Catherine Chambers - Alexander Graham Bell

1847 Alexander Bell is born in Scotland on March 3

1858 Attends Royal Edinburgh High School

1862 Travels to London and stays with his grandfather for a year

1863 Teaches music and elocution in Scotland

1864 Bells father develops Visible Speech, to help deaf people to communicate

1867 Bells brother Ted dies

1870 Bells brother Melly dies. The Bells move to Canada.

1873 Bell teaches Visible Speech and becomes a professor at Boston University; joinsthe race to develop a multiple-message telegraph

1874 Teaches two deaf children. Their fathers, Thomas Sanders and Gardiner Hubbard,finance Bells research.

1875 Tom Watson becomes Bells assistant

1876 Bell receives a U.S. patent for his telegraph and telephone designs on March7; makes the first telephone call to Watson on March 10; takes the phone to the CentennialWorld Exposition in Philadelphia

1877 Bell, Watson, Sanders, and Hubbard set up the Bell Telephone Company. Bell marriesMabel Hubbard.

1878 The Bells first daughter, Elsie, is born in May

1880 The Bells second daughter, Marian, is born in February. Bell wins the VoltaPrize; sets up the Volta Laboratory and Volta Bureau to research deafness and otherscience.

1885 The Bells buy a house on Cape Breton island in northern Canada. Bell sets upa laboratory there.

1922 Alexander Graham Bell dies on August 2

Find Out More

BOOKS

Berger, Gilda, and Melvin Berger. Did You Invent the Phone Alone , Alexander GrahamBell? (Science Supergiants). New York: Scholastic, 2007.

Kulling, Monica. Listen Up! Alexander Graham Bells Talking Machine (Step into Reading).New York: Random House, 2007.

Rivera, Sheila. Alexander Graham Bell: A Life of Helpfulness (Pull Ahead Books).Minneapolis: Lerner, 2007.

INTERNET SITES

Facthound offers a safe, fun way to find Internet sites related to this book. Allof the sites on Facthound have been researched by our staff.

Heres all you do:

Visit www.facthound.com

Type in this code: 9781410962386

PLACES TO VISIT

Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site

159 Chebucto Street

Baddeck, Nova Scotia B0E 1B0

Canada

www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/grahambell/index.aspx

Exploratorium

Pier 15

San Francisco, California 94111

www.exploratorium.edu

National Museum of American History

National Mall at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20001

americanhistory.si.edu

Who Was Alexander Graham Bell?

Imagine a world without instant communication. No computers, no cell phonesor anykind of telephone! This was life over 150 years ago.

Into this world was born a remarkable man. He was fascinated by sound and how ittravels. His name was Alexander Bell, and he was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh,Scotland. Bell became a famous teacher of speech, especially for the deaf. But noone could have guessed that he would invent the telephone and change the world. Whenhe was a boy, everyone called him Aleck, so we will, too.

Bell became a highly respected teacher and scientist as well as an inventor.

MESSAGES ACROSS THE WORLD

Sending letters by horse, carriage, or even pigeon was a slow way of communicating.So, too, were smoke signals, flags, and drumbeats. This traditional world of communicationwas transformed by , which was invented just before Aleck was born.

Top technology in the 1840s

Telegraph messages were sent in along electrical pulses through wires. Atthe receiving end, these changed into a code that could be read on a telegraphy machine.The first working system was demonstrated by the American inventors F. B. Morse andAlfred Vail in 1837.

A Passion for Sound

Aleck came from a family that was obsessed with sound, especially the human voice.Both his father and grandfather taught . Elocution lessons help people tospeak clearly.

PERSONAL PASSIONS

Alecks mother was Eliza Grace Symonds. Eliza was deaf, but she taught her threesons with the help of finger signs. Aleck spoke to her by pressing his lips on herforehead so she could feel the vibrations of the words.

Alecks father, Alexander Melville Bell, was a professor of speech therapy at EdinburghUniversity. Young Aleck was inspired by his familys love of communication and experiments.

Alexander Melville Bell (18191905), shown here, was the son of yet another speechexpert, Alexander Bell (17901865).

Even Alecks pet dog, Trouve, could not escape his interest. He moved Trouves voicebox and lips with his fingers to make noises that sounded a little like words!

Aleck is on the far left, posing with his family. His brothers are Melville (Melly)and Edward (Ted).

The sound of silence

The science of speech therapy for the deaf was still new when Aleck was a boy.

Signlanguages had been used in different cultures for hundreds of years. Interest inhow the mouth and voice box produce words only grew after James Rush published abook about it in 1827.

Learning Alone

When Aleck was 11, he met an exciting family friend named Graham. Aleck decided toadd Graham to his own name.

One thing that Aleck was not interested in was going to school! As young children,the three Bell brothers were taught by their mother. Then, at age 11, Aleck was sentto the Royal Edinburgh High School. He hated it and left when he was 15.

When Aleck went to the Royal Edinburgh High School, it was in this serious-lookingbuilding.

Alecks parents sent him to London, England. Here, his grandfather educated him inan exciting, interesting way. In addition to normal classes, Aleck learned to playthe piano. This gave him many sounds to study!

Staying in tune

Alecks piano playing led him to experiment with of spoken wordshow the sound goes up and down. This laterhelped him as a teacher of speech and in his quest to develop the telephone.

The long of tuning forks vary in length. When they are struck, their vibrationsmake the sound of different notes. They are made of metal that is not too stiff towobble.