| Graham Alexander Graham Bell is most famous | | | | about ten years, but it was not until 1875 that the way |
| because he invented the telephone, but he was also a | | | | it might be done came to him. On March 10, 1876, while |
| teacher of deaf and dumb people and a distinguished | | | | Bell was working in his laboratory, he spilled something |
| scientist. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847. | | | | on his suit and called to his assistant two floors above, |
| Bell worked with his father, Alexander Melville Bell, who | | | | "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you." This was the first |
| invented a system of lipreading for the education of | | | | telephone message. Bell spoke these same words to |
| deaf mutes (people born deaf who never know what | | | | Watson again in 1915 when the first cross-country |
| speech sounds like, and so are unable to learn to | | | | telephone call was made. But this time Watson could |
| speak). In 1871, Alexander Graham Bell came to the | | | | answer and said, "It would take me a week now." |
| United States from London to teach this new way of | | | | Many other men worked on the idea of sending sound |
| educating the deaf to students at Boston University. | | | | over wires, but Bell's telephone was the first to send |
| Here he continued his work on an invention to send | | | | spoken messages and to allow two people to talk to |
| sound over wires. | | | | each other. Earlier telephones had a single opening |
| Bell's interest in sound and vibration as they helped him | | | | through which a person spoke and listened. Modern |
| in his work with the deaf probably had a great deal to | | | | telephones are more private, but the basic idea of the |
| do with his work on the telephone. Bell worked on his | | | | telephone is much the same as Bell first planned it. Bell |
| idea for sending messages by electric waves for | | | | died in 1922. |