Alexander Graham Bell

Did you answer the phone today? You have Alexander Bell to thank for that. Bell was the son of a speech teacher. He helped his father through the years and learned many things about how people speak and hear. He used this knowledge to help deaf people learn to speak.

Bell was born in Scotland in 1847. His family eventually moved to Canada, and later Bell settled in Boston, where he continued his work with the deaf. He was trying to invent a machine that would help deaf people speak. His first success came when he sent a musical note over an electrical wire.

Bell kept working and experimenting and finally invented a machine that could send and receive human speech. One day he spilled acid on his clothes and decided to use his device to send a “help” message to his assistant. His assistant received the message—and the telephone was born. Although others claimed to have invented similar devices, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled in Bell’s favor, and he was granted a patent for his invention.