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Secondary sourceArtifact1893

Volta Bureau building, Washington DC, 1893

1893

A three-story brick building in Washington, D.C., built in 1893 for Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Bureau. It is a National Historic Landmark.

Shows the building Bell had built for his Volta Bureau, which connects his scientific work to a lasting public site.

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Exterior of a three-story tan brick building with a stone cornice, a balustraded parapet along the roof, and rows of tall windows with stone surrounds. Small trees and shrubs stand in front, and a stone wall is at the right edge under a partly cloudy blue sky.
APK, Volta Bureau building, Washington, D.C., photographed 2022 (built 1893). Wikimedia Commons.

About this source

What it is

This is a photograph of the Volta Bureau building at 3417 Volta Place NW in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The building was built in 1893 for Alexander Graham Bell. It is a three-story tan brick building with a stone cornice, a balustraded roof parapet and tall windows with stone surrounds. The photo was taken in 2022.

Why it matters

The building housed the Volta Bureau, the center Bell set up for work on the education of deaf people and the study of speech and sound. Its status as a National Historic Landmark and as a contributing property in the Georgetown Historic District shows that it is still recognized as part of the city's history. It is a building, not a document, so it reveals Bell's later work and the institutions he built around it.

Look closer

  • What details of the building, such as windows, stone trim and the roofline, suggest the period when it was built?
  • Why might a historic building be preserved and listed, and who decides what is important enough to keep?
  • What does a single photograph of the outside leave out about the work that went on inside?

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Scan of the first page of U.S. Patent No. 174,465, titled 'United States Patent Office,' naming Alexander Graham Bell of Salem, Massachusetts, and 'Improvement in Telegraphy.' Dense printed text in two columns follows.Document

Primary source

U.S. Patent No. 174,465, Improvement in Telegraphy

Alexander Graham Bell · 7 March 1876

Artifact

Primary source

Recording of the Voice of Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell · 1885

Handwritten pen sketch labeled 'Fig 4' in a notebook showing a liquid transmitter: a diaphragm labeled B, a cup labeled C in a container, a point labeled P, a battery symbol, and a switch labeled S, with partial handwritten text below.Painting

Primary source

Drawing of a Liquid Transmitter, 8 March 1876

Alexander Graham Bell · 8 March 1876

Book

Primary source

Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race

Alexander Graham Bell · 1884

Black-and-white studio portrait of an elderly man with white hair and a full white beard, wearing a dark suit, vest, and tie, looking toward the camera against a soft gray backdrop.Photograph

Primary source

Portrait of Alexander Graham Bell

Moffett Studio

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