Alexander Graham Bell is generally known to the whole world as the inventor of the telephone. Very few people know that Graham Bell has invented not only the telephone but also many other useful inventions in the field of communication technology. He is also credited with inventing optical-fibre system, photophone, bell and decibel unit, metal-detector etc.
All these are based on such technology, without which the communication revolution cannot be imagined. Graham Bell’s extraordinary talent can be gauged from the fact that he graduated at the age of just thirteen. It is also very surprising that he became famous as an excellent music teacher at the age of only sixteen.
Alexander Graham Bell Early life
Graham was born on 3 March 1847 in Scotland. His father Alexander Melville Bell was a professor, while mother Eliza Grace Simonds Bell was a housewife, who could not hear. Graham had two brothers, Melville James Bell and Edward Charles Bell. But he died at a young age due to illness. Graham’s father used to teach deaf and dumb people, he had created a ‘visible system’ for deaf children, so that they could learn to speak.
Graham’s first teacher was his mother, she was deaf, but she was a very good pianist and painter. Graham did not receive much education in school, he used to go to Edinburgh Royal High School, but he left it at the age of 15. For college studies, Graham first went to the University of Edinburgh, after this he also went to the University of London, England, but Graham did not like studying there.
In 1872, Alexander established the ‘School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech’ in Boston. Where he used to teach children the art of speaking and understanding. In 1873, Alexander was selected as a professor for Vocal Physiology in a university in Boston. Along with teaching in college, Alexander also continued his research. At that time, he was doing research on ‘Harmonic Telegraph’, he was constantly working hard to make it better.
He sent many telegraph messages simultaneously on the same wire. Along with this, he got another idea that he should send messages through human voice on the other wire. Disability is no less than a curse for any person, but Graham Bell did not let disability become a curse. Actually, Graham Bell’s mother was deaf. Graham Bell was very sad and disappointed due to his mother’s inability to hear, but he never let his disappointment become an obstacle in the path of success. He thought it better to give a positive turn to his disappointment, this was the reason that with the help of acoustics, he succeeded in making such a device for people who are unable to hear, which is no less than a boon for deaf people even today.
After resting for a year, in 1871, Graham Bell came to Boston, America. Here he got a job in the ‘Boston School of the Deaf’, run for the deaf and dumb. While teaching the deaf, Bell got the idea of improving his father’s ‘Visible Speech System’. He started making an effort to make a device in which a magnetic needle would start vibrating with the waves of voice spoken from the mouth so that by looking at its vibrations, one could understand what was said.
While teaching in the Boston school, Bell met a wealthy lawyer, Gardner Green Hubbard. His daughter Mabel had become deaf due to scarlet fever at the age of four. Now she was fifteen years old. She had to face great difficulties in speaking because she could not hear others speak. When
Bell’s intimacy with Mabel’s father increased, Bell started visiting his house. During these days Bell was busy with his invention ‘Multiple Telegraph’, by which many telegraph messages could be sent together through a wire. Mabel became interested in Bell’s work. She not only helped Bell in his work but also encouraged him.
Mabel’s father also encouraged Bell and whenever needed, provided him financial help for inventions. Bell also received financial help from a person named Thomas Sanders, in whose house Bell lived. Sanders was a wealthy leather merchant whose mute son had been miraculously cured by Bell.
Alexander Graham Bell Education
As a young boy Bell, like his brothers, received his primary education at home from his father. At an early age he was admitted to the Royal High School of Edinburgh, Scotland and at the age of 15 he left that school. At that time he had completed only 4 types of studies. He was very interested in science, especially biology, while he did not pay much attention to other subjects.
After leaving school, Bell moved to London to live with his grandfather, Alexander Bell. It was while living with his grandfather that Bell developed a love of reading and would spend long hours studying. Young Bell later devoted great attention to his studies. He also tried very hard to make his young students speak with conviction. And he found that all his classmates wanted to see him as a teacher and learn from him.
At the age of 16, Bell became a teacher of oratory and music at Weston House Academy, Moray, Scotland. He was also a student of Latin and Greek. Bell then began attending Edinburgh University, where he lived with his brother Melville. Bell completed his matriculation and then took admission in the University of London before moving with his family to Canada in 1868.
Invention of the Telephone
Bell invented the telephone in 1876 at the age of just 29. A year later, in 1877, he founded the Bell Telephone Company. After this, he continued to do various types of inventions. After the invention of the telephone, Bell kept trying to improve it and in 1915, he spoke for the first time over a distance of thousands of kilometers through the telephone. The New York Times gave great prominence to this event and published its details.
Through this, Bell, sitting in New York, talked to his colleague Watson, sitting in San Francisco. Bell was of a curious nature from the beginning and was engaged in putting his various ideas into practice. Apart from this, his various inventions were influenced by his personal experiences. For example, when his newborn son died due to breathing problems, he prepared a Metal Vacuum Jacket which made breathing easier. This device of his remained very popular till 1950 and was improved a lot in the later days.
“Watson, come here, I need you” – these words were spoken on the telephone for the first time in the world. On that day, 10 March 1876, Bell was working on the machines in his room and his assistant Watson was working on the machines in his room on the top floor of the building. Despite connecting the machines continuously for many days, they were not getting any help in transmitting sound. That day, who knows what coincidence happened with the wires. Both of them were unaware of this. While working, acid fell on Bell’s pants and he called Watson for help. Watson heard his voice coming from the machine kept near him and… the rest is history.
In 1915, the intercontinental telephone line was laid and Bell was called for its inauguration. Bell was on the east coast and he was asked to say something and formally inaugurate the line. Watson was on the other end. Do you know what Bell said on the phone!? “Watson, come here, I need you”. Watson’s reply was – “Sir, I am 3000 kilometers away from you and it will take me many days to reach there!” And who coined the word “Hello”? Thomas Edison. Bell wanted the person picking up the phone or listening to it to say “Ahoy” but Thomas Edison’s “Hello” became popular among the people.
After the telephone was made, Bell successfully demonstrated his device in many countries. This spread Bell’s name all over the world. In August 1877, Bell installed a telephone in the gallery of the House of Commons and a part of the bus running in the Parliament was spoken to the stenographer sitting in the newspaper office. In November 1877, the first permanent telephone line was installed in Berlin. When Bell returned to America in 1878, he found that a lot of work had been done in this field and even telephone exchanges were being built. Thomas Alva Edison also did a lot of work in the telephone field.
Alexander Graham Bell Death
Bell was a very humble person. He was never proud of his great invention. He died of diabetes at his private residence in Ben Bhreagh, Nova Scotia on 2 August 1922 at the age of 75. Bell also suffered from anemia. On hearing the news of his death, telephones were switched off for a minute in his memory across America.
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