Alexander Graham Bell Honors and Tributes - Other Posthumous Tributes

Other Posthumous Tributes

• Upon Bell's death, during his burial, "....every phone on the continent of North America was silenced in honor of the man who had given to mankind the means for direct communication at a distance" ;
• When he heard of his death, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King cabled Mrs. Bell, saying:

" to you our sense of the world's loss in the death of your distinguished husband. It will ever be a source of pride to our country that the great invention, with which his name is immortally associated, is a part of its history. On the behalf of the citizens of Canada, may I extend to you an expression of our combined gratitude and sympathy."

• U.S. President Warren Harding also telegrammed Mrs. Bell, saying:

"The announcement of your eminent husband’s death comes a great shock to me. In common with all of his countrymen, I have learned to revere him as one of the great benefactors.... and among the foremost Americans of all generations. He will be mourned and honored by human kind everywhere as one who served it greatly, untiringly and usefully";

• A large number of Bell's writings, notebooks, papers and other documents were established at the United States Library of Congress Manuscript Division, as the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers. The collection is currently available for online viewing;
• Another large collection of Bell's documents reside at the Alexander Graham Bell Institute at Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia;
• The bel (B), and the smaller decibel (dB), units of measure of sound intensity were invented by the Bell Labs, and were named in his honor. The units are widely used in science, technology and engineering (1937);
• The United States Post Office Department issued a 10 cent commemorative postage stamp of Bell, part of its 'Famous Americans Series' of 1940. This particular stamp was so popular it sold out in little time and became, and is to this day, the most valuable stamp in that series.
• The US Merchant Marine ship S.S. Alexander Graham Bell (hull #583) was launched and commissioned for service in the Second World War (18 October 1942);
• The Telephone Pioneers of America dedicated a plaque on the wall of the Franklin School at 13th & K Streets NW in Washington, D.C., honoring Bell's invention of the Photophone, the precursor of fibre-optical communications, and which he referred to as his 'greatest invention'. The plaque read:

"From the top floor of this building • Was sent on June 3, 1880 • Over a beam of light to 1325 'L' Street • The first wireless telephone message • In the history of the world. • The apparatus used in sending the message • Was the Photophone invented by • Alexander Graham Bell • inventor of the telephone • This plaque was placed here by • Alexander Graham Bell Chapter • Telephone Pioneers of America..."; (1947)

• The Charles Fleetford Sise Chapter of the Telephone Pioneers of America commissioned and dedicated a large statue of Bell in the front portico of Brantford, Ontario's new Bell Telephone Building plant on Market Street. The Pioneers raised over $5,000 across North America for the work in 1948–1949 (more than $48000 in current dollars). Attending the formal ceremony were Bell's daughter, Mrs. Gillbert Grosvenor, Frederick Johnson, President of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, T.N. Lacy, President of the Telephone Pioneers, and Brantford Mayor Walter J. Dowden. The statue had been designed and crafted by A.E. Cleeve Horne in his Toronto studio in the style of the Lincoln Memorial, and cast in bronze in New York. Pioneers president T.N. Lacy spoke at the unveiling comparing the Cleeve Horne work to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, saying that sculptor "....has accomplished in this memorial to Alexander Graham Bell what Daniel Chester French created for the Lincoln Memorial... ...he has caught and reflected the conviction that Bell, like Lincoln, was an emancipator... gave freedom and range to the human voice." On each side of the monument is the engraved inscription, "In Gratefull Recognition of the Inventor of the Telephone". Its dedication was broadcast nationally by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (17 June 1949)
• The Hall of Fame for Great Americans inducted Bell by 70 votes (1950);
• The Salem, MA Essex Institute presented a plaque (originally dedicated in 1922) honoring Alexander Graham Bell and his financial supporters Thomas and Mary Ann Brown Sanders to the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, located on Essex Street on the YMCA Building (1958);
• At the age of 19, Bell wrote a report on his studies of tuning fork resonance and sent it to philologist Alexander Ellis, a colleague of his father. Ellis would later be portrayed as Professor Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's famous play, Pygmalion, in 1913. Pygmalion was later adapted into the Oscar Award-winning movie My Fair Lady, where in hommage to Bell's work teaching the deaf to speak, the movie's central character, Prof. Higgins (played by famed actor Rex Harrison) refers to the use of "Bell's Visible Speech" (1964).
• The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) enshrined him as a member for his extensive pioneering research in aeronautics (1965);
• The International Astronomical Union (IAU) named a crater on the moon Bell, in his honor (1970);
• Canada Post released an eight cent commemorative issue stamp on July 26, 1974, honouring the centenary of the invention of the telephone at Bell's parent's home, Melville House, now called the Bell Homestead National Historic Site. The stamp feature's three telephones: a (then) modern Contempra phone by Nortel, a much earlier candlestick telephone, plus Bell's very earliest experimental model of 1875, the Gallows telephone (1974);
• The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) inducted Bell as a member, describing his works: ...Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part by the 18 patents granted in his name alone and the 12 he shared with his collaborators. These included 14 for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for hydroairplanes, and two for a selenium cell (1974);
• The IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal was created in his honor by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (currently sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs), to annually award outstanding contributions in the field of telecommunications (1976);
• Parks Canada dedicates the a park as part of the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, which contains the Alexander Graham Bell Museum opened earlier in 1956, not far from Bell's estate, Beinn Bhreagh (1976);
• The Royal Bank of Scotland issued a £1 commemorative banknote to mark the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Alexander Graham Bell. The illustrations on the reverse of the note include Bell's face in profile, his signature, and objects from Bell's life and career: users of the telephone over the ages; an audio wave signal; a diagram of a telephone receiver; geometric shapes from engineering structures; representations of sign language and the phonetic alphabet; the geese which helped him to understand flight; and the sheep which he studied to understand genetics (3 March 1997);
• Canada honoured Bell with a $100CAD gold coin in tribute to the 150th anniversary of his birth (1997), and with a silver dollar coin celebrating the 100th anniversary of flight in Canada (2009);
• Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, Ontario awarded a special star to Bell as part of its new "Innovators' Category". The star (photo at right), with an early model telephone engraved in its very center, is located on Simcoe Street in Toronto (2001);

• The Ontario Government's Member of Parliament, MPP Dave Levac, along with Bell's descendants, dedicated the Brant County section of Provincial Highway 403 as "The Alexander Graham Bell Parkway", as well as an outdoor stage named the "Bell Heritage Stage" in Brantford, Ontario (2005);
• Google created a special webpage on his birthday, with links to informational websites on him (2008);
• Canada also established the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site which includes the Alexander Graham Bell Museum, in Baddeck, Nova Scotia;
• Numerous other countries also issued coins, of both nominal and high value, as well as stamps dedicated to him and his inventions. Among the stamp releases are multiple definitive and commemorative issues by both Canada and the United States.