Alexander Graham Bell is known widely for being the inventor of the telephone. However, throughout his life, he was also actively involved in helping to educate deaf children. An interest that likely developed as a result of spending time with his mother who was hard of hearing and his wife who was deaf.
In this photograph Bell is with Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan. There are three modes of communication being used. Anne and Alexander speak to each other, the manual alphabet is being used between Helen and Alexander, and lip reading is being done by Helen touching her fingers to Anne’s lips.
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Alexander Graham Bell with Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan sources: Alexander Graham Bell with Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan at the meeting of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, July , in Chautauqua, N.Y. [, Printed Later] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/00649950/>
