Gardiner Hubbard was a founding partner of the Bell Telephone Company alongside Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Sanders, later becoming president of the National Geographic Society.
A lawyer and businessman, Hubbard believed that that Bell's inventions would go far, but selling the first phones was never easy.
Uptake of the new telephone started slowly and cash flow was a great problem. Happily hard work was forgotten for a while when Bell married Hubbard's daughter Mabel.
However, to raise money Hubbard was forced to try to sell Bell's patents to the giant Western Union company for $100,000. When the offer was refused Hubbard hit on the idea of leasing out phones rather than selling them, which reduced customers' outlay.
Although Western Union finally realised its mistake and began stiff competition, the Bell company managed to ride the storm to build the company into the giant AT&T organisation of today.
