8. The Gilded Age included the creation of a national telephone system
In 1874 the Bell Patent Association was formed to protect the patents owned by the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. In 1885 the association formed a new company with the intent of creating long distance telephone service across the United States, by connecting extant local networks or creating new companies to service communities across the nation through exchanges. The company was named the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. By the end of 1892 the system of interconnected exchanges had extended to Chicago, by the end of the century the nation was linked by telephone from New York to Los Angeles, and cables were either installed or in the process of installation to the Hawaii Territory and other overseas possessions.
AT&T, as it came to be called, also got into the radio business and, as its name implied, telegraphs, though it never really rivalled Western Union in the sending of wire messages. Its entry into radio was a result of its partnership with RCA, and for a time the company owned and operated a toll radio station in New York. AT&T did not broadcast any original programming of its own, instead it allowed others to lease the facilities for a fee and broadcast their programming or messages. The idea proved unworkable, and AT&T later began broadcasting amateur programs produced by its own employees. In the early twentieth century AT&T gave up competing with Western Union and instead purchased the company, as well as many smaller telephone companies, and by the beginning of the First World War monopolized the telephone system in America.