Alexander Graham Bell

I think that there are some scientists names that you just 'know', for one reason or another, but you don't actually know that much about the person.

Alexander Graham Bell, for me, is one of those scientists. I knew that he invented the telephone, but I had no idea about him as a person, or what drove him to invent, so the show I added to RUSC today was quite an eye opener.

The show is from the Lux Radio Theater series, and tells the story of the inventor, Alexander Graham Bell and his fiance and then wife Mabel Hubbard, who helped the impetuous young inventor through his early years of trial and triumph, failure and success. 

Mabel was certainly his inspiration, as she had been struck down by a near-fatal bout of Scarlet Fever close to her fifth birthday, which had destroyed her hearing and left her completely deaf. 

It's widely believed that he undertook telecommunication experiments in an attempt to restore her hearing. But Mabel wasn't the first he knew to lose their hearing, as it was his mother's gradual deafness from when he was just twelve years old which deeply affected him. He studied and developed techniques to communicate with her, and it led him to study acoustics.

The life of Alexander Graham Bell has been documented in several more shows on RUSC. 

A Cavalcade of America show tells of Bell's scientific genius, answering man's desire to communicate with one another, and whose invention successfully projected the human voice to the farthest outposts of the earth.

Another show from Adventures in Research, tells us about a couple more scientists you might 'know', but don't really know anything about. Listen and you will learn how painter Samuel F B Morse got the idea for the telegraph, how Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and how Italian Marconi invented the wireless.

Jack Benny was another to throw his hat into the ring, with a parody of The Life of Alexander Graham Bell. A little different, but entertaining all the same - as you'd expect from the master of comedy!

Happy listening my friends,