Alexander Graham Bell - The Renaissance Man

Driven by a desire to help deaf people, a struggling young inventor ponders a way to make the lives of the hearing impaired easier

. Back in the day, a hearing aid looked more like a Swiss horn in a Ricola cough drops commercial. With his mother at his side, young Alec spoke into the device telling her of his new idea - to communicate sound through wires.

Before he was known as an inventor, Alexander was a virtuoso on the piano. The gifted musician understood the dynamics of sound and theorized how different frequencies could be sent over a communication line. With the support of his future father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a Bostonian attorney, Bell secured financing for his invention under the ruse of developing an improved telegraph. Hubbard detested Western Union Telegraph Company's tight control of their monopoly. Although initially outraged that he had been tricked, Hubbard continued to finance Alexander's research at Bell's insistence that within a few years, the telegraph would be history.

As an ever prudent business man, Hubbard made sure Bell patented his idea. It wasn't long before Bell called to his associate and the first immortalized words were heard :

"Mr. Watson, come here..."

Despite a simultaneous effort by competitor Elisha Gray to develop a similar invention, Alexander's more advanced stage of research and slightly earlier patent filing gave him the edge that he needed to win the legal battle that ensued.

Over the years, telephones have revolutionized the way we do business and communicate. Although we are all familiar with the benefits of this invention, few people are aware just how many other things were Bell's ideas. Wilbur and Orville Wright weren't the only guys dreaming of the sky. In fact, one of Bell's team members left Bell to join the Wright brothers when he heard of their success. Bell realizing the limitations in man's understanding of flight at the time, took a more cautious approach. Not heeding his warning, his associate left and died soon afterwards in an aviation accident. Disturbed by the loss of his former comrade, it was Bell who later unlocked the mystery of what went wrong as he introduced improvements in aviation safety and performance to the world.

Bell was not only known for his great innovations in communications and aviation but also for inventing the microphone, making a speed record setting hydrofoil boat, improving Edision's phonograph and even the first wireless telephone or what he called the "photophone".

Although he may always be remembered mostly as the man who gave us the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell was more than just an inventor. He was an inspiration as to the pioneering spirit of man to solve problems that others dismissed as impossible.

by: Robert Haskell

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