Alexander Graham Bell: Biography of an Inventor
Born in 1847 in Edinburgh Scotland, to a father who was a professor of speech elocution at the University of Edinburgh, and a deaf mother who was an accomplished pianist despite her handicap, Alexander Graham Bell proved a disappointing student, but an astute problem solver from an early age, inventing a wheat grain de-husking device at age twelve, before studying the mechanics of speech by age sixteen.
Early Experience in Communication
Moving to Canada in 1870 and the U.S. a year later, Bell began teaching deaf children his father’s “visible speech” technique, which was a set of symbols representing different sounds of speech. By 1872, Bell opened the Boston-based School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech, at the same time becoming a Professor at Boston University, despite his lack of a university degree.
While working on a harmonic telegraph—a device that allowed multiple messages to be transmitted over a single wire, Bell became obsessed with finding a way to transmit the human voice over the same wire, partnering with Thomas Watson in 1875 to develop the first working telephone.
Telephone Patent and Bell Telephone Company
Well aware that other inventors like Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray were working on the same technology, Bell raced his application to the patent office to beat out his competitors, receiving a patent for the telephone on March 7th, 1876, before making the first-ever telephone call a few days later, uttering his now-famous words,
“Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”
Alexander Graham Bell
Forming the Bell Telephone Company in 1877—later known as AT&T, in 1915, Bell made the first transcontinental phone call to Watson from New York City to San Francisco.
Alexander Graham Bell’s Other Inventions
Over the course of his inquisitive lifetime, Bell would receive 18 patents on a variety of inventions, including a metal detector, initially developed to locate a bullet inside assassinated President James A. Garfield, a photophone, which allowed human speech to be transmitted on a beam of light, a Graphophone, which further added sound recording and playback to the photophone, and an audiometer for detecting hearing loss.
He also won the French Volta Prize, allowing him to found Volta Laboratory in Washington DC for the advancement of scientific discovery, at the same time helping to launch Science Magazine before serving as president of the National Geographic Society from 1896 to 1904.
He passed away in Nova Scotia on August 2nd, 1922 due to complications from diabetes, with his loving wife and two daughters at his bedside. During his funeral, every phone in North America went silent in honor of Bell’s contribution to such groundbreaking technology, making the life and inventions of Alexander Graham Bell, an important leap forward in 20th-century technology.