Acquisition By AT & T

In 1881, American Bell acquired a controlling interest in the Western Electric Company Western Union. Only three years earlier, Western Union had refused the offer of Gardiner Hubbard to sell all rights to the telephone for $ 100,000 (about 2.41 million in current dollars). In a few years, the president of Western Union would recognize that it was a mistake serious matter, which almost led to his company later, almost engulfed by the newly emerging telecommunications giant Bell Telephone would soon become. Western Union was saved from death by the U.S. government anti-monopoly interventions.

A year earlier, in 1880, the management of American Bell had created what would become AT & T Long Lines. The project was the first of its kind to create a national long-distance network with a commercially viable cost structure. The project was officially incorporated in New York as a separate company named American Telephone and Telegraph Company March 3, 1885. From New York, a network of long-distance telephony reached Chicago, Illinois, in 1892, with its multitude of local exchanges continue to grow more and more each year thereafter the creation of a telephone system on a continental scale.

On 30 December 1899, the assets of American Bell were transferred to its subsidiary American Telephone and Telegraph Company (formerly AT & T Long Lines) is because Massachusetts corporate laws were very restrictive and limited capitalization to ten million dollars, ahead of U.S. growth over Bell. With this transfer assets from the second to last day of the 19th century, AT & T became the parent of two American Bell and the Bell System.

John Elbridge Hudson joined Bell Telephone as a lawyer in 1880 and was president from 1889 to 1900. AT & T was later acquired by SBC Communications, which became the new AT & T.