1. David Lindsay, "Talking Head," American Heritage of Invention & Technology (Summer 1997): 57. [Return to text.]

2. Joseph Henry to Henry M. Alexander, January 6, 1846, in The Papers of Joseph Henry, Vol. 6, Marc Rothenberg et al., eds. (Washington, 1992), pp. 359-364. [Return to text.]

3. Ibid, p. 362. [Return to text.]

4. Ibid. [Return to text.]

5. Ibid. [Return to text.]

6. Ibid, p. 363. [Return to text.]

7. Lindsay, "Talking Head," pp. 60-61; Lindsay, Madness in the Making: The Triumphant Rise and Untimely Fall of America's Show Inventors (New York, 1997), pp. 88-89. Even after Faber's death, his niece's husband, calling himself Professor Faber, continued to exhibit the machine for many years. The second Faber would seek Henry's endorsement of the machine in 1872 and Bell's financial assistance in 1885. F. A. Barnard to Joseph Henry, November 30, 1872, Record Unit 26, Incoming Correspondence, Office of the Secretary, Smithsonian Archives; Henry's Desk Diary, December 5, 1872, Henry Papers, Smithsonian Archives. Alexander Graham Bell to Joseph Wehrle, April 16, 1885; Bell, "To whom it may Concern," April 25, 1885; Bell to Joseph Faber, April 25, 1885: all in "Faber's Talking Machine," Alexander Graham Bell Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. [Return to text.]

8. Lindsay, "Talking Head," pp. 60-61; Robert Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (Boston, 1973), pp. 33, 35-37, 82. Bruce says that Alexander and his father saw Faber's machine in London in 1863, but he seems to be confusing this with Wheatstone's machine. Bruce doesn't cite a source, and Bell's later recollection mentions Wheatstone but not Faber. Alexander Graham Bell, Beinn Bhreagh Recorder, vol. 2, p. 61. [Return to text.]

9. Bruce, Bell, pp. 45-46, 74-80, 94. [Return to text.]

10. Ibid, pp. 92-93. [Return to text.]

11. Ibid, pp. 104-110, 123; James MacKay, Alexander Graham Bell: A Life (New York, 1997), p. 85. [Return to text.]

12. Ibid, pp. 120, 123; Michael E. Gorman, "Alexander Graham Bell's Path to the Telephone," Gorman's home page; Bell quoted in George B. Prescott, Bell's Electric Speaking Telephone (New York, 1884), p. 66. [Return to text.]

13. Alexander Graham Bell to Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Symonds Bell, March 18, 1875, Alexander Graham Bell Papers, Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. [Return to text.]

14. Bell placed a double underline beneath the two words, which I have rendered as capital letters. To view Bell's letter on the web site of the Library of Congress, click here. [Return to text.]

15. Bell's Experimental Notebook, March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. [Return to text.]

16. The Bell Telephone: The Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell in the Suit Brought by the United States to Annul the Bell Patents (Boston, 1908), pp. 139-140; Henry quoted in Bruce, Bell, p. 214, from minutes of the Philosophical Society of Washington. [Return to text.]

17. Bruce, Bell, pp. 208-209, 214, 226-227, 231. [Return to text.]

18. Spencer F. Baird to Bell, December 29, 1884, and Bell to W. B. Forbes, January 8, 1885, "The Telephone," Alexander Graham Bell Papers, Family Papers, Box 293, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. [Return to text.]

19. Mary Henry to Alexander Graham Bell, May 2, 1883; receipt of purchase, May 2, 1883: both in "Mary Henry," Alexander Graham Bell Papers, Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. [Return to text.]