Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born Canadian-American inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.
Bell c. 1917
Melville House, the Bells' first home in North America, now a National Historic Site of Canada
Bell, top right, providing pedagogical instruction to teachers at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes, 1871; throughout his life, he referred to himself as "a teacher of the deaf"
Alexander Graham Bell's telephone patent drawing, March 7, 1876
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from Greek: τῆλε and φωνή, together meaning distant voice. A common short form of the term is phone, which came into use early in the telephone's history.
An old rotary dial telephone
AT&T push button telephone made by Western Electric, model 2500 DMG black, 1980
Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone Patent Drawing
Replica of the telettrofono, invented by Antonio Meucci and credited by several sources as the first telephone.