Alexander
Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
This is someone's description of him: tall, slender,
quick-motioned, pale face, droopy mustache, and big
nose with a high sloping forehead crowned with bushy
jet-black hair.
Bell had a
background of learning about sound and was a teacher
for the deaf. He used Visible Speech to help him teach
the kids how to speak. Visible Speech, which his
father invented to help Eliza, his deaf wife, consists
of pictures of a mouth moving in different ways. Since
the deaf can't hear what they're saying, they at least
can know how their mouth is supposed to move when
they're saying a word.
In 1875 Alexander
Graham Bell moved to Boston and hired Mr. Watson to
help him on the harmonic telegraph (the telephone).
Mr. Watson was very smart, and he was a good person to
have around. Mr. Watson worked on the transmitter day
and night, and was very good at it. Alexander Graham
Bell worked on the receiver and about every other day
they would check it together. His first sentence was,
"Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."
If you want to see
a web site that has a copy of his notebook,
click
here.
It took forty weeks
to get the telephone to carry the sound of human talk.
The telephone used a transmitter, receiver, and wires.
Alexander Graham Bell wanted to invent it so that
people could talk to one another without having to
stand right next to them. Or if you have family or
friends that don't live near you, you can keep in
touch with them by calling. Or if you have an
emergency you will always have a phone to call a
doctor, hospital, fire department, or ambulance. The
computer or a fax machine is just the same idea as the
telephone. The computer transmits data and a fax
machine transmits written information.
When they finally
made a successful telephone in 1875, Bell wanted to
show it to the public. He brought it to the
Philadelphia Centennial Exposition where the judges
thought it was a silly instrument, and only gave him a
little corner of the building. When the judges finally
came to him, they were very tired from their long day
of work. They said that they were too tired to check
his telephone and they thought it was stupid, anyway.
Then a fortunate
thing happened. Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil who
had once visited Alexander Graham Bell's class for the
deaf stepped forward. He recognized Bell, and said
that he was a very smart man. The judges were very
tired, but they said O.K. When they looked at it they
exclaimed that it had to be put in a higher place in
the building and that he had won!
Alexander Graham
Bell is most known for the telephone, and it is very
useful to people now. He was a very thoughtful person
and he thought about whatever he did. You should be
thankful for him.
Here are some
links
that I found and I think you will enjoy
them:
The
Alexander Graham Bell Family of Papers at the Library
of Congress
Alexander
Graham Bell's Path to the Telephone
Alexander
Graham Bell - The Inventor
