2 Alexander Graham Bell

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Alexander Graham Bell by MARY BETH SPANN With the Editors of TIME For Kids

Chapter 1 Meet Mr. Bell Do you know who invented the telephone? Do you know when it was invented? Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. From the time he was a boy, he was interested in sound and speech. Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Scotland. His family called him "Aleck." Aleck's grandfather and his father were both speech teachers. They helped people speak well.

Aleck's mother was deaf. Aleck wanted to help her speak. He even tried some experiments. At age 14, he made a "speaking" invention. His older brother helped. Their invention made human-like sounds. Aleck's interest in speech and sound grew. At age 23, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts. He became a speech teacher at a school for the deaf. There, he met Mabel Hubbard. Mabel was deaf. Soon, they were married.

Chapter 2 From Telegraph to Telephone Aleck continued to teach. He did more experiments with sound. Then in 1843, Samuel B. Morse invented the telegraph. The telegraph sent messages over long distances. It worked by sending electricity through wires. The sender at one telegraph tapped out beats. Electricity carried the beats over wires to other telegraphs. Each beat or group of beats stood for one letter of the alphabet. The letters spelled words. The words made messages. This was called Morse code.

The telegraph worked well. But it had one problem. Only one electrical signal could travel over the wires at a time. Bell was interested in this problem. He wanted to try to solve it. Bell already knew a lot about sound. He had studied sound in order to teach the deaf. He had also done many experiments with sound.