Alexander Graham Bell Research Paper

Alexander Graham Bell
In the context of history, Alexander Graham Bell has contended to be an inspiring figure who became an inventor, an educator, a scientist, and a linguist in his lifetime. More specifically, Alexander Graham Bell conducted important work in inventing and teaching the deaf of the world, and eventually ended up making impactful changes to the world in both his childhood and adulthood. In note of this, Alexander Graham Bell’s lifetime reflects the multitude of ideas he had to offer to the world, which were expressed in the thirty patents for inventions he formed, most notably the telephone, and his contributions to deaf communications, all of which will remain unforgotten in the development of the world.
Alexander Graham Bell
played a major role in the world even in his life as a youth. Alexander Graham was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the son of Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Grace Symonds Bell, and grew up as the middle child of three boys, the older brother being Melville James Bell, and the younger brother being Edward Charles Bell. As a child, Alexander loved experimenting with sound and creating machines that produced sound, and displayed an odd ability to solve many challenging problems. While his mother homeschooled him in his earliest years, inspiring him to overcome any challenge he faced, he received most of his education just from conducting his experiments in sound. On the other hand, Alexander’s father was largely committed in teaching Visible Speech, a code of symbols invented by himself which corresponded with each spoken sound, and which was used to help deaf people speak. Being an expert of elocution, a state of having clear or expressive speech, and being so involved in Visible Speech, Alexander’s father wanted him to follow in his footsteps, and brought the young boy into the family business very early in his life. However, Alexander’s free-living will did not compliment his father’s controlling nature, and so he soon found a way out of the business by caring for his ill grandfather in 1862. His grandfather strongly encouraged him in intellectual pursuits, and only one year later, at 16 years old, Alexander joined his father in working for the deaf and assumed complete charge of his father’s operations in London, studying at the University of London in the meantime. Although Alexander’s hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland, was considered “The Athens of the North” because of the rich history of science attributed there, the area was also starting to become a worse environment over time as the air was becoming unhealthy to breathe in. The growing threats of the environment began to take a toll on Alexander’s life when both of his brothers perished due to contracting tuberculosis, a lung disease. Soon after Alexander became sick, the family decided that they had to leave their hometown and head to Canada to live in a healthier environment, as suggested by his father. On July 21, 1870, the Bells left for Canada and they arrived on August 1, 1870 at a farm in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Moving to Canada became a changing moment in Alexander’s life, enabling him to grow more independent from his father, but also beginning to create his own legacy. As a child, Alexander Graham Bell truly expressed his passion for inventing and changing the world.
How did Alexander Graham Bell become such an inspiring role model as an adult?
As an adult, Alexander Graham Bell was becoming intensely accustomed to inventing and teaching the deaf. His first idea that became one of the major achievements of his life began in Alexander’s laboratory in Boston in 1874, which would come to be known as the telephone. In 1874, Alexander had the idea to create a harmonic telegraph, a device which could send messages simultaneously over one telegraph wire by using different audio frequencies. When he requested funding for the project from local investors Thomas Sanders and Gardner Hubbard, and they agreed to the terms, he was able to hire a master of electrical engineering as his assistant in designing the telegraph, Thomas Watson. However, on June 2, 1875, Alexander discovered an idea much larger than the harmonic telegraph, when Thomas Watson plucked one of the reeds on a prototype device when the two were experimenting with acoustic telegraphy, and Bell heard a subtle implication in the tone of the device that would be needed to make a device that could transmit speech. Alexander filed for a patent for the telephone, which was issued to him on March 7, 1876, and he succeeded in getting the telephone to work just three days later. Alexander’s famous words to Thomas Watson on March 10, 1876, “Come here Mr. Watson. I want to see you.” marked the beginning of one of Alexander Graham Bell’s greatest inventions. Soon, Alexander focused on another
part of his life, and he married Mabel Hubbard, a former deaf student of his and the daughter of one of his former financial bankers, on July 11, 1877. As Alexander’s student, she first felt uncomfortable with him, but when she saw his lightheartedness and genuine concern, they both developed feelings for each other until they married. He and Mabel Hubbard had four children, Elsie, Marian, Edward, and Robert, but both Edward and Robert ended up dying soon after being born in 1881 and 1883. In 1880, Alexander was awarded the Volta Prize by the French government for the invention of the telephone, and he used this money to establish the Volta Laboratory the same year in dedication to scientific discovery. Alexander Graham Bell never officially retired, as he always retained a fiery passion for inventing, and he still wanted to do more in the world. He became a United States citizen in 1882, and in 1885 the Bell family started to spend summers in Baddeck on Bras d’Or Lake on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia in a vacation home he called Beinn Bhreagh. Alexander developed the American Association to Promote Teaching of Speech to the Deaf in 1890, the Aerial Experiment Association in 1907, and the Silver Dart, which was the first powered machine that was was flown in Canada. Throughout his lifetime, Alexander was awarded 12 honorary degrees and 24 medals. Alexander Graham Bell peacefully died on August 2, 1922 at Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. In his adulthood, Alexander Graham Bell made many of his ideas to change the world become a reality.
Many of Alexander Graham Bell’s contributions to the world are remembered for the way they changed the world forever. The most recognizable and notable contribution Alexander made to the world was being one of the primary inventors of the telephone, as well as the invention itself, as the telephone forever changed the way that communication worked and how people interacted with each other. When Alexander first invented the telephone, people didn’t trust having such a different form of communication, so Alexander traveled all throughout Europe to demonstrate how the device worked. On the other hand, he also struggled with fighting for his claim that he was the inventor of the telephone, and he ended up facing over 550 court challenges over 18 years that eventually went to the Supreme Court to confirm the claim that he was the inventor of the telephone. In the end, fighting for the telephone became a major accomplishment for Alexander in itself, as about 150,000 people in the United States owned telephones between the years 1877 and 1886. The telephone enabled a system that allowed people to communicate better than ever, marking a major advancement in the modern world. As well as being the creator of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell will be remembered for having formed 30 patents for inventions he designed throughout his lifetime, because he helped create a path of ingenuity and creativity and inspired a whole new wave of technology with the patents that he formed. The most known of Alexander’s smaller inventions are the telephone probe, a device designed to detect metal, specifically bullets to save many lives in World War 1, the iron lung, which was a machine that used a suction to move the chest of a person to help with breathing, and the audiometer, a device that was used to test hearing. Many of these patents, such as for air conditioners and water purifiers, symbolized the path to advancing technology in every aspect of the world, and inspired new change. The third reason that Alexander Graham Bell will be remembered is that he did extensive work in communication for the deaf because he completely reshaped the way that deaf communication was handled and provided a start for expansion in technology to help the deaf. Alexander ended up joining the staff of the Boston School for the Deaf in 1881, and he proved to be a helpful teacher who even invented systems to help the students learn to communicate. Taking this knowledge with him, he opened his own Boston school to train teachers for teaching the deaf, and became a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University. Alexander Graham Bell not only tried to teach the students to communicate, but also strived to improve the system and find new, more effective methods of teaching students, becoming a role model for not only the students, but also for the world regarding response to innovation. Because of his important work, Alexander Graham Bell will always be remembered.
Alexander Graham Bell created changes in the world that will always be remembered, and he always developed as a linguist, inventor, and educator in his youth and adult life.
To clarify, he conducted vital work in teaching communication to the deaf, and invented many life changing systems. Alexander Graham Bell’s life sets an example of a truly fulfilling use of innovation and ingenuity to make positive change. Moreover, he saw a more advanced world that could be different with the addition of his ideas. Alexander Graham Bell definitely had a major effect in the progression of the
world.