Alexander Graham Bell

At 75 years old, Alexander Graham Bell has this physical status:

Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847-1922) was a Scottish-born American physicist and engineer who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone.

Bell's father, grandfather, and brother were all implicated with studies on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, greatly influencing Bell's life.

Bell's continuing study into hearing and speaking led him to try hearing systems, resulting in Bell receiving the first American patent for the telephone in 1876.

Bell considered his invention an assault on his actual work as a scientist, and he didn't have a telephone in his research.

Although Bell was not one of the National Geographic Society's 33 founders, he maintained a clout on the journal during his tenure as the second president from January 7, 1898, to 1903. Beside that, Bell was a promoter of compulsory sterilization and served as chairman or president of several eugenics groups.

Early life

Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. The family home on South Charlotte Street had a stone inscription identifying it as Bell's birthplace, according to a stone inscription. Melville James Bell (1845-1870) and Edward Charles Bell (1848-1877), both of whom died of tuberculosis, died. Alexander Melville Bell, a phonetician, was his father, and his mother, Eliza Grace Bell (née Symonds), was born in New Jersey. He was born as just "Alexander Bell" at age ten, and he made a plea for his father to have a middle name like his two brothers. His father acquiesced and allowed him to use the word "Graham" in honor of Alexander Graham, a Canadian being treated by his father who had become a family friend. He stayed "Aleck" to family and friends. Bell and his siblings attended a Presbyterian Church in their youth.

Young Bell, a boy, displayed an interest in his world; he collected botanical specimens and conducted experiments at an early age. Ben Herdman, a neighbor whose family owned a flour mill, was his closest friend. Bell developed a simple dehusking unit that was put into operation at the mill and used faithfully for a number of years at the age of 12. Ben's father, John Herdman, gave both boys the use of a tiny workshop in which to "invent."

Bell's early years demonstrated a keen intelligence and a natural gift for art, poetry, and music that had been embraced by his mother. He mastered the piano and became the family's pianist with no formal education. Despite being quiet and reflective, he revelled in mimicry and "voice tricks" akin to ventriloquism that delighted family visitors on their occasional visits. Bell was also affected by his mother's gradual deafness (he started losing his hearing when he was 12 years old), and she learned a simple finger language so he could sit at her side and tap out the tense conversations around the family parlour. He also invented a way to communicate in a clear, modulated tones directly into his mother's forehead, wherein she would hear him with keen clarity. Bell's apprehension with his mother's deafness led him to study acoustics.

Alexander Bell, his uncle in Dublin, and his father, who lived in Edinburgh, were all elocutionists long associated with elocution. His father created a number of pieces on the subject, some of which are still popular, including his The Standard Elocutionist (1860), which appeared in Edinburgh in 1868. The Standard Elocutionist appeared in 168 British editions and exported over a quarter of a million copies in the United States alone. His father reveals his techniques of instructing deaf-mutes (as they were then known) to articulate words and read other people's lips to decipher meaning in this treatise. Bell's father taught him and his brothers not only how to write Visible Speech, but also how to recognize any symbol and its accompanying sound. Bell became so successful that he was a part of his father's public demonstrations and astounded audiences with his abilities. He could decipher Visible Speech, which includes Latin, Scottish Gaelic, and even Sanskrit, accurately reciting written tracts with no prior knowledge of their pronunciation.

Bell, a young boy, received his early education at home from his father. He was enrolled in Edinburgh, Scotland, at an early age, but he left early in the year at the age of 15 after completing only the first four forms. His school record was unbeaten, highlighted by a lacklustre and expulsion. He remained interested in science, particularly biology, although he treated other school subjects with indignation, to his father's dismay. Bell and his grandfather, Alexander Bell, lived on Harrington Square after leaving school. A passion of learning was born during the year he spent with his grandfather, despite long hours of intensive analysis and research. The elder Bell made strides to encourage his young pupil to speak clearly and with confidence, as well as the skills that would prepare him to be a teacher. Bell, a 16-year-old student at Weston House Academy in Elgin, Scotland, has been given a job as a "pupil-teacher" of elocution and music. Despite being enrolled as a student in Latin and Greek, he taught classes in return for board and £10 per session. He joined Melville, his older brother who had registered there the previous year, and spent the following year at the University of Edinburgh. Bell completed his matriculation examinations in 1868, just months before he and his family left Canada and his family, and was accepted for admission to University College London.

Bell's father sparked his interest in words, and his sons saw a special automaton built by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1863, based on Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen's earlier works. The rudimentary "mechanical man" imitated a human voice. Bell was captivated by the device, and after obtaining a copy of von Kempelen's book, which had been published in German and had laboriously translated it, he and his older brother Melville constructed their own automaton head. They were evicted because their father, who was very involved in their project, was able to pay for any supplies and compelled the boys on with the promise of a "significant reward" if they were to win. Bell tackled the more difficult challenge of designing a realistic skull while his brother made the throat and larynx. His attempts resulted in a remarkably lifelike head that could "speak," although only in a few words. The boys would carefully adjust the "lips" and if a bellows forced air through the windpipe, a very recognizable Mama would emerge, much to the delight of neighbor children who came to see the Bell invention.

Bell, an automaton, continued to experiment with a live subject, the family's Skye Terrier Trouve, Trouve. Bell will growl constantly, and it will speak to the dog's lips and vocal cords to produce a sarcastic "Ow oo ga ma ma." Visitors were led to believe, "How are you, grandmama?" with little convincing. His experiments led to onlookers that they had seen a "talking dog" in the exhibits, which was indicative of his playful disposition. Bell's first forays into sound led him to his first serious study on sound transmission, using tuning forks to investigate resonance.

Bell, a 19-year-old boy, penned a paper on his work and sent it to philologist Alexander Ellis, a colleague of his father. Ellis returned immediately that the experiments were similar to existing ones in Germany, and she'd also loaned Bell a copy of Hermann von Helmholtz's book The Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music.

Bell was dismayed to discover that Helmholtz's pioneering vowel sounds had already been produced by means of a common tuning fork "contraption." Bell began working from his own erroneous mistranslation of a French edition, making a guess that would be the underpinning of all his future work on transmitting sound, according to the author: "Without knowing much about the subject, it seemed to me that if vowel sounds could be made by electrical means, consonants could be presentable." Later, he remarked, "I thought that Helmholtz had done it" — and that my failure was due solely to my electricity ignorance." It was a valuable blunder... I may not have started my experiments if I had been able to read German in those days.

Bell returned to Weston House as an assistant master and carried out sound experiments using a minimum of laboratory equipment in 1865, when the Bell family relocated to London. Bell concentrated on sound transmission by converting electricity to sound, and later he wired a telegraph wire from his room in Somerset College to that of a friend. His health worsened significantly in late 1867 due in large part to exhaustion. Tuberculosis also affected his younger brother, Edward "Ted." Although Bell recovered (by then referring to himself as "A. G. Bell") and spent the next year as an instructor at Somerset College, Bath, England, his brother's health worsened. Edward will never recover. Bell returned home in 1867 after his brother's death. Melville's older brother was married and moved out. Bell, who wants to earn a degree at University College London, considered his next year as preparation for the degree exams, devoting his spare time at his family's house to studying.

Bell was taken to Susanna E. Hull's private school for the deaf in South Kensington, London, who assisted his father in Visible Speech demonstrations and lectures. His first two children were deaf-mute girls who made significant strides under his tutelage. Bell, although his older brother had success on several fronts, including opening his own elocution school, applying for a patent on a new product, and starting a family, he continued as a teacher. Melville, however, died of tuberculosis complications in May 1870, triggering a family crisis. His father had also suffered from a debilitating illness earlier in life and had been restored to health by a convalescence in Newfoundland. Bell's parents made the difficult decision that their remaining son was also sick. Alexander Melville Bell pleaded adamantly for the auction of all the family's assets, conclude all of his brother's affairs (Bell took over his last student, curing a pronounced lisp), and join his father and mother in setting out for the "New World." Bell had to end a relationship with Marie Eccleston, who, as he had hoped, was not ready to leave England with him.

Family life

Bell married Mabel Hubbard (1857–1923) at the Hubbard estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a few days after the Bell Telephone Company was established on July 11, 1877. Bell Telephone Company, his husband's wedding presenter, was expected to sell 1,487 of his 1,497 shares. The newlyweds embarked on a year-long honeymoon in Europe less than a year ago. Bell brought a handmade copy of his telephone with him on tour, making it a "working holiday." Bell had been waiting for years before marrying, but he waited until he was financially secure before marrying. Despite the fact that the phone appeared to be a "instant" success, Bell's main sources of income were lectures until about 1897, not immediately a profitable venture. His fiancée's one unusual request was that he use "Alec" rather than the family's familiar name of "Aleck." He would begin with the letter "Alec Bell" in 1876.

They had four children:

The Bell family lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until 1880, when Bell's father-in-law bought a house in Washington, D.C., so they could stay with him while he was attending the numerous court trials involving patent disputes.

Bell lived in Scotland and later in Canada until 1882, when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. "I am not one of those hyphenated Americans who have pledged allegiance to two nations," he said in 1915. Bell has been consistently identified as a "native son" in all three world countries where he lived: the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

A new summer retreat was considered by 1885. The Bells spent time on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, that summer, spending time in Baddeck, the village's small village. Bell started building an estate on a point across from Baddeck, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake, which was not present in 1886. After Bell's ancestral Scottish highlands, a large house, named The Lodge, was completed in 1889, and two years later, a new lab, Beinn Bhreagh, was installed. On the estate, Bell also built the Bell Boatyard, employing up to 40 people who were designing experimental craft, wartime lifeboats, and pleasure boats for the Royal Canadian Navy and pleasure craft for the Bell family. Bell and his family sailed or rowed a long line of ships on Bras d'Or Lake, ordering additional vessels from the H.W. In Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, Embree and Sons' boatyard is located. Bell split his time between Washington, D.C., where he and his family first resided for the majority of the year, and Beinn Bhreagh, where they spent increasing amounts of time.

Bell and his family would shift between the two homes until the end of his life, but Beinn Bhreagh would become more than a summer house over the next 30 years as Bell's experiments became so absorbed that his annual stays were extended. Both Mabel and Bell were embedded in the Baddeck community and were welcomed by the villagers as "their own." When the Halifax Explosion occurred on December 6, 1917, the Bells were still in Beinn Bhreagh. Mabel and Bell, as a family, rallied the community to support victims in Halifax.

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