WHEN we think about one of the greatest and most wonderful of inventions, the telephone, our thoughts wander to its inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. However, many of us don’t know or fail to realize the great job this remarkable man did for handicapped people. While he is remembered for his wonderful invention, the telephone, he also cannot be forgotten for the work he’s done for the deaf.
Alexander was born in Scotland in 1847. His father was scholarly and ambitious. His mother was totally deaf from an early age. Both parents influenced the young Alexander’s life greatly who developed a talent for music at an early age.
With his young friends, he organized a society and from this organization sprang his future life as a scientist and inventor. There was a sudden change in his life when, at the age of 15, he left Edinburgh to live in London with his grandfather who was a thoughtful man with strong ideals. At 16, Graham Bell became a music teacher at a boarding school in Scotland where he received free boarding and instruction in Latin and Greek as remuneration for his work. During this year, his father perfected a system of “visible” speech, an ingenious alphabet designed to teach speech to the deaf. Each symbol represented a certain position for the mouth or tongue. It proved so successful that later Alexander reproduced words in other languages, such as Arabic.
At 18, he helped a brilliant phonetician in experiments and began teaching, using Visible speech. His father did a tour of America and Canada promoting this system; later becoming the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Alexander’s reputation as a gifted teacher of the deaf spread widely. After losing two of his brothers to Tuberculosis, his parents emigrated to Canada and Alexander accompanied them. He was in demand in several areas, including Boston, for his services to teach the deaf. He eventually set up his own school in Boston. This city was the hub of advancing technology. Here, Alexander’s mind turned to science and inventions. He took up his ideas of a multiple telegraph for the transmission of several messages at once over a single wire.
He worked with Thomas Watson on the multiple telegraph, being forced to give up most of his teaching and falling into financial difficulties, but at last they triumphed and took out a patent on the “telephone” in March 1876. The great day came in June at a celebration to commemorate the centenary of independence in America when his invention was witnessed and heard by foreign guests.
In 1878, the first directory was published with 48 subscribers. Simultaneously, Bell increased his efforts with the deaf. By the time of his death in 1922, 80 per cent deaf children in America had been taught speech. He married Mabel Hubbard who was deaf. She became his life-long companion.
