Alexander Graham Bell

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Scottish-born American audiologist best known as the inventor of the telephone at age 29 and founder of AT&T. He continued to teach, research and invent for the rest of his life. Alexander was the second of the three sons of Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Grace Symonds Bell. His brother Melville was born in 1845 and Edward was born in 1848. Bell was largely family trained and self-taught. His first professional post was at Mr. Skinner's school in Elgin, County Moray, where he instructed the children in both music and elocution. In 1864 he became a resident master in Elgin's Weston House Academy, where he conducted his first studies in sound. In 1868 he became his father's assistant in London and assumed full charge while the senior Bell lectured in America. Both his brothers died of tuberculosis: younger brother Edward died on 17 May 1867 and older brother Melville Bell on 28 May 1870. With his work responsibilities, the stress took its toll on his health. The family moved to Canada in August 1870 where his health rapidly improved. In 1871 Bell spent several weeks in Boston, lecturing and demonstrating the system of his father's Visible Speech as a means of teaching speech to the deaf. He continued to lecture and do his own research, even while on vacation. In 1872 he opened his own school in Boston for training teachers of the deaf and in 1873 he became professor of vocal physiology at Boston University. In 1876, with the help of his assistant, Thomas Watson, a young repair mechanic and model maker, Bell invented the telephone. The famed story relates that it was on 10 March 1876 when Bell's first words were carried over an electronic transmission, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you," to the astonishment of his assistant. Bell obtained a patent for his invention and within a year began a commercial application. With in a few months, the first of hundreds of legal suits began; however, Bell's claims were upheld as the first to conceive and apply the undulatory current. The Bell Telephone Company was formed on 9 July 1877. It merged with New England Telephone Company to become the National Bell Telephone Company in early 1879 and in 1880 became the American Bell Telephone Company. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company was formed on 3 March 1885 to manage the expanding long-distance business. In the fall of 1880 France honored Bell with the Volta Prize which he used to fund the Volta Laboratory. There, he and a team of associates invented the Graphophone. The design incorporated major improvements in Thomas Edison's phonograph to make it commercially viable. Bell's share of the royalties financed the Volta Bureau and the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf (since 1956 the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf ). On 8 May 1893 his 13-year-old prodigy, Helen Keller, was present for the ground-breaking ceremonies for the new Volta Bureau building--now an international information center relating to the oral education of the deaf. In 1885 Bell bought land on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia where he built a summer home, Beinn Bhreagh, complete with research laboratories. Bell continued his experiments in communication, which culminated in the invention of the photophone--transmission of sound on a beam of light and precursor to our laser communications; in medical research; and in techniques for teaching speech to the deaf. In 1897 Bell succeeded his father-in-law as president of the National Geographic Society and transformed the organization’s pamphlet into an international magazine with his idea that geography could be taught through pictures. As interest in the possibility of flight increased after the turn of the century, he experimented with giant man-carrying kites. At Beinn Bhreagh, Bell investigated sonar detection, solar distillation, the tetrahedron as a structural unit and hydrofoil craft. One of his hydrofoils won a speed record of 70 miles per hour in 1919. In 1881 Bell showed that he was willing to use his inventive powers to help in a crisis. Bell rushed to create a device to try to locate a bullet lodged in President Garfield after an assassin shot him. The same year Bell's newborn son, Edward, died from respiratory problems, prompting Bell to design a metal vacuum jacket that would facilitate breathing - a forerunner of the iron lung. Bell continued to make entries in his journals until a few days before his death. On 11 July 1877 Bell married Mabel Hubbard, a deaf woman ten years his junior. They took a yearlong honeymoon in Europe. Daughter Elsie May was born on 8 May 1878, Marian (Daisy) Bell was born on 15 February 1880, son Edward was died in infancy on 15 August 1881 as did Robert, on 17 November 1883. Bell was granted American citizenship in 1882. Bell died of complications from diabetes at 2 AM on 2 August 1922 and was buried at Baddock, Nova Scotia. Link to Wikipedia biography