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Alexander Graham Bell honors and tributes

Honors and tributes received by Alexander Graham Bell From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexander Graham Bell honors and tributes
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Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922)[1] was an inventor, scientist, and engineer who received numerous honors and tributes during his life, and new awards were subsequently named for him posthumously.[2]

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Alexander Graham Bell
c.1918–1919

Major awards and tributes

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Among those tributes:

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The master telephone patent, awarded to Bell in March 1876.
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Bell ceremoniously inaugurating the New York to Chicago telephone line, 1892
  • The National Association of Teachers of the Deaf elects Bell its president (1874);[4]
  • The United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Bell the master telephone patent, No. 174,465, dated March 7, 1876. It becomes the foundation asset of the Bell Telephone Company, which later evolved into AT&T, at times the world's largest telephone company. The patent is considered by many to be the most valuable ever issued in history (1876);
  • The U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in June 1876, made Bell's newly created telephone a featured headline worldwide just a few months after it had been patented. Among the exhibition's judges were the notable Emperor Dom Pedro II of the Empire of Brazil and the eminent British physicist William Thomson (later made Lord Kelvin). Upon hearing Bell's voice through the telephone's receiver, the emperor reputedly exclaimed: "My God! It talks!"[2][5] Thomson described the telephone as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph".[6] Thomson and Emperor Pedro, who was equally amazed that the telephone could 'speak' in Portuguese, later recommended the device to the Committee of Electrical Awards, which voted Bell its Gold Medal for Electrical Equipment. Bell also won a second Gold Medal for his additional display of Visible Speech at the exposition, and further won an order of 100 telephones from Emperor Pedro for his country. Ironically, Bell—then occupied full-time as both a private teacher and as a professor at Boston University—hadn't planned on attending the exhibition due to his heavy work schedule, and left Boston only at the last moment to attend the exposition at the stern insistence of his then-fiance and future wife Mabel Hubbard, aged 18.[7][8] Dom Pedro's chance viewing of the invention at the fair was pivotal to the awards and world headlines Bell earned, helping the telephone gain public acceptance (1876);[9]
  • The American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected Bell a Fellow of the Academy (1877);[10]
  • Bell received the James Watt silver medal for the telephone from the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (1877);[11]
  • The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (a.k.a. the Association of the Mechanics of Boston) awarded two gold medals to Bell, as exhibitor #626 registered to the New England Telephone Company of Boston, MA, for both the telephone and Visible Speech, twinning the results of the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia two years earlier (1878);[11][12]
  • The Society of Arts in London awards him his first Royal Albert medal, a silver, for his paper on the telephone (1878);[11]
  • The Third Paris World's Fair, called the Exposition Universelle, awarded Bell (along with Elisha Gray and Thomas Edison) a Grand Prize for the telephone (1878);[13]
  • Gallaudet College, earlier chartered as the Columbia Institution Of The Deaf, and at the time called the National Deaf-Mute College, of Washington, D.C., awarded Bell an Honorary Ph.D. 'in recognition of his work for the Deaf' (1880).[11][14][15][16]
  • The French Academy, representing the French government, awarded Bell the Volta Prize with a purse of 50,000 francs (approximately $10,000) for the invention of the telephone (1880).[2][17][18][19][20][21] Since Bell was becoming increasingly affluent, he used his prize money to create endowment funds (the 'Volta Fund') and institutions in and around the United States capital of Washington, D.C. They included the prestigious 'Volta Laboratory Association' (1880), also known as the 'Volta Laboratory' and as the 'Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory', as well as creating the Volta Bureau (1887) as a center for studies on deafness. The Volta Laboratory became a permanently funded experimental facility devoted to scientific discovery, and the very next year invented a wax phonograph cylinder that was later used by Thomas Edison;[22]
  • The President of the Third French Republic, Jules Grévy, on the recommendation of his Minister of Foreign Affairs Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire and with the presentations of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Louis Cochery, designated Bell with the distinction of an 'Officer Of The Legion of Honour' (Légion d'honneur) by decree on 10 November 1881, in recognition of his inventions (1881);[2][11][23][24][25]
  • Decree awarding Helmholtz, Bell, and Edison, the Legion of Honour
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  • The Society of Arts issues their second Royal Albert silver medal to him for his paper on his proudest achievement, the Photophone, invented a year earlier (1881);[11]
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Bell receiving an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, University of Edinburgh, 1906.
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Melville House at the Bell Homestead National Historic Site, his first home in Canada, opened as a museum in 1910 in Brantford, Ontario.
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Invitation to Bell to inaugurate the first U.S. transcontinental telephone line, 1915.
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The Bell Telephone Memorial, commemorating the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell. The monument, paid by public subscription and sculpted by W.S. Allward, was dedicated by the Governor General of Canada, Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire with Dr. Bell in The Telephone City's Alexander Graham Bell Gardens in 1917. Included on the main tableau are figures representing Man, the inventor, Inspiration whispering to Man, his power to transmit sound through space, as well as Knowledge, Joy, and Sorrow. (Courtesy: Brantford Heritage Inventory, City of Brantford, Ontario, Canada)
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Other citations, honours and awards

  • Bell received numerous other awards and honorary degrees during his life. Among them were:[15][30]
    • Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph. D.) from Illinois College in recognition for his work for the deaf. Note that this may be an erroneous item, as the College's website only lists a single degree to Bell ––his LL.D in 1896. ;[15]
    • Doctor of Laws degree (LL.D.) from Amherst College;[40]
  • Bell additionally received the Karl Koenig von Württemberg gold medal;[11]
  • At the age of eighteen, Bell was nominated for membership in the scholarly London Philological Society, by linguist and mathematician Alexander Ellis, on the basis of a study Bell had written on overtones.[56] Ellis also lent him a work by German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz, with Bell's incorrect translation of that work becoming the basis of his enduring research into transmitting speech telephonic-ally (1865);[56]
  • Bell was also nominated as a Resident Member of the Boston Society of Natural History (1876).[57]
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Other posthumous tributes

  • Upon Bell's death, during his burial, "....every phone on the continent of North America was silenced in honor of the man who had given to mankind the means for direct communication at a distance" ;[58][59]
  • When he heard of his death, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King cabled Mrs. Bell, saying:
"[The Government expresses] to you our sense of the world's loss in the death of your distinguished husband. It will ever be a source of pride to our country that the great invention, with which his name is immortally associated, is a part of its history. On the behalf of the citizens of Canada, may I extend to you an expression of our combined gratitude and sympathy."[2]
"The announcement of your eminent husband's death comes a great shock to me. In common with all of his countrymen, I have learned to revere him as one of the great benefactors.... and among the foremost Americans of all generations. He will be mourned and honored by human kind everywhere as one who served it greatly, untiringly and usefully"[2]
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Inscribed marker at Bell's birthplace in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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A.G. Bell US postage stamp issue of 1940
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Historical plaque marker in Washington, D.C., marks one of the sites used by Bell and Tainter's Photophone.
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Bell statue dedicated in 1949, in the front portico of the Bell Telephone Building of Brantford, Ontario.
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A My Fair Lady movie poster, in which Bell's works are quoted. The inspiration for the Professor Higgins character was Bell's father Alexander Melville Bell, who was introduced by Melville's brother to playwright George Bernard Shaw.
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Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site and Museum, opened in 1956 in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, near to the Bells' private estate and burial site.
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The IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, for meritorious achievements in telecommunications. (Photo courtesy: IEEE)
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Parks Canada plaque at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Park, Baddeck, Nova Scotia, adjacent to the A.G. Bell Museum on the same site
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The Walk of Fame 'Bell Star' on Toronto's Simcoe Street
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Commemorative marker at 109 Court Street in Boston, where Bell and Watson transmitted their first harmonic 'twang' in 1875.
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Cambridge, MA plaque commemorating a three hour telephone conversation by Watson, with Bell in Boston, on October 9, 1876.
"From the top floor of this building • Was sent on June 3, 1880 • Over a beam of light to 1325 'L' Street • The first wireless telephone message • In the history of the world. • The apparatus used in sending the message • Was the Photophone invented by • Alexander Graham Bell • inventor of the telephone • This plaque was placed here by • Alexander Graham Bell Chapter • Telephone Pioneers of America..."; (1947)
  • The Charles Fleetford Sise Chapter of the Telephone Pioneers of America commissioned and dedicated a large statue of Bell in the front portico of Brantford, Ontario's new Bell Telephone Building plant on Market Street. The Pioneers raised over $5,000 across North America for the work in 1948–1949 (more than $65000 in current dollars). Attending the formal ceremony were Bell's daughter, Mrs. Gillbert Grosvenor, Frederick Johnson, President of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, T.N. Lacy, President of the Telephone Pioneers, and Brantford Mayor Walter J. Dowden. The statue had been designed and crafted by A.E. Cleeve Horne in his Toronto studio in the style of the Lincoln Memorial, and cast in bronze in New York. Pioneers president T.N. Lacy spoke at the unveiling comparing the Cleeve Horne work to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, saying that sculptor "....has accomplished in this memorial to Alexander Graham Bell what Daniel Chester French created for the Lincoln Memorial... ...he has caught and reflected the conviction that Bell, like Lincoln, was an emancipator... [He] gave freedom and range to the human voice."[63] On each side of the monument is the engraved inscription, "In Grateful Recognition of the Inventor of the Telephone". Its dedication was broadcast nationally by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation[63][64] (17 June 1949)
  • The Hall of Fame for Great Americans inducted Bell by 70 votes (1950);[65]
  • The Canadian Government also established the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site of Canada, which also includes the Alexander Graham Bell Museum, in Baddeck, Nova Scotia (1952);[66]
  • The Salem, MA Essex Institute presented a plaque (originally dedicated in 1922) honoring Alexander Graham Bell and his financial supporters Thomas and Mary Ann Brown Sanders to the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, located on Essex Street on the YMCA Building (1958);[67]
  • At the age of 19, Bell wrote a report on his studies of tuning fork resonance and sent it to philologist Alexander Ellis, a colleague of his father.[68] Ellis would later be portrayed as Professor Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's famous play, Pygmalion, in 1913. Pygmalion was later adapted into the Oscar Award-winning movie My Fair Lady, where in hommage to Bell's work teaching the deaf to speak, the movie's central character, Prof. Higgins (played by famed actor Rex Harrison) refers to the use of "Bell's Visible Speech" (1964).
  • The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) enshrined him as a member for his extensive pioneering research in aeronautics (1965);[69]
  • The International Astronomical Union (IAU) named a crater on the moon Bell, in his honor (1970);[70]
  • Canada Post released an eight cent commemorative issue stamp on July 26, 1974, honouring the centenary of the invention of the telephone at Bell's parent's home, Melville House, now called the Bell Homestead National Historic Site. The stamp feature's three phones: a (then) modern Contempra telephone by Nortel, a much earlier daffodil phone, plus Bell's very earliest experimental model of 1875, the Gallows telephone (1974);[71]
  • The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) inducted Bell as a member, describing his works: ...Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part by the 18 patents granted in his name alone and the 12 he shared with his collaborators. These included 14 for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for hydroairplanes, and two for a selenium cell (1974);[72]
  • The IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal was created in his honor by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (currently sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs), to annually award outstanding contributions in the field of telecommunications (1976);
  • Parks Canada dedicates the a park as part of the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, which contains the Alexander Graham Bell Museum opened earlier in 1956, not far from Bell's estate, Beinn Bhreagh (1976);
  • The Royal Bank of Scotland issued a £1 commemorative banknote to mark the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Alexander Graham Bell.[73] The illustrations on the reverse of the note include Bell's face in profile, his signature, and objects from Bell's life and career: users of the telephone over the ages; an audio wave signal; a diagram of a telephone receiver; geometric shapes from engineering structures; representations of sign language and the phonetic alphabet; the geese which helped him to understand flight; and the sheep which he studied to understand genetics (3 March 1997);
  • Canada honored Bell with a $100CAD gold coin in tribute to the 150th anniversary of his birth (1997),[74] and with a silver dollar coin celebrating the 100th anniversary of flight in Canada (2009);[75]
  • Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, awarded a special star to Bell as part of its new "Innovators' Category". The star (photo at right), with an early model telephone engraved in its very center, is located on Simcoe Street in Toronto (2001);[76][77]
  • The Ontario Government's Member of Parliament, MPP Dave Levac, along with Bell's descendants, dedicated the Brant County section of Provincial Highway 403 as "The Alexander Graham Bell Parkway", as well as an outdoor stage named the "Bell Heritage Stage" in Brantford, Ontario (2005);[78]
  • Google created a special web page on his birthday, with links to informational websites on him (2008);[79][80]
  • The Aegis School of Business in India established the Aegis Graham Bell Awards in 2010, covering the fields of Telecom, Internet, Media, and Edutainment (TIME). The awards are held in association with the Cellular Operator Association of India (COAI) and Convergence India, and were created in tribute to Bell (2010);[81]
  • Numerous other countries also issued coins, of both nominal and high value, as well as stamps dedicated to him and his inventions. Among the stamp releases are multiple definitive and commemorative issues by both Canada and the United States.
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Honorary names of schools, organizations, awards, and placenames

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A number of schools, institutes, organizations, academic scholarships, awards, and places have been named in honour of Bell. A number of historic sites and other marks also commemorate both him and the first telephone company buildings. Among them are:

International

Canada

China

  • Bei'er Road (street and Metro station), in the Longgang district of Shenzhen City. Note that the name was using pinyin notation and not the original surname.

France

India

Germany

  • Alexander Graham Bell Straße, in Bonn;
  • Graham-Bell Weg, in Garbsen, Hannover;
  • Graham-Bell Straße, in Augsburg.

Mexico

  • Graham Bell Street, in Residencial Los Robles, Apodaca.

New Zealand

Russia

South Africa

Switzerland

  • Graham Bell Strasse, in Reinach.

Spain

  • Graham Bell Street, in Campanillas, Málaga.

The Netherlands

  • Graham Bell Straat, in Amsterdam;
  • Graham Bell Straat, in Heerlen.

United Kingdom

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One of two markers at Bell's birthplace, 14 South Charlotte Street, Edinburgh, Scotland. (Courtesy: Kim Traynor)
  • Alexander Graham Bell Birthplace, at a house on 14 South Charlotte Street in Edinburgh, Scotland, where there's an inscribed stone beside the doorway of his birth home, and additionally one within its entrance way;
  • The Alexander Graham Bell Building, at the University of Edinburgh, which was named after him;
  • The Alexander Graham Bell Apartment, an apartment-hotel also in Edinburgh.

United States

  • The Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory in Washington, D.C., the informal name of the Volta Laboratory established by the Volta Associates in 1881;
  • Two historic tablets plus a minor monument near Exeter Place in Boston, MA mark the location of the Alexander Graham Bell's first successful telephone and the words he first transmitted to his assistant, Thomas Augustus Watson. The monument's inscription reads: "• Birthplace of the Telephone • Here, on June 2, 1875, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson first transmitted sound over wires. This successful experiment was completed in a fifth floor garret at what was 109 Court Street and marked the beginning of world-wide telephone service • The First Telephone •"'. The separate historic markers were erected by The Bostonian Society and the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1916, and by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2006;
  • The Alexander Graham Bell Professorship of Health Care Entrepreneurship was established by Boston University in his memory;[85]
  • The Alexander Graham Bell Scholarship is awarded to Boston University College of Engineering students;
  • Alexander Graham Bell School, a public grammar (K–8) school on the north side of Chicago, Illinois, providing programs to deaf, blind, mentally disabled, gifted as well as standard students;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and with chapters across the United States, as well as internationally. The Association also sponsors the AG Bell College Scholarship Awards Program for a number of deaf or hard of hearing full-time students pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees. In 2010, 18 awards were granted ranging from $1,000 to $10,000;
  • Alexander Graham Bell School PS 205Q, a public (K–5) school in Bayside, Queens, New York;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School Academy, a (PK-8) public school on Larchmere Blvd. in Cleveland, Ohio, serving regular and hearing-impaired students;
  • Alexander Graham Bell School, a preschool and kindergarten center for the Columbus Public Schools Hearing Impaired Program (CHIP) in Columbus, Ohio;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School, a (K–1) public school in Columbus, OH;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School, a (PK–1) public school for regular, gifted and deaf students in Chicago, IL;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Montessori School, in Wheeling, IL. N.B.: Both Alexander and his wife Mabel Gardiner Hubbard were significant supporters of the Italian Montessori early childhood teaching method and helped established early Montessori schools in North America;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School, in Detroit, MI;
  • AG Bell Accelerated Academy, a school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Middle School, in San Diego, California
  • AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language, at 3417 Volta Place, NW, Washington, D.C., an independently governed, subsidiary corporation of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, which provides certification of listening, verbal and spoken language therapists, specialists and educators;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Hall, one of the residences at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), adjacent to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) building, was named in honor of Bell and dedicated in 1979 (Bell had spent significant amounts of his personal fortune creating institutions for the deaf). A brass plaque mounted at the entrance noted that Bell was "a brilliant and innovative teacher of the deaf who dedicated a great portion of his life to help deaf children develop the potential for listening, speaking and lipreading. Today, NTID emulates the ideals for which Alexander Graham Bell worked". However those opposed to Bell's sole reliance on oralism, as well as his advocacy in the prevention of deafness via eugenics, protested the use of his name for the institutes's residence. In July 2008, the RIT president and its board of trustees approved the removal of the "Alexander Graham Bell Hall" name, along with its plaque.[86] The RIT action is apparently the only known instance of a removal of Bell's name for ideological reasons;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Boulevard, in Lehigh Acres, Lee County, Florida;
  • Alexander Graham Bell Drive, in Columbia, Maryland, and in Reston, Virginia.
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Alexander Graham Bell in popular culture

In fiction

  • Eric Walters' The Hydrofoil Mystery (1999) sets a novel in Alexander Graham Bell's workshops, casting the hydrofoil as a new weapon of war being readied for use against German U-boats during the First World War.[87][88]

In music

  • In the early 1970s, the UK rock group The Sweet recorded a tribute to Bell and the telephone, suitably titled "Alexander Graham Bell". The song gives a fictional account of the invention, in which Bell devises the telephone so he can talk to his girlfriend who lives on the other side of the United States. The song reached the top 40 in the UK and went on to sell over one million recordings worldwide.
  • Another musical tribute to Bell, Alexander Graham Bell (2006) was written by the British songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson. The chorus reminds the listener that "of course there was the telephone, he'd be famous for that alone, but there's 50 other things as well from Alexander Graham Bell".[89]

In film and TV

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An actor portraying Bell speaking into an early model telephone for a 1926 promotional film by AT&T.
  • The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, (reformatted for VCR) Don Ameche playing Bell, ISBN 0-7939-1251-2 (1939);
  • Biography –Alexander Graham Bell, A&E DVD biography based on historical footage and still pictures of Bell, (2005);
  • The Sound and the Silence: The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (TV miniseries) with John Bach as Bell; Vanessa Vaughan and Elizabeth Quinn portrayed Bell's fiancé and wife respectively; Canada / New Zealand / Ireland (1992) ASIN B0009K7RUW;
  • Animated Hero Classics: Alexander Graham Bell (1995).
  • Bell has been honoured on numerous television programs, including programs in three different countries to determine their "greatest citizens": #57 on The 100 Greatest Britons (2002), #9 on The Greatest Canadians (2004), and The 100 Greatest Americans (2005) (only the Top 25 on American list were numbered). The nominees and rankings of these programs were determined by popular vote.

Other references to Bell's corporate namesakes

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Corporate namesakes

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Further information: Bell System § Subsidiaries

The "Bell" trademark has been used, and is still in use, with a variety of telephone companies in North America and around the world, including:

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References

Further reading

External links

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