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Primary sourceArtifact1893

Volta Laboratory and Bureau

1893

A research centre Bell built in Washington, D.C. with his Volta Prize money to study deafness and support deaf education.

Bell commissioned this building with his Volta Prize money as a center for deaf education and research.

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Front facade of the Volta Bureau building: a tan brick neoclassical building with Corinthian columns, a central wooden double door up wide stone steps, and a plaque reading 'Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing' with urns of red flowers on the pillars.
The Volta Bureau, Georgetown, Washington, D.C., built 1893.

About this source

What it is

This neoclassical building in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., was constructed in 1893 under Alexander Graham Bell's direction as the Volta Bureau, a center for information about deafness. It grew out of the Volta Laboratory, which Bell founded in 1880 with Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter using prize money from the French government.

Why it matters

Both Bell's mother and his wife Mabel Hubbard were deaf, and Bell spent much of his career teaching and researching for the deaf alongside his telephone work. The Bureau later became the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, showing how his fortune from invention was redirected into education and advocacy. Helen Keller took part in the building's 1893 ceremony.

Look closer

  • Why might Bell have used money from a scientific prize to fund deaf education rather than further telephone research?
  • What does the building's design and location tell you about how seriously this work was taken?
  • How does this building complicate a simple story of Bell as 'just the telephone inventor'?

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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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