Gardiner Greene Hubbard

Gardiner Greene Hubbard

Gardiner Greene Hubbard (born August 25, 1822 in Boston , Massachusetts , † December 11, 1897 in Twin Oaks near Washington, DC ) was an American lawyer and entrepreneur. His son-in-law was Alexander Graham Bell , with whose company, the Bell Telephone Company, he was closely associated.

Gardiner Greene Hubbard was born in Mt. Auburn, Cambridge, Mass. born where his parents spent their holidays. He was the eldest son of Samuel and Mary Ann (Greene) Hubbard. His father, Samuel Hubbard (1785–1847), studied law at Yale University . In 1810 he was an MP from Boston and even became a senator. He then served as a judge on the Massachusetts Supreme Court until his death . The family came from the descendants of William Hubbard of Ipswich, Mass.

After attending the Phillips Academy in Andover, Gardiner graduated from Dartmouth College in 1841. He then studied law at Harvard and was admitted to the bar in 1843. He joined Benjamin R. Curtis' firm in Boston, where he was a member until 1873. He then ran his law firm in Washington DC until 1887

Hubbard was interested in new techniques and industries. He supported the construction of a Cambridge to Boston S-Bahn, the first line to be built outside of New York. He sponsored the construction of the Cambridge Water Works and Gas Light Companies and was their president for several years.

The daughter Mabel fell ill with scarlet fever in 1862 at the age of 5. Antibiotics weren't available at the time, so the disease spread to the inner ear and Mabel was deaf. He then became intensely concerned with deafness and in 1866 founded the first American school for the deaf - now Clarke Schools - in Chelmsford, MA, where children learned sign language. From 1867 to 1897 he was a trustee of the Clarke Institute for the Deaf and Mute.

Hubbard and Bell

Fate would have it that Alexander Graham Bell , who had studied the anatomy and physiology of the human voice at University College in London, came to this newly founded school in 1871 as a "deaf-mute teacher". Gardiner and the wealthy businessman Thomas S. Sanders (1839–1911) from Salem, whose deaf son was tutored by Bell, learned of his experiments and motivated him to promote the development of the "Harmonic Telegraph". On February 27, 1875, Gardiner and Thomas Sanders founded the "Bell Patent Association", which financed the experiments of Alexander Graham Bell and in return provided for a share in subsequent income. On February 14, 1876, Gardiner Green Hubbard filed for a patent on behalf of Alexander Bell, which was granted on March 7. On July 11, 1877, Bell married the deaf daughter Mabel of his business partner Hubbard, whom he had met as a deaf-mute teacher at Clarke School.

As director of the American Bell Telephone Company, Hubbard worked hard to spread the telephone under Bell's patent. In 1876 President Ulysses S. Grant had appointed Hubbard as special envoy for the transport of mail by rail. In the "Congressional Postal Committee" he met Theodore Vail , whom he was able to win in 1878 as managing director of the Bell Telephone Company.

Duties and offices

• In 1876, Hubbard was commissioner for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition . Alexander Graham Bell presented his phone to a large audience at this exhibition.
• In 1883 , Hubbard co-founded Science with Alexander Graham Bell .
• In 1888, Hubbard founded the National Geographic Society with 33 scientifically interested men from Washington, DC , of which he became the first president. The foundation was also named after him.
• Regent of the Smithsonian Institution ;
• Vice President of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, (AAPTSD)
• He was a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education for eight years.
• Vice President of the American Association of Inventors and Manufacturers;
• Member of the Anthropological, the Geological and the National Geographic Societies in Washington, DC;
• President of the "Joint commission of the scientific societies of Washington";
• Governor of the Society of Colonial Wars;
• Trustee of the Washington free public library.

Art collector

Hubbard was a passionate collector of engravings and etchings and owned several Napoleon Bonaparte engravings that he had offered to Samuel McClure for publication. In 1894 he sent Ida Tarbell , whom he had commissioned to write an article on Napoleon, to Washington to study Hubbard's collection.

In 1898, Hubbard's widow gave the US government the large collection of engravings and etchings he had collected along with $ 20,000 for additional purchases.

Awards

In 1888 he received an honorary doctorate from Columbia University Washington DC and also in 1894 from Dartmouth College N. H

family

Gardiner Greene Hubbard married Gertrude M. McCurdy (born March 12, 1827) of New York on October 21, 1846. Their children:

• Robert McCurdy (born December 9, 1847 in Boston, † October 11, 1849)
• Gertrude McCurdy (born October 1, 1849 in Boston) married Maurice V. Grossmann.
• Mabel Gardiner (born November 25, 1857 in Cambridge / Massachusetts) married Alexander Graham Bell on July 11, 1877 (born March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh / Scotland; † August 2, 1922 in Baddeck / Nova Scotia, Canada).
• Marian (April 1867 in Cambridge, † August 1869)

He died on December 11, 1897 in his "Twin Oaks" home in Chevy Chase near Washington.

Movies

In the 1939 biopic Love and Life of Telephone Maker A. Bell ( The Story of Alexander Graham Bell ) by Irving Cummings , Hubbard was played by Charles Coburn .

Publications

• Discoverers of America : Annual Address by the President, Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard. Publisher: Nabu Press, 2011. ISBN 1272027856
• Our Post Office (1875). New edition: Publisher: Nabu Press, 2012. ISBN 1248369688
• The Education of Deaf Mutes: Shall it be by Signs or Articulation? Publisher: A. Williams & Co, Boston 1867
• The Story of the Rise of the Oral Method in America: As Told in the Writings of Gardiner G. Hubbard (1898). New edition: Kessinger Publishing , United States, 2010. ISBN 1165748304
• Union of the Post Office and Telegraph: Letter to the Postmaster General on the European and American Systems of Telegraph (1868). New edition: Kessinger Publishing, United States, 2010. ISBN 1104518406

Individual evidence

• Gardiner Greeme Hubbard in Edward Warren Day: One thousand years of Hubbard history, 866 to 1895. Publisher: Harlan Page Hubbard, New York 1895. - pages 336-341
• Gardiner Greeme Hubbard in rootsweb

1. ^ Boston Elevated Railway Origin
2. ^ The Life Story of Cambridge Water
3. ↑ MABEL HUBBARD BELL
4. ↑ Clarke Schools for the Deaf
5. ^ The Evolution of Bell Labs. ( Memento from January 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ Science Magazine
7. ↑ National Geographic Gründsmitglied and first president
8. ↑ Gardiner Greene Hubbard Society ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ^ History of Sign Language - Deaf History
10. ↑ American Association of Inventors and Manufacturers in: "Science" 29 January 1892
11. ^ General Society of the Colonial Wars
12. ^ History of the Washington Free Public Library
13. ^ Gardiner Greene Hubbard Collection in the Library of Congress