Alexander Graham Bell

1847-1922

Scottish-American Inventor

Alexander Graham Bell is best known for his invention of the telephone in 1876. However, he was also the second president of the National Geographic Society, invented a number of other useful devices, founded the first telephone company, and was a noted humanitarian. In short, in spite of the tremendous impact the telephone has had on society, Bell would have been a remarkable and important figure even without the invention.

Bell was born in Scotland in 1847 to a mother who was nearly deaf and a father who was an expert in speech. These facts, coupledwith his grandfather's prominence as a speech expert, ensured Bell's interest in sound and speech from an early age, and he spent much of his life helping to teach the deaf to communicate.

One of Bell's first jobs, however, was teaching elocution in England. A job he excelled at, it often struck many as ironic that a Scot was teaching English to the English. At the same time, he provided instruction to the deaf, helping to teach the fundamentals of his father's "Visible Speech" system that helped show the positions of tongue, lips, and teeth for various sounds and words.

Bell graduated from the University of Edinburgh and then moved to the United States with his father, becoming a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University and specializing in the mechanics of speech. This led to his forays into inventing as he worked to develop devices that would help the deaf to enter the hearing world. Among the devices Bell invented or tried to invent was the phonoautograph, which was to make sounds visible but which was difficult to interpret.

Bell admitted that, had he known more about electricity, he might never have set out to invent the telephone because he would have realized it to be impossible. However, he seems to have known enough to succeed and notenough to fail and, in 1876, after a great deal of work and experimentation, the pieces fell into place. Bell's invention was demonstrated at Philadelphia's Centennial Exposition in 1876, meeting with instant acclaim.

Not content to rest on his laurels, Bell went on to investigate problems associated with human flight and, later, invented the hydrofoil. Another important invention was the audiometer, a device that permits testing hearing acuity in a variety of frequencies. This device allowed for early testing of students' hearing, revealing that many children who had been labeled as "slow" or "inattentive" were simply hard of hearing.

In addition to his technical achievements, Bell was a devoted family man and a dedicated humanitarian. Bell's wife Mabel, a deaf woman, started as one of his speech students after he moved to the United States. Eventually they fell in love and married, in spite of early objections by Mabel's parents. Mabel and their two daughters were an important part of Bell's life until his death.

Finally, Bell did his utmost to contribute to society as much as possible. He remained a teacher of the deaf his whole life, helping to promote Visible Speech and to encourage programs to teach the deaf to speak. He was also a factor in Helen Keller's life, leading her to her tutor, Annie Sullivan, and becoming a good friend over the years. And, as a prominent early member of the National Geographic Society, Bell became the Society's second president. From that position he was able to transform a dry and relatively unpopular scientific magazine into one of the most successful and widely read magazines in history. Bell's relationship with the National Geographic Society continued beyond his tenure as president when his daughter married Gilbert Grosvenor, another man destined to become an important force in the society.

Bell died at his home in Nova Scotia in 1922. When he was buried, all telephone service in the United States was stopped for one minute to honor the man, his work, and his life.

This is the complete article, containing 651 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).