If it werent for Alexander Graham Bell not only would America be very different but the entire

world. His invention changed the world and how we as human beings communicate. We no
longer had to write letters or travel long distances to deliver messages. Now people could use
the telephone to contact each other. This invention would lead to other technological advances
down the line such as the cell phone. I mean imagine a world today without cell phones.
Alexander Graham Bell set out to create the telephone to help the world especially the deaf
community. He did so as an immigrant to America. He embodied what people call the American
Dream. He is why many immigrants come to America to be able to have the opportunities to
make a difference and he did just that.

Alexander Gram Bell was born on March 3rd, 1847 in Edinburg, Scotland. His mother, Eliza
Grace Symonds, was hard of hearing and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, taught elocution to
the deaf. They both had an important impact on the person he became and what he did with his
career later on in life. He had two brothers, both of whom passed away from tuberculosis. His
first invention came at the age of 10 when he took a challenge from a mill operator and created
a machine that removed husks from grain. At age 11 he attended the Royal High School in
Edinburg. He did not enjoy school because of their mandatory curriculum, so he left school at
age of 15. In 1865 his family moved to London. He briefly attended University College London
but didnt finish because his family moved to Brandord, Ontario. It wasn't until 1871 that he
moved to America.

He was extremely passionate about helping the deaf community due to the his mother
being hard of hearing and both his father and grandfather teaching in the deaf community.
When he moved to Boston in 1871 he became as teacher at Clarke School. He when on to
open his own school for training teachers of the deaf. The school was attached to Boston
University where in 1873 he was appointed professor of vocal physiology. Throughout his life he
continued to educate the deaf and funded the American Association to Promote the Teaching of
Speech to the deaf.

From 1873 to 18 76 he experimented with many inventions including an electric

speaking telegraph which became known as the telephone. His funding came from the fathers
of two of his students, Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders. Bell went on to marry Hubbards
daughter, Mabel Hubbard. In the summer of 1874 he conceived the theory of the telephone: that
an electric current can be made to change its force just as the pressure of air varies during
sound production. Bell and Thomas Watson, an electrical engineer who built the telephone,
transmitted a musical note on June 2nd 1875. They went on to improve the telephones quality.
By accident Bell sent the first sentence, Watson, come here I want you on March 10th, 1876.
The Bell Telephone company was founded on July 9th, 1877.

Bell was not a business man and turned over all business matters to Hubbard and
others so that he could pursue a wide range of inventions and intellectual pursuits. He
experimented with a means to detect metal in wounds and with a vacuum-jacket respirator that
led to the development of the iron lung. He helped Thomas Edison bring his phonograph to
commercial practically and experimented with hydrofoil boats and airplanes. He also founded
the journal science which today is known as the American Scientific Journal. He also continued
to help the deaf community by encouraging integration into society with the help of lip reading
and other techniques. In 1890 he founded the Alexander Graham Bell Association of the Deaf.
Alexander Graham Bell passed away in 1922 at his summer home on Cape Breton Island, Nova
Scotia.