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Alexander Graham Bell – great inventor

Alexander Graham Bell – great inventor

Alexander Graham Bell – great inventor

Alexander Graham Bell was a scientist, inventor and businessman, founder of Bell Labs, which defined further development of the telecommunications industry in the United States. He is famous for creating one of the world’s most important communication devices—the telephone.
Alexander was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Several relatives of Bell, in particular his grandfather, father and uncle were professional rhetoricians. Father of the inventor, Alexander Melville Bell, even published a treatise on the art of oratory. At the age of 13, Bell graduated from the Royal School in Edinburgh; at the age of 16 he was appointed a teacher of rhetoric and music in Weston House Academy. Alexander studied at Edinburgh University for one year and then moved to the English city of Bath.
When Alexander’s two brothers died of tuberculosis, the family decided to move to Canada. In 1870, the Bells settled in the city of Brantford, Ontario. Like his father, Bell worked with deaf and dumb people, teaching them to speak. He then moved to Boston and opened a school for the deaf.

In 1873, Bell became a teacher of physiology of speech at Boston University. At that time a number of scientists were able to transmit sounds from one place to another but Bell wanted to transmit the sound of the human voice. He met a businessman who offered to support him in his experiments with electricity, in 1876, Bell spoke the first words on the phone. ‘Mr Watson,’ he said to his assistant. ‘Come here, I want you.’ In 1892 he made the first telephone call from New York to Chicago.

Alexander Bell makes a telephone call

Alexander Bell makes a telephone call

In 1877, Bell married his student Mabel Hubbard.
In 1882, he became a citizen of the United States.
In 1888 he participated in the creation of the National Geographic Society.
In 1890 he founded an organization in Washington, D.C., to teach speech to hearing-impaired people. This organization later became the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
Alexander Bell died on August 2, 1922 in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada. At the time of his burial, all the telephones of the United States and Canada (over 13 million) were kept silent for one minute.
Alexander Bell was considered the inventor of the telephone for a long time and that brought him worldwide fame. On June 11, 2002, the US Congress recognized that leadership in this invention belonged to the Italian Antonio Meucci, who had applied for the patent in 1871.
However, Bell made the inventions and in other various fields including the machine for shelling corn (1858), audiometer (1879), metal detector, vacuum pump (1881), tetrahedral kite (1901), airplane “Silver Dart” (1909).

Alexander Bell and his wife

Alexander Bell and his wife

Interesting facts
– Bell was a good friend of Helen Keller, who dedicated to him her autobiographical novel “Story of my life”.
– In 1976, an international non-profit association Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) established the Alexander Graham Bell Medal.
– In 1970, a crater on the Moon was named in honor of Alexander Bell.
– In 2013, three first Nano satellites, made by NASA PhoneSat were named in honor of Bell.
– Alexander Bell never phoned his mother and wife, they were both deaf.
– In 1888 Bell founded the National Geographic magazine, which is still being published in many languages and in many countries around the world.

Alexander Graham Bell – great inventor

Alexander Graham Bell Medal

Alexander Graham Bell Medal

Portrait of Alexander Bell

Portrait of Alexander Bell

Monument to Alexander Graham Bell in Brantford

Monument to Alexander Graham Bell in Brantford

Alexander Bell - inventor and a teacher of the deaf

Alexander Bell – inventor and a teacher of the deaf

Alexander Bell - inventor and a teacher of the deaf

Alexander Bell – inventor and a teacher of the deaf

Alexander Graham Bell – great inventor

Alexander Graham Bell – great inventor