Alexander Graham Bell (born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer. He is known for receiving the first patent for a practical telephone. Bell also helped start the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.

Bell’s father, grandfather, and brother worked with speech and how people speak clearly. Both his mother and wife were deaf, which greatly influenced his work. His research on hearing and speech led him to develop hearing devices. He received the first U.S. patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876. Bell believed his invention was not his main scientific work and refused to use a telephone in his study.

Later in life, Bell made many other important inventions. These included work on using light to send messages over long distances, designs for boats that ride on water, and studies about flying machines. Bell also had a strong influence on the National Geographic Society and its magazine. He served as the society’s second president from 1898 to 1903. For the magazine, Bell wrote under the name H. A. Largelamb, which is a rearrangement of his real name.

In addition to engineering, Bell was deeply interested in the study of how traits are passed from parents to children. His work in this area was described as one of the most important and useful studies of human heredity in 19th-century America. This work was considered his most important contribution to science, separate from his inventions.

Early life

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. His parents were Alexander Melville Bell, a phonetician, and Eliza Grace Bell (née Symonds). The family lived on South Charlotte Street in Edinburgh, where a stone marks the place of Bell’s birth. Bell had two brothers, Melville James Bell (1845–1870) and Edward Charles Bell (1848–1867), who both died from tuberculosis. Bell was born as “Alexander Bell.” At age 10, he asked his father for a middle name like his brothers. For his 11th birthday, his father allowed him to use the name “Graham,” chosen to honor Alexander Graham, a Canadian friend of his father. Close family and friends still called him “Aleck.” Bell and his siblings attended a Presbyterian Church in their youth.

As a child, Bell showed curiosity about the world. He collected plants and conducted simple experiments. His best friend was Ben Herdman, a neighbor whose family ran a flour mill. At age 12, Bell built a homemade device that combined rotating paddles and nail brushes to create a machine that removed husks from grains. The mill used this machine for many years. In return, Ben’s father, John Herdman, gave Bell and Ben access to a small workshop to invent.

Bell showed a sensitive nature and a talent for art, music, and poetry, which his mother encouraged. Without formal training, he learned to play the piano and became the family’s pianist. Though quiet and thoughtful, he enjoyed mimicry and voice tricks that entertained guests. Bell was deeply affected by his mother’s growing deafness, which began when he was 12. He learned a manual finger language to communicate with her and developed a method of speaking clearly into her forehead so she could understand him. These experiences led him to study acoustics.

Bell’s family had a long history of teaching elocution. His grandfather, Alexander Bell, in London; his uncle, in Dublin; and his father, in Edinburgh, were all elocutionists. His father wrote several books on the subject, including The Standard Elocutionist (1860), which explained ways to teach deaf individuals to speak and read lips. Bell learned to use a system called Visible Speech, which his father taught him and his brothers. Bell became very skilled at it, demonstrating his ability to read symbols and sounds from many languages, including Latin, Scottish Gaelic, and Sanskrit.

As a child, Bell was homeschooled by his father. Later, he attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh but left at age 15 after completing only the first four years of study. His school record was not strong, with poor attendance and grades. He was more interested in science, especially biology, than other subjects. After leaving school, Bell moved to London to live with his grandfather, Alexander Bell, on Harrington Square. During this time, he developed a love of learning through discussions and study. At age 16, Bell became a “pupil-teacher” of elocution and music at Weston House Academy in Elgin, Scotland. The next year, he attended the University of Edinburgh with his brother Melville. In 1868, Bell passed his matriculation exams and was admitted to University College London, but he did not complete his studies because his family moved to Canada in 1870 after the deaths of his brothers from tuberculosis.

Bell’s father encouraged his interest in speech. In 1863, he took his sons to see a mechanical model of a human voice created by Sir Charles Wheatstone, based on earlier work by Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. Bell was fascinated by the machine and, after translating von Kempelen’s book from German, he and his brother Melville built their own automaton head. Their father supported their project and offered a reward if they succeeded. Bell worked on creating a realistic skull, while his brother built the throat and larynx. Their invention could produce a few words, such as “Mama,” which amazed neighbors.

Bell continued experimenting with sound using his family’s dog, Trouve, a Skye Terrier. After teaching the dog to growl, Bell manipulated its lips and vocal cords to produce sounds that visitors interpreted as “How are you, grandmama?” These experiments sparked Bell’s interest in transmitting sound. He began using tuning forks to study resonance.

At age 19, Bell sent a report on his work to Alexander Ellis, a philologist and colleague of his father. Ellis noted similarities between Bell’s experiments and work by Hermann von Helmholtz, a German scientist. Bell studied Helmholtz’s book, The Sensations of Tone, and mistakenly translated a French edition. This error led him to realize that if vowel sounds could be transmitted electrically, consonants and speech could be too. Bell later said this mistake was valuable because it inspired his experiments.

In 1865, when the Bell family moved to London, Bell returned to Weston House as an assistant teacher. In his free time, he continued experimenting with sound using limited equipment. He focused on using electricity to transmit sound and later installed a telegraph wire between his room and a friend’s room to test his ideas.

Canada

In 1870, 23-year-old Bell traveled with his parents and his brother’s widow, Caroline Margaret Ottaway, to Paris, Ontario, to stay with Thomas Henderson, a Baptist minister and family friend. The Bells soon bought a farm of 10.5 acres (4.2 ha) at Tutelo Heights (now called Tutela Heights), near Brantford, Ontario. The property included an orchard, a large farmhouse, stable, pigsty, hen-house, and a carriage house, which bordered the Grand River.

At the homestead, Bell set up a workshop in the converted carriage house near what he called his "dreaming place," a large hollow nestled in trees at the back of the property above the river. Even though he was weak when he arrived in Canada, Bell liked the climate and surroundings. He quickly became healthier. He continued studying the human voice, and when he discovered the Six Nations Reserve across the river at Onondaga, he learned the Mohawk language and translated its unwritten vocabulary into Visible Speech symbols. For his work, Bell was given the title of Honorary Chief and took part in a ceremony where he wore a Mohawk headdress and performed traditional dances.

After setting up his workshop, Bell continued experiments based on Helmholtz’s work with electricity and sound. He also modified a melodeon (a type of pump organ) to send its music electrically over a distance. Once the family was settled, Bell and his father planned to start a teaching practice. In 1871, Bell traveled with his father to Montreal, where Melville was offered a job to teach his System of Visible Speech.

Work with deaf people

Bell’s father was invited by Sarah Fuller, the principal of the Boston School for Deaf Mutes (later renamed the public Horace Mann School for the Deaf), to teach the Visible Speech System by training the school’s instructors. However, he chose to let his son take the position instead. In April 1871, Bell traveled to Boston and successfully trained the school’s instructors. He was later invited to repeat the program at the American Asylum for Deaf-Mutes in Hartford, Connecticut, and the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts.

After returning home to Brantford in 1871, Bell continued his experiments with his "harmonic telegraph." The idea behind his device was that messages could be sent through a single wire if each message was sent at a different pitch. However, both the transmitter and receiver needed to be developed for the device to work.

Uncertain about his future, Bell considered returning to London to finish his studies. Instead, he decided to return to Boston as a teacher. His father helped him begin his private practice by contacting Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the president of the Clarke School for the Deaf, for a recommendation. In October 1872, Alexander Bell opened his "School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech" in Boston. The school attracted many deaf students, with his first class having 30 students. While working as a private tutor, one of his students was Helen Keller, who came to him as a young child who could not see, hear, or speak. Later, Keller said that Bell dedicated his life to overcoming "the inhuman silence which separates and estranges." In 1893, Keller performed the sod-breaking ceremony for the construction of Bell’s new Volta Bureau, which was dedicated to "the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf."

In 1891, Bell founded the American Association for the Promotion of the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf (AAPTSD) in New York and gave the organization $25,000. While he supported teaching speech to the deaf, Bell did not take a position on whether oral, manual, or a combination of methods would be best for students.

Throughout his life, Bell worked to help the deaf and hard of hearing become part of the general population. He supported speech therapy, lip-reading, and sign language. He explained this in an 1898 paper, where he argued that, with proper resources and effort, the deaf could learn to read lips and speak (a method called oralism), which would help them join society. Some members of the Deaf community have criticized Bell for promoting lip-reading over the use of sign language.

Continuing experimentation

In 1872, Bell became a professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at the Boston University School of Oratory. During this time, he divided his time between Boston and Brantford, spending summers in his home in Canada. At Boston University, Bell was inspired by the many scientists and inventors living in the city. He continued his research on sound and worked to find ways to send musical notes and clear speech through the air. However, his teaching and private classes left little time for experiments. To make time for his work, Bell stayed up late at night, conducting tests in a rented room at his boarding house. He worried that others might find out about his experiments and took care to lock his notebooks and equipment. Bell made a special table with a locking cover to store his notes and tools. His health suffered, and he experienced severe headaches. In the autumn of 1873, Bell decided to focus fully on his sound experiments.

He gave up his busy private teaching job in Boston and kept only two students: six-year-old Georgie Sanders, who was born deaf, and 15-year-old Mabel Hubbard. Both students were important in Bell’s future work. Georgie’s father, Thomas Sanders, a wealthy businessman, offered Bell a place to stay in Salem, Massachusetts, with Georgie’s grandmother. The offer included a room for Bell to use for experiments. This arrangement followed a previous year-long plan in 1872, during which Georgie and his nurse lived near Bell’s boarding house. Mr. Sanders supported the idea. The agreement allowed Bell and Georgie to continue their work together, with room and meals provided. Mabel was a bright and attractive girl who was ten years younger than Bell. She had lost her hearing after a serious illness when she was five years old and learned to read lips. Her father, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who was Bell’s friend and supporter, wanted her to work directly with her teacher.

The telephone

By 1874, Bell’s early work on the harmonic telegraph had reached an important stage. Progress was made both at his new Boston "laboratory" (a rented space) and at his family home in Canada. That summer, while working in Brantford, Bell tested a "phonautograph," a pen-like machine that could draw sound wave shapes on smoked glass by tracing vibrations. Bell believed it might be possible to create electrical currents that matched sound waves and to convert those currents back into sound using metal reeds tuned to different frequencies. However, he had no working model to prove his ideas.

In 1874, telegraph message traffic was growing quickly. Western Union President William Orton described it as "the nervous system of commerce." Orton had hired inventors Thomas Edison and Elisha Gray to find a way to send multiple telegraph messages on one line to save money. When Bell told Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders he was working on sending multiple tones through a telegraph wire using a multi-reed device, the two men began to fund his experiments. Patent matters were handled by Hubbard’s lawyer, Anthony Pollok.

In March 1875, Bell and Pollok visited Joseph Henry, director of the Smithsonian Institution, to ask for advice on his electrical multi-reed device for sending human voices through telegraph wires. Henry said Bell had "the germ of a great invention." When Bell said he lacked the needed knowledge, Henry encouraged him to "Get it!" This advice helped Bell continue his work, even though he had no equipment or working model. However, a meeting in 1874 with Thomas A. Watson, an experienced electrical designer, changed this.

With support from Sanders and Hubbard, Bell hired Watson as his assistant. Together, they tested acoustic telegraphy. On June 2, 1875, Watson accidentally plucked a reed, and Bell, at the receiving end, heard the reed’s overtones needed for speech. This showed Bell that one reed, not multiple, was enough. This led to the "gallows" sound-powered telephone, which could send unclear, voice-like sounds but not clear speech.

In 1875, Bell created an acoustic telegraph and prepared a patent application. Because he agreed to share U.S. profits with his investors, Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, Bell asked his associate George Brown in Ontario to apply for a British patent first. His lawyers would apply for a U.S. patent only after receiving confirmation from Britain (Britain only granted patents for ideas not used elsewhere).

At the same time, Elisha Gray was experimenting with acoustic telegraphy and designed a way to send speech using a water transmitter. On February 14, 1876, Gray filed a patent caveat for a telephone design with a water transmitter. That same morning, Bell’s lawyer submitted Bell’s patent application. There was debate over who submitted first, and Gray later challenged Bell’s patent. Bell was in Boston on February 14 and did not reach Washington until February 26.

On March 7, 1876, the U.S. Patent Office issued Bell patent 174,465. It described a method to transmit sounds telegraphically by creating electrical waves that matched sound vibrations. Bell returned to Boston that day and sketched a diagram similar to one in Gray’s patent caveat the next day.

On March 10, Bell successfully tested his telephone using a liquid transmitter like Gray’s. Vibration of a diaphragm caused a needle to move in water, changing the circuit’s electrical resistance. When Bell said, "Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you," Watson, in another room, heard the words clearly.

Although Bell was accused of stealing the idea from Gray, he used Gray’s water transmitter only after his patent was approved and only to test if speech could be transmitted. After March 1876, Bell focused on improving the electromagnetic telephone and never used Gray’s design publicly or commercially.

The patent examiner, Zenas Fisk Wilber, later claimed he was an alcoholic who owed money to Bell’s lawyer, Marcellus Bailey. Wilber said he showed Bailey Gray’s patent caveat and Bell $100 (equivalent to $2,900 in 2025). Bell denied giving Wilber money but admitted in a letter to Gray that he learned some technical details.

On March 10, 1876, Bell used his telephone in Boston to call Thomas Watson in another room. He said, "Mr. Watson, come here – I want to see you," and Watson soon arrived.

Continuing experiments in Brantford, Bell brought a working telephone model home. On August 3, 1876, he sent a telegram from Brantford to Mount Pleasant, four miles away, showing he was ready. He made a telephone call via telegraph wires, and faint voices were heard. The next night, guests at the Bell Homestead clearly heard people in Brantford reading and singing over an improvised wire. On August 10, 1876, he tested the telephone over a line to Paris, Ontario, eight miles away. This test is often called the "world’s first long-distance call."

The first two-way conversation over a line happened on October 9, 1876, between Cambridge and Boston (about 2.5 miles). Bell was in Boston, and Watson was at the Walworth Manufacturing Company offices.

Bell and his partners, Hubbard and Sanders, offered to sell the patent to Western Union.

Family life

On July 11, 1877, a few days after the Bell Telephone Company was created, Alexander Graham Bell married Mabel Hubbard (1857–1923) at the Hubbard estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a wedding gift, Bell gave Mabel 1,487 of his 1,497 shares in the new company. Soon after, the newlyweds went on a one-year honeymoon in Europe. During this trip, Bell brought a handmade model of his telephone, using it to test and improve the device. Their relationship began years earlier, but Bell waited until he had more financial stability before marrying. Although the telephone became popular quickly, it was not immediately profitable. Bell earned most of his income from giving lectures until after 1897. One special request from his fiancée was that he use the name "Alec" instead of the family’s previous name, "Aleck." From 1876 onward, he signed his name "Alec Bell." The couple had four children:

• Elsie May Bell (1878–1964), who married Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, a well-known figure at National Geographic.
• Marian Hubbard Bell (1880–1962), known as "Daisy," who married David Fairchild.
• Two sons who died as infants: Edward (1881) and Robert (1883).

The Bell family lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until 1880, when Bell’s father-in-law purchased a home in Washington, D.C. In 1882, Bell’s family moved into another house in Washington, D.C., so they could be near him while he handled legal cases about patents.

Bell was born in Scotland and lived in Canada as a British citizen until 1882, when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1915, he said, "I am not one of those hyphenated Americans who claim allegiance to two countries." Despite this statement, Bell is honored as a "native son" by the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

By 1885, the Bell family planned a new summer home. That summer, they vacationed on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, near the village of Baddeck. In 1886, Bell began building a home on a point across from Baddeck, overlooking Bras d’Or Lake. By 1889, a large house called The Lodge was completed. Two years later, a larger complex of buildings, including a new laboratory, was built. The complex was named Beinn Bhreagh (Gaelic: Beautiful Mountain), after Bell’s Scottish heritage. Bell also built the Bell Boatyard on the estate, hiring up to 40 people to create experimental boats, wartime lifeboats, workboats for the Royal Canadian Navy, and pleasure boats for his family. Bell loved boating, and he and his family sailed or rowed many vessels on Bras d’Or Lake. Additional boats were ordered from the H.W. Embree and Sons boatyard in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. In his later years, Bell divided his time between Washington, D.C., where his family lived most of the year, and Beinn Bhreagh, where they spent more time as Bell focused on his experiments.

Until his death, Bell and his family alternated between their two homes. Over the next 30 years, Beinn Bhreagh became more than a summer home as Bell spent longer periods there. Both Mabel and Bell became active members of the Baddeck community and were accepted by the villagers as local residents. The Bells were still living at Beinn Bhreagh when the Halifax Explosion occurred on December 6, 1917. Mabel and Bell helped organize aid for the victims in Halifax.

Later inventions

Alexander Graham Bell is best known for inventing the telephone, but he had many other interests. One of his biographers, Charlotte Gray, said Bell studied many areas of science and often read the Encyclopædia Britannica before going to bed, looking for new topics to learn about. Bell had 18 patents in his name and 12 shared with others. These included 14 for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for flying machines, four for "hydroairplanes," and two for selenium cells. His inventions covered many areas, such as a metal jacket to help people breathe, a tool to check hearing problems, a device to find icebergs, ways to separate salt from seawater, and research on new fuels.

Bell worked in medical research and created methods to teach speech to the deaf. During his time at the Volta Laboratory, Bell and his team explored using magnetic fields to record sound. Though they tried this idea, they could not make it work. They later realized their experiment had uncovered a principle used in tape recorders, hard drives, and floppy disks.

Bell used a simple form of air conditioning at home, where fans blew air over ice blocks. He also thought about ways to solve fuel shortages and pollution. He believed methane gas could be made from farm and factory waste. At his estate in Nova Scotia, he tested composting toilets and devices to collect water from the air. In 1917, he wrote about using solar energy to heat homes.

Bell and his assistant, Charles Sumner Tainter, invented a wireless telephone called the photophone, which used light to send sounds and conversations. Both men later became part of the Volta Laboratory Association.

On June 21, 1880, Bell’s assistant sent a wireless voice message over 700 feet from a school to Bell’s lab, 19 years before the first radio voice transmissions. Bell considered the photophone his greatest achievement, calling it "greater than the telephone." The photophone was the basis for fiber-optic communication systems used widely in the 1980s. Its patent was issued in 1880, long before the technology became popular.

Bell also helped create an early version of a metal detector after President James A. Garfield was shot in 1881. Some say the device failed to find the bullet because the metal bed the president was on caused interference. Others believed the bullet was too deep for the detector to sense. Bell explained in a 1882 report that the steel mattress under the president’s bed, not the metal bed, might have caused the problem.

In 1906, an article in Scientific American described hydrofoils and hydroplanes. Bell saw this as an important invention and began designing what is now called a hydrofoil boat. He and his assistant, Frederick W. Baldwin, tested hydrofoils in 1908 to help airplanes take off from water. Baldwin studied work by Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini and tested models. This led to the creation of practical hydrofoil boats.

During a world tour in 1910–11, Bell and Baldwin met Forlanini in France and tested his hydrofoil boat on Lake Maggiore. Baldwin said the ride felt as smooth as flying. Later, they built experimental models, including the Dhonnas Beag, the first self-propelled Bell-Baldwin hydrofoil. The HD-4, powered by Renault engines, reached speeds of 54 miles per hour.

In 1913, Bell hired Walter Pinaud, a yacht designer, to improve the HD-4’s pontoons. Pinaud later managed the boatyard at Bell’s estate. After World War I, Bell obtained stronger engines, and on September 9, 1919, the HD-4 set a marine speed record of 70.86 miles per hour, a record that lasted a year.

In 1891, Bell began experiments to build motor-powered flying machines. He formed the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) with his wife’s advice to work with younger people. In 1898, Bell tested tetrahedral box kites and wings made of silk, named Cygnet I, II, and III. Some of these kites are displayed at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. Bell supported aerospace research through the AEA.

Heredity and genetics

Alexander Graham Bell, along with many scientists of his time, became interested in the study of heredity after Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. On his estate in Nova Scotia, Bell carefully recorded experiments breeding rams and ewes. Over more than 30 years, he aimed to create a sheep breed with multiple nipples to support twin lambs. He specifically wanted to test whether selective breeding could produce sheep with four functional nipples that could provide enough milk for twins. His work in animal breeding drew the attention of scientists studying heredity and genetics in humans.

In November 1883, Bell presented a paper at the National Academy of Sciences titled Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race. The paper compiled data about the hereditary causes of deafness. Bell's research showed that having deaf relatives was a significant factor in the likelihood of a child being born deaf. He noted that deaf children born to deaf parents were much more common than deaf children born to the general population. In the paper, Bell discussed social issues related to deafness and suggested ideas for public policies to address it. He also criticized educational practices that separated deaf children from mainstream classrooms. The paper did not support sterilizing deaf people or banning marriages between deaf individuals. Bell concluded by stating, "We cannot dictate to men and women whom they should marry, and natural selection no longer influences mankind to any great extent."

A review of Bell's paper in the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb in 1885 noted that Bell did not support laws restricting the marriages of deaf people, as the outcomes of such marriages had not been studied enough. The article also stated that earlier comments about the paper had unfairly criticized the author. The paper's author suggested that understanding the laws of heredity through further research would help prevent deafness, and that schools should teach students about these laws to help them choose partners who would not produce deaf children.

Historians have confirmed that Bell opposed laws regulating marriage and never supported sterilization in any of his writings. Even when he worked with scientists studying eugenics, he refused to support policies that limited the rights of deaf people.

Bell's research on heredity caught the attention of Charles Davenport, a Harvard professor and director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In 1906, Davenport, who also founded the American Breeders' Association, invited Bell to join a new eugenics committee led by David Starr Jordan. In 1910, Davenport established the Eugenics Records Office at Cold Spring Harbor. To gain scientific credibility, Davenport created a Board of Scientific Directors, naming Bell as chairman. Other board members included Luther Burbank, Roswell H. Johnson, Vernon L. Kellogg, and William E. Castle.

In 1921, the Second International Congress of Eugenics was held in New York at the Museum of Natural History, chaired by Davenport. Although Bell did not present research or speak during the event, he was named honorary president to encourage other scientists to attend. A summary of the congress described Bell as "a pioneering investigator in the field of human heredity."

Death

Alexander Graham Bell passed away due to problems caused by diabetes on August 2, 1922, at his private estate in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, at the age of 75. He also suffered from pernicious anemia. His final view of the land he had lived on was under the moonlight at his mountain estate at 2:00 a.m. While caring for him after his long illness, his wife, Mabel, whispered, "Don't leave me." In response, Bell signed "no…", lost consciousness, and died shortly after.

Upon learning of Bell's death, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, sent a message to Mrs. Bell, stating:

Bell's coffin was made from Beinn Bhreagh pine by his laboratory staff and lined with the same red silk fabric used in his tetrahedral kite experiments. To honor his life, his wife asked guests not to wear black (the traditional funeral color) during his service. During the service, soloist Jean MacDonald sang a verse of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Requiem":

After the funeral, at 6:25 p.m. Eastern Time, every phone on the continent of North America was silenced for one minute in honor of the man who had given humanity the means for direct communication over long distances.

Alexander Graham Bell was buried on top of Beinn Bhreagh mountain, on his estate where he had lived increasingly for the last 35 years of his life, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake. He was survived by his wife, Mabel, his two daughters, Elsie May and Marian, and nine of his grandchildren.

Legacy and honours

Honors and recognition grew for Alexander Graham Bell as his invention, the telephone, became widely used and his fame increased. Bell received many honorary degrees from colleges and universities, so many that the requests became difficult to manage. During his lifetime, he also earned many awards, medals, and other honors. These included statues and monuments, such as the Bell Telephone Memorial, built in his honor in Alexander Graham Bell Gardens in Brantford, Ontario, in 1917.

Many of Bell's writings, letters, notebooks, and other documents are kept in the United States Library of Congress Manuscript Division, known as the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, and at the Alexander Graham Bell Institute, Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia. Parts of these collections are available online for viewing.

Several historic sites and landmarks in North America and Europe honor Bell, including the first telephone companies in the United States and Canada. Major sites include:

• The Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, managed by Parks Canada, which includes the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, near Bell’s estate, Beinn Bhreagh;
• The Bell Homestead National Historic Site, which includes the Bell family home, "Melville House," and farm in Brantford, Ontario, overlooking the Grand River. This was Bell’s first home in North America;
• Canada’s first telephone company building, the "Henderson Home" from the late 1870s, a predecessor of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada (officially created in 1880). The building was moved to the Bell Homestead National Historic Site in Brantford, Ontario, in 1969 and turned into a telephone museum. The Bell Homestead, Henderson Home museum, and the site’s visitor center are all managed by the Bell Homestead Society;
• The Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Park, which includes a large neoclassical monument built in 1917 through public donations. The monument shows how telecommunications can connect people across the world;
• The Alexander Graham Bell Museum, opened in 1956, which is part of the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site completed in 1978 in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Many museum items were donated by Bell’s daughters.

In 1880, Bell received the Volta Prize, which included 50,000 French francs (about $350,000 today), from the French government for inventing the telephone. Famous judges of the prize included Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. The Volta Prize was created by Napoleon III in 1852 to honor Alessandro Volta, and Bell was the second person to win the grand prize. Bell used the prize money to create the 'Volta Fund' and support institutions in Washington, D.C., including the Volta Laboratory Association (1880), also called the Volta Laboratory or Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory. This eventually led to the Volta Bureau (1887), a research center for studying deafness, which still operates in Washington, D.C.

The Volta Laboratory became a place for scientific experiments. The following year, it improved Edison’s phonograph by using wax instead of tinfoil for recordings and by making deeper marks on the wax. Edison later adopted these changes. The laboratory was also where Bell and his assistant invented the "photophone," an early device that used light to transmit sound, a precursor to fiber-optic communication. The Volta Bureau later became the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, a research and education center for deafness.

Bell worked with Gardiner Greene Hubbard to start the publication Science in the 1880s. In 1898, Bell became the second president of the National Geographic Society, serving until 1903. He helped the magazine use many illustrations, including photographs. He also served as a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution from 1898 to 1922. The French government gave him the Légion d’honneur (Legion of Honour), the Royal Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert Medal in 1902, the University of Würzburg, Bavaria, gave him a PhD, and the Franklin Institute awarded him the Elliott Cresson Medal in 1912. Bell was one of the founders of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1884 and served as its president from 1891 to 1892. He later received the AIEE’s Edison Medal in 1914 for inventing the telephone.

The bel (B) and decibel (dB) are units used to measure sound pressure level (SPL), created by Bell Labs and named after Bell. Since 1976, the IEEE’s Alexander Graham Bell Medal has been given to recognize achievements in telecommunications.

In 1936, the U.S. Patent Office named Bell the greatest inventor in the country. This led to a commemorative stamp issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1940 as part of its "Famous Americans Series." The stamp’s first-day ceremony took place in Boston, Massachusetts, where Bell spent time researching and working with the deaf. The stamp was very popular and sold out quickly. It remains the most valuable stamp in the series.

In 1997, the 150th anniversary of Bell’s birth was marked by a special £1 banknote from the Royal Bank of Scotland. The note’s design included Bell’s profile, his signature, and images from his life, such as a telephone, sound waves, and symbols of sign language. Canada also honored Bell with a $100 gold coin in 1997 and a silver dollar coin in 2009 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first flight in Canada. That flight was made in an airplane called the Silver Dart, designed under Bell’s guidance. Bell’s name and inventions have appeared on money, stamps, and other items in many countries for many years.

Bell was ranked 57th among the 100 Greatest Britons in a 2002 BBC poll, among the Top Ten Greatest Canadians in 2004, and among the 100 Greatest Americans in 2005. In 2006, he was named one of the 10 greatest Scottish scientists in history by the National Library of Scotland’s "Scottish Science Hall of Fame." Bell’s name is still used in the names of many schools, companies, streets, and places worldwide.

Although Bell did not finish his university studies, he received at least a dozen honorary degrees, including eight honorary Doctor of Law (LL.D.) degrees, two PhDs, a Doctor of Science (D.Sc.), and a Doctor of Medicine (MD):

• Gallaudet College (then called the National Deaf-Mute College) in Washington, D.C. (PhD) in 1880
• University of Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany (PhD) in 1882
• Heidelberg University in Germany (MD) in 1884

Portrayal in film, television and fiction

• The 1939 film The Story of Alexander Graham Bell was created to share information about his life and achievements.
• Eyewitness No. 90: A Great Inventor Is Remembered, a 1957 NFB short film, highlights Bell’s contributions.
• The 1965 BBC miniseries Alexander Graham Bell features Alec McCowen and Francesca Annis in the roles of Bell and his wife.
• The Sound and the Silence, a 1992 TV film, tells a story related to Bell’s work.
• On August 6, 1996, the TV show Biography aired an episode titled Alexander Graham Bell: Voice of Invention.
• In the Canadian TV series Murdoch Mysteries, John Tench plays Bell in five episodes. These include "Invention Convention" (April 24, 2012), "Murdoch in Toyland" (May 8, 2012), "8 Footsteps" (October 9, 2017), "Staring Blindly into the Future" (January 13, 2020), and "Murdoch and the Sonic Boom" (October 24, 2022).
• A Sign of Her Own, a 2024 novel by Sarah Marsh, is about a student of Bell’s Visible Speech system. The book describes how the character gradually realizes and acts on the harm Bell caused to her and other deaf people.