Alexander Graham Bell Inventions

Inventor Alexander Graham Bell is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.

Alexander Graham Bell Image
Alexander Graham Bell Image

Many other inventions marked Bell’s later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics.

Alexander Graham Bell Wife Name

On July 11, 1877, a few days after Bell established the Bell Telephone Company. Later Bell married Mabel Hubbard (1857–1923) at the Hubbard estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

His wedding present to his bride was to turn over 1,487 of his 1,497 shares in the newly formed Bell Telephone Company.

Alexander Graham Bell Biography

Alexander Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. His father was Professor Alexander Melville Bell, a phonetician, and his mother was Eliza Grace (née Symonds).

Born as just “Alexander Bell”, at age 10, he made a plea to his father to have a middle name like his two brothers.

As a child, young Bell displayed a natural curiosity about his world, resulting in gathering botanical specimens as well as experimenting even at an early age.

Later with no formal training, he mastered the piano and became the family’s pianist.

His school record was undistinguished, marked by absenteeism and lacklustre grades. His main interest remained in the sciences, especially biology. He treated other school subjects with indifference, to the dismay of his demanding father.

Alexander Graham Bell Education

At an early age, his parents enrolled him at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, Scotland, which he left at the age of 15, having completed only the first four forms.

Later he attended the University of Edinburgh. Bell completed his matriculation exams and was accepted for admission to University College London

Alexander Graham Bell History

Speech had become his life: his mother had gone deaf. Bell’s father had developed a method of teaching deaf people to speak, which Bell also taught. His research into mechanizing human speech had become a relentless obsession.

In 1870, Bell built a workshop in the new family home in Ontario and experimented there with converting music into an electrical signal.
He won financial backing from Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, two wealthy investors.

Later Hubbard also brought in Anthony Pollok, his patent attorney. The money enabled Bell to hire Thomas Watson, a skilled electrical engineer, whose knowledge would complement Bell’s.

Alexander Graham Bell Telephone

Gardiner Hubbard wanted to establish a federally chartered telegraph company to compete with Western Union by contracting with the Post Office to send low-cost telegrams. Hubbard saw great promise in the harmonic telegraph and backed Bell’s experiments.

Bell, however, was more interested in transmitting the human voice. Finally, he and Hubbard worked out an agreement that Bell would devote most of his time to the harmonic telegraph but would continue developing his telephone concept.

From harmonic telegraphs transmitting musical tones, it was a short conceptual step for both Bell and Gray to transmit the human voice.

Bell filed a patent describing his method of transmitting sounds on February 14, 1876. Just hours before, Gray filed a caveat (a statement of concept) on a similar method.

On March 7, 1876, Patent office awarded a patent on the device to Bell, and three days later, he made his first successful telephone call to his assistant, electrician Thomas Watson, who would hear Bell’s famous words transmitted through the wire: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”

Alexander Graham Bell Awards

The French government conferred on him the decoration of the Légion d’honneur (Legion of Honor); the Royal Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert Medal in 1902; the University of Würzburg, Bavaria, granted him a PhD, and he was awarded the Franklin Institute’s Elliott Cresson Medal in 1912.

In 1880, Bell received the Volta Prize with a purse of 50,000 French francs for the invention of the telephone from the French government.

Alexander Graham Bell Quotes

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.
The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.
The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.

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