Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell

By Tom Kirvan

An inventor at an early age, Scottish-born Alexander Graham Bell was best known for creating the first working telephone, placing the first call to his assistant, Thomas Watson, on February 14, 1876 when he uttered a two-sentence message: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

With the delivery of those nine words, Bell transformed the world of communication, setting the stage for the launch in 1877 of the Bell Telephone Company, which today is known as AT&T.

Born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Bell was one of three children. His father was a professor of speech elocution, otherwise known as a phonetician. His mother was a talented musician and painter who was deaf, a fact that historians believe greatly influenced Bell’s work.

In 1870, Bell and his family moved to Canada, eventually settling in the United States a year later. At age 26, Bell became a professor of Vocal Physiology at the Boston University School of Oratory. It was while teaching there that Bell met Mabel Hubbard, a deaf student with whom he would marry and father four children.

Alexander Graham Bell

While Bell was granted the first patent for a telephone, several other scientists – Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray – were simultaneously working on similar technologies, sparking debate over who should be credited with the monumental invention. The courts sided with Bell, who over the course of his career held more than 18 patents for his inventions and work in the field of communications. Some of his other notable inventions were the metal detector, the photophone, the graphophone, and the audiometer.

“When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us,” said Graham, who for eight years served as president of the National Geographic Society.

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand,” Graham proclaimed. “The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to focus. Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”

Bell, it has been said, was particularly proud of techniques he developed to teach speech to the deaf, working with well-known author and activist Helen Keller before he died in August 1922 at age 75.