Melville Bell Grosvenor

Melville Bell Grosvenor (November 26, 1901 – April 22, 1982) (aged 80) was the president of the National Geographic Society and editor of The National Geographic Magazine from 1957 to 1967. He was the son of the magazine's first editor Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, and the grandson of telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell.

A photography enthusiast, he increased the size of printed photographs in the magazine, and initiated the practice, that continues to this day, of opening articles with a two-page photo feature. He reduced the name of the publication from The National Geographic Magazine to National Geographic. Under Grosvenor's tenure, National Geographic also began to branch out from land expeditions to cover investigations into space and the deep sea.

Grosvenor expanded the scope of the society's operations, branching into the production of documentaries bearing the National Geographic name, which began airing on television. Four of these were produced per year. Among the features produced during Grosvenor's presidency were documentaries covering the first American expedition to Mount Everest and Jacques Cousteau's underwater exploits.

His son Gilbert Melville Grosvenor was editor of National Geographic from 1970 to 1980 before becoming president of the National Geographic Society, which he served until 1996. His two other sons were Capt. Alexander G.B. Grosvenor, a naval officer, and Edwin S. Grosvenor, who is the President and Editor-in-Chief of American Heritage Magazine.

Grosvenor was born in Washington, D.C., on November 26, 1901. The following year, in his grandfather's arms, he helped to lay the cornerstone of the National Geographic Society's first building, Hubbard Hall. His mother, the former Elsie May Bell, was the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell.

Grosvenor enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy in 1919. On June 8, 1923, he graduated from the Academy with the Class of 1923, which included his lifelong friend, Admiral Arleigh Burke. Grosvenor was commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy and shortly after married Helen Rowland of Washington, D.C.

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