📅 On This Day
Bell's 1877 Telephone Company Plants a Dividend Dynasty
On July 9, 1877, Alexander Graham Bell organized the Bell Telephone Company with Gardiner Hubbard as president and Thomas Watson — the man on the other end of that first famous call — as its first employee. The venture evolved into American Telephone & Telegraph, the defining blue-chip stock of the 20th century, paying dividends for more than a century. When the government broke AT&T apart in 1984, it spawned seven new dividend-paying companies at once — described as the most prolific act of dividend creation in corporate history.
From a single telephone company founded in 1877, an entire generation of income stocks was eventually born.
T — AT&T Inc.
🇺🇸 US
Source: AT&T; Library of Congress
📅 On This Day
Bell's 1877 Telephone Company Plants a Dividend Dynasty
On July 9, 1877, Alexander Graham Bell organized the Bell Telephone Company with Gardiner Hubbard as president and Thomas Watson — the man on the other end of that first famous call — as its first employee. The venture evolved into American Telephone & Telegraph, the defining blue-chip stock of the 20th century, paying dividends for more than a century. When the government broke AT&T apart in 1984, it spawned seven new dividend-paying companies at once — described as the most prolific act of dividend creation in corporate history.
From a single telephone company founded in 1877, an entire generation of income stocks was eventually born.
T — Telus Corp
🇺🇸 US
Source: AT&T; Library of Congress
🌍 Around the World
Australia's Franking Credits Can Turn Dividends Into Tax Refunds
Australia runs a full imputation system: companies paying the 30% corporate tax rate attach a 'franking credit' to their dividends, and shareholders receive credit for tax already paid at the corporate level. If your personal rate falls below 30%, the Australian Tax Office refunds the difference in cash — making a fully franked dividend uniquely powerful for local retirees in lower brackets. Foreign investors, however, generally cannot claim the credit and receive only the cash dividend, losing the imputation benefit entirely.
For Australian retirees in low tax brackets, a fully franked dividend can actually put money back in their pocket.
🇦🇺 AU
Source: Australian Taxation Office; ASX investor education
🔥 Dividend Streak
Hormel Raises Its Dividend Again — Sixty Years Running
The company that fed Allied soldiers mountains of SPAM during World War II has never stopped rewarding its shareholders. Hormel has raised its dividend every single year since 1966 — 60 consecutive annual increases — and has paid an uninterrupted quarterly dividend stretching all the way back to 1928. From wartime military rations to a nearly century-long payout record, few consumer-staples stories carry quite this much history.
Continuous quarterly dividends since 1928: Hormel turns a canned-meat legacy into a remarkable income story.
HRL — Hormel Foods Corporation
Source: Hormel Foods Corporation press release
💡 Did You Know
Whaling Voyages Ran Like Venture Capital, Paying Out in Oil
Long before stock exchanges formalized income investing, American whaling syndicates out of Nantucket and New Bedford operated with striking similarities to modern venture capital. Ship owners contributed capital, agents diversified risk across multiple voyages, and the 'dividend' was entirely physical — barrels of whale oil and bundles of baleen. Voyages lasted two to four years, returns were binary, and a run of successful hauls briefly made New Bedford one of the wealthiest cities in America.
The oldest income investments didn't pay in cash — they paid in cargo, and risk was just as real.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Nantucket Historical Association; New Bedford Whaling Museum