Theodore Newton Vail

This article is missing information about Vail's career as the founder and president of AT&T. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (May 2024)

Theodore Newton Vail
Vail in 1913
4th President of American Telephone & Telegraph
In office 1907–1919
Preceded by	Frederick Perry Fish
Succeeded by	Harry Bates Thayer
1st President of American Telephone & Telegraph
In office 1885–1889
Preceded by	Inaugural holder
Succeeded by	John Elbridge Hudson
Personal details
Born	(1845-07-16)July 16, 1845 Malvern, Ohio, U.S.
Died	April 16, 1920(1920-04-16) (aged 74) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Spouse	Emma Righter ​ ​ (m. 1869; died 1905)​

Theodore Newton Vail (July 16, 1845 – April 16, 1920) was an American businessman who served as the general manager of Bell Telephone Company from 1878 to 1887 and became the founding president of American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.^[1][2] Vail viewed telephone service as a public utility and moved to consolidate telephone networks under the Bell system. In 1913 he oversaw the Kingsbury Commitment that led to a more open system for connection.

Theodore was born on July 16, 1845, in Malvern, Ohio, and was educated in Morristown, New Jersey.^[3] He initially studied medicine with his uncle. He also studied telegraphy. Success in telegraphy inspired him to go to New York City, where he became manager of a local telegraphy office.^[4] He then joined the staff of a superintendent of United States Telegraph, which ultimately became Western Union.^[4]

In 1866, Vail went west with his father to farm. In the fall of 1868, he was made operator and afterward agent at Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, on the Union Pacific Railroad. Pine Bluffs at that time was the principal supply point for wood for the Union Pacific, which had not then been completed.^[4]

In Spring 1869, Vail was appointed clerk of the railway mail service between Omaha, Nebraska, and Ogden, Utah. His success in getting the mail through during the snow blockage of 1870 drew the attention of upper management.^[4]

He was promoted to the Chicago and Iowa City railway post office, an important distribution point at the time. When the railway post office was established on the Union Pacific, Vail was promoted to head clerk.^[4]

In March 1873, Vail was assigned to duty in the office of the General Superintendent of Railway Mail Service in Washington, D.C., where he oversaw mail distribution^[4] and justified to Congress the compensation the railways received for carrying the mail. In June 1874, he was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Railway Mail Service. In 1875, he became Assistant General Superintendent.^[4]

In February 1876, Vail was appointed General Superintendent after his boss retired. He reached the highest grade attainable in this branch of the federal government and was the youngest officer in the Railway Mail Service, both in years and terms of service. When this final appointment was made by the Postmaster General, the Postmaster General said his only objection with Vail was his youth.^[4]

As General Superintendent, Vail helped place U.S. Postal employees under general civil service laws and established a system of six months' probationary appointments, which were subsequently adopted by all agencies.^[4]

The American Bell Telephone Co. had been organized by Gardiner G. Hubbard, father in law of Alexander Graham Bell. As a lawyer and lobbyist, Hubbard had opposed the Post Office Department before Congress for a variety of reasons.

Vail became convinced as a result of his association with Hubbard that the telephone would eventually revolutionize world communication, and he became a vigorous, though generally unsuccessful, promoter of Bell stock.^[5] Hubbard was impressed with Vail and offered him the position of general manager of the American Bell Telephone Company in 1878. Vail defended the Bell patents successfully from challenges from Western Union and others. He introduced the use of copper wire in telephone and telegraph lines.^[4]

Vail was a first cousin to Alfred Vail, who was instrumental in developing the first telegraph.

In August 1869, Vail married Emma Righter (November 6, 1844 – February 3, 1905), of Newark, New Jersey. They had one son, Davis Righter Vail (July 18, 1870 – December 20, 1906),^[4] who died after a 10-day bout with typhoid fever in 1906.^[6]

Vail visited Vermont in 1883^[7] and eventually purchased a 1,500-acre (6.1 km²) farm in Lyndon, Vermont, Speedwell Farms, a site for conferences that culminated in the creation of American Telephone & Telegraph.

Vail was a member of the Union League Club of New York, the Algonquin Club in Boston, and Jekyll Island Club.^[4]

In 1888, Vail retired but only temporarily as it turned out. He devoted his time to travel and adventure in South America, and promoting the use of the telephone abroad.^[4] In 1890, he received a concession from the federal government of Argentina to build a generating station at Cordoba to supply power to a trolley system in Buenos Aires. Vail had purchased a horse-drawn streetcar line serving the city and later bought out all competing lines and consolidated the system.^[8]

The Vail Mansion in Morristown, New Jersey, was built 1916–1918 as Vail's residence. It was the Morristown Municipal Building for over 75 years and, as of 2023, is a condominium.^[9]

Vail died on April 16, 1920, at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He had been brought to Baltimore from Jekyll Island, Georgia, in his personal rail car. Jekyll Island was a winter retreat for wealthy northern industrialists.^[3]

As a tribute to Vail, telephone service across the United States was halted for one minute on the morning of April 18, 1920, while his funeral was conducted in Parsippany, New Jersey. From 11:00 to 11:01, Eastern time (8:00 to 8:01 a.m. Pacific Time), AT&T telephone operators disconnected calls. At the time, "This caused temporary silence of about 12,000,000 telephones and 24,000,000 miles of telephone wire."^[10]

In his historical review of AT&T, John Brooks explained Vail's contribution to enlightened corporate policy:

Vail's presidential essays in AT&T annual reports are like nothing else in American business literature, before or since. They are personal, revealing, discursive, and sometimes pontifical. "If we don't tell the truth about ourselves, someone else will", Vail said in 1911. ... In 1907 he led off with a section entitled "Public Relations" – by which, as the context made clear, he meant not advertising and promotion, but the whole scope of relations between the corporation and the public. ... Vail introduced the concept ... that maximum private profit was not necessarily the primary objective of private enterprise. Profit was necessary to insure financial health...but was only one element in an equation.^[11]

In 1910, Vail founded the Vermont School of Agriculture in Lyndon, Vermont, which was subsequently merged into Lyndon Institute, a preparatory school.

Vail acquired the scientific book collection of George Edward Dering in 1911 and presented it to the library of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.^[12] The Vail Collection covers topics including "electricity, magnetism, lighter-than-air travel, animal magnetism" and others.^[13]

Vail also co-founded Junior Achievement in 1919.

• Vail Campus at the Lyndon Institute in Lyndon, Vermont

• Galambos, Louis. “Theodore N. Vail and the Role of Innovation in the Modern Bell System.” Business History Review 66#1 (1992), pp. 95–126. online
• Gleason, Arthur H. (February 1912). "A Cable Rate For Common Use: An Interview With Theodore N. Vail, The Head Of The Bell Telephone And Western Union Telegraph And Cable Companies". The World's Work: A History of Our Time. XXIII: 452–457. Retrieved 2009-07-10.

• John, Richard R. "Theodore N. Vail and the civic origins of universal service." Business and Economic History 28.2 (1999): 71-81. online
• MacDougall, Robert. "Long lines: AT&T's long-distance network as an organizational and political strategy." Business History Review 80.2 (2006): 297-327.

• Sobel, Robert (1974). "Theodore N. Vail : The Subtle Serendipidist". The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition. New York: Weybright & Talley. pp. 195–246. ISBN 0-679-40064-8.

• Theodore Newton Vail at Find a Grave
• "Vail, Theodore Newton" . Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). 1922.
• Vail Municipal Building at the Morristown & Morris Township Library