The Bell Homestead

Here at his parents' home in July 1874, Alexander Graham Bell conceived the fundamental idea of the telephone and, in August 1876, carried out the first successful long-distance trials. The Homestead evokes the formative influence of Bell's father, an authority on the acoustics of speech, and of his mother who was deaf. They stimulated their son's lifelong interest in teaching the deaf to speak, a passion that proved crucial to the discovery of the telephone. Since the early 20th century, the Bell Homestead has served as a symbol of this inventor's remarkable achievement.