Alexander Graham Bell - Biography

In 1876, at the age of 29, Alexander Graham Bell invented his telephone.
Back to The History of the Telephone

In 1876, at the age of 29, Alexander Graham Bell invented his telephone. In 1877, he formed the Bell Telephone Company, and in the same year married Mabel Hubbard and embarked on a yearlong honeymoon in Europe.

Alexander Graham Bell might easily have been content with the success of his telephone invention. His many laboratory notebooks demonstrate, however, that he was driven by a genuine and rare intellectual curiosity that kept him regularly searching, striving, and wanting always to learn and to create. He would continue to test out new ideas through a long and productive life. He would explore the realm of communications as well as engage in a great variety of scientific activities involving kites, airplanes, tetrahedral structures, sheep-breeding, artificial respiration, desalinization and water distillation, and hydrofoils.

Alexander Graham Bell Design sketch of the phone.

With the enormous technical and later financial success of his telephone invention, Alexander Graham Bell's future was secure, and he was able to arrange his life so that he could devote himself to his scientific interests. Toward this end, in 1881, he used the $10,000 award for winning France's Volta Prize to set up the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C. A believer in scientific teamwork, Bell worked with two associates, his cousin Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, at the Volta Laboratory. Their experiments soon produced such major improvements in Thomas Edison's phonograph that it became commercially viable. After 1885, when he first visited Nova Scotia, Bell set up another laboratory there at his estate, Beinn Bhreagh (pronounced Ben Vreeah), near Baddeck, where he would assemble other teams of bright young engineers to pursue new and exciting ideas. Among one of his first innovations after the telephone was the " photophone," a device that enabled sound to be transmitted on a beam of light. Bell and his assistant, Charles Sumner Tainter, developed the photophone using a sensitive selenium crystal and a mirror that would vibrate in response to a sound. In 1881, they successfully sent a photophone message over 200 yards from one building to another. Bell regarded the photophone as "the greatest invention I have ever made; greater than the telephone." Alexander Graham Bell's invention reveals the principle upon which today's laser and fiber optic communication systems are founded, though it would take the development of several modern technologies to realize it fully.

Over the years, Alexander Graham Bell's curiosity would lead him to speculate on the nature of heredity, first among the deaf and later with sheep born with genetic irregularities. His sheep-breeding experiments at Beinn Bhreagh sought to increase the numbers of twin and triplet births. Bell was also willing to attempt inventing under the pressure of daily events, and in 1881 he hastily constructed an electromagnetic device called an induction balance to try and locate a bullet lodged in Alexander Graham Bell Sketch of a vacuum jacket in use. President Garfield after an assassin had shot him. He later improved this and produced a device called a telephone probe, which would make a telephone receiver click when it touched metal. That same year, Bell's newborn son, Edward, died from respiratory problems, and Bell responded to that tragedy by designing a metal vacuum jacket that would facilitate breathing. This apparatus was a forerunner of the iron lung used in the 1950s to aid polio victims. In addition to inventing the audiometer to detect minor hearing problems and conducting experiments with what today are called energy recycling and alternative fuels, Bell also worked on methods of removing salt from seawater. However, these interests may be considered minor activities compared to the time and effort he put into the challenge of flight. By the 1890s, Bell had begun experimenting with propellers and kites. His work led him to apply the concept of the tetrahedron (a solid figure with four triangular faces) to kite design as well as to create a new form of architecture. In 1907, four years Photograph of the after the Wright Brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk, Bell Silver Dart formed the Aerial Experiment Association with Glenn Curtiss, William "Casey" Baldwin, Thomas Selfridge, and J.A.D. McCurdy, four young engineers whose common goal was to create airborne vehicles. By 1909, the group had produced four powered aircraft, the best of which, the Silver Dart, made the first successful powered flight in Canada on February 23, 1909. Bell spent the last decade of his life improving hydrofoil designs, and in 1919 he and Casey Baldwin built a hydrofoil that set a world water-speed record that was not broken until 1963. Months before he died, Bell told a reporter, "There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.

Alexander Graham Bell - Quote "Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Follow it up, explore all around it, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought."

In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won. Alexander Graham Bell - Evolution of the Telegraph into the Telephone The telegraph and telephone are both wire-based electrical systems, and Alexander Graham Bell's success with the telephone came as a direct result of his attempts to improve the telegraph.

When Bell began experimenting with electrical signals, the telegraph had been an established means of communication for some 30 years. Although a highly successful system, the telegraph, with its dot-and-dash Morse code, was basically limited to receiving and sending one message at a time. Bell's extensive knowledge of the nature of sound and his understanding of music enabled him to conjecture the possibility of transmitting multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. Although the idea of a multiple telegraph had been in existence for some time, Bell offered his own musical or harmonic approach as a possible practical solution. His "harmonic telegraph" was based on the principle that several notes could be sent simultaneously along the same wire if the notes or signals differed in pitch.
Alexander Graham Bell - Talk with Electricity By October 1874, Bell's research had progressed to the extent that he could inform his future fatherin-law, Boston attorney Gardiner Greene Hubbard, about the possibility of a multiple telegraph. Hubbard, who resented the absolute control then exerted by the Western Union Telegraph Company, instantly saw the potential for breaking such a monopoly and gave Bell the financial backing he needed. Bell proceeded with his work on the multiple telegraph, but he did not tell Hubbard that he and Thomas Watson, a young electrician whose services he had enlisted, were also exploring an idea that had occurred to him that summer - that of developing a device that would transmit speech electrically.

While Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson worked on the harmonic telegraph at the insistent urging of Hubbard and other backers, Bell nonetheless met in March 1875 with Joseph Henry, the respected director of the Smithsonian Institution, who listened to Bell's ideas for a telephone and offered encouraging words. Spurred on by Henry's positive opinion, Bell and Watson continued their work. By June 1875 the goal of creating a device that would transmit speech electrically was about to be realized. They had proven that different tones would vary the strength of an electric current in a wire. To achieve success they therefore needed only to build a working transmitter with a membrane capable of varying electronic currents and a receiver that would reproduce these variations in audible frequencies.
First Sounds - Twang On June 2, 1875, Alexander Graham Bell while experimenting with his technique called "harmonic telegraph" discovered he could hear sound over a wire. The sound was that of a twanging clock spring.

Bell's greatest success was achieved on March 10, 1876, marked not only the birth of the telephone but the death of the multiple telegraph as well. The communications potential

contained in his demonstration of being able to "talk with electricity" far outweighed anything that simply increasing the capability of a dot-and-dash system could imply.
First Voice - Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you. Alexander Graham Bell's notebook entry of 10 March 1876 describes his successful experiment with the telephone. Speaking through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room, Bell utters these famous first words, "Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you." Alexander Graham Bell - Brief Biography Born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Alexander Graham Bell was the son and grandson of authorities in elocution and the correction of speech. Educated to pursue a career in the same specialty, his knowledge of the nature of sound led him not only to teach the deaf, but also to invent the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell - Other Inventions Bell's unceasing scientific curiosity led to invention of the photophone, to significant commercial improvements in Thomas Edison's phonograph, and to development of his own flying machine just six years after the Wright Brothers launched their plane at Kitty Hawk. As President James Garfield lay dying of an assassin's bullet in 1881, Bell hurriedly invented a metal detector in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the fatal slug.
Sponsored Links

Norunnuha Sdn BhdIP Consultation and Provisioning Fast and Accurate Service-Call Now!www.norunnuha.com Asian WifePremium Dating Agency for Single 1000s Beauty Wives. Safety.AsianBeauties.com Start Trading OnlineLearn How The Forex Market Works. Get Free Training &Up To $ 1K Bonuswww.ForexYard.com
Inventors Ads

Timeline Create a Timeline College Life 150 Year Timeline Inventors

1847 March 3 Alexander Bell is born to Alexander Melville and Eliza Symonds Bell in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the second of three sons; his siblings are Melville (b. 1845) and Edward (b. 1848). 1858 Bell adopts the name Graham out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a family friend, and becomes known as Alexander Graham Bell.

1862 October Alexander Graham Bell arrives in London to spend a year with his grandfather, Alexander Bell. 1863 August Bell begins teaching music and elocution at Weston House Academy in Elgin, Scotland, and receives instruction in Latin and Greek for a year. 1864 April Alexander Melville Bell develops Visible Speech, a kind of universal alphabet that reduces all sounds made by the human voice into a series of symbols. Visible Speech Chart Fall Alexander Graham Bell attends the University of Edinburgh. 1865-66 Bell returns to Elgin to teach and experiments with vowel pitches and tuning forks. 1866-67 Bell teaches at Somersetshire College in Bath. 1867 May 17 Younger brother Edward Bell dies of tuberculosis at the age of 19. Summer Alexander Melville Bell publishes his definitive work on Visible Speech, Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics. 1868 May 21 Alexander Graham Bell begins teaching speech to the deaf at Susanna Hull's school for deaf children in London. Bell attends University College in London. 1870 May 28 Older brother Melville Bell dies of tuberculosis at the age of 25. July-August Alexander Graham Bell, his parents, and his sister-in-law, Carrie Bell, emigrate to Canada and settle in Brantford, Ontario. 1871 April Moving to Boston, Alexander Graham Bell begins teaching at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes. 1872 March-June Alexander Graham Bell teaches at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Boston and at the American Asylum for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. April 8 Alexander Graham Bell meets Boston attorney Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who will become one of his financial backers and his father-in-law. Fall Alexander Graham Bell opens his School of Vocal Physiology in Boston and starts experimenting with the multiple telegraph. Brochure for Bell's School of Vocal Physiology 1873 Boston University appoints Bell Professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at its School of Oratory. Mabel Hubbard, his future wife, becomes one of his private pupils.

1874 Spring Alexander Graham Bell conducts acoustics experiments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He and Clarence Blake, a Boston ear specialist, begin experimenting with the mechanics of the human ear and the phonautograph, a device that could translate sound vibrations into visible tracings. Summer In Brantford, Ontario, Bell first conceives of the idea for the telephone. (Bell's original sketch of the telephone) Bell meets Thomas Watson, a young electrician who would become his assistant, at Charles Williams's electrician shop in Boston. 1875 January Watson begins working with Bell more regularly. February Thomas Sanders, a wealthy leather merchant whose deaf son studied with Bell, and Gardiner Greene Hubbard enter into a formal partnership with Bell in which they provide financial backing for his inventions. March 1-2 Alexander Graham Bell visits noted scientist Joseph Henry at the Smithsonian Institution and explains to him his idea for the telephone. Henry recognizes the significance of Bell's work and offers him encouragement. November 25 Mabel Hubbard and Bell become engaged to be married. 1876 February 14 Bell's telephone patent application is filed at the United States Patent Office; Elisha Gray's attorney files a caveat for a telephone just a few hours later. March 7 United States Patent No. 174,465 is officially issued for Bell's telephone. March 10 Intelligible human speech is heard over the telephone for the first time when Bell calls to Watson, "Mr. Watson.Come here. I want to see you." June 25 Bell demonstrates the telephone for Sir William Thomson (Baron Kelvin) and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. 1877 July 9 Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Thomas Sanders, and Thomas Watson form the Bell Telephone Company. July 11 Mabel Hubbard and Bell are married. August 4 Bell and his wife leave for England and remain there for a year. 1878 January 14 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates the telephone for Queen Victoria. May 8 Elsie May Bell, a daughter, is born. September 12 Patent litigation involving the Bell Telephone Company against Western Union Telegraph Company and Elisha Gray begins. 1879 February-March The Bell Telephone Company merges with the New England Telephone Company to become the National Bell Telephone Company. November 10 Western Union and the National Bell Telephone Company reach a settlement.

1880 The National Bell Telephone Company becomes the American Bell Telephone Company. February 15 Marian (Daisy) Bell, a daughter, is born. Bell and his young associate, Charles Sumner Tainter, invent the photophone, an apparatus that transmits sound through light. Fall The French government awards the Volta Prize for scientific achievement in electricity to Alexander Graham Bell. He uses the prize money to set up the Volta Laboratory as a permanent, selfsupporting experimental laboratory devoted to invention. 1881 At the Volta Laboratory, Bell, his cousin, Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter invent a wax cylinder for Thomas Edison's phonograph. July-August When President Garfield is shot, Bell attempts unsuccessfully to locate the bullet inside his body by using an electromagnetic device called an induction balance (metal detector). August 15 Death in infancy of Bell's son, Edward (b. 1881). 1882 November Bell is granted American citizenship. 1883 At Scott Circle in Washington, D.C., Bell starts a day school for deaf children. Alexander Graham Bell is elected to the National Academy of Sciences. With Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell funds the publication of Science, a journal that would communicate new research to the American scientific community. November 17 Death in infancy of Bell's son, Robert (b. 1883). 1885 March 3 The American Telephone & Telegraph Company is formed to manage the expanding longdistance business of the American Bell Telephone Company. 1886 Bell establishes the Volta Bureau as a center for studies on the deaf. Summer Bell begins buying land on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. There he eventually builds his summer home, Beinn Bhreagh. 1887 February Bell meets six-year-old blind and deaf Helen Keller in Washington, D.C. He helps her family find a private teacher by recommending that her father seek help from Michael Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institution for the Blind. 1890 August-September Alexander Graham Bell and his supporters form the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. December 27 Letter from Mark Twain to Gardiner G. Hubbard, "The Father-in-law of the Telephone" 1892 October Alexander Graham Bell participates in the formal opening of long-distance telephone service between New York and Chicago. Photograph

1897 Death of Gardiner Greene Hubbard; Alexander Graham Bell is elected President of the National Geographic Society in his stead. 1898 Alexander Graham Bell is elected a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution. 1899 December 30 Acquiring the American Bell Telephone Company's business and property, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company becomes the parent company of the Bell System. 1900 October Elsie Bell marries Gilbert Grosvenor, the National Geographic Magazine editor. 1901 Winter Bell invents the tetrahedral kite, whose shape of four triangular sides would prove to be light, strong, and rigid. 1905 April Daisy Bell marries botanist David Fairchild. 1907 October 1 Glenn Curtiss, Thomas Selfridge, Casey Baldwin, J.A.D. McCurdy, and Bell form the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA), which is funded by Mabel Hubbard Bell. 1909 February 23 The AEA's Silver Dart makes the first flight of a heavier-than-air machine in Canada. 1915 January 25 Alexander Graham Bell takes part in the formal opening of the transcontinental telephone line by talking on the telephone in New York to Watson in San Francisco. Invitation from Theodore Vail to Alexander Graham Bell 1919 September 9 Bell and Casey Baldwin's HD-4, a hydrofoil craft, sets a world marine speed record. 1922 August 2 Alexander Graham Bell dies and is buried at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia.