Destiny of the Republic

In this chapter, Millard introduces the reader to one of the men mentioned in Chapter 1 who had attended the Centennial Exhibition: Alexander Graham Bell. Two main points of emphasis are that Bell had an insatiable curiosity and capacity for work and that the device he had showed off at the exhibition had taken over his life and consumed his time. A successful invention like the telephone attracted competitors whom falsely challenged his patent, forcing costly and time-consuming trips to court to defend against them.

Bell mostly wanted to be helpful and feel useful to people in need. He considered his life’s work not to be the telephone or any other invention, per se, but being a teacher of the deaf. His mother was almost totally deaf and his wife was completely deaf. And yet, when ideas came to his mind for new machines and inventions, he threw himself into his work to a degree that alarmed his family. His two brothers had died from tuberculosis, and his parents were afraid of losing their only remaining son; likewise, his wife, Mabel, implored him to stop working such long hours and take better care of himself. By 1881, he had left the telephone company he had founded and opened a new laboratory in Washington, DC, called Volta Laboratory, where he hoped to work on a new project that not only captured his imagination but was something useful to people in need.