Excerpt:
This site is an attempt to reconstruct, in fine-grained detail, the path taken by Alexander Graham Bell, with links to other inventors and ideas. Click on the buttons at the top of the page to begin to explore this growing resource, whose initial development was funded, in part, by a grant from the History and Philosophy of Science program of the National Science Foundation. Pending further funding, this site remains woefully incomplete: your comments are most welcome.
Annotation:
This University of Virginia site uses flow charts to show Alexander Graham Bell's invention process for the telephone in the 1860s and 70s. The flow charts show which breakthroughs occurred when, and which innovations led to subsequent technological advances. Beyond showing Bell's invention process diagrammatically (and showing earlier Bell creations which helped him develop the telephone) the site contains a long essay on the historic invention of the telephone, with notes and references to offline works. The author has annotated the flow charts (in plain language) to help the reader understand what Bell was doing in each of his experiments. In addition, Bell's patent applications from the 1870s are reproduced on the site.