TLS, one page, 8.5 x 11, personal letterhead, March 3, 1915. Writing on his 68th birthday, Bell addresses Miss Margaret Sanders, the daughter of his former student George, whose father played a significant role in backing the development of the telephone. In part: "I am very much interested in that little book you have sent me and will make a suitable inscription on the title page as you suggest. It was a little picture story book I gave your father when he was a little fellow, only about six years old. It is rather a dangerous thing for you to send it to me, for I am greatly tempted to keep it and put it in the Volta Bureau. I propose to make a copy of the stories before returning the book to you, as they illustrate my method of teaching language to a little congenitally deaf child." In fine condition. Accompanied by a facsimile copy of the book mentioned, entitled The Sanders Reader, published by the Association for the Deaf in 1969.
Bell began teaching the five-year-old Georgie Sanders, who was deaf from birth, in Boston in 1872. The next year, Bell discontinued much of his teaching in order to devote his time to his scientific experiments; however, he was offered free room and board at the Sanders’ home in Salem as long as he continued to tutor the young George. George's father, Thomas Sanders, provided Bell with his own ‘experiment’ room, where he conducted some of his telegraph and telephone experiments in the evenings.
In 1874, Sanders paired with Gardiner Hubbard, whose daughter was also a student of Bell’s (and who later married him), to provide the financing for every aspect of Bell’s experiments—from equipment and supplies to legal fees and assistants’ pay—in exchange for shares in any forthcoming patents. They therefore received equal interest in the patents granted for Bell’s telephone in 1876. The Bell Telephone Company was founded in 1877, and Thomas Sanders served as its first treasurer.
The “little picture story book” was a handwritten volume of stories that Bell prepared for George Sanders in 1874. Bell’s writing breaks up each story into the phrases in which it would be spoken or read, and has words underlined and enlarged to indicate vocal emphasis. Despite being best remembered for his invention of the telephone, Bell always listed 'teacher of the deaf' as his primary profession. He founded the "Volta Bureau," also mentioned here, in 1877 to promote 'the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf.' Overall, this is an exceptional letter offering remarkable associations with Bell's life's work.
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