Alexander Graham Bell | 150 Years of Connection
The Unknown Bell
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Alexander Graham Bell aged 11
Photograph by Alexander Melville Bell. Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell family papers
Alexander Bell—known as “Aleck” to friends and family—became Alexander Graham Bell on his 11th birthday, March 3, 1858, when his father let him take a middle name like his two brothers. He chose “Graham” out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a family friend.
Portrait Photograph of Mabel Hubbard Bell, 1877
Library of Congress, Gilbert Grosvenor collection
The telephone sprang from Bell’s interest in deaf education. Bell’s mother was deaf, as was his wife Mabel. They met in 1873 when Mabel’s father, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, hired Bell as her speech tutor.
The girl for whom the telephone was invented.
Alexander Graham Bell, date unknown
“Transmitting Articulate Speech Over a Beam of Light,” 1880
AT&T Archives and History Center
In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Charles Sumner Tainter, wirelessly transmitted speech 1300 feet using a beam of light. Bell regarded his “photophone” as a greater achievement than the telephone.
In the importance of the principles involved, I regard [the photophone] as the greatest invention I have ever made.
Alexander Graham Bell, 1921
Sketch of an attempt by Bell to locate the bullet in President Garfield
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 20, 1881. Library of Congress
When President James A. Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau, Washington doctors and scientists leapt to the aid of the ailing president. Bell twice tried unsuccessfully to locate the bullet with metal detectors of his own design. Garfield later died of infection from doctors’ invasive attempts to find it.
…a labor of love pursued through many anxious days and sleepless nights.
Alexander Graham Bell, 1881
Alexander Graham Bell phonorecord and handwritten transcript, April 15, 1885
National Museum of American History
Bell’s early forays into sound recording aimed to give his deaf students a visual standard to compare their speech patterns to. During the 1880s, Bell and collaborators at his Volta Laboratory improved upon Edison’s phonograph by replacing fragile tinfoil with wax, a more durable recording medium, patenting the graphophone in 1886.
In witness whereof – hear my voice…
Alexander Graham Bell, 1885
Alexander Graham Bell with Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan in Chautauqua, New York, July 1894
Library of Congress, Gilbert H. Grosvenor collection
Bell was a leader in, and lifelong advocate for, deaf education. Bell mentored Helen Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan, throughout her lifetime and recommended the school where she taught, the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, to Helen’s parents.
My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage…
Helen Keller, 1903
Bell supervising a sheep observation at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, 1906
Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell family papers
Bell’s interest in the emerging science of genetics ranged from the hereditary basis of deafness to genealogy and animal breeding. At their estate in Nova Scotia, he assisted his wife Mabel in decades-long research to breed sheep with extra nipples, in the hope of more swiftly growing the flock.
Bell with his Tetrahedral Kites, 1906
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Fascinated by aviation, in the 1900s Bell investigated the principles of flight. He experimented with tetrahedral kites, which offered impressive stability once aloft. Bell thought that a well-designed kite powered by propellors would be able to fly safely with a person aboard.
This is not a question of invention but DISCOVERY… a slow laborious systematic groping after knowledge.
Alexander Graham Bell, 1899
Bell with F. W. Baldwin and his son in the HD-4 Hydrofoil, 1919
Photograph by Gilbert Grosvenor. Library of Congress, Gilbert H. Grosvenor collection
During the same world tour, the Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini took Bell for a ride on his hydrofoil. Aided by his chief engineer, F. W. “Casey” Baldwin, Bell subsequently experimented with designs of his own. In 1919, the “Hydrodome number 4” or HD-4 achieved a speed of 70.86 miles per hour, then a world record.
[The idea is to]… have it rise from the water after manner of a water bird.
Alexander Graham Bell, 1908
Alexander Graham Bell’s Funeral, Baddeck, Nova Scotia, 1922
Library of Congress, Alexander Graham Bell family papers
Alexander Graham Bell died on August 2, 1922 at his summer home in Baddeck, Nova Scotia after a brief illness. In one of their last conversations, Mabel pleaded with him “don’t leave me.” Unable to speak, he signed “no” on her hand.
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