Famous People Who Overcame Dyslexia
Alexander Graham Bell
 March
3, 1847–August 2, 1922
Born Alexander Bell in Edinburgh, Scotland,
he later adopted the middle name Graham out of admiration
for Alexander Graham, a family friend.
His family was associated with the teaching
of elocution: his grandfather in London, his uncle in Dublin,
and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, in Edinburgh, were
all professed elocutionists. The latter has published a variety
of works on the subject, several of which are well known,
especially his treatise on Visible Speech, which appeared
in Edinburgh in 1868. In this he explains his method of instructing
deaf mutes, by means of their eyesight, how to articulate
words, and also how to read what other persons are saying
by the motions of their lips.
Alexander Graham Bell was educated at the
Royal High School of Edinburgh, from which he graduated at
the age of 13. At the age of 16 he secured a position as a
pupil-teacher of elocution and music in Weston House Academy,
at Elgin in Morayshire. The next year he spent at the University
of Edinburgh. From 1866 to 1867, he was an instructor at Somersetshire
College at Bath, England. While still in Scotland he is said
to have turned his attention to the science of acoustics,
with a view to ameliorate the deafness of his mother.
In 1870, he moved with his family to Canada
where they settled at Brantford, Ontario. Before he left Scotland,
Bell had turned his attention to telephony, and in Canada
he continued an interest in communication machines. He designed
a piano which could transmit its music to a distance by means
of electricity. In 1873, he accompanied his father to Montreal,
Quebec, where he was employed in teaching the system of visible
speech. The elder Bell was invited to introduce the system
into a large day-school for mutes at Boston, but he declined
the post in favor of his son, who became Professor of Vocal
Physiology and Elocution at Boston University's School of
Oratory.
At Boston he continued his research in the
same field, and endeavoured to produce a telephone which would
not only send musical notes, but articulate speech. With financing
from his American father-in-law, on March 7, 1876, the U.S.
Patent Office granted him Patent Number 174,465 covering "the
method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other
sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations,
similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying
the said vocal or other sound", the telephone.
After obtaining the patent for the telephone,
Bell continued his many experiments in communication, which
culminated in the invention of the photophone-transmission
of sound on a beam of light — a precursor of today's
optical fiber systems. He also worked in medical research
and invented techniques for teaching speech to the deaf. The
range of Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part
by the eighteen patents granted in his name alone and the
twelve he shared with his collaborators. These included fourteen
for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone,
one for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for
hydroairplanes, and two for a selenium cell.
In 1882, he became a naturalized citizen
of the United States. In 1888, he was one of the founding
members of the National Geographic Society and became its
second president. He was the recipient of many honors. The
French Government conferred on him the decoration of the Légion
d'honneur (Legion of Honor), the Académie française
bestowed on him the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs, the Royal
Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert medal in
1902, and the University of Würzburg, Bavaria, granted
him a Ph.D.
Bell married Mabel Hubbard, who was one of
his pupils at Boston University, on July 11, 1877. He died
at his estate, Beinn Bhreagh, near Baddeck, Nova Scotia, in
1922 and is buried alongside his wife atop Beinn Bhreagh Mountain
overlooking Bras d'Or Lake. He was survived by two of their
four children.
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