Alexander Graham Bell “Giving voice to the world” by Mary Kay Carson

1. Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell “Giving voice to the world” by Mary Kay Carson Power point by Emily Overby

2. About Bell • Bell the IV was born on March 3, of 1847 to Eliza Symonds Bell and Alexander Melville Bell the III in Edinburgh, Scotland. • He pasted away on August 2, of 1922 from diabetes and old age at Beinn Bhreagh, on Cape Breton Island in his estate. • Alexander Graham Bell is mostly famous for his many inventions such as the first telephone, wireless photo phone, a harmonic telegraph, etc. • I chose this person because I known I wanted to do an inventor and since a lot of my peers have cell phones I thought it would be interesting to show they where it all began.

3. Bell's Childhood Alexander Graham Bell was born without his fabulous middle name. On his eleventh birthday he adopted the middle name from a family friend because he enjoyed it so much and as a middle child he wanted to do something to stand out. He had two brothers (one older and one younger) named Melville James Bell and Edward Charles Bell. All of them had a nickname, Melville was Melly, Alexander was Aleck, and Edward was Ted. As a child Aleck was interested in botany, bones, music, and sounds. He played the piano and learned to sign “another way to communicate with his nearly deaf mother”. His piano teacher wasSignor Auguste Benoit Bertini. After his piano teacher passed away his mother Eliza taught him, but unfortunately his mother’s teaching made him lose interest.

4. Adolescence In his school years until high school he and his brothers were home schooled by their mother. Even though she could not hear them naturally she owned a hearing tube which is basically a long, narrow tube. One end goes in her ear and the other end widens out into a cup shape for the speaker to talk. Once he was old enough to do the Royal High School at age fifteen he gradually became a careless student. Sure he was smart but not exactly book smart. Aleck’s dad became worried about the carelessness of his work ethic and sent him to live with his grandfather for one year in London, England. It worked! When Aleck came back he walked, talked, and thought much more like a studious student. At age sixteen he got his first job as a music and speech teacher at the Western house Academy in Elgin. He was paid in meals, living, Latin and Greek lessons, and ten pounds sterling per year($75) At that time his father had just finished creating his new visible language for the deaf. His dad first taught Aleck and his brothers the language. Aleck learned all of it in the first five weeks. Unfortunately their grandfather passed away in 1865.(he was eighteen in 1865)

5. Adulthood On May 17, 1867 only little brother, Ted suffered from tuberculosis and passed away. You could say that TB was running all over his home town because later in 1870 his brand new nephew Edward also suffered from tuberculosis at just a little over one year of age. On May 28, 1870 Melly died of TB and was buried next to Ted and Grandfather Bell. Aleck’s parents were worried about their only still living son getting a little cough so all three of them moved to Brantford, Ontario of Canada for the sake of his health. Living in Canada did improve his health. Once he was cured he moved to Boston, Massachusetts and became a Professor of vocal physiology at the Boston University. Other than teaching the deaf a way to speech he was also interested in inventing new technology to improve the lives of people. For all of his experiments he was able to get mechanical help from Thomas A. Watson. For financial help Gardiner Greene Hubbarb helped. With all of this assistance he was able to create the harmonic telegraph. As a professor he also tutored some of his students like Mabel Hubbarb. After tutoring her for awhile he eventually fell in love. After he invented the harmonic telegraph inventing the telephone was easy. After the telephone was created and functioning properly, and after they showed it off at the Centennial Exhibition, and …after the Bell Patent Association installed 80 phones they became the Bell telephone Company with Bell, Watson, Hubbarb, and Sanders. On July eleventh of 1877 Mabel and Aleck got married. Their honeymoon was in Great Britain but turned out to be more work for Bell. Queen Victoria and a ton of other people wanted to see demonstrations of the brand new telephone. They ended up staying in London for an entire year. Later on May eighth of 1878 they had their child. They decided to name her Elsie May Bell.

6. More Adulthood The more famous his invention got the more precious it became. At one point in 1878 the Western Union Telegraph Company along with Elisha Gray and Thomas Edison tried to put Bell’s company out of business. They claimed Bell was the theif and Gray really invented it. This case was taken to court, and once Bell convinced the jury and the Western Union could taste failure the gave up. Eventually he quit the Bell telephone company and focused more on new technology and educating the deaf. With everyone getting telephones the city streets were clogged with wires hanging up above. Bell was sick of it so he invented the wireless photo phone with Sumner Taiter. He was so proud of his new invention he wanted to name their second child photo phone. Instead on February fifteen of 1880 they named her Marian “Daisy” Bell. When President James Garfield got a bullet lodged in an unknown place of his body, it inspired Bell to create the telephonic probe and the metal detector. He could not save Garfield unfortunately because the metal springs in his bed were interfering too much. Eighty days later Garfield died. August fifteenth of 1881 Mabel gave birth to a boy they were going to call Edward but he was too premature and had respiratory problems and passed away in first few hours. The grief and sadness inspired Aleck to invent the world’s first artificial respirator a vacuum jacket that helped the patient breathe in and out. It eventually evolved into the iron lung. There was no help for their fourth child though, Robert Bell also born prematurely and passed in the first few minutes on 11-17-1883. the time was not all bad though at that time he finally opened his school for deaf children in Washington D.C. On August second of 1922 Bell past away from a medical condition, also diabetes mellitus, in which the body produces an insufficient amount of insulin, causing elevated blood sugar, (Diabetes) and old age.

7. Time Line March 3, 1847 Bell IV was born. 1870 his nephew and older brother past of TB. In 1862 at age 15 he spent a year in London with his grandfather. He went from a slacker student to a studious student. 11-25-1875 Mabel agreed to marry Bell it was also Thanksgiving and her birthday. In 1859 at age 11 on his birthday he adopted the name Graham as a middle name. 1881 he invented the telephonic probe and metal detector for President Garfield May 17,1867 his little brother died of TB. 1870 age 23 he emigrated with his parents to Canada because with everyone dying they were concerned about his health. On 1877 it was their wedding day on July 11. On the honeymoon he ended up demonstrating the telephone to Queen Victoria and a bunch of other people. 1922 Bell died because of a serious medical disease.

8. Positive Contributions Some positive contributions Alexander Graham Bell made to the world were that he invented a lot of technology. He invented the telephone, harmonic telegraph, wireless photo phone, telephonic probe, metal detector, audiometer, graphophone, hydrofoil, kites, phonograph, and the artificial respirator vacuum jacket. He also was able to help Helen Keller express her thoughts since she was both blind and deaf. They became life long friends. Also he opened two schools for the deaf using his father’s visible language, one in Greenock, Scotland and one in Washington D.C.

9. Most Interesting Part of Life I think the most interesting part Aleck’s life was that he invented so many things to help the world evolve to what it is now. He was an amazing inventor in my eyes. “The inventor is a man who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are.” That quote he made interreges me the most because I think it really tells what type of person an inventor is. “The inventor is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention posesses him, seeking materialization.” If it wasn’t for him, today we would have not form of communication. Another thing I found interesting about Alexander Graham Bell was that he lived/visited in a lot of places. He been to London, Bath, Elgin, Edinburgh, and other places.

10. Questions for Alexander Graham Bell • If your piano teacher didn’t die would you have been more into music instead of inventing? • How do you think life would have been if Edward and Robert lived? • Were you even frustrated communicating with Helen Keller?

11. Bibliography Alexander Graham Bell “Giving voice to the world” by Mary Kay Carson