Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers online

[Elizabeth L. Brown]

The National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress at

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html

announces the release of collection number 44, the Alexander Graham 
Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress from the Manuscript
Division at:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/bellhtml/bellhome.html

	This online collection will ultimately represent a 
portion selected from the original Bell Papers and will 
comprise approximately 4,700 items, totalling about 38,000 
images.  The first release contains over 1,000 items consisting 
of correspondence, scientific notebooks, journals, blueprints, 
sketches, and photographs documenting Bell's invention of 
the telephone and his involvement in the first telephone
company, his family life, his interest in the education of the 
deaf, and his aeronautical and other scientific research.  
These manuscripts, dating from 1862 to 1939, offer a well-
rounded portrayal of Alexander Graham Bell not only as an 
inventor and scientist but also as a teacher, humanitarian, 
husband, and father. 

        Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 
on March 3, 1847.  He and his parents moved to Canada in 1870, 
and, a year later, he moved to Boston to teach speech to deaf 
students.  Teaching notes used and taken by Bell can be found 
in the Bell Papers selected to appear online. 

        Bell's efforts to build a multiple telegraph led instead to the
invention of the telephone in 1876.  Included among Bell's 
papers are his first sketch of the telephone and an experimental 
notebook with an entry from March 10, 1876, that describes 
the first successful experiment with the telephone, during which 
he spoke through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas 
Watson, the famous words, "Mr. Watson-- Come here -- I want 
to see you."  Bell, Watson, and Bell's financial supporters, 
Gardiner Greene Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, formed the Bell
Telephone Company the following year. 

        After his invention of the telephone, Bell continued to 
pursue his interests in deaf education and science.  Bell's 
scientific pursuits ranged widely throughout his life and led 
to various inventions, such as a vacuum jacket for artificial 
respiration and the tetrahedral kite.  He dedicated much of his 
research to aviation and was a member of the Aerial Experiment
Association, a small group of engineers and mechanics
who brought about the first flight of a heavier-than-air machine 
in Canada.  Bell's sketches of the vacuum jacket and tetrahedral 
kites and notes and photographs of his aeronautical work are 
among the items digitized for the first release.

	Of particular interest in this NDLP collection website 
are special presentations including:  a time line, Alexander 
Graham Bell as inventor and scientist and a Bell Family tree.  
Parts of the collection being released include original typescript 
letters and documents, correspondence with transcripts, and 
other printed items.  These typescript materials were converted 
to machine-readable form and encoded with Standard Generalized 
Markup Language (SGML).  The text of the transcripts and 
original typescripts has been translated to HTML for indexing 
and viewing on the World Wide Web.

        The final release of the remainder of images from the 
Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers is scheduled for Fall 1999.

Please direct all comments and questions about this collection to
ndlpcoll at loc.gov.