Born: March 3, 1847
Died: August 2, 1922 Place of Birth:Edinburgh, Scotland
Major Notes:
Alexander Graham Bell was a prominent scientist and inventor best known for his invention of the telephone.
Bell was born into a family where science, innovation, and invention seemed commonplace in the household.
Both his father and grandfather were well known experts on voice and elocution and shared a deep interest in helping the deaf.
Bell and his two brothers were made aware of the aspects of elocution so they could follow up in the same field.
Bell's early education was provided at home by his mother who was gradually losing her hearing ability but gave the youngster an insight into the arts.
His father instilled a basic knowledge of biology into his son and, coupled with the awareness of his mother becoming deaf, inspired Bell to study acoustics.
At age 12, Bell made his first significant invention which was a machine for husking grain in a mill owned by a friend's father.
He attended the Edinburgh Royal High School until he was 15 but was not know for his academic abilities.
At that time, he was sent to live with his grandfather who stressed the importance of learning and urged Bell to become educated.
By the time Bell was in his early 20's, both of his brothers had died from tuberculosis and his father decided to move the family to Canada where there might be a healthier climate.
After some exploration of the Canadian countryside, the family took up residence in Brantford, Ontario.
In 1871, Bell found work teaching at a new school for the deaf in Boston and did some private tutoring using an education method founded by his father.
Bell had to overcome the fact that many believed at that time the deaf simply did not have the ability to learn; a student of his named Helen Keller was a surprise shock to the nation.
Bell was able to get financial support in 1875 from two wealthy parents, whose deaf children he was working with, to work on new electronic technologies.
He was able to hire an assistant, Thomas Watson, from one of his electrical suppliers who helped Bell speed up his experiments.
On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for his acoustic telegraph device, which the world came to know as the telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell had a competitor named Elisha Gray who was also filing a patent application for an acoustic telegraph using a liquid transmitter and a series of
Soon the Bell Telephone Company was established and within days after this, Bell married Mabel Hubbard, the daughter of one of his financil backers.
Bell and his associates set up demonstrations of using the telephone and, over the next decade, tens of thousands were sold in the United States alone.
As well as making improvements in the telephone, Bell continued work on a number of other inventions including the photophone, phonograph, hydroairplanes, and the metal detector.
In Bell's later years, he put much of his time into the study of aeronautics and invented the aileron, a major device for controlling flight.
Because Bell worked or studied in Scotland, Great Britian, Canada, and the United States, he was regarded as a native of all four countries.
Alexander Graham Bell received numerous awards in his lifetime including honorary degrees from Harvard University, University of Edinburgh, Oxford University, and Queen's University.
In addition, he was elected as the first President of the National Geographic Society.
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