Talk:Alexander Graham Bell

Scottish born, Canadian-American?

He is Scottish, even if later he took American dual citizenship. He lived in Canada, but that does not make him Canadian. 108.48.121.130 (talk) 02:27, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree. Even the main Canadian-American article does not apply to his citizenship/nationality. He's a Scottish inventor who lived in Canada and gained American citizenship after he invented the telephone. ~2026-13425-89 (talk) 00:34, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

I should recommend not to include multiple citizenship as per MOS:NATIONALITY. Absolutiva 00:06, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Agreed also, calling him canadian american is misrepresentation and the positioning of the information feels like an attempt to change how the facts are understood without outright lying ~2026-41631-52 (talk) 16:04, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Agree. He did not move to Canada until he was fully adult. He never became a Canadian Citizen. While living in Canada he was a British Citizen . Later in life he became a US Citizen. So why does this article call him Canadian? Amentet (talk) 17:16, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

100% agreed. The "Canadian American" part of this article should be removed. Bell was a Scot who moved to Canada, but never held Canadian citizenship. This reference to Bell being a "Canadian American" is simply false and should be removed. ~2026-41482-63 (talk) 19:35, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Agree, he lived only briefly in Canada before moving to the United States. Bell later viewed himself as a proud unhyphenated American and flew the US flag at his vacation home in Canada. ~2026-38835-94 (talk) 16:50, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

oh ~2026-50639-78 (talk) 17:08, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

You've no chance of getting a correction added here. The mod is Canadian and simply refers to the note added regarding formal Canadian citizenship and a few cherry picked snippets where Bell appears happy to be referred to as Canadian. This kind of dishonesty will be the death of Wikipedia. ~2026-50917-04 (talk) 08:31, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 July 2026

Change his heritage from being Canadian - American to Scottish, he was born in Scotland and left when he was 23... ~2026-41431-86 (talk) 16:01, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want made. Please read the note at the beginning of the article ("N1"), and it's references. You can then challenge it with your own reliable sources. win8x (talk) 00:29, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 July 2026 (2)

Change "was a Scottish-born-and-educated[N 1] Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone." to "was a Scottish inventor, scientist, and engineer who later emigrated to Canada and the United States, where he patented the first practical telephone."

The current description as Canadian-American is technically accurate but misleading and not the most natural description of Bell. We wouldn't say Albert Einstein was American would we? ~2026-41575-92 (talk) 17:02, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want made. Please read the note at the beginning of the article ("N1"), and it's references. You can then challenge it with your own reliable sources. win8x (talk) 00:30, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 July 2026 (3)

Change Canadian-American inventor to Scottish-Canadian inventor. He lived in Scotland and was unarguably Scottish. ~2026-41311-81 (talk) 20:21, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want made. Please read the note at the beginning of the article ("N1"), and it's references. You can then challenge it with your own reliable sources. win8x (talk) 00:30, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Bell never invented any telephone,Antonio Meucci did it 26 years before

The sentence in the lead stating that “Bell considered *his* invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist” is wrong because on June 11, 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives recognised Italian Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/17/humanities.internationaleducationnews

You must remove that pronoun and that phrase.

Antonio Meucci invented the telephone 26 years before,Bell only patented his invention Pedrox88 (talk) 10:35, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

This is fully discussed in the article already. Whatever you want to call it, Bell had an invention that was his. The U.S. House of Representatives can recognise what it likes. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 10:42, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

The phrase “his invention” in the article is erroneous and must be removed.

The point of citing H.Res. 269 is not that a congressional resolution can, by itself, determine historical priority. The point is that an official U.S. government source explicitly acknowledged Antonio Meucci's work “in the invention of the telephone.”

If you consider the resolution insufficient on its own, that does not address the underlying historical evidence.

Antonio Meucci's work on the telephone substantially predates Bell's. Treccani states that the first idea of Meucci's telephone invention dates to 1849, when Alexander Graham Bell was only two years old, and documents his subsequent development of the invention. Its biographical entry on Meucci states that, in the autumn of 1849, Meucci was the first to achieve the transmission of speech by electrical means, making him “in absolute terms” a pioneer of the telephone. It also documents his development of numerous telephone models and an advanced apparatus by 1864–1865.

Treccani's Encyclopaedia goes further, stating explicitly that “the true inventor of the modern telephone” was Antonio Meucci.

The Museo Nazionale della Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci also documents a Meucci telephone dating to 1854, when Alexander Graham Bell was only seven years old, and describes it as an electrical apparatus capable of transmitting speech.

Therefore, describing the telephone as “his invention” is factually incorrect and must be removed. Bell's 1876 patent does not, by itself, establish Bell as the original inventor of the telephone.

Likewise, saying that “Bell had an invention that was his” does not establish that Bell was the original inventor of the telephone.

These are two different historical claims. The existence of a Bell patent in 1876 does not erase or supersede the substantially earlier documented telephone work of Meucci.

The article itself already documents Meucci's substantially earlier work and acknowledges the dispute over priority. Nevertheless, it still uses the phrase “his invention”, presenting Bell's authorship of the telephone as an established fact.

For this reason, the phrase “his invention” must be removed or rewritten so that the article does not incorrectly attribute the invention of the telephone to Bell.

Sources:

Treccani, “Antonio Meucci”:

https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/antonio-meucci/

Treccani, “Antonio Meucci” — Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani:

https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/antonio-meucci_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/

Treccani, “Telefono”:

https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/telefono_%28Enciclopedia-Italiana%29/

Museo Nazionale della Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Antonio Meucci's telephone:

https://collezioni-online.museoscienza.org/detail/IT-MUST-NTR001-020008/replica-del-telefono-antonio-meucci

U.S. House of Representatives, H.Res. 269 (2002):

https://www.congress.gov/107/bills/hres269/BILLS-107hres269eh.pdf

Library of Congress, “Who is credited with inventing the telephone?”:

https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/categories/technology/item/who-is-credited-with-inventing-the-telephone/ Pedrox88 (talk) 14:43, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

As I said, the article already discusses this issue. This article is about Bell. Bell invented something. It was his. Whether it was similar to another invention, or first, is not the point when it comes to the matter of who owned Bell's invention. And I must say that finding an Italian encyclopedia and Italian museum both credits an Italian, is a real shock. Almost as amazing that an Italian-American politician persuaded the House of Representatives to pass a motion recognising Meucci, as if it was up to them. I wonder what Scottish and Canadian sources say? The issue is disputed and the article reflects that. Do you know a better way that the article could refer to the invention that was the product of Bell's work? --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 10:55, 14 September 2026 (UTC)