Great Personalities

Alexander Graham Bell

Early life

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was born to a family with an interest in speech and hearing. Both his grandfather and father were teachers of correct speech. His father had developed “visible speech”, a method of helping the deaf and hearing impaired to learn how to speak. From his mother, who was a portrait painter and an accomplished musician, he inherited a talent for music.

Education

Bell’s schooling was far from regular. In his early years he was taught at home along with his two brothers. At the age of thirteen he spent a year in London with his grandfather. In his grandfather’s library he read all he could about sound and speech- about vibrations set up by the voice. He later recalled this year as the turning point of his life. By the age of 16, Graham, as he was called by his family and close friends, was teaching music and speech at a boys’ school. Within a few years, he was teaching his father’s visible speech to deaf and hearing-impaired children.

The telephone

While studying how the human voice works, Bell came upon the writings of Hermann von Helmholtz’s experiments.
Bell’s family moved to London, and he joined them there in 1868. But by 1870, both of Bell’s brothers had died of tuberculosis, and his own life was in danger. Seeking a more healthful climate, the Bells left Britain and moved to Brantford, Ontario. With his health improved, Bell went to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1871. There he again took up his life’s work of teaching the deaf and hearing impaired. Bell also continued his experiments. By now his work with electricity had led him to think about inventing a harmonic telegraph. This was a system that could carry several messages over one wire at the same time.
Bell needed money to carry on his experiments. It was given to him by two wealthy men, Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders. Hubbard had a deaf daughter and Sanders a deaf son, both of whom were receiving instruction from Bell. It was arranged that the two fathers would share in any profits from Bell’s work. Bell was now able to hire a skilled assistant, Thomas A. Watson.
It was during the summer of 1874 that Bell’s thinking first went beyond his plans for a harmonic telegraph. What if an electric current could be made to vary, just as the air varies with sound waves? Then any sound, including human speech could be carried by electricity. This was the idea of the telephone.
The next year was a busy one for Bell. Now that he had the idea of a telephone, he wanted to develop it. On June 2, 1875, Bell and Watson were experimenting with their telegraph, which made use of thin steel reeds. One of the reeds was stuck, and Watson plucked it with his finger. In another room Bell heard a reed in his instrument vibrate as if he himself had plucked it. The electric current had reproduced in this second reed the vibrations of the first.
If the current had done this, then surely it should also reproduce vibrations caused by the human voice.
Bell now knew that the telephone was a practical idea. It was only a matter of time before he could perfect an instrument that would send words clearly. Success came on March 10, 1876.

Death

By the end of 1877 the Bell Telephone Company had been formed, and many forms were in use. Bell himself did not take part in the telephone business that developed. Rather, he leased the right to build a company around his invention.
In the meantime Bell had married Mabel Hubbard, the deaf girl whom he had taught. They had two daughters. In 1882 Bell became a citizen of the United States. He divided his time between Washington, D.C. and summer home, Beinn Bhreagh, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
Bell had invented the telephone before he was 30. In the remaining 45 years of his life he applied his talents to many questions. He experimented with sending sound by light waves. He was interested in heredity and carried on breeding experiments with sheep. As early as the 1890’s, Bell was experimenting with the problems of airplane flight. Throughout his life Bell continued working for the deaf and hearing impaired. His work in all these fields won him many honours. Bell died on August 2, 1922. He was so greatly admired that during the funeral the telephones of North America were silent in his honour.

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