Graham Bell Essay Research Paper Alexander Graham

Graham Bell Essay, Research Paper Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he was educated there and at the University of London. He studied under his grandfather, Alexander Bell, a well known speech teacher. (Robert V. Bruce, Bell) His mother, Elisa Grace Symonds, was a portrait painter and a musician. His father, Alexander Melville, Bell, taught deaf-mutes to speak and wrote textbooks on correct speech. He invented ?Visible Speech,? a code of symbols that indicated position of the throat, tongue, and lips in making sounds. (World Book Encyclopedia, 1991) Bell and his brothers helped their father in demonstrations of Visible Speech, Beginning in 1962. He also became a student-teacher at West House, a boys school in Edinburgh, where he taught music and speech for instruction in other subjects. (World Book Enc. 1991) He became a full-time teacher after studying for a year at the University of Edinburgh. Then he studied at the University of London. (A. G. Bell: Making Connections, 1996) In 1866, he made experiments to find out how vowel sounds are produced. He read a book on acoustics by a German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, he used notes of electrically driven forks to make vowel sounds. That gave him the idea of ?telegraphing? even though he had no idea how to do it. (World Book Enc., 1991) Bad things started to happen to the family. Graham?s younger brother died of tuberculosis, and his older brother died also by the same disease in 1870. The doctor told his father that Graham was in danger too, but his father gave up his job and moved to Brantford, Ontario, Canada, where his father found a healthy climate for them. He soon recovered in health. (Our Foreign Born Citizens, 1955) In 1972, Bell opened a school for the teachers of the death. The next year he became a professor at Boston College. After a while of working on the phone without much money, he got support in creating the telephone by an attorney who he met by the man?s daughter who was left deaf after getting the scarlet measles, his name was Gardiner Green Hubbard. Graham married her four years later. The man was a critic of The Western Union Telegraph Company. When he found out what Graham was trying to do he helped him.(Wires West, Phil Ault, 1974) After a while of trying he found out that he didn?t have enough training but he went to an electrical instrument-making shop for help. Thomas A.Watson started helping Bell. They became close friends. He helped improve the telegraph before creating the telephone. He developed the ?harmonic telegraph? which could send more than one message at a time over a single telegraph wire.( A. G. Bell: Making Connections, 1996) In 1875, he had produced the first recognizable voice-like sounds. In 1876, while testing, Graham spilled acid near the telephone transmitter and called in the famous words ?Mr. Watson, come here; I want you? he forgot about it in the excitement of the invention . On his twenty-ninth birthday he received the patent securing his rights as inventor of the telephone.(Our Foreign Born Citizens, Annie E. S. Beard, 1955) French government awarded Bell the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs in 1880 for the invention of the telephone. The money was used to establish the Volta Laboratory for research, invention, and work for the deaf. There he developed the method of making phonograph records on wax discs. In 1890, Bell founded and financed the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. It is now called Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf). (World Book Enc., 1991) He later experimented with a means to detect metal in wounds. And with a vacuum-jacket respirator that led to the making of the iron lung.(Robert V. Bruce, 1973) He helped bring Thomas A. Edisons phonograph to commercial practicality and started experimenting with hydrofoil boats and airplanes. (Wires West, Phil Ault, 1974) He was so interested in flying in his life, that he helped finance American scientist Samuel P. Langley?s experiments with heavier-than-air machines. He conducted a series of experiments with kites capable of lifting a person into the air. In 1907, he helped organize the Aerial Experiment Association, which worked with advanced aviation. He also contributed to the establishment of Science magazine and helped organize the National Geographic Society. (Our Foreign Born Citizens, Annie E.S. Beard, 1955) He became a U.S. citizen in 1882, but spent most of his life at his estate on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. He died August 2, 1922, at his house. Alexander Graham Bell was very important to U.S. history because he helped communications get easier. Alexander Graham Bell was important to American history because he allowed people from great distances to relay important information to each other in actual time. This eliminated many useless and otherwise time-consuming ways of communication such as writing letters through the U.S. mail and having to wait at least a month for a reply. He was also an influence in the teaching of the hearing and speaking impaired. If it weren?t for the support of Bell in many of the experiments of that time many inventions might have never been made like the tests on aviation. If it weren?t for his inventions life as we know it now may have never existed. Imagine, we would have never been able to trade effectively, and World War I we would know about it too late to be able to do something about it. And then if we did, during World War II, Hitler may have been able to take over Europe without no one here knowing about it. Then by the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor they might of already been attacking without us being ready. So if you think about it, if it weren?t for him the world might of been ruled by Hitler or by a communist leader. We may have never existed if it weren?t for him but that is taking it a little to far. You can see that one important thing leads to another important thing and if something would happen the difference could be disastrous. Computers, televisions, internet, home shopping, cell phones, etc. Imagine, you wouldn?t be able to see movies, would spend more time in going shopping, there would probably be less things to buy, internet wouldn?t exist and that is the connection to the world. Cell phone wouldn?t exist of course, and quick calls to the house would not be possible. So, the reasons of his importance are impossible to count because so many things that were effected because of him. His life is full of creations and teaching the deaf. He will forever be remebered. Bibliography The World Book Encyclopedia, World Book,Chicago IL,1991). Phil Ault, Wires West: The Story of the Talking wires, Odd, Mead & Company, NY, 1974) Annie E. S. Beard, Our Foreign-Born Citizens, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, NY, (1955) Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of solitude, (1973). Naomi Pasachoff, Alexander Graham Bell: Making Connections, (1996).