DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Mediocre Student to Visionary Inventor and Scientist

Imagine This: You want so spend your time working on your new invention, but your investors think a "talking telegraph" is a big waste of time and demand that you devote all your time to improving the telegraph. So what do you do? Do you give up your dream?

You're born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, the second of three sons of a speech therapist father and a deaf mother. You're very close to your mother, and she inspires you to teach other deaf people to speak.

Even as a young boy, you're fascinated by sound. When you're only three or four, you sit in a field of wheat and listen to the sound the wheat shafts make as they blow in the wind. And you wonder if you might be able to hear the wheat growing if you listen carefully enough.

Even though you're very bright and very curious, you don't do very well in school because you're more interested in daydreaming and thinking your own thoughts.

In 1862, your father sends you to live and study with your grandfather in London, England, hoping you'll finally settle down and begin studying harder. Although your grandfather is very strict, he inspires you in a way that your father and teachers haven't been able to, and you begin taking your studies seriously. You particularly enjoy the science of sound and speech, and after a year, you return home a changed person.

In 1871, at age twenty-four, you accept a job at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes where you become a very successful teacher.

In 1873 you begin teaching at Boston University, and although you're busy teaching, you still find time to experiment and dream of new inventions.

You're particularly interested in improving the telegraph which sends dot-and-dash messages through electrical wires. The problem with the telegraphs in the 1870s is that only one message can be sent and received at a time.

Wealthy fathers of two of your students like your ideas for improving the telegraph and agree to invest money in your project which means you can now spend more of your time inventing. It also means that you can hire Thomas Watson,  a young electrician, to be your helper. You're a genius at coming up with ideas, but you know very little about electricity, so Watson is just the person you need.

You and Watson work long hours trying to solve the telegraph problem, but then you become interested in a much more exciting idea. Instead of just sending lots of coded messages at the same time, you think there might be a way to send the sound of a human voice through telegraph wires.

Your investors aren't happy with this new idea. They think a "talking telegraph" is a big waste of time, and they demand that you spend all your time and efforts on improving the telegraph.

You have to keep your investors happy, so you decide the only thing you can do now is work longer hours on both projects. After long months of experimenting, your hard work finally pays off. You find a way to convert sound into electrical impulses and send them over a copper wire!

In February 1876 you apply for a telephone patent even though your invention isn't completely ready yet. You receive your patent on March 7, 1876, and you're very lucky to get it because just a few hours after you apply for your patent, another inventor, Elisha Gray, also requests a telephone patent. Those few hours make all the difference! You get the patent; Gray doesn't.

Your invention of the telephone changes the world! Unlike many other inventions, the telephone is easy and safe to use, and unlike the telegraph, anyone can use it.

You die on August 2, 1922, at the age of seventy-five, and during your funeral two days later, all telephone service in North America is suspended for one minute as a mark of respect to honor the father of the telephone.

     "When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

 For More about Alexander Graham Bell

Giving Back: Bell always considered his work in educating the deaf his most important work—-more significant and more important than the invention of the telephone. His methods for teaching the deaf are still used in schools throughout the world, and the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf is now the largest organization for the education of deaf people.

Did You Know  that Bell considered his real work to be as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study for fear it would intrude on his work?

 Something to Think about:  What if Bell had followed the advice of his investors and given up his work on the telephone and worked only on the telegraph?

 

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!