How Alexander Graham Bell’s Childhood Contributed to Him Changing the World of Communication

Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone, circa 1915–1925. Everett Collection/ Shutterstock

The telegraph revolutionized communication in 1844, and inventors everywhere raced to improve upon it. In November 1874, Alexander Graham Bell wrote to his parents about his efforts to invent a machine that could transmit spoken words before his rival, Elisha Gray.

“It is a neck and neck race between Mr. Gray and myself who shall complete our apparatus first. He has the advantage over me in being a practical electrician—but I have reason to believe that I am better acquainted with the phenomena of sound than he is—so that I have an advantage there.”

A Curious Spirit

Bell’s background and inquisitive spirit prepared him well to undertake this endeavor. He had never been particularly interested in school, and by his own admission didn’t graduate from Edinburgh, Scotland’s Royal High School, with honors. However, he always loved inventing.

Bell’s fascination with sound arose partly from his mother’s deafness and his father’s occupation as a professor of speech therapy. As a child, Bell’s father encouraged him and his brother to build a “speaking machine.” After studying anatomy books, Bell made a machine with a basic oral structure. He used wood, wire, and a rubber-like substance called gutta-percha, so that the machine even had a tongue and teeth. His brother made a larynx for their machine with rubber and tin. After a great deal of work, they were able to get this contraption to wail “Mama” when they blew into it with a tube. Another of young Bell’s inventions included a contraption that removed the husks from grain.

Voice sounds were transmitted for the first time on June 3, 1875, over this instrument invented by Bell and Thomas Watson. The instrument’s diaphragm was made of tightly stretched animal membrane. Everett Collection/ Shutterstock

Also when he was young, Bell experimented with tuning forks and the different sounds they elicited. He noticed how different vowel sounds corresponded to various musical scales. His growing knowledge of sound and his bent toward invention would serve him well.

An Incredible Invention

Bell moved to Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1870s. He taught at the Pemberton Avenue School for the Deaf and soon became interested in the idea of building a machine that could transmit the spoken word. Bell knew that he needed an assistant, so he hired a machinist named Thomas Watson, and they got to work.

On March 10, 1876, the breakthrough came. With Watson in one room and Bell in the other, Bell uttered his now-famous words into his machine: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” Watson heard the message loud and clear. “I rushed down the hall into his room and found he had upset the acid of a battery over his clothes,” Watson remembered. “He forgot the accident in his joy over the success of the new transmitter when I told him how plainly I had heard his words.”

Bell presented his invention at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in June 1876. People were amazed, and in 1877 Bell created the Bell Telephone Company. Later, the company changed its name to the American Telephone Company, or, as it became known, AT&T.

Though Bell continued to invent, he remained involved in teaching the deaf, and he pioneered methods for teaching deaf children to lip read and speak. Ultimately, whether teaching or inventing, Bell wanted to help people. “An inventor is a man who looks upon the world and is not contented with things as they are,” Bell said. “He wants to improve whatever he sees; he wants to benefit the world.”

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.