Family heritage
Elocution teacher Alexander Melville Bell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1819, was the father of Alexander Graham Bell of telephone fame.
In 1865, when his son was 18, Bell went to Canada, then moved to Washington, D.C., where he recieved American citizenship in 1897.
The senior Bell invented the system of "visible speech" that was successfully used to teach the speech-and-hearing impaired.
Bell was he author of "The Principles of Elocution" and "The Standard Elocutionist." He died in 1905.