WARREN - Alexander Graham Bell said his success came from the fact that he invented things society already needed with the exception of his most famous invention, the telephone.
''There already was a reason and a market for my inventions,'' Bell said during the opening night of Ohio Chautauqua 2009 Monday.
Bell was being portrayed by Dr. Michael A. Hughes, an art and history professor at East Central University in Oklahoma.
During Monday's presentation, Hughes relayed the story of Bell's inventions, in what is the first of a series of workshops and presentations that will take place everyday through Friday in Warren's downtown, all under the theme, "Inventors and Innovators."
Among them are stories of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison and Mary McLeod Bethune.
Monday, ''Bell'' told his story.
Over the course of his life, Bell was granted 45 U.S. patents, second only to Thomas Edison. Although the telephone was his most famous, Bell also invented the audiometer in 1879 because his mother and wife both suffered from hearing loss.
Prior to that invention, thousands of children, who simply could not hear in school, were labeled as mentally retarded. It was because of this invention, the term ''decibel'' was coined in Bell's honor.
Speaking as Bell, the actor said most of his inventions were developed for the improvement of humankind, but the audiometer was invented to improve the human condition. He also invented an artificial respiration machine after his infant child died because of underdeveloped lungs.
Another of his inventions was an early metal detector, created to help doctors locate the bullet that shot President James A. Garfield. He also made the first x-ray photographs in North America and envisioned the prospects of what is now the CAT scan.
Bell invented the telephone during an intense competition to devise a telegraph capable of sending multiple messages. In mid-1875, his assistant, Tom Watson, accidentally transmitted a pitch to Bell from an experimental telegraph receiver.
Bell knew that if a tone could be transmitted by wire, so could a spoken word. He dropped the telegram project to focus on the telephone, and sent the first sentence by telephone on March 10, 1876.
The invention was improved upon by Edison, and Bell returned the favor by improving Edison's phonograph. The once bitter rivals became friends before Bell died in 1922.
The actor said Bell's favorite invention was the phonophone, which he finished on the morning his youngest daughter was born. It was the world's first wireless communications device.
He said Bell Telephone had to defend itself 600 times against patent infringement, and five of those lawsuits were decided by the Supreme Court.
However, Bell also recognized the downside to his inventions. For example, he said airplanes that were intended to be "air buses" were being used to drop bombs during the war and the combustible engine was using coal and oil, which were limited resources.
"Not to mention the emissions that were being sent into the atmosphere from them," Bell said.
He became the first scientist to predict that the continued use of fossil fuels might result in what he called the ''greenhouse effect,'' which is now known as global warming.
