Bell, Alexander Melville

Bell, Alexander Melville, 1819–1905, Scottish-American educator, b. Edinburgh. Bell worked out a physiological or visible alphabet, with symbols that were intended to represent every sound of the human voice. He taught elocution in Edinburgh (1843–65), lectured at the Univ. of London and in Boston, and engaged in the education of deaf-mutes in Washington, D.C. He wrote about education and the science of speech. Alexander Graham Bell was his son.