ABSTRACT
Scottish/American inventor most famous for his development of the telephone, but one who was also active in early sound recording. He was born in Edinburgh, the son of Alexander Melville Bell, a specialist in vocal physiology. From 1868 to 1870 he worked with his father in London and studied anatomy and physiology at University College, developing a
keen interest in education of the deaf. When his family moved to Canada in 1870, Bell went on to Boston where he taught teachers of the deaf. During 1873-1876 he
experimented with the phonautograph and the telegraph, developing the theory of the “speaking telegraph” or telephone in 1874. In 1876 he transmitted the first intelligible telephonic message. In 1877 he organized the Bell Telephone Co. to produce and market the telephone, and after considerable patent litigation his rights to the invention were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
