Volta Bureau
- Year
- 1893
- City
- Washington, DC
Alexander Graham Bell built the Volta Bureau at 1537 35th Street NW in Georgetown in 1893 as a center of information for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. It grew out of the Volta Laboratory, which Bell had founded in 1880–1881 with Charles Sumner Tainter and his cousin Chichester Bell to research telecommunication and phonograph technology; Bell used the laboratory's proceeds to establish the Bureau in 1887 "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf."
the building
From Bureau to association. The Volta Bureau merged with the American Association for the Promotion and Teaching of Speech to the Deaf in 1908. It was renamed the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf in 1956, and the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in 1999.
significance
The Volta Bureau is a DC Historic Landmark (#L_0104), a National Historic Landmark, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, recognized for its ties to Bell — who received the first telephone patent in 1876 — and to the history of deaf education.
nearby
- Western High School (Duke Ellington School of the Arts)
- Saint John's Church, Georgetown
- Georgetown University, Healy Hall
- Georgetown University, Old North
- Prospect House (Lingan-Templeman House)
- Lauinger Library