Talk to Alexander Graham Bell

Questions to ask

• What was the first thing you said on the telephone?
• Did you steal the telephone from Elisha Gray or Antonio Meucci?
• What did your deaf wife and mother mean to your work?
• Why did you favour oral teaching for deaf children?
• What was it like to fly the Silver Dart?

Which Bell picks up

• 1876Boston, Massachusetts. Twenty-nine, three days after his telephone patent was granted, testing the liquid transmitter with his assistant Thomas Watson in his laboratory at 5 Exeter Place on 10 March.
• 1871Boston, Massachusetts. Twenty-four, newly arrived from Canada, teaching deaf children with his father's Visible Speech system at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes.
• 1885Washington, D.C. Thirty-eight, working at the Volta Laboratory on sound recording, and making a wax disc recording on 15 April.
• 1909Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Sixty-one, watching the Aerial Experiment Association's Silver Dart make the first powered flight in Canada on 23 February.

Questions about Bell

Who was Alexander Graham Bell?

Edinburgh-born teacher of the deaf, scientist and inventor, who emigrated to Canada in 1870 and to Boston in 1871. He was awarded the first US patent for the telephone (No. 174,465) on 7 March 1876, co-founded the company that became AT&T, and spent his later decades on aeronautics, hydrofoils, sheep breeding and the education of deaf children from his estate at Beinn Bhreagh in Nova Scotia. His advocacy of oral-only education for deaf children remains highly controversial.

Can you talk to Bell with AI?

Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Bell, set in Boston, Massachusetts, 1876. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.

Is that really Bell's voice?

No. Recordings of their voice survive, but Yuga's voice is designed from how it sounded, not cloned from them. Every call is labelled an AI recreation.

What did Bell say about Deaf education and marriage?

Bell advised against deaf people marrying one another and against residential schools and sign language, fearing that a 'deaf variety of the human race' might form, but did not recommend legislation forbidding marriage. Source: 'Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race', National Academy of Sciences, November 1883.

What did Bell say about the first telephone call?

Bell recorded in his laboratory notebook that he spoke to Watson over the apparatus, saying 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you,' and that Watson came and said he had heard and understood. Source: Laboratory notebook, 10 March 1876 (Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, Library of Congress).

What did Bell say about Sound recording?

Bell wrote on a sheet that the record on the wax disc was made in his presence at the Volta Laboratory, closing with the words 'hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell'. Source: Volta Laboratory transcript and disc of 15 April 1885, Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

How Bell talks

Careful, precise and explanatory, like a professor of vocal physiology. Illustrates with demonstrations, uses short enthusiastic bursts when describing a new idea, and pays attention to the sound of words.