Researchers have identified the voice of Alexander Graham Bell for the first time in some of the earliest audio recordings ever created.
The National Museum of American History discovered the recording on a wax disc from 1885, which had been donated to the Smithsonian Museum.
Recent technological advances have allowed the recordings to be played for the first time in over 100 years.
Scroll down to hear the recording
The phonorecord by Alexander Graham Bell which contains the only known recording of his voice. The National Museum of American History identified the recording with help from technicians at the Library of Congress and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California
Listen to Alexander Graham Bell speaking
A SCOTTISH PIONEER
Best known for the first practical telephone, Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh and was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator.
Both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work into hearing devices, and he was awarded the first US patent for the telephone in 1876.
However, Bell considered his most famous invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study.
He went on to carry out groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils and aeronautics, and in 1888, Bell became one of the founding members of the National Geographic Society.
Technicians at the Library of Congress and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California worked with the museum, which holds some of the earliest audio recordings ever made.
Researchers found a transcript of one recording signed by Bell.
It was matched to a wax disc recording from April 15, 1885.
'Hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell,' the inventor is heard to say.
More...
From not-so-pocket calculators to the first iPad chip: Amazing archive pictures from a tiny lab in Cambridge show gadgets that changed the world
Blackberry goes back to the future with phone that has touchscreen AND a keyboard
The experimental recording also includes a series of numbers.
The transcript notes the record was made at Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington.
Other recordings from the time include lines from Shakespeare.
In late 2011, scientists played back some of Bell's earliest recordings for the first time with new technology that reads the sound digitally from tiny grooves in the wax disc using light and a 3D camera.
The breakthrough offered a glimpse at the experiments with sound and recording at the dawn of the information age when inventors were scrambling to secure patents for the first telephones and phonographs.
The recordings were packed away for more than 100 years and were deemed obsolete until new technology allowed them to be replayed.
'Identifying the voice of Alexander Graham Bell, the man who brought us everyone else's voice, is a major moment in the study of history,' said John Gray, director of the Smithsonian's American history museum, in announcing the find.
'It enriches what we know about the late 1800s - who spoke, what they said and how they said it.'
In autumn 2011, Patrick Feaster, an Indiana University sound-media historian, compiled an exhaustive inventory of notations on the discs and cylinders - many scratched on wax and all but illegible.
A closeup of the recording that revealed Alexander Graham Bell's voice for the first time
The grooves that identified Alexander Graham Bell: Modern technology allowed the wax disc to be replayed for the first time in over 100 years
Documents indicated that one wax-and-cardboard disc, from April 15, 1885, a date now deciphered from a wax inscription, contained a recording of Bell speaking.
On June 20, 2012, at the Library of Congress, a team heard the recording for the first time this century.
From the 1880s on, until his death in 1922, Bell gave an extensive collection of laboratory materials to the Smithsonian Institution, where he was a member of the Board of Regents.
The donation included more than 400 discs and cylinders Bell used as he tried his hand at recording sound.
The holdings also documented Bell’s research, should patent disputes arise similar to the protracted legal wrangling that attended the invention of the telephone.
The museum also identified the voice of Alexander Melville Bell, the famous inventor's father, in an 1881 recording.
Bell deposited this recording and his recording machine at the Smithsonian in 1881 in case of a patent dispute.
He conducted his sound experiments between 1880 and 1886, collaborating with his cousin Chichester Bell and technician Charles Sumner Tainter.
They worked at Bell’s Volta Laboratory, at 1221 Connecticut Avenue in Washington, originally established inside what had been a stable.
In 1877, his great rival, Thomas Edison, had recorded sound on embossed foil; Bell was eager to improve the process.
Some of Bell’s research on light and sound during this period anticipated fiber-optic communications.
THE HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE
Bell on the telephone in New York (calling Chicago) in 1892
Bell had long been fascinated by the idea of transmitting speech as oth his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work into hearing devices.
By 1875 he had come up with a simple receiver that could turn electricity into sound.
Others were working along the same lines, including an Italian-American Antonio Meucci, and debate continues as to who should be credited with inventing the telephone.
However, Bell was granted a patent for the first telephone on 7 March 1876 and it developed quickly.
Within a year the first telephone exchange was built in Connecticut and the Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877, with Bell the owner of a third of the shares, quickly making him a wealthy man.