Biografia

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
Born 1847 - Died 1922

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Scotland. His mother, who was deaf, was a musician and a painter of portraits. His father, who taught deaf people how to speak, invented "Visible Speech". This was a code which showed how the tongue, lips, and throat were positioned to make speech sounds.
He only attended school for five years; from the time hewas ten until he was fourteen, but he never stopped learning. He read the books in his grandfather's library and studied tutorials.

Two years later he went to Boston to open a school for teachers of the deaf and then became a professor at Boston University. It was at this time that he met Mabel Hubbard, one of his students who was 10 years younger than he. Mabel had become deaf at the age offour due to scarlet fever. Five years after their meeting they were married. They had two daughters and two sons. Their sons both died at a young age.
He knew he would have to work quickly to get the patent because other people were also trying to make an invention to transmit the human voice. Elisha Gray claims he too invented the telephone, but Bell got to the patent office an hour or so beforehe did. Because Bell had the patent, he had the right to be the only one to produce telephones in the U.S. for the next 19 years. He showed the invention to Queen Victoria of England and she wanted lines to connect her castles.
By 1917, nearly all of the United State had telephone service.
He continued to invent other things. He developed a method of making phonograph records on a wax disc. Hewas interested in kites that could lift a man,

He along with others started the National Geographic Society and he served as its president for several years.
He became a U.S. citizen, but he died in Canada at the age of 75.
Henry Ford
Industrialist
July 30, 1863 - April 7, 1947

Henry Ford was born on a farm near Detroit, Michigan. He never really enjoyed farming and left the farm atage sixteen, three years after his mother died.

As a child he was fascinated by machines. He always carried around in his pockets nuts and machinery parts. Clara Bryant became his wife in 1888. He returned to the farm, built a house. They had one child, a son they named Edsel.

The first car he made was a "gasoline" called the Quadricycle. He drove it around for two years, and it drew a crowdeverywhere he went. When he was forty years old Ford and eleven investors formed the Ford Motor Company. They had a $28,000 investment in it. The Model T Ford was introduced on October 1, 1908
Ford hired handicapped workers*. He studied the jobs and the requirements and put each man in a place where he could do the job and make a living for his family.
Ford had a heart attack in 1938 and turnedthe running of the company over to his son, but Edsel died five years later, and Ford had to again assume leadership. He stayed in that position for two years, but due to his ill health, he made his grandson Henry Ford II president of the company in 1945.
Henry Ford died at the age of 83 of a cerebral * hemorrhage *. He was one of many people who helped to make America great. At the end of hisbook he describes his vision of a great country in which the resources of a country and the skills of its people are developed so that all have a fair share.
THOMAS A. EDISON

Born in 1847 - Died in 1931

Thomas Alva Edison, He was a very curious child. He was always asking questions. Even his mother, who had once been a school teacher, could not answer all his questions.

The teacher toldsomeone she thought there was something wrong with Alva; that he was "addled" . He told his mother and they took him out of the school. He only went to school for 3 months in his whole life. Afterwards, he was taught at home.

He built a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was here with his employees he made many of his inventions. He would work night after night, and sometimes he would...