View source for Almon Brown Strowger

{{Short description|American inventor of the telephone exchange (1839–1902)}}
{{more citations needed|date=December 2012}}
{{tooshort|date=October 2023}}
{{infobox person
| image       = Almon Strowger.jpg
| caption     =
| birth_date  = {{birth date|1839|02|11}}
| birth_place = [[Penfield, New York]], U.S.
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1902|05|26|1839|02|11}}
| death_place = [[St. Petersburg, Florida]], U.S.
| occupation  = Inventor
| spouse      = Susan Strowger
}}
'''Almon Brown Strowger''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|t|r|oʊ|dʒ|ər}}; February 11, 1839 – May 26, 1902) was an American inventor for whom the [[Strowger switch]], an electromechanical [[telephone exchange]] technology, is named.

==Early years==
Strowger was born in [[Penfield, New York]], near [[Rochester, Monroe County, New York|Rochester]], the grandson of the second settler and first [[miller]] in Penfield. Little is known about his early life. It is said that if his mother gave her children a task, Strowger and his brothers would often try to devise a machine to do the task for them.  He taught school in Penfield for a time.  

In October 1861, he enlisted as a Musician in Company A, [[8th New York  Cavalry Regiment]], to fight in the [[American Civil War]]. He was promoted to Sergeant and Chief Trumpeter of the regiment in February 1864, and ended the war as a Second Lieutenant. He was wounded in action at the [[Third Battle of Winchester]] in 1864, and discharged later that year. 

After the Civil War, it appears he first became a country school teacher before he became an [[mortician|undertaker]]. He is variously attributed as living in [[El Dorado, Kansas]], or [[Topeka, Kansas]], and finally [[Kansas City, Missouri]]. It is not clear where his idea of an automatic telephone exchange was originally conceived, but his patent application identifies him as being a resident of Kansas City, Missouri, on March 10, 1891.

==Telephone exchange==
{{Main|Strowger switch}}
A commonly told story holds that Strowger believed that his [[Funeral director|undertaking]] business was losing clients to a competitor whose wife was a local telephone operator and was preventing telephone calls from being routed to Strowger's business and re-routing them to her husband's business instead, following his discovery in the newspaper that a friend's funeral was being handled elsewhere.<ref>{{citation |url=http://ethw.org/Electromechanical_Telephone-Switching |year=2015 |title=Electromechanical Telephone-Switching |work=[[Engineering and Technology History Wiki]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103031321/http://ethw.org/Electromechanical_Telephone-Switching |archive-date=January 3, 2017 |access-date=February 19, 2017}}</ref> Motivated to remove the intermediary operator, he invented the first [[automatic telephone exchange]] in 1889; he received its patent in 1891.<ref>{{citation |url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/almon-strowger/16911 |year=2011 |title=Almon Strowger |work=[[Kansas Historical Society]]'s Kansapedia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170114094940/http://kshs.org/kansapedia/almon-strowger/16911 |archive-date=January 14, 2017 |access-date=February 19, 2017}}</ref> It is reported that he initially constructed a model of his invention from a round collar box and some straight pins.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1928-05-27 |title=The Automatic Phone Sprang From a Collar Box |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kansas-city-star-the-automatic-phone/111684614/ |access-date=2024-01-29 |work=The Kansas City Star |pages=71}}</ref>

==Finances==
While Strowger may have come up with the idea, he was not alone in his endeavors and sought the assistance of his nephew William and others with a knowledge of electricity and money to realise his concepts. With this help the [[Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company]] was formed and it installed and opened the first commercial exchange in (his then home town of) [[La Porte, Indiana]], on November 3, 1892, with about 75 subscribers and capacity for 99. He married Susan A. (1846–1921) from [[Massachusetts]] in 1897 as his second wife. Strowger sold his patents to his associates in 1896 for $1,800 (about $59,000 in 2021)<ref>{{Cite web|title=$1,800 in 1896 → 2021 {{!}} Inflation Calculator|url=https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1896?amount=1800|access-date=2021-10-05|website=www.in2013dollars.com|language=en}}</ref> and sold his share in the [[Automatic Electric Company]] for $10,000 (about $330,000 in 2021)<ref>{{Cite web|title=$10,000 in 1898 → 2021 {{!}} Inflation Calculator|url=https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1898?amount=10000|access-date=2021-10-05|website=www.in2013dollars.com|language=en}}</ref> in 1898. His patents were subsequently sold to Bell Systems for $2.5 million in 1916 (about $63,000,000 in 2021).<ref>{{Cite web|title=$2,500,000 in 1916 → 2021 {{!}} Inflation Calculator|url=https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1916?amount=2500000|access-date=2021-10-05|website=www.in2013dollars.com|language=en}}</ref>

The company's engineers continued development of Strowger's designs and submitted several patents in the names of its employees. It also underwent several name changes. Strowger himself seems to have not taken part in this further development. He subsequently moved to [[St. Petersburg, Florida]]. Strowger was a man of some wealth at his death and was reported as owning at least a city block of property.

==Death==
Strowger died, aged 63, of an [[aneurysm]] after suffering from [[anemia]], at [[St. Petersburg, Florida|St. Petersburg]], [[Pinellas County, Florida]]; he was buried in Greenwood Cemetery the next day. His grave is marked with the traditional white [[headstone]] with an inscription that reads: "Lieut. A.B. Strowger, Co. A, 8 NY Cav."

He was survived by his widow Susan A. Strowger (1846–1921). After her death in [[Tampa, Florida]], on April 14, 1921, her obituary appeared in the ''[[St. Petersburg Times]]'', claiming she had additional "revolutionary" Strowger designs, but she had refused to make them public while she was alive because only others would profit from her husband's designs. She had claimed that her husband had only received $10,000 for his invention, when he should have received $1,000,000.

==Legacy==
A bronze plaque, to commemorate his invention, was placed on his grave in 1945 by telephone company officials. Strowger was admitted to the hall of fame of the U.S. Independent Telephone Association (later the [[United States Telecom Association|USTA]]) in 1965. Apart from his invention, his name has also been given to a [[locomotive]] and a company business award.

In 2003, the Verizon Foundation awarded $4500 to Pinellas Heritage, Inc. and the Pinellas Genealogy Society in Strowger's memory. The funds were used to develop a website to impart the history of the cemetery where Strowger is buried, and to restore two Civil War memorials.  The Greenwood Cemetery project won an organization achievement award from the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation.

== Patents ==
* {{US patent|0447918}} Strowger switch "Automatic Telephone Exchange" (March 10, 1891)
* {{US patent|0486909}} Strowger patent for "Automatic Telephone or Other Electrical Exchange" (November 29, 1892)
* {{US patent|0591201}} Strowger, et. al. patent for "Electrical Exchange" (October 5, 1897)

== See also ==
{{Portal|Biography|American Civil War}}

* {{annotated link|Rotary dial}}
* {{annotated link|Telephone exchange}}

==References==
{{refs}}

== Sources ==
* Katherine Wilcox Thompson, "Penfield's Past", 1960, pub. by the Town of Penfield, NY, pp 178–179
* {{cite journal |first1=R. B. |last1=Hill |title=Early Work on Dial Telephone Systems |date=January 1953 |journal=Bell Laboratories Record |volume=XXXI |issue=1 |pages=22–9 |url=http://www.historyofphonephreaking.org/docs/blr-1953-01-early-work-on-dial.pdf}}
* {{cite journal |first1=R. B. |last1=Hill |title=The Early Years of the Strowger System |date=March 1953 |journal=Bell Laboratories Record |volume=XXXI |issue=3 |pages=95–103 |url=http://www.historyofphonephreaking.org/docs/blr-1953-03-early-years-of-strowger.pdf}}
* [[Bell Labs]], [http://www.bell-labs.com/ Bell Laboratories Website]{{when|date=February 2017}}

==External links==
{{commonscat}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061024072442/http://www.shohola.com/kd3fg/ The oldest Strowger switch still in commercial service today at Camp Shohola for Boys, Pennsylvania, US]
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20021211010832/http://privateline.com/Switching/EarlyWork.html Reproduction with permission of the article ''Early Work on Dial Telephone Systems'' by R.B. Hill]}}
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20111025123622/http://www.privateline.com/Switching/EarlyYears.html Reproduction with permission of the article ''The Early Years of the Strowger System'' by R.B. Hill]}}
* [http://www.rootsweb.com/~flpgs/PGS-BusseyFHR-p2.html#20 Pinellas Genealogy Society – H.P. Bussey Funeral Home Records – with 2 entries for Strowger, one identified as A.B. Strowger]
* [http://www.rootsweb.com/~fljackso/mindexes/cemeteries/index746.htm Master Cemetery Index, p. 746]
* [http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Courses/CS39C.S97/telephone/telephone.html "Mr. Watson. Come Here. I need you.": Bell and the Invention of the Telephone]
* [http://www.samhallas.co.uk/railway/brt_locos.htm BRT Locomotives – Almon B. Strowger]
* [http://www.seg.co.uk/telecomm The Strowger Telecoms Site (UK) with link to 'copyrighted' sounds]
* [http://www.technology.niagarac.on.ca/staff/mcsele/TelephoneSwitch.html Webpage dedicated to electromechanical telephone switching technologies]
* {{find a Grave|6892494}}
* [https://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php/browse/catalogs-manuals-educational-docs-by-company/automatic-electric-2/10538-this-is-automatic-electric-1955-ocr-r/file TCI Library, ''This is Automatic Electric''. 1955.]

{{Telecommunications}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strowger, Almon Brown}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2020}}
[[Category:1839 births]]
[[Category:1902 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Penfield, New York]]
[[Category:Union army officers]]
[[Category:19th-century American inventors]]
[[Category:People from Kansas City, Kansas]]
[[Category:Deaths from aneurysm]]
[[Category:American funeral directors]]