, or even crazy.

With the intention that instead of switching personnel, participants should decide for themselves whom they call, in 1888 he began to work on his invention and received on 10 March 1891, the U.S. Patent No. 447.918 for an automatic telephone switching system. It is reported that its first model of a round collar box and some knitting needles was.

Although Strowger developed the idea, but did not work alone but enlisted the help of his nephew William and others to complete, who were familiar with electricity and had the money to realize his concepts. With their help the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company was founded, which solemnly took the world's first commercially used automatic exchange in La Porte, Indiana, installed and on November 3, 1892, about 75 participants and a capacity for 99 participants in operation.

The engineers have developed further Strowger designs and submitted several patents under the names of the employees. The company changed its name several times. Strowger himself seems not to have been involved in the further development. He sold his patents in 1896 for $ 1,800 in 1898 its share of the 'Automatic Electric Company ' for $ 10,000, and retired for health reasons to St. Petersburg (Florida ), where he worked as a funeral director again as from the files of HP Bussey morgue from 1899 shows. Strowger died at the age of 62 years in St. Petersburg (Florida ) to aneurysm, after suffering from anemia. He left behind some wealth, it means he possessed at least one block in the city.

He was survived by his widow, Susan A. Strowger (* 1846, † April 14, 1921 in Tampa, Florida). In 1916 his patents were traded for $ 2.5 million. In the obituary of his wife in the St. Petersburg Times was alleged that she had her husband's further revolutionary developments retained because only others would benefit from its developments. She said that her husband had only receive $ 10,000 for his invention, though he had a million are to receive.

A bronze plaque commemorating his invention, in 1945 it was installed by the telephone company representatives at his grave. Strowger was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the U.S. Independent Telephone Association 1965. Besides he invented voters still bears his name a locomotive and a corporate price.

The Strowger - patent

His patent consists of the following components:

In order to select, for example, the number 432, the caller pressed four times the 100 key, three times the 10 - key and the 1 key twice. By a mechanism of electromagnets, racks and gears the contact arm first moves according to this example, four rows up, then performs a rotary movement about 30 positions and then over two positions.

Later, the system was supplemented by line detector, thereby reducing the number of required voters was drastically reduced. In addition, a mechanism for detecting a busy subscriber was added later. The basic concept has remained the same until the introduction of digital switching equipment and was about 100 years in operation. The modularization and scalability made ​​the Strowger system of competition, their systems were not suitable for building large networks, far superior.

Quote

Strowger should have done in 1890 following saying ( loosely translated ): "My competitors will no longer be able to steal all of my clients just because his wife is a Bell telephone operator ".