Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on March 3, 1847. Raised in a family deeply involved in speech education, Bell was intrigued by speech experiments conducted by his grandfather and the teachings of his father from an early age. Due to ill health, he moved to Canada with his father in 1870. In 1872, Bell opened a school in Boston to train teachers of the deaf and also taught mechanics of speech.

While working on a Multiple Telegraph invention, the idea of transmitting speech over distances captivated Bell’s imagination. On June 2, 1875, while experimenting with telegraph apparatus in Boston, Bell heard a sound resembling a twang of a steel spring over an electric wire at the other end. Recognizing it as a manifestation of the undulatory current principle, he instructed his assistant Thomas A. Watson to create a model of the telephone. The next day, June 3, the apparatus successfully transmitted speech sounds.

Further experiments led to the transmission of the first complete sentence on March 10, 1876: “Mr. Watson, come here; I want you.” This marked the birth of the telephone. Bell demonstrated the invention publicly at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where it garnered attention alongside other notable inventions.

Bell traveled to England to refine the device into a single instrument containing both the transmitter and receiver. Despite initial skepticism, the first telephone exchange in England was established in London in September 1876. Bell and Watson later inaugurated the first transcontinental telephone line between Washington and San Francisco in 1915.

In addition to his contributions to communication technology, Bell founded organizations such as the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf and the Volta Bureau for deafness-related research. He also held positions such as President of the National Geographic Society and Regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

Bell passed away on August 2, 1922, at his summer home near Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada. To honor his legacy, telephone stations on the Bell Telephone network in the USA and Canada remained silent for one minute on the day of his funeral. The Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department considers it a privilege to issue a commemorative stamp in honor of this great inventor, whose revolutionary invention transformed the world of communication.