Alexander Graham Bell

His Life...1847-1875

Click on photo to see enlargement

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1847. His father, Alexander Melville Bell (left), was a professor of elocution and speech at Edinburgh University. His mother, Eliza (right), was almost totally deaf, losing her hearing at twelve. It seems only natural that Bell and his brothers would have an interest in speech.

His efforts as a child in "speech research" included rigging a model of a human skull to scream, "Mama!" He also taught a dog how to speak, "How are you grandmother?" Certainly it was quite hard to understand the dog, but more importantly, did the dog have a Scottish accent?

Bell pursued his interest in speech therapy and became a full time teacher of elocution and speech, even though he was only 17 years of age! By the mid-1860s, Bell began work on transmitting sounds electrically.

Bell's parents moved to Canada in 1870 and Bell moved to Boston in 1871 to  demonstrate his father's Visible Speech techniques in the area. He also taught at Sarah Fuller's school for children (Bell is seated top right in the picture at left) with hearing and speech difficulties. 

In 1872, Bell opened his own school for the deaf and in 1873,  became a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University. At that time he lived with the Thomas Sanders family and taught their deaf son. Sanders was a prominent merchant in the area and would provide some of the financial backing for Bell.

Bell's life was hectic, but he found time for romance and fell in love with one of his part time students, Mabel Hubbard. Mabel became deaf at the age of four from a bought with Scarlet Fever. 

Bell's interest in "telegraphing" speech continued and he enlisted the help of Thomas Watson, an employee at the Charles Williams Electrical Shop in Boston. Watson brought much needed electrical expertise to the table. 

Watson and Bell formed a life-long friendship even though Bell was the more polished of the two. Watson (right) commented once, "I was embarrassed the first time I had supper with Bell at his house, in trying to imitate his exclusive use of a fork in the conveyance of food." Watson it seemed, had used a knife as his exclusive eating utensil.

In 1875 Bell set up a workshop in the loft of William's electrical shop at 109 Court Street in Boston.  And soon after, a major breakthrough occurred when Bell, in attempting to produce multiple sounds over a "harmonic telegraph," plucked a reed at one end of the line and at the other end Watson heard the plucking sound. 

Immediately, Bell sketched plans for a new device and Watson constructed it, a wood-framed instrument called the, "Gallows" phone. The next evening the Gallows phone was set up and tested. And although Watson wrote he could, "almost catch a word," it was not telephony.

Bell's attempts at voice transmission and his love for Mabel seemed intertwined. In fact, Mabel's father, Gardiner Hubbard--a financial backer--and Bell fought bitterly over his spending too much time courting Mabel and not enough time pursuing his work. Even though they fought on Thanksgiving Day of 1875, the next day Bell proposed to Mabel.

The stage was now set. In January of 1876, Bell moved into a room in a boarding house at 5 Exeter Place in Boston, about a mile from his workshop loft. Experiments continued at the 109 Court Street Loft and at 5 Exeter Place.

Continue...

A.G. Bell 1876-1880  A.G. Bell 1881-1922

Copyright 1998-2008