Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born scientist, inventor, engineer, and innovator who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone
Telephone to other inventions, and not all early researchers of the electrical device called it "telephone". A communication device for sailing vessels "The Telephone" was the invention of a captain John Taylor in 1844. This instrument used four air horns to communicate with vessels in foggy weather. Later, c. 1860, Johann Philipp Reis used the term in reference to his Reis telephone, his device appears to be the first such device based on conversion of sound into electrical impulses, the term telephone was adopted into the vocabulary of many languages. It is derived from the , "tēle", "far" and φωνή, "phōnē",