Make a Joyful Sound

The personal factors behind the great inventions and discoveries that change the world are often overlooked, to history’s loss, and nowhere has this been more true than in the case of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor, experimenter in genetics and aerodynamics, great-hearted friend and teacher of the handicapped. Without his wife’s part in it, his story is only half told.

At first the couple seemed a rather unlikely match. Grown to a charming, self-assured maturity after a childhood illness that had robbed her of her hearing, lively Mabel Gardiner Hubbard of Brattle Street, Boston, was not initially impressed with the gangling, dark-haired Scotsman who taught her “Visible Speech.” For Alexander Graham Bell, born of an elocutionist father and extraordinarily gifted with musical ability, falling in love with this petal-checked student of fifteen who was totally deaf was a strange emotional climax to a life devoted to the study, production and enjoyment of sound. But the sheltered girl who could not share with him the pleasure of hearing was not only a delightful, socially talented person, but alert in business matters; and the poor young teacher with a mind unadapted to everyday affairs was destined to become, with her help and encouragement, a brilliant inventor whose best-known product would soon encompass the world almost as effectively as did his own warm and generous heart….

Helen Elmira Waite’s intimate study of the lovable, many-sided genius, his family life, his imaginative work and the remarkable woman who stood beside him is based upon official records (some of which are reproduced here), upon the reminiscences of the Bell children and friends, and upon family correspondence never before made available to a biographer.

Illustrated with rare photographs.