Angus S. Hibbard - Pioneer Telephone Executive and Inventor

Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", September 1981, page 12

(A reprint from the Bell Laboratories Record)

by R. B. Hill
General Staff

At a conference held by the American Bell Telephone Company in Boston in 1885, a paper was read by a young man named Hibbard, describing the methods he had followed in building toll lines in Wisconsin. This paper, and the man who read it, created such a favorable impression on Theodore N. Vail, General Manager of the American Bell Telephone Company, that Hibbard was called to New York in September, 1886, to become General Superintendent of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. This company had been formed during the previous year, with Edward J. Hall, Jr., as General Manager, to construct and operate long distance lines connecting the territories of the various Bell operating companies. At this time, the company's first line, between New York and Philadelphia, had been completed but not yet opened for service. 

Angus S. Hibbard was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on February 7, 1860, the son of William Bowman Hibbard and Adaline (Smith) Hibbard, both of whom were born in North Hadley, Massachusetts, and whose families had later settled in the west. He was educated in the Milwaukee Academy, and was for a short time a student at Racine College. After spending a year in the general offices of a railroad company, he was made chief clerk to Charles H. Haskins, Superintendent of the Northwestern Telegraph Company at Milwaukee in 1878. Haskins, as agent of the Bell Telephone Company -- a predecessor of the American Bell Telephone Company -- began the introduction of telephones in Wisconsin. 

Such was Mr. Hibbard's aptitude for the telephone business -- only a year old in 1878 -- that when the Wisconsin Telephone Company was formed in 1881, he was made its General Superintendent. At this time, life was very rugged in the heart of the lumbering country, and plenty of nerve, as well as the ability to improvise, were required in the construction and operation of telephone exchanges. Mr. Hibbard completed his first exchange, at Wausau, in six weeks. During the next five years, he had charge of the construction of more than fifty exchanges, as well as numerous short toll lines, and had some very interesting experiences.

When Mr. Hibbard was called to New York at the age of twenty-six, the offices of the A T & T were on the fifth floor of the Smith Building at 15 Cortlandt Street, New York City, while the operating room was on the second floor of a building at 140 Fulton Street, which is still standing (across the street from Whyte's Restaurant). In 1887, both the general offices and the operating room of the A T & T were removed to the new eight-story building of the Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company, at 18 Cortlandt Street, where they remained for many years. 

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Fig. 1 Lines of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company as of March 1, 1893.

During the seven years that Mr. Hibbard held the position of General Superintendent of the Long Distance Company, its lines were extended northward to Boston, Albany, and Buffalo; westward to Chicago and Milwaukee; and southward to Washington, D.C. Their extent as of March 1, 1893 is shown in Figure 1. From the start, only the highest grade of construction was employed: very heavy poles, set about 45 to the mile, sunk six feet in the ground, and strongly braced. The metallic circuits were all on hard drawn copper and were carefully balanced against induction and crosstalk. The high quality of transmission which they furnished set an example that did much to hasten the conversion of the exchange and toll lines of the local operating companies from a grounded to a metallic circuit basis. The strength of the long distance lines was amply demonstrated by their behavior under severe weather conditions, notably the famous blizzard of March, 1888, which completely disrupted telegraph and local telephone service along the eastern seaboard. During this storm no a single pole belonging to the A T & T broke or fell, and communication between New York and Philadelphia was not interrupted.

The first use of the long distance telephone in transmitting election returns was made during the presidential election of November, 1888, and due to the careful preparations made by Mr. Hibbard, the reports were received at political headquarters and newspaper offices in many eastern cities well in advance of those transmitted in the usual manner.

Fig. 2 Early type of "point" transposition 
employing four insulators on a double crossarm.

The story goes that during his early period of service with the A T & T, Mr. Hibbard was overburdened with work and had to put in long hours at his desk. Accordingly, he felt justified in applying to Mr. Hall for an increase in salary. The latter was not impressed, and told Mr. Hibbard that his work must be poorly organized. "If you can come to me sometime," said Mr. Hall, "and tell me that you have nothing to do, you may get an increase in salary." Mr. Hibbard said nothing further at this time, but at a later date, when Mr. Hall mentioned that he was going uptown to pick out a carriage, Mr. Hibbard asked to go along. When Mr. Hall reminded him of the fact that he was supposed to be overburdened with work, Mr. Hibbard replied that his work was so well organized that he had nothing to do right then. Shortly afterward he got a raise in salary. 

While he was General Superintendent of the Long Distance Company, Mr. Hibbard made several inventions, two of which are worthy of special mention -- the double transposition insulator, and the first practical form of central office distributing frame. 

Fig. 3 Hibbard double transposition insulator of 1889. 

When the transposition system for open wires was invented by J. A. Barrett in 1886,* "point" type transpositions were employed -- that is, the wires were transposed at the pole and ran parallel throughout the span. At first, four insulators were employed on a double crossarm, the transpositions being made by dead ending and cross-connecting with jumper wires as shown in Figure 2. In 1889, Mr. Hibbard devised a double transposition insulator -- two insulators mounted one above the other on a single pin which extended through a hole in the top of the lower insulator as shown in Figure 3. The transposition could thus be made with two double insulators mounted on a single crossarm, the wires being dead ended and cross-connected as before as shown in Figure 4. This method remained standard until the early 1900's.

Fig. 4 "Point" transposition employing two of the 
bard double insulators on a single crossarm.

In 1890, Mr. Hibbard designed the first practical form of distributing frame for making cross-connections between the line and switchboard cables in a central office, employing a compact structure of vertical, transverse, and longitudinal iron pipes or bars. The cables leading up from the cable vault were terminated on one side of the frame, while those leading down from the switchboard were terminated on the other side of the frame. Connections between the two sets of terminals were made by bridle or jumper wire, which made vertical and horizontal runs through the framework according to certain definite rules. In this way, the jumper wires, regardless of the position of their terminals on the frame, could be changed in any desired manner to effect a redistribution of the lines at the switchboard, without disturbing the cables of the connections at the switchboard.

The Hibbard distributing frame was covered by United States patent No. 453,863, issued on June 9, 1891. With subsequent improvements, it found wide use in Bell system manual exchanges. 

Mr. Hibbard was a member of both the Cable and Switchboard Committees, which were formed of executives and engineers of the parent Bell Company, the Bell operating companies, and the Western Electric Company. These committees met at intervals, beginning in the year 1887, to study the requirements of the operating companies and to make recommendations regarding the development of improved types of cables and switchboards to meet those requirements. 

Mr. Hibbard was also the originator, in 1888, of the Blue Bell sign, which was adopted in 1889 and has ever since been the standard emblem of the Bell System. The first design is shown in Figure 5.

Fig. 5 First design of the Blue Bell sign adopted in 1889.

In 1893, Mr. Hibbard left the Long Distance Company to become General Manager of the Chicago Telephone Company, predecessor of the Illinois Bell Telephone Company, where he remained until 1911, as Vice President after 1903. During this period, in addition to fulfilling his executive duties in a very able manner, Mr. Hibbard found time to make two very important inventions -- interrupted alternating-current machine ringing, and the first practical four-party full-selective signaling system. 

In 1895, Mr. Hibbard invented the interrupted alternating-current machine ringing system for "B" switchboard positions, in which the ringing of the called subscriber's bell started automatically when the operator inserted a plug in the jack, and continued intermittently, by means of a commutator arrangement, until the call was answered, when it was automatically discontinued. This system which has been widely used in Bell System common battery exchanges, was covered by United States patent No. 542,052, issued on July 2, 1895.

It was also in 1895 that Mr. Hibbard invented the first successful four-party full-selective signaling system, in which each subscriber on a party line heard only the ringing of his own bell. In this arrangement, two oppositely biased polarized bells were connected from either side of the line to ground; the ringing was accomplished by the use of plus and minus currents supplied by two central office generators, one with its positive pole grounded and the other its negative pole. This gave four ringing combinations, because a current sent out in a predetermined direction over either side of the line operated the bell adapted to respond to that direction of current, while the other bell on that side of the line remained unresponsive, since the current that operated one bell assisted the biasing spring of the other to prevent its armature from oscillating. With various subsequent improvements, this system, which was covered by United States patent No. 555,725, issued on March 3, 1896, has found a wide application in party line service. 

In 1911, Mr. Hibbard transferred to New York to assist in establishing the combined telephone and telegraph service planned by Mr. Vail after the purchase of control of the Western Union Telegraph Company. This plan met with criticism, and after discussions with the Federal Administration was abandoned. 

Mr. Hibbard retired from active service in 1915, and returned to Chicago, where for many years he maintained an active interest in civic and social affairs, and his hobbies of music and outdoor sports. In 1941, he published his book "Hello-Goodbye," a colorful and very readable story of the author's telephone career during the first thirty-five years of Bell system history. 

Mr. Hibbard died in Chicago on October 21, 1945, at the age of 85. 

THE AUTHOR: ROGER B. HILL received a B.S. degree from Harvard University in 1911 and entered the Engineering Department of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in August of that year. For several years thereafter he was engaged principally in appraisal and depreciation studies. When the Department of Development and Research was formed in 1919, he transferred to it, and since then has been largely concerned with studies of the economic phases of development and operation. He has been a member of the staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories since 1934, first in the Outside Plant Development Department and later in the Staff Department. In addition to his work on the economic side of the telephone business, Mr. Hill has exhibited a great interest in the early history of the telephone art and has assisted with the preparation of several books and articles dealing with that subject.

The preceding article was sent to us by David Turner, who suggested that it would be in interest to Crown Jewels readers, particularly those who collect telephone signs and like to walk early telephone lines.