Collection Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress
1847 to 1868
Timeline
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March 3, 1847
Alexander Bell is born to Alexander Melville and Eliza Symonds Bell in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the second of three sons; his siblings are Melville (b. 1845) and Edward (b. 1848).
[Alexander Melville Bell with his wife, Eliza Grace Symonds and their children, Melville James, Alexander Graham and Edward Charles]. [ca. 1852?] Reproduction Number LC-G9-Z1031. Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. -
1858
Bell adopts the name Graham out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a family friend, and becomes known as Alexander Graham Bell.
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October 1862
Bell arrives in London to spend a year with his grandfather, Alexander Bell. Letter to Bell from his father
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August 1863
Bell begins teaching music and elocution at Weston House Academy in Elgin, Scotland, and receives instruction in Latin and Greek for a year.
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April 1864
Alexander Melville Bell develops Visible Speech, a kind of universal alphabet that reduces all sounds made by the human voice into a series of symbols. Visible Speech chart
Chart, undated. Box 196, "Subject File: The Deaf--Visible Speech--Nature & Uses." Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress. -
Fall 1864
Bell attends the University of Edinburgh.
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1865-66
Bell returns to Elgin to teach and experiments with vowel pitches and tuning forks. Letter from Bell to his father
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1866-67
Bell teaches at Somersetshire College in Bath.
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May 17, 1867
Younger brother Edward Bell dies of tuberculosis at the age of 19.
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Summer 1867
Alexander Melville Bell publishes his definitive work on Visible Speech, Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics.
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May 21, 1868
Bell begins teaching speech to the deaf at Susanna Hull's school for deaf children in London.
Bell attends University College in London.