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Articles
Alexander Graham
Bell: From Therapy to Telephone
by
GP Verma
 Alexander Graham Bell
was born on 3rd March 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. His Grandfather and father
were teachers of elocution and gave speech therapy, trying to cure such problem
as stuttering. His father was immersed in his work with visible speech. He had a
dominating personality, and insisted that his three sons should learn visible
speech and take part in demonstration of it. Alexander senior had become
interested in the problems of ‘deaf mutes’.
Alexander’s father was disappointed when his visible speech was not recommended
for state school in England. Alexander Graham Bell and his brothers had never
been strong. The father immigrated to North America with the hope that, the
environment would be healthier. American educators were more welcoming to
visible speech.
Alexander Graham Bell was teaching at a school for the deaf at London. He wanted
an independent life, out of his father’s shadow. He had found someone he wished
to marry. However the senior was typical “heavy father”. He never gave up his
son independence even for single “penny”. Alexander Graham Bell abandoned his
studies, wrote a final sad letter to his girl friend and on July 21, 1870,
sailed with his parents for Quebec.
In the spring of 1871, the young Alexander Graham Bell moved to Boston in USA
and began teaching for “Deaf mutes”. He started independent living and
experimenting on the ways of teaching “deaf mutes”. He used vibration techniques
in his teaching and became successfully famous.
Alexander Graham Bell met Gardiner Green Hubbard a wealthy lawyer and
businessman. Of Hubbard’s three children only one, Mabel, survived infancy, and
when she was five she became totally deaf as a result of Scarlet fever. In 1873
Alexander Graham Bell met Mabel Hubbard when she was fifteen. Alexander Graham
Bell started teaching her with tremendous success.
 Alexander Graham Bell enjoyed the hobby of scientific experiments. He started as
an amateur interested in telegraphy and other new technology of the time. During
his teens, he and a friend had rigged up a wire between their houses over which
they exchange messages in codes.
He had also experimented with combining what he knew of telegraphy with the
understanding of sound. How the human mouth could make so many different sounds.
Experimenting with a turning fork held in front of his mouth, he found that the
movement of his tongue altered the pitch of the fork.
A German Scientist, Hermann Helmholtz had already discovered that electricity
could be used to generate sounds of different pitches and values. Bell found
that this could be used to help deaf people.
Alexander Graham Bell fell in love with his pupil Mabel Hubbard but could not
tell her. Mabel’s father agreed to finance Bell’s experiments on harmonic
telegraphy provided Bell managed to register to patent it first. Alexander
Graham Bell hired a workshop and as assistant Thomas Watson.
In the spring of 1875 they had developed harmonic telegraph. Bell was engaged to
Mabel in 1875 who was a dumb mute and his pupil also. Alexander Graham Bell
being a teacher of deaf mutes thought of coping with the human vocal cord and
eardrum for telephone.
On March 10, 1876 Mr. Watson was stationed in one room with the receiving
instrument, the transmitting instrument was placed in another room and the doors
of both rooms were closed. Bell shouted “Mr. Watson Come here, I want to see
you”. Mr. Watson heard in the other room and came to Alexander Bell. Now Bell
wanted to work on telephone project also.
Hubbard reluctantly allowed financing it. Bell and Watson both over worked
dangerously close to nervous exhaustion. Bell and Watson made a patent
application of harmonic telegraph which was taken to Washington by Hubbard and
got through successfully.
In 1877, July Bell Telephone Co. was founded. Bell married Mabel Hubbard. The
Bell couple had two daughters and two sons but their sons could not survive.
Bell improved Edison’s phonograph in 1887 with his graph phone, the forerunner
of Gramophone.
Alexander Graham Bell helped founding of American Association for promotion of
teaching of speech to deaf and became its first President .In 1908 Alexander
Graham Bell started his experiments with hydrofoils . In 1911 he built a
hydrofoil but it broke up in trial. On August, 1922, Alexander Graham Bell died
aged seventy five. On January 3, 1923 Mabel Bell died.
The modern World can’t imagine surviving and living without the invention of
Alexander Graham Bell.
December 7, 2008
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