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Title: Edison: His Life and Inventions

Author: Frank Lewis Dyer
Thomas Commerford Martin

Release date: January 21, 2006 [eBook #820]
Most recently updated: January 31, 2013

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/820

Credits: Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDISON: HIS
LIFE AND INVENTIONS ***

EDISON HIS LIFE AND
INVENTIONS

By Frank Lewis Dyer
General Counsel For The Edison Laboratory And Allied Interests

And

Thomas Commerford Martin
Ex-President Of The American Institute Of Electrical Engineers

CONTENTS

EDISON HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS
INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

INTRODUCTION TO THE APPENDIX
APPENDIX
I. THE STOCK PRINTER
II. THE QUADRUPLEX AND PHONOPLEX
III. AUTOMATIC TELEGRAPHY
IV. WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY
V. THE ELECTROMOTOGRAPH
VI. THE TELEPHONE
VII. EDISON'S TASIMETER
VIII. THE EDISON PHONOGRAPH
X. EDISON'S DYNAMO WORK
XI. THE EDISON FEEDER SYSTEM
XII. THE THREE-WIRE SYSTEM
XIII. EDISON'S ELECTRIC RAILWAY
XIV. TRAIN TELEGRAPHY
XV. KINETOGRAPH AND PROJECTING
KINETOSCOPE
XVI. EDISON'S ORE-MILLING INVENTIONS
XVII. THE LONG CEMENT KILN
XVIII. EDISON'S NEW STORAGE BATTERY

XIX. EDISON'S POURED CEMENT HOUSE
LIST OF UNITED STATES PATENTS
FOREIGN PATENTS

INTRODUCTION
PRIOR to this, no complete, authentic, and authorized record of the work
of Mr. Edison, during an active life, has been given to the world. That life,
if there is anything in heredity, is very far from finished; and while it
continues there will be new achievement.
An insistently expressed desire on the part of the public for a definitive
biography of Edison was the reason for the following pages. The present
authors deem themselves happy in the confidence reposed in them, and in
the constant assistance they have enjoyed from Mr. Edison while preparing
these pages, a great many of which are altogether his own. This co-
operation in no sense relieves the authors of responsibility as to any of the
views or statements of their own that the book contains. They have realized
the extreme reluctance of Mr. Edison to be made the subject of any
biography at all; while he has felt that, if it must be written, it were best
done by the hands of friends and associates of long standing, whose
judgment and discretion he could trust, and whose intimate knowledge of
the facts would save him from misrepresentation.
The authors of the book are profoundly conscious of the fact that the
extraordinary period of electrical development embraced in it has been
prolific of great men. They have named some of them; but there has been
no idea of setting forth various achievements or of ascribing distinctive
merits. This treatment is devoted to one man whom his fellow-citizens have
chosen to regard as in many ways representative of the American at his
finest flowering in the field of invention during the nineteenth century.
It is designed in these pages to bring the reader face to face with Edison;
to glance at an interesting childhood and a youthful period marked by a
capacity for doing things, and by an insatiable thirst for knowledge; then to
accompany him into the great creative stretch of forty years, during which
he has done so much. This book shows him plunged deeply into work for
which he has always had an incredible capacity, reveals the exercise of his
unsurpassed inventive ability, his keen reasoning powers, his tenacious
memory, his fertility of resource; follows him through a series of
innumerable experiments, conducted methodically, reaching out like rays of

search-light into all the regions of science and nature, and finally exhibits
him emerging triumphantly from countless difficulties bearing with him in
new arts the fruits of victorious struggle.
These volumes aim to be a biography rather than a history of electricity,
but they have had to cover so much general ground in defining the relations
and contributions of Edison to the electrical arts, that they serve to present a
picture of the whole development effected in the last fifty years, the most
fruitful that electricity has known. The effort has been made to avoid
technique and abstruse phrases, but some degree of explanation has been
absolutely necessary in regard to each group of inventions. The task of the
authors has consisted largely in summarizing fairly the methods and
processes employed by Edison; and some idea of the difficulties
encountered by them in so doing may be realized from the fact that one
brief chapter, for example,—that on ore milling—covers nine years of most
intense application and activity on the part of the inventor. It is something
like exhibiting the geological eras of the earth in an outline lantern slide, to
reduce an elaborate series of strenuous experiments and a vast variety of
ingenious apparatus to the space of a few hundred words.
A great deal of this narrative is given in Mr. Edison's own language, from
oral or written statements made in reply to questions addressed to him with
the object of securing accuracy. A further large part is based upon the
personal contributions of many loyal associates; and it is desired here to
make grateful acknowledgment to such collaborators as Messrs. Samuel
Insull, E. H. Johnson, F. R. Upton, R. N Dyer, S. B. Eaton, Francis Jehl, W.
S. Andrews, W. J. Jenks, W. J. Hammer, F. J. Sprague, W. S. Mallory, and
C. L. Clarke, and others, without whose aid the issuance of this book would
indeed have been impossible. In particular, it is desired to acknowledge
indebtedness to Mr. W. H. Meadowcroft not only for substantial aid in the
literary part of the work, but for indefatigable effort to group, classify, and
summarize the boundless material embodied in Edison's note-books and
memorabilia of all kinds now kept at the Orange laboratory.
Acknowledgment must also be made of the courtesy and assistance of Mrs.
Edison, and especially of the loan of many interesting and rare photographs
from her private collection.

EDISON HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS

CHAPTER I
THE AGE OF ELECTRICITY

THE year 1847 marked a period of great territorial acquisition by the
American people, with incalculable additions to their actual and potential
wealth. By the rational compromise with England in the dispute over the
Oregon region, President Polk had secured during 1846, for undisturbed
settlement, three hundred thousand square miles of forest, fertile land, and
fisheries, including the whole fair Columbia Valley. Our active "policy of
the Pacific" dated from that hour. With swift and clinching succession came
the melodramatic Mexican War, and February, 1848, saw another vast
territory south of Oregon and west of the Rocky Mountains added by treaty
to the United States. Thus in about eighteen months there had been pieced
into the national domain for quick development and exploitation a region as
large as the entire Union of Thirteen States at the close of the War of
Independence. Moreover, within its boundaries was embraced all the great
American gold-field, just on the eve of discovery, for Marshall had detected
the shining particles in the mill-race at the foot of the Sierra Nevada nine
days before Mexico signed away her rights in California and in all the
vague, remote hinterland facing Cathayward.
Equally momentous were the times in Europe, where the attempt to
secure opportunities of expansion as well as larger liberty for the individual
took quite different form. The old absolutist system of government was fast
breaking up, and ancient thrones were tottering. The red lava of deep
revolutionary fires oozed up through many glowing cracks in the political
crust, and all the social strata were shaken. That the wild outbursts of
insurrection midway in the fifth decade failed and died away was not
surprising, for the superincumbent deposits of tradition and convention
were thick. But the retrospect indicates that many reforms and political
changes were accomplished, although the process involved the exile of not
a few ardent spirits to America, to become leading statesmen, inventors,
journalists, and financiers. In 1847, too, Russia began her tremendous
march eastward into Central Asia, just as France was solidifying her first

gains on the littoral of northern Africa. In England the fierce fervor of the
Chartist movement, with its violent rhetoric as to the rights of man, was
sobering down and passing pervasively into numerous practical schemes for
social and political amelioration, constituting in their entirety a most
profound change throughout every part of the national life.
Into such times Thomas Alva Edison was born, and his relations to them
and to the events of the past sixty years are the subject of this narrative.
Aside from the personal interest that attaches to the picturesque career, so
typically American, there is a broader aspect in which the work of the
"Franklin of the Nineteenth Century" touches the welfare and progress of
the race. It is difficult at any time to determine the effect of any single
invention, and the investigation becomes more difficult where inventions of
the first class have been crowded upon each other in rapid and bewildering
succession. But it will be admitted that in Edison one deals with a central
figure of the great age that saw the invention and introduction in practical
form of the telegraph, the submarine cable, the telephone, the electric light,
the electric railway, the electric trolley-car, the storage battery, the electric
motor, the phonograph, the wireless telegraph; and that the influence of
these on the world's affairs has not been excelled at any time by that of any
other corresponding advances in the arts and sciences. These pages deal
with Edison's share in the great work of the last half century in abridging
distance, communicating intelligence, lessening toil, improving
illumination, recording forever the human voice; and on behalf of inventive
genius it may be urged that its beneficent results and gifts to mankind
compare with any to be credited to statesman, warrior, or creative writer of
the same period.
Viewed from the standpoint of inventive progress, the first half of the
nineteenth century had passed very profitably when Edison appeared—
every year marked by some notable achievement in the arts and sciences,
with promise of its early and abundant fruition in commerce and industry.
There had been exactly four decades of steam navigation on American
waters. Railways were growing at the rate of nearly one thousand miles
annually. Gas had become familiar as a means of illumination in large
cities. Looms and tools and printing-presses were everywhere being
liberated from the slow toil of man-power. The first photographs had been
taken. Chloroform, nitrous oxide gas, and ether had been placed at the
service of the physician in saving life, and the revolver, guncotton, and

nitroglycerine added to the agencies for slaughter. New metals, chemicals,
and elements had become available in large numbers, gases had been
liquefied and solidified, and the range of useful heat and cold indefinitely
extended. The safety-lamp had been given to the miner, the caisson to the
bridge-builder, the anti-friction metal to the mechanic for bearings. It was
already known how to vulcanize rubber, and how to galvanize iron. The
application of machinery in the harvest-field had begun with the embryonic
reaper, while both the bicycle and the automobile were heralded in
primitive prototypes. The gigantic expansion of the iron and steel industry
was foreshadowed in the change from wood to coal in the smelting
furnaces. The sewing-machine had brought with it, like the friction match,
one of the most profound influences in modifying domestic life, and
making it different from that of all preceding time.
Even in 1847 few of these things had lost their novelty, most of them
were in the earlier stages of development. But it is when we turn to
electricity that the rich virgin condition of an illimitable new kingdom of
discovery is seen. Perhaps the word "utilization" or "application" is better
than discovery, for then, as now, an endless wealth of phenomena noted by
experimenters from Gilbert to Franklin and Faraday awaited the invention
that could alone render them useful to mankind. The eighteenth century,
keenly curious and ceaselessly active in this fascinating field of
investigation, had not, after all, left much of a legacy in either principles or
appliances. The lodestone and the compass; the frictional machine; the
Leyden jar; the nature of conductors and insulators; the identity of
electricity and the thunder-storm flash; the use of lightning-rods; the
physiological effects of an electrical shock—these constituted the bulk of
the bequest to which philosophers were the only heirs. Pregnant with
possibilities were many of the observations that had been recorded. But
these few appliances made up the meagre kit of tools with which the
nineteenth century entered upon its task of acquiring the arts and
conveniences now such an intimate part of "human nature's daily food" that
the average American to-day pays more for his electrical service than he
does for bread.
With the first year of the new century came Volta's invention of the
chemical battery as a means of producing electricity. A well-known Italian
picture represents Volta exhibiting his apparatus before the young
conqueror Napoleon, then ravishing from the Peninsula its treasure of

ancient art and founding an ephemeral empire. At such a moment this gift
of despoiled Italy to the world was a noble revenge, setting in motion
incalculable beneficent forces and agencies. For the first time man had
command of a steady supply of electricity without toil or effort. The useful
results obtainable previously from the current of a frictional machine were
not much greater than those to be derived from the flight of a rocket. While
the frictional appliance is still employed in medicine, it ranks with the flint
axe and the tinder-box in industrial obsolescence. No art or trade could be
founded on it; no diminution of daily work or increase of daily comfort
could be secured with it. But the little battery with its metal plates in a weak
solution proved a perennial reservoir of electrical energy, safe and
controllable, from which supplies could be drawn at will. That which was
wild had become domesticated; regular crops took the place of haphazard
gleanings from brake or prairie; the possibility of electrical starvation was
forever left behind.
Immediately new processes of inestimable value revealed themselves;
new methods were suggested. Almost all the electrical arts now employed
made their beginnings in the next twenty-five years, and while the more
extensive of them depend to-day on the dynamo for electrical energy, some
of the most important still remain in loyal allegiance to the older source.
The battery itself soon underwent modifications, and new types were
evolved—the storage, the double-fluid, and the dry. Various analogies next
pointed to the use of heat, and the thermoelectric cell emerged, embodying
the application of flame to the junction of two different metals. Davy, of the
safety-lamp, threw a volume of current across the gap between two sticks of
charcoal, and the voltaic arc, forerunner of electric lighting, shed its bright
beams upon a dazzled world. The decomposition of water by electrolytic
action was recognized and made the basis of communicating at a distance
even before the days of the electromagnet. The ties that bind electricity and
magnetism in twinship of relation and interaction were detected, and
Faraday's work in induction gave the world at once the dynamo and the
motor. "Hitch your wagon to a star," said Emerson. To all the coal-fields
and all the waterfalls Faraday had directly hitched the wheels of industry.
Not only was it now possible to convert mechanical energy into electricity
cheaply and in illimitable quantities, but electricity at once showed its
ubiquitous availability as a motive power. Boats were propelled by it, cars

were hauled, and even papers printed. Electroplating became an art, and
telegraphy sprang into active being on both sides of the Atlantic.
At the time Edison was born, in 1847, telegraphy, upon which he was to
leave so indelible an imprint, had barely struggled into acceptance by the
public. In England, Wheatstone and Cooke had introduced a ponderous
magnetic needle telegraph. In America, in 1840, Morse had taken out his
first patent on an electromagnetic telegraph, the principle of which is
dominating in the art to this day. Four years later the memorable message
"What hath God wrought!" was sent by young Miss Ellsworth over his
circuits, and incredulous Washington was advised by wire of the action of
the Democratic Convention in Baltimore in nominating Polk. By 1847
circuits had been strung between Washington and New York, under private
enterprise, the Government having declined to buy the Morse system for
$100,000. Everything was crude and primitive. The poles were two hundred
feet apart and could barely hold up a wash-line. The slim, bare, copper wire
snapped on the least provocation, and the circuit was "down" for thirty-six
days in the first six months. The little glass-knob insulators made seductive
targets for ignorant sportsmen. Attempts to insulate the line wire were
limited to coating it with tar or smearing it with wax for the benefit of all
the bees in the neighborhood. The farthest western reach of the telegraph
lines in 1847 was Pittsburg, with three-ply iron wire mounted on square
glass insulators with a little wooden pentroof for protection. In that office,
where Andrew Carnegie was a messenger boy, the magnets in use to receive
the signals sent with the aid of powerful nitric-acid batteries weighed as
much as seventy-five pounds apiece. But the business was fortunately small
at the outset, until the new device, patronized chiefly by lottery-men, had
proved its utility. Then came the great outburst of activity. Within a score of
years telegraph wires covered the whole occupied country with a network,
and the first great electrical industry was a pronounced success, yielding to
its pioneers the first great harvest of electrical fortunes. It had been a sharp
struggle for bare existence, during which such a man as the founder of
Cornell University had been glad to get breakfast in New York with a
quarter-dollar picked up on Broadway.

CHAPTER II
EDISON'S PEDIGREE

THOMAS ALVA EDISON was born at Milan Ohio, February 11, 1847.
The State that rivals Virginia as a "Mother of Presidents" has evidently
other titles to distinction of the same nature. For picturesque detail it would
not be easy to find any story excelling that of the Edison family before it
reached the Western Reserve. The story epitomizes American idealism,
restlessness, freedom of individual opinion, and ready adjustment to the
surrounding conditions of pioneer life. The ancestral Edisons who came
over from Holland, as nearly as can be determined, in 1730, were
descendants of extensive millers on the Zuyder Zee, and took up patents of
land along the Passaic River, New Jersey, close to the home that Mr. Edison
established in the Orange Mountains a hundred and sixty years later. They
landed at Elizabethport, New Jersey, and first settled near Caldwell in that
State, where some graves of the family may still be found. President
Cleveland was born in that quiet hamlet. It is a curious fact that in the
Edison family the pronunciation of the name has always been with the long
"e" sound, as it would naturally be in the Dutch language. The family
prospered and must have enjoyed public confidence, for we find the name
of Thomas Edison, as a bank official on Manhattan Island, signed to
Continental currency in 1778. According to the family records this Edison,
great-grandfather of Thomas Alva, reached the extreme old age of 104
years. But all was not well, and, as has happened so often before, the
politics of father and son were violently different. The Loyalist movement
that took to Nova Scotia so many Americans after the War of Independence
carried with it John, the son of this stalwart Continental. Thus it came about
that Samuel Edison, son of John, was born at Digby, Nova Scotia, in 1804.
Seven years later John Edison who, as a Loyalist or United Empire
emigrant, had become entitled under the laws of Canada to a grant of six
hundred acres of land, moved westward to take possession of this property.
He made his way through the State of New York in wagons drawn by oxen
to the remote and primitive township of Bayfield, in Upper Canada, on

Lake Huron. Although the journey occurred in balmy June, it was
necessarily attended with difficulty and privation; but the new home was
situated in good farming country, and once again this interesting nomadic
family settled down.
John Edison moved from Bayfield to Vienna, Ontario, on the northern
bank of Lake Erie. Mr. Edison supplies an interesting reminiscence of the
old man and his environment in those early Canadian days. "When I was
five years old I was taken by my father and mother on a visit to Vienna. We
were driven by carriage from Milan, Ohio, to a railroad, then to a port on
Lake Erie, thence by a canal-boat in a tow of several to Port Burwell, in
Canada, across the lake, and from there we drove to Vienna, a short distance
away. I remember my grandfather perfectly as he appeared, at 102 years of
age, when he died. In the middle of the day he sat under a large tree in front
of the house facing a well-travelled road. His head was covered completely
with a large quantity of very white hair, and he chewed tobacco incessantly,
nodding to friends as they passed by. He used a very large cane, and walked
from the chair to the house, resenting any assistance. I viewed him from a
distance, and could never get very close to him. I remember some large
pipes, and especially a molasses jug, a trunk, and several other things that
came from Holland."
John Edison was long-lived, like his father, and reached the ripe old age
of 102, leaving his son Samuel charged with the care of the family
destinies, but with no great burden of wealth. Little is known of the early
manhood of this father of T. A. Edison until we find him keeping a hotel at
Vienna, marrying a school-teacher there (Miss Nancy Elliott, in 1828), and
taking a lively share in the troublous politics of the time. He was six feet in
height, of great bodily vigor, and of such personal dominance of character
that he became a captain of the insurgent forces rallying under the banners
of Papineau and Mackenzie. The opening years of Queen Victoria's reign
witnessed a belated effort in Canada to emphasize the principle that there
should not be taxation without representation; and this descendant of those
who had left the United States from disapproval of such a doctrine, flung
himself headlong into its support.
It has been said of Earl Durham, who pacified Canada at this time and
established the present system of government, that he made a country and
marred a career. But the immediate measures of repression enforced before

a liberal policy was adopted were sharp and severe, and Samuel Edison also
found his own career marred on Canadian soil as one result of the Durham
administration. Exile to Bermuda with other insurgents was not so attractive
as the perils of a flight to the United States. A very hurried departure was
effected in secret from the scene of trouble, and there are romantic
traditions of his thrilling journey of one hundred and eighty-two miles
toward safety, made almost entirely without food or sleep, through a wild
country infested with Indians of unfriendly disposition. Thus was the
Edison family repatriated by a picturesque political episode, and the great
inventor given a birthplace on American soil, just as was Benjamin Franklin
when his father came from England to Boston. Samuel Edison left behind
him, however, in Canada, several brothers, all of whom lived to the age of
ninety or more, and from whom there are descendants in the region.
After some desultory wanderings for a year or two along the shores of
Lake Erie, among the prosperous towns then springing up, the family, with
its Canadian home forfeited, and in quest of another resting-place, came to
Milan, Ohio, in 1842. That pretty little village offered at the moment many
attractions as a possible Chicago. The railroad system of Ohio was still in
the future, but the Western Reserve had already become a vast wheat-field,
and huge quantities of grain from the central and northern counties sought
shipment to Eastern ports. The Huron River, emptying into Lake Erie, was
navigable within a few miles of the village, and provided an admirable
outlet. Large granaries were established, and proved so successful that local
capital was tempted into the project of making a tow-path canal from
Lockwood Landing all the way to Milan itself. The quaint old Moravian
mission and quondam Indian settlement of one hundred inhabitants found
itself of a sudden one of the great grain ports of the world, and bidding fair
to rival Russian Odessa. A number of grain warehouses, or primitive
elevators, were built along the bank of the canal, and the produce of the
region poured in immediately, arriving in wagons drawn by four or six
horses with loads of a hundred bushels. No fewer than six hundred wagons
came clattering in, and as many as twenty sail vessels were loaded with
thirty-five thousand bushels of grain, during a single day. The canal was
capable of being navigated by craft of from two hundred to two hundred
and fifty tons burden, and the demand for such vessels soon led to the
development of a brisk ship-building industry, for which the abundant
forests of the region supplied the necessary lumber. An evidence of the

activity in this direction is furnished by the fact that six revenue cutters
were launched at this port in these brisk days of its prime.
Samuel Edison, versatile, buoyant of temper, and ever optimistic, would
thus appear to have pitched his tent with shrewd judgment. There was
plenty of occupation ready to his hand, and more than one enterprise
received his attention; but he devoted his energies chiefly to the making of
shingles, for which there was a large demand locally and along the lake.
Canadian lumber was used principally in this industry. The wood was
imported in "bolts" or pieces three feet long. A bolt made two shingles; it
was sawn asunder by hand, then split and shaved. None but first-class
timber was used, and such shingles outlasted far those made by machinery
with their cross-grain cut. A house in Milan, on which some of those
shingles were put in 1844, was still in excellent condition forty-two years
later. Samuel Edison did well at this occupation, and employed several men,
but there were other outlets from time to time for his business activity and
speculative disposition.
Edison's mother was an attractive and highly educated woman, whose
influence upon his disposition and intellect has been profound and lasting.
She was born in Chenango County, New York, in 1810, and was the
daughter of the Rev. John Elliott, a Baptist minister and descendant of an
old Revolutionary soldier, Capt. Ebenezer Elliott, of Scotch descent. The
old captain was a fine and picturesque type. He fought all through the long
War of Independence—seven years—and then appears to have settled down
at Stonington, Connecticut. There, at any rate, he found his wife,
"grandmother Elliott," who was Mercy Peckham, daughter of a Scotch
Quaker. Then came the residence in New York State, with final removal to
Vienna, for the old soldier, while drawing his pension at Buffalo, lived in
the little Canadian town, and there died, over 100 years old. The family was
evidently one of considerable culture and deep religious feeling, for two of
Mrs. Edison's uncles and two brothers were also in the same Baptist
ministry. As a young woman she became a teacher in the public high school
at Vienna, and thus met her husband, who was residing there. The family
never consisted of more than three children, two boys and a girl. A trace of
the Canadian environment is seen in the fact that Edison's elder brother was
named William Pitt, after the great English statesman. Both his brother and
the sister exhibited considerable ability. William Pitt Edison as a youth was
so clever with his pencil that it was proposed to send him to Paris as an art

student. In later life he was manager of the local street railway lines at Port
Huron, Michigan, in which he was heavily interested. He also owned a
good farm near that town, and during the ill-health at the close of his life,
when compelled to spend much of the time indoors, he devoted himself
almost entirely to sketching. It has been noted by intimate observers of
Thomas A. Edison that in discussing any project or new idea his first
impulse is to take up any piece of paper available and make drawings of it.
His voluminous note-books are a mass of sketches. Mrs-Tannie Edison
Bailey, the sister, had, on the other hand, a great deal of literary ability, and
spent much of her time in writing.
The great inventor, whose iron endurance and stern will have enabled
him to wear down all his associates by work sustained through arduous
days and sleepless nights, was not at all strong as a child, and was of fragile
appearance. He had an abnormally large but well-shaped head, and it is said
that the local doctors feared he might have brain trouble. In fact, on account
of his assumed delicacy, he was not allowed to go to school for some years,
and even when he did attend for a short time the results were not
encouraging—his mother being hotly indignant upon hearing that the
teacher had spoken of him to an inspector as "addled." The youth was,
indeed, fortunate far beyond the ordinary in having a mother at once loving,
well-informed, and ambitious, capable herself, from her experience as a
teacher, of undertaking and giving him an education better than could be
secured in the local schools of the day. Certain it is that under this simple
regime studious habits were formed and a taste for literature developed that
have lasted to this day. If ever there was a man who tore the heart out of
books it is Edison, and what has once been read by him is never forgotten if
useful or worthy of submission to the test of experiment.
But even thus early the stronger love of mechanical processes and of
probing natural forces manifested itself. Edison has said that he never saw a
statement in any book as to such things that he did not involuntarily
challenge, and wish to demonstrate as either right or wrong. As a mere child
the busy scenes of the canal and the grain warehouses were of consuming
interest, but the work in the ship-building yards had an irresistible
fascination. His questions were so ceaseless and innumerable that the
penetrating curiosity of an unusually strong mind was regarded as
deficiency in powers of comprehension, and the father himself, a man of no
mean ingenuity and ability, reports that the child, although capable of

reducing him to exhaustion by endless inquiries, was often spoken of as
rather wanting in ordinary acumen. This apparent dulness is, however, a
quite common incident to youthful genius.
The constructive tendencies of this child of whom his father said once
that he had never had any boyhood days in the ordinary sense, were early
noted in his fondness for building little plank roads out of the debris of the
yards and mills. His extraordinarily retentive memory was shown in his
easy acquisition of all the songs of the lumber gangs and canal men before
he was five years old. One incident tells how he was found one day in the
village square copying laboriously the signs of the stores. A highly
characteristic event at the age of six is described by his sister. He had noted
a goose sitting on her eggs and the result. One day soon after, he was
missing. By-and-by, after an anxious search, his father found him sitting in
a nest he had made in the barn, filled with goose-eggs and hens' eggs he had
collected, trying to hatch them out.
One of Mr. Edison's most vivid recollections goes back to 1850, when as
a child three of four years old he saw camped in front of his home six
covered wagons, "prairie schooners," and witnessed their departure for
California. The great excitement over the gold discoveries was thus felt in
Milan, and these wagons, laden with all the worldly possessions of their
owners, were watched out of sight on their long journey by this fascinated
urchin, whose own discoveries in later years were to tempt many other
argonauts into the auriferous realms of electricity.
Another vivid memory of this period concerns his first realization of the
grim mystery of death. He went off one day with the son of the wealthiest
man in the town to bathe in the creek. Soon after they entered the water the
other boy disappeared. Young Edison waited around the spot for half an
hour or more, and then, as it was growing dark, went home puzzled and
lonely, but silent as to the occurrence. About two hours afterward, when the
missing boy was being searched for, a man came to the Edison home to
make anxious inquiry of the companion with whom he had last been seen.
Edison told all the circumstances with a painful sense of being in some way
implicated. The creek was at once dragged, and then the body was
recovered.
Edison had himself more than one narrow escape. Of course he fell in the
canal and was nearly drowned; few boys in Milan worth their salt omitted

that performance. On another occasion he encountered a more novel peril
by falling into the pile of wheat in a grain elevator and being almost
smothered. Holding the end of a skate-strap for another lad to shorten with
an axe, he lost the top of a finger. Fire also had its perils. He built a fire in a
barn, but the flames spread so rapidly that, although he escaped himself, the
barn was wholly destroyed, and he was publicly whipped in the village
square as a warning to other youths. Equally well remembered is a
dangerous encounter with a ram that attacked him while he was busily
engaged digging out a bumblebee's nest near an orchard fence. The animal
knocked him against the fence, and was about to butt him again when he
managed to drop over on the safe side and escape. He was badly hurt and
bruised, and no small quantity of arnica was needed for his wounds.
Meantime little Milan had reached the zenith of its prosperity, and all of a
sudden had been deprived of its flourishing grain trade by the new
Columbus, Sandusky & Hocking Railroad; in fact, the short canal was one
of the last efforts of its kind in this country to compete with the new means
of transportation. The bell of the locomotive was everywhere ringing the
death-knell of effective water haulage, with such dire results that, in 1880,
of the 4468 miles of American freight canal, that had cost $214,000,000, no
fewer than 1893 miles had been abandoned, and of the remaining 2575
miles quite a large proportion was not paying expenses. The short Milan
canal suffered with the rest, and to-day lies well-nigh obliterated, hidden in
part by vegetable gardens, a mere grass-grown depression at the foot of the
winding, shallow valley. Other railroads also prevented any further
competition by the canal, for a branch of the Wheeling & Lake Erie now
passes through the village, while the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern runs
a few miles to the south.
The owners of the canal soon had occasion to regret that they had
disdained the overtures of enterprising railroad promoters desirous of
reaching the village, and the consequences of commercial isolation rapidly
made themselves felt. It soon became evident to Samuel Edison and his
wife that the cozy brick home on the bluff must be given up and the
struggle with fortune resumed elsewhere. They were well-to-do, however,
and removing, in 1854, to Port Huron, Michigan, occupied a large colonial
house standing in the middle of an old Government fort reservation of ten
acres overlooking the wide expanse of the St. Clair River just after it leaves
Lake Huron. It was in many ways an ideal homestead, toward which the

family has always felt the strongest attachment, but the association with
Milan has never wholly ceased. The old house in which Edison was born is
still occupied (in 1910) by Mr. S. O. Edison, a half-brother of Edison's
father, and a man of marked inventive ability. He was once prominent in the
iron-furnace industry of Ohio, and was for a time associated in the iron
trade with the father of the late President McKinley. Among his inventions
may be mentioned a machine for making fuel from wheat straw, and a
smoke-consuming device.
This birthplace of Edison remains the plain, substantial little brick house
it was originally: one-storied, with rooms finished on the attic floor. Being
built on the hillside, its basement opens into the rear yard. It was at first
heated by means of open coal grates, which may not have been altogether
adequate in severe winters, owing to the altitude and the north-eastern
exposure, but a large furnace is one of the more modern changes. Milan
itself is not materially unlike the smaller Ohio towns of its own time or
those of later creation, but the venerable appearance of the big elm-trees
that fringe the trim lawns tells of its age. It is, indeed, an extremely neat,
snug little place, with well-kept homes, mostly of frame construction, and
flagged streets crossing each other at right angles. There are no poor—at
least, everybody is apparently well-to-do. While a leisurely atmosphere
pervades the town, few idlers are seen. Some of the residents are engaged in
local business; some are occupied in farming and grape culture; others are
employed in the iron-works near-by, at Norwalk. The stores and places of
public resort are gathered about the square, where there is plenty of room
for hitching when the Saturday trading is done at that point, at which
periods the fitful bustle recalls the old wheat days when young Edison ran
with curiosity among the six and eight horse teams that had brought in
grain. This square is still covered with fine primeval forest trees, and has at
its centre a handsome soldiers' monument of the Civil War, to which four
paved walks converge. It is an altogether pleasant and unpretentious town,
which cherishes with no small amount of pride its association with the
name of Thomas Alva Edison.
In view of Edison's Dutch descent, it is rather singular to find him with
the name of Alva, for the Spanish Duke of Alva was notoriously the worst
tyrant ever known to the Low Countries, and his evil deeds occupy many
stirring pages in Motley's famous history. As a matter of fact, Edison was
named after Capt. Alva Bradley, an old friend of his father, and a celebrated

ship-owner on the Lakes. Captain Bradley died a few years ago in wealth,
while his old associate, with equal ability for making money, was never
able long to keep it (differing again from the Revolutionary New York
banker from whom his son's other name, "Thomas," was taken).

CHAPTER III
BOYHOOD AT PORT HURON, MICHIGAN

THE new home found by the Edison family at Port Huron, where Alva
spent his brief boyhood before he became a telegraph operator and roamed
the whole middle West of that period, was unfortunately destroyed by fire
just after the close of the Civil War. A smaller but perhaps more comfortable
home was then built by Edison's father on some property he had bought at
the near-by village of Gratiot, and there his mother spent the remainder of
her life in confirmed invalidism, dying in 1871. Hence the pictures and
postal cards sold largely to souvenir-hunters as the Port Huron home do not
actually show that in or around which the events now referred to took place.
It has been a romance of popular biographers, based upon the fact that
Edison began his career as a newsboy, to assume that these earlier years
were spent in poverty and privation, as indeed they usually are by the
"newsies" who swarm and shout their papers in our large cities. While it
seems a pity to destroy this erroneous idea, suggestive of a heroic climb
from the depths to the heights, nothing could be further from the truth.
Socially the Edison family stood high in Port Huron at a time when there
was relatively more wealth and general activity than to-day. The town in its
pristine prime was a great lumber centre, and hummed with the industry of
numerous sawmills. An incredible quantity of lumber was made there
yearly until the forests near-by vanished and the industry with them. The
wealth of the community, invested largely in this business and in allied
transportation companies, was accumulated rapidly and as freely spent
during those days of prosperity in St. Clair County, bringing with it a high
standard of domestic comfort. In all this the Edisons shared on equal terms.
Thus, contrary to the stories that have been so widely published, the
Edisons, while not rich by any means, were in comfortable circumstances,
with a well-stocked farm and large orchard to draw upon also for
sustenance. Samuel Edison, on moving to Port Huron, became a dealer in
grain and feed, and gave attention to that business for many years. But he
was also active in the lumber industry in the Saginaw district and several

other things. It was difficult for a man of such mercurial, restless
temperament to stay constant to any one occupation; in fact, had he been
less visionary he would have been more prosperous, but might not have had
a son so gifted with insight and imagination. One instance of the optimistic
vagaries which led him incessantly to spend time and money on projects
that would not have appealed to a man less sanguine was the construction
on his property of a wooden observation tower over a hundred feet high, the
top of which was reached toilsomely by winding stairs, after the payment of
twenty-five cents. It is true that the tower commanded a pretty view by land
and water, but Colonel Sellers himself might have projected this enterprise
as a possible source of steady income. At first few visitors panted up the
long flights of steps to the breezy platform. During the first two months
Edison's father took in three dollars, and felt extremely blue over the
prospect, and to young Edison and his relatives were left the lonely
pleasures of the lookout and the enjoyment of the telescope with which it
was equipped. But one fine day there came an excursion from an inland
town to see the lake. They picnicked in the grove, and six hundred of them
went up the tower. After that the railroad company began to advertise these
excursions, and the receipts each year paid for the observatory.
It might be thought that, immersed in business and preoccupied with
schemes of this character, Mr. Edison was to blame for the neglect of his
son's education. But that was not the case. The conditions were peculiar. It
was at the Port Huron public school that Edison received all the regular
scholastic instruction he ever enjoyed—just three months. He might have
spent the full term there, but, as already noted, his teacher had found him
"addled." He was always, according to his own recollection, at the foot of
the class, and had come almost to regard himself as a dunce, while his
father entertained vague anxieties as to his stupidity. The truth of the matter
seems to be that Mrs. Edison, a teacher of uncommon ability and force, held
no very high opinion of the average public-school methods and results, and
was both eager to undertake the instruction of her son and ambitious for the
future of a boy whom she knew from pedagogic experience to be receptive
and thoughtful to a very unusual degree. With her he found study easy and
pleasant. The quality of culture in that simple but refined home, as well as
the intellectual character of this youth without schooling, may be inferred
from the fact that before he had reached the age of twelve he had read, with
his mother's help, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hume's

History of England, Sears' History of the World, Burton's Anatomy of
Melancholy, and the Dictionary of Sciences; and had even attempted to
struggle through Newton's Principia, whose mathematics were decidedly
beyond both teacher and student. Besides, Edison, like Faraday, was never a
mathematician, and has had little personal use for arithmetic beyond that
which is called "mental." He said once to a friend: "I can always hire some
mathematicians, but they can't hire me." His father, by-the-way, always
encouraged these literary tastes, and paid him a small sum for each new
book mastered. It will be noted that fiction makes no showing in the list; but
it was not altogether excluded from the home library, and Edison has all his
life enjoyed it, particularly the works of such writers as Victor Hugo, after
whom, because of his enthusiastic admiration—possibly also because of his
imagination—he was nicknamed by his fellow-operators, "Victor Hugo
Edison."
Electricity at that moment could have no allure for a youthful mind.
Crude telegraphy represented what was known of it practically, and about
that the books read by young Edison were not redundantly informational.
Even had that not been so, the inclinations of the boy barely ten years old
were toward chemistry, and fifty years later there is seen no change of
predilection. It sounds like heresy to say that Edison became an electrician
by chance, but it is the sober fact that to this pre-eminent and brilliant leader
in electrical achievement escape into the chemical domain still has the
aspect of a delightful truant holiday. One of the earliest stories about his
boyhood relates to the incident when he induced a lad employed in the
family to swallow a large quantity of Seidlitz powders in the belief that the
gases generated would enable him to fly. The agonies of the victim attracted
attention, and Edison's mother marked her displeasure by an application of
the switch kept behind the old Seth Thomas "grandfather clock." The
disastrous result of this experiment did not discourage Edison at all, as he
attributed failure to the lad rather than to the motive power. In the cellar of
the Edison homestead young Alva soon accumulated a chemical outfit,
constituting the first in a long series of laboratories. The word "laboratory"
had always been associated with alchemists in the past, but as with
"filament" this untutored stripling applied an iconoclastic practicability to it
long before he realized the significance of the new departure. Goethe, in his
legend of Faust, shows the traditional or conventional philosopher in his
laboratory, an aged, tottering, gray-bearded investigator, who only becomes

youthful upon diabolical intervention, and would stay senile without it. In
the Edison laboratory no such weird transformation has been necessary, for
the philosopher had youth, fiery energy, and a grimly practical
determination that would submit to no denial of the goal of something of
real benefit to mankind. Edison and Faust are indeed the extremes of
philosophic thought and accomplishment.
The home at Port Huron thus saw the first Edison laboratory. The boy
began experimenting when he was about ten or eleven years of age. He got
a copy of Parker's School Philosophy, an elementary book on physics, and
about every experiment in it he tried. Young Alva, or "Al," as he was called,
thus early displayed his great passion for chemistry, and in the cellar of the
house he collected no fewer than two hundred bottles, gleaned in baskets
from all parts of the town. These were arranged carefully on shelves and all
labelled "Poison," so that no one else would handle or disturb them. They
contained the chemicals with which he was constantly experimenting. To
others this diversion was both mysterious and meaningless, but he had soon
become familiar with all the chemicals obtainable at the local drug stores,
and had tested to his satisfaction many of the statements encountered in his
scientific reading. Edison has said that sometimes he has wondered how it
was he did not become an analytical chemist instead of concentrating on
electricity, for which he had at first no great inclination.
Deprived of the use of a large part of her cellar, tiring of the "mess"
always to be found there, and somewhat fearful of results, his mother once
told the boy to clear everything out and restore order. The thought of losing
all his possessions was the cause of so much ardent distress that his mother
relented, but insisted that he must get a lock and key, and keep the
embryonic laboratory closed up all the time except when he was there. This
was done. From such work came an early familiarity with the nature of
electrical batteries and the production of current from them. Apparently the
greater part of his spare time was spent in the cellar, for he did not share to
any extent in the sports of the boys of the neighborhood, his chum and chief
companion, Michael Oates, being a lad of Dutch origin, many years older,
who did chores around the house, and who could be recruited as a general
utility Friday for the experiments of this young explorer—such as that with
the Seidlitz powders.

Such pursuits as these consumed the scant pocket-money of the boy very
rapidly. He was not in regular attendance at school, and had read all the
books within reach. It was thus he turned newsboy, overcoming the
reluctance of his parents, particularly that of his mother, by pointing out that
he could by this means earn all he wanted for his experiments and get fresh
reading in the shape of papers and magazines free of charge. Besides, his
leisure hours in Detroit he would be able to spend at the public library. He
applied (in 1859) for the privilege of selling newspapers on the trains of the
Grand Trunk Railroad, between Port Huron and Detroit, and obtained the
concession after a short delay, during which he made an essay in his task of
selling newspapers.
Edison had, as a fact, already had some commercial experience from the
age of eleven. The ten acres of the reservation offered an excellent
opportunity for truck-farming, and the versatile head of the family could not
avoid trying his luck in this branch of work. A large "market garden" was
laid out, in which Edison worked pretty steadily with the help of the Dutch
boy, Michael Oates—he of the flying experiment. These boys had a horse
and small wagon intrusted to them, and every morning in the season they
would load up with onions, lettuce, peas, etc., and go through the town.
As much as $600 was turned over to Mrs. Edison in one year from this
source. The boy was indefatigable but not altogether charmed with
agriculture. "After a while I tired of this work, as hoeing corn in a hot sun is
unattractive, and I did not wonder that it had built up cities. Soon the Grand
Trunk Railroad was extended from Toronto to Port Huron, at the foot of
Lake Huron, and thence to Detroit, at about the same time the War of the
Rebellion broke out. By a great amount of persistence I got permission from
my mother to go on the local train as a newsboy. The local train from Port
Huron to Detroit, a distance of sixty-three miles, left at 7 A.M. and arrived
again at 9.30 P.M. After being on the train for several months, I started two
stores in Port Huron—one for periodicals, and the other for vegetables,
butter, and berries in the season. These were attended by two boys who
shared in the profits. The periodical store I soon closed, as the boy in charge
could not be trusted. The vegetable store I kept up for nearly a year. After
the railroad had been opened a short time, they put on an express which left
Detroit in the morning and returned in the evening. I received permission to
put a newsboy on this train. Connected with this train was a car, one part for
baggage and the other part for U. S. mail, but for a long time it was not

used. Every morning I had two large baskets of vegetables from the Detroit
market loaded in the mail-car and sent to Port Huron, where the boy would
take them to the store. They were much better than those grown locally, and
sold readily. I never was asked to pay freight, and to this day cannot explain
why, except that I was so small and industrious, and the nerve to
appropriate a U. S. mail-car to do a free freight business was so
monumental. However, I kept this up for a long time, and in addition
bought butter from the farmers along the line, and an immense amount of
blackberries in the season. I bought wholesale and at a low price, and
permitted the wives of the engineers and trainmen to have the benefit of the
discount. After a while there was a daily immigrant train put on. This train
generally had from seven to ten coaches filled always with Norwegians, all
bound for Iowa and Minnesota. On these trains I employed a boy who sold
bread, tobacco, and stick candy. As the war progressed the daily newspaper
sales became very profitable, and I gave up the vegetable store."
The hours of this occupation were long, but the work was not particularly
heavy, and Edison soon found opportunity for his favorite avocation—
chemical experimentation. His train left Port Huron at 7 A.M., and made its
southward trip to Detroit in about three hours. This gave a stay in that city
from 10 A.M. until the late afternoon, when the train left, arriving at Port
Huron about 9.30 P.M. The train was made up of three coaches—baggage,
smoking, and ordinary passenger or "ladies." The baggage-car was divided
into three compartments—one for trunks and packages, one for the mail,
and one for smoking. In those days no use was made of the smoking-
compartment, as there was no ventilation, and it was turned over to young
Edison, who not only kept papers there and his stock of goods as a "candy
butcher," but soon had it equipped with an extraordinary variety of
apparatus. There was plenty of leisure on the two daily runs, even for an
industrious boy, and thus he found time to transfer his laboratory from the
cellar and re-establish it on the train.
His earnings were also excellent—so good, in fact, that eight or ten
dollars a day were often taken in, and one dollar went every day to his
mother. Thus supporting himself, he felt entitled to spend any other profit
left over on chemicals and apparatus. And spent it was, for with access to
Detroit and its large stores, where he bought his supplies, and to the public
library, where he could quench his thirst for technical information, Edison
gave up all his spare time and money to chemistry. Surely the country could

have presented at that moment no more striking example of the passionate
pursuit of knowledge under difficulties than this newsboy, barely fourteen
years of age, with his jars and test-tubes installed on a railway baggage-car.
Nor did this amazing equipment stop at batteries and bottles. The same
little space a few feet square was soon converted by this precocious youth
into a newspaper office. The outbreak of the Civil War gave a great stimulus
to the demand for all newspapers, noticing which he became ambitious to
publish a local journal of his own, devoted to the news of that section of the
Grand Trunk road. A small printing-press that had been used for hotel bills
of fare was picked up in Detroit, and type was also bought, some of it being
placed on the train so that composition could go on in spells of leisure. To
one so mechanical in his tastes as Edison, it was quite easy to learn the
rudiments of the printing art, and thus the Weekly Herald came into
existence, of which he was compositor, pressman, editor, publisher, and
newsdealer. Only one or two copies of this journal are now discoverable,
but its appearance can be judged from the reduced facsimile here shown.
The thing was indeed well done as the work of a youth shown by the date to
be less than fifteen years old. The literary style is good, there are only a few
trivial slips in spelling, and the appreciation is keen of what would be
interesting news and gossip. The price was three cents a copy, or eight cents
a month for regular subscribers, and the circulation ran up to over four
hundred copies an issue. This was by no means the result of mere public
curiosity, but attested the value of the sheet as a genuine newspaper, to
which many persons in the railroad service along the line were willing
contributors. Indeed, with the aid of the railway telegraph, Edison was often
able to print late news of importance, of local origin, that the distant regular
papers like those of Detroit, which he handled as a newsboy, could not get.
It is no wonder that this clever little sheet received the approval and
patronage of the English engineer Stephenson when inspecting the Grand
Trunk system, and was noted by no less distinguished a contemporary than
the London Times as the first newspaper in the world to be printed on a
train in motion. The youthful proprietor sometimes cleared as much as
twenty to thirty dollars a month from this unique journalistic enterprise.
But all this extra work required attention, and Edison solved the difficulty
of attending also to the newsboy business by the employment of a young
friend, whom he trained and treated liberally as an understudy. There was
often plenty of work for both in the early days of the war, when the news of

battle caused intense excitement and large sales of papers. Edison, with
native shrewdness already so strikingly displayed, would telegraph the
station agents and get them to bulletin the event of the day at the front, so
that when each station was reached there were eager purchasers waiting. He
recalls in particular the sensation caused by the great battle of Shiloh, or
Pittsburg Landing, in April, 1862, in which both Grant and Sherman were
engaged, in which Johnston died, and in which there was a ghastly total of
25,000 killed and wounded.
In describing his enterprising action that day, Edison says that when he
reached Detroit the bulletin-boards of the newspaper offices were
surrounded with dense crowds, which read awestricken the news that there
were 60,000 killed and wounded, and that the result was uncertain. "I knew
that if the same excitement was attained at the various small towns along
the road, and especially at Port Huron, the sale of papers would be great. I
then conceived the idea of telegraphing the news ahead, went to the
operator in the depot, and by giving him Harper's Weekly and some other
papers for three months, he agreed to telegraph to all the stations the matter
on the bulletin-board. I hurriedly copied it, and he sent it, requesting the
agents to display it on the blackboards used for stating the arrival and
departure of trains. I decided that instead of the usual one hundred papers I
could sell one thousand; but not having sufficient money to purchase that
number, I determined in my desperation to see the editor himself and get
credit. The great paper at that time was the Detroit Free Press. I walked into
the office marked 'Editorial' and told a young man that I wanted to see the
editor on important business—important to me, anyway, I was taken into an
office where there were two men, and I stated what I had done about
telegraphing, and that I wanted a thousand papers, but only had money for
three hundred, and I wanted credit. One of the men refused it, but the other
told the first spokesman to let me have them. This man, I afterward learned,
was Wilbur F. Storey, who subsequently founded the Chicago Times, and
became celebrated in the newspaper world. By the aid of another boy I
lugged the papers to the train and started folding them. The first station,
called Utica, was a small one where I generally sold two papers. I saw a
crowd ahead on the platform, and thought it some excursion, but the
moment I landed there was a rush for me; then I realized that the telegraph
was a great invention. I sold thirty-five papers there. The next station was
Mount Clemens, now a watering-place, but then a town of about one

thousand. I usually sold six to eight papers there. I decided that if I found a
corresponding crowd there, the only thing to do to correct my lack of
judgment in not getting more papers was to raise the price from five cents
to ten. The crowd was there, and I raised the price. At the various towns
there were corresponding crowds. It had been my practice at Port Huron to
jump from the train at a point about one-fourth of a mile from the station,
where the train generally slackened speed. I had drawn several loads of
sand to this point to jump on, and had become quite expert. The little Dutch
boy with the horse met me at this point. When the wagon approached the
outskirts of the town I was met by a large crowd. I then yelled: 'Twenty-five
cents apiece, gentlemen! I haven't enough to go around!' I sold all out, and
made what to me then was an immense sum of money."
Such episodes as this added materially to his income, but did not
necessarily increase his savings, for he was then, as now, an utter
spendthrift so long as some new apparatus or supplies for experiment could
be had. In fact, the laboratory on wheels soon became crowded with such
equipment, most costly chemicals were bought on the instalment plan, and
Fresenius' Qualitative Analysis served as a basis for ceaseless testing and
study. George Pullman, who then had a small shop at Detroit and was
working on his sleeping-car, made Edison a lot of wooden apparatus for his
chemicals, to the boy's delight. Unfortunately a sudden change came,
fraught with disaster. The train, running one day at thirty miles an hour over
a piece of poorly laid track, was thrown suddenly out of the perpendicular
with a violent lurch, and, before Edison could catch it, a stick of phosphorus
was jarred from its shelf, fell to the floor, and burst into flame. The car took
fire, and the boy, in dismay, was still trying to quench the blaze when the
conductor, a quick-tempered Scotchman, who acted also as baggage-master,
hastened to the scene with water and saved his car. On the arrival at Mount
Clemens station, its next stop, Edison and his entire outfit, laboratory,
printing-plant, and all, were promptly ejected by the enraged conductor, and
the train then moved off, leaving him on the platform, tearful and indignant
in the midst of his beloved but ruined possessions. It was lynch law of a
kind; but in view of the responsibility, this action of the conductor lay well
within his rights and duties.
It was through this incident that Edison acquired the deafness that has
persisted all through his life, a severe box on the ears from the scorched and
angry conductor being the direct cause of the infirmity. Although this

deafness would be regarded as a great affliction by most people, and has
brought in its train other serious baubles, Mr. Edison has always regarded it
philosophically, and said about it recently: "This deafness has been of great
advantage to me in various ways. When in a telegraph office, I could only
hear the instrument directly on the table at which I sat, and unlike the other
operators, I was not bothered by the other instruments. Again, in
experimenting on the telephone, I had to improve the transmitter so I could
hear it. This made the telephone commercial, as the magneto telephone
receiver of Bell was too weak to be used as a transmitter commercially. It
was the same with the phonograph. The great defect of that instrument was
the rendering of the overtones in music, and the hissing consonants in
speech. I worked over one year, twenty hours a day, Sundays and all, to get
the word 'specie' perfectly recorded and reproduced on the phonograph.
When this was done I knew that everything else could be done which was a
fact. Again, my nerves have been preserved intact. Broadway is as quiet to
me as a country village is to a person with normal hearing."
Saddened but not wholly discouraged, Edison soon reconstituted his
laboratory and printing-office at home, although on the part of the family
there was some fear and objection after this episode, on the score of fire.
But Edison promised not to bring in anything of a dangerous nature. He did
not cease the publication of the Weekly Herald. On the contrary, he
prospered in both his enterprises until persuaded by the "printer's devil" in
the office of the Port Huron Commercial to change the character of his
journal, enlarge it, and issue it under the name of Paul Pry, a happy
designation for this or kindred ventures in the domain of society journalism.
No copies of Paul Pry can now be found, but it is known that its style was
distinctly personal, that gossip was its specialty, and that no small offence
was given to the people whose peculiarities or peccadilloes were discussed
in a frank and breezy style by the two boys. In one instance the resentment
of the victim of such unsought publicity was so intense he laid hands on
Edison and pitched the startled young editor into the St. Clair River. The
name of this violator of the freedom of the press was thereafter excluded
studiously from the columns of Paul Pry, and the incident may have been
one of those which soon caused the abandonment of the paper. Edison had
great zest in this work, and but for the strong influences in other directions
would probably have continued in the newspaper field, in which he was,
beyond question, the youngest publisher and editor of the day.

Before leaving this period of his career, it is to be noted that it gave
Edison many favorable opportunities. In Detroit he could spend frequent
hours in the public library, and it is matter of record that he began his liberal
acquaintance with its contents by grappling bravely with a certain section
and trying to read it through consecutively, shelf by shelf, regardless of
subject. In a way this is curiously suggestive of the earnest, energetic
method of "frontal attack" with which the inventor has since addressed
himself to so many problems in the arts and sciences.
The Grand Trunk Railroad machine-shops at Port Huron were a great
attraction to the boy, who appears to have spent a good deal of his time
there. He who was to have much to do with the evolution of the modern
electric locomotive was fascinated by the mechanism of the steam
locomotive; and whenever he could get the chance Edison rode in the cab
with the engineer of his train. He became thoroughly familiar with the
intricacies of fire-box, boiler, valves, levers, and gears, and liked nothing
better than to handle the locomotive himself during the run. On one trip,
when the engineer lay asleep while his eager substitute piloted the train, the
boiler "primed," and a deluge overwhelmed the young driver, who stuck to
his post till the run and the ordeal were ended. Possibly this helped to spoil
a locomotive engineer, but went to make a great master of the new motive
power. "Steam is half an Englishman," said Emerson. The temptation is
strong to say that workaday electricity is half an American. Edison's own
account of the incident is very laughable: "The engine was one of a number
leased to the Grand Trunk by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. It had
bright brass bands all over, the woodwork beautifully painted, and
everything highly polished, which was the custom up to the time old
Commodore Vanderbilt stopped it on his roads. After running about fifteen
miles the fireman couldn't keep his eyes open (this event followed an all-
night dance of the trainmen's fraternal organization), and he agreed to
permit me to run the engine. I took charge, reducing the speed to about
twelve miles an hour, and brought the train of seven cars to her destination
at the Grand Trunk junction safely. But something occurred which was very
much out of the ordinary. I was very much worried about the water, and I
knew that if it got low the boiler was likely to explode. I hadn't gone twenty
miles before black damp mud blew out of the stack and covered every part
of the engine, including myself. I was about to awaken the fireman to find
out the cause of this when it stopped. Then I approached a station where the

fireman always went out to the cowcatcher, opened the oil-cup on the
steam-chest, and poured oil in. I started to carry out the procedure when,
upon opening the oil-cup, the steam rushed out with a tremendous noise,
nearly knocking me off the engine. I succeeded in closing the oil-cup and
got back in the cab, and made up my mind that she would pull through
without oil. I learned afterward that the engineer always shut off steam
when the fireman went out to oil. This point I failed to notice. My powers
of observation were very much improved after this occurrence. Just before I
reached the junction another outpour of black mud occurred, and the whole
engine was a sight—so much so that when I pulled into the yard everybody
turned to see it, laughing immoderately. I found the reason of the mud was
that I carried so much water it passed over into the stack, and this washed
out all the accumulated soot."
One afternoon about a week before Christmas Edison's train jumped the
track near Utica, a station on the line. Four old Michigan Central cars with
rotten sills collapsed in the ditch and went all to pieces, distributing figs,
raisins, dates, and candies all over the track and the vicinity. Hating to see
so much waste, Edison tried to save all he could by eating it on the spot, but
as a result "our family doctor had the time of his life with me in this
connection."
An absurd incident described by Edison throws a vivid light on the free-
and-easy condition of early railroad travel and on the Southern
extravagance of the time. "In 1860, just before the war broke out there came
to the train one afternoon, in Detroit, two fine-looking young men
accompanied by a colored servant. They bought tickets for Port Huron, the
terminal point for the train. After leaving the junction just outside of
Detroit, I brought in the evening papers. When I came opposite the two
young men, one of them said: 'Boy, what have you got?' I said: 'Papers.' 'All
right.' He took them and threw them out of the window, and, turning to the
colored man, said: 'Nicodemus, pay this boy.' I told Nicodemus the amount,
and he opened a satchel and paid me. The passengers didn't know what to
make of the transaction. I returned with the illustrated papers and
magazines. These were seized and thrown out of the window, and I was told
to get my money of Nicodemus. I then returned with all the old magazines
and novels I had not been able to sell, thinking perhaps this would be too
much for them. I was small and thin, and the layer reached above my head,
and was all I could possibly carry. I had prepared a list, and knew the

amount in case they bit again. When I opened the door, all the passengers
roared with laughter. I walked right up to the young men. One asked me
what I had. I said 'Magazines and novels.' He promptly threw them out of
the window, and Nicodemus settled. Then I came in with cracked hickory
nuts, then pop-corn balls, and, finally, molasses candy. All went out of the
window. I felt like Alexander the Great!—I had no more chance! I had sold
all I had. Finally I put a rope to my trunk, which was about the size of a
carpenter's chest, and started to pull this from the baggage-car to the
passenger-car. It was almost too much for my strength, but at last I got it in
front of those men. I pulled off my coat, shoes, and hat, and laid them on
the chest. Then he asked: 'What have you got, boy?' I said: 'Everything, sir,
that I can spare that is for sale.' The passengers fairly jumped with laughter.
Nicodemus paid me $27 for this last sale, and threw the whole out of the
door in the rear of the car. These men were from the South, and I have
always retained a soft spot in my heart for a Southern gentleman."
While Edison was a newsboy on the train a request came to him one day
to go to the office of E. B. Ward & Company, at that time the largest owners
of steamboats on the Great Lakes. The captain of their largest boat had died
suddenly, and they wanted a message taken to another captain who lived
about fourteen miles from Ridgeway station on the railroad. This captain
had retired, taken up some lumber land, and had cleared part of it. Edison
was offered $15 by Mr. Ward to go and fetch him, but as it was a wild
country and would be dark, Edison stood out for $25, so that he could get
the companionship of another lad. The terms were agreed to. Edison arrived
at Ridgeway at 8.30 P.M., when it was raining and as dark as ink. Getting
another boy with difficulty to volunteer, he launched out on his errand in
the pitch-black night. The two boys carried lanterns, but the road was a
rough path through dense forest. The country was wild, and it was a usual
occurrence to see deer, bear, and coon skins nailed up on the sides of houses
to dry. Edison had read about bears, but couldn't remember whether they
were day or night prowlers. The farther they went the more apprehensive
they became, and every stump in the ravished forest looked like a bear. The
other lad proposed seeking safety up a tree, but Edison demurred on the
plea that bears could climb, and that the message must be delivered that
night to enable the captain to catch the morning train. First one lantern went
out, then the other. "We leaned up against a tree and cried. I thought if I
ever got out of that scrape alive I would know more about the habits of

animals and everything else, and be prepared for all kinds of mischance
when I undertook an enterprise. However, the intense darkness dilated the
pupils of our eyes so as to make them very sensitive, and we could just see
at times the outlines of the road. Finally, just as a faint gleam of daylight
arrived, we entered the captain's yard and delivered the message. In my
whole life I never spent such a night of horror as this, but I got a good
lesson."
An amusing incident of this period is told by Edison. "When I was a
boy," he says, "the Prince of Wales, the late King Edward, came to Canada
(1860). Great preparations were made at Sarnia, the Canadian town
opposite Port Huron. About every boy, including myself, went over to see
the affair. The town was draped in flags most profusely, and carpets were
laid on the cross-walks for the prince to walk on. There were arches, etc. A
stand was built raised above the general level, where the prince was to be
received by the mayor. Seeing all these preparations, my idea of a prince
was very high; but when he did arrive I mistook the Duke of Newcastle for
him, the duke being a fine-looking man. I soon saw that I was mistaken:
that the prince was a young stripling, and did not meet expectations. Several
of us expressed our belief that a prince wasn't much, after all, and said that
we were thoroughly disappointed. For this one boy was whipped. Soon the
Canuck boys attacked the Yankee boys, and we were all badly licked. I,
myself, got a black eye. That has always prejudiced me against that kind of
ceremonial and folly." It is certainly interesting to note that in later years the
prince for whom Edison endured the ignominy of a black eye made
generous compensation in a graceful letter accompanying the gold Albert
Medal awarded by the Royal Society of Arts.
Another incident of the period is as follows: "After selling papers in Port
Huron, which was often not reached until about 9.30 at night, I seldom got
home before 11.00 or 11.30. About half-way home from the station and the
town, and within twenty-five feet of the road in a dense wood, was a
soldiers' graveyard where three hundred soldiers were buried, due to a
cholera epidemic which took place at Fort Gratiot, near by, many years
previously. At first we used to shut our eyes and run the horse past this
graveyard, and if the horse stepped on a twig my heart would give a violent
movement, and it is a wonder that I haven't some valvular disease of that
organ. But soon this running of the horse became monotonous, and after a
while all fears of graveyards absolutely disappeared from my system. I was

in the condition of Sam Houston, the pioneer and founder of Texas, who, it
was said, knew no fear. Houston lived some distance from the town and
generally went home late at night, having to pass through a dark cypress
swamp over a corduroy road. One night, to test his alleged fearlessness, a
man stationed himself behind a tree and enveloped himself in a sheet. He
confronted Houston suddenly, and Sam stopped and said: 'If you are a man,
you can't hurt me. If you are a ghost, you don't want to hurt me. And if you
are the devil, come home with me; I married your sister!'"
It is not to be inferred, however, from some of the preceding statements
that the boy was of an exclusively studious bent of mind. He had then, as
now, the keen enjoyment of a joke, and no particular aversion to the
practical form. An incident of the time is in point. "After the breaking out of
the war there was a regiment of volunteer soldiers quartered at Fort Gratiot,
the reservation extending to the boundary line of our house. Nearly every
night we would hear a call, such as 'Corporal of the Guard, No. 1.' This
would be repeated from sentry to sentry until it reached the barracks, when
Corporal of the Guard, No. 1, would come and see what was wanted. I and
the little Dutch boy, after returning from the town after selling our papers,
thought we would take a hand at military affairs. So one night, when it was
very dark, I shouted for Corporal of the Guard, No. 1. The second sentry,
thinking it was the terminal sentry who shouted, repeated it to the third, and
so on. This brought the corporal along the half mile, only to find that he was
fooled. We tried him three nights; but the third night they were watching,
and caught the little Dutch boy, took him to the lock-up at the fort, and shut
him up. They chased me to the house. I rushed for the cellar. In one small
apartment there were two barrels of potatoes and a third one nearly empty. I
poured these remnants into the other barrels, sat down, and pulled the barrel
over my head, bottom up. The soldiers had awakened my father, and they
were searching for me with candles and lanterns. The corporal was
absolutely certain I came into the cellar, and couldn't see how I could have
gotten out, and wanted to know from my father if there was no secret
hiding-place. On assurance of my father, who said that there was not, he
said it was most extraordinary. I was glad when they left, as I was cramped,
and the potatoes were rotten that had been in the barrel and violently
offensive. The next morning I was found in bed, and received a good
switching on the legs from my father, the first and only one I ever received
from him, although my mother kept a switch behind the old Seth Thomas

clock that had the bark worn off. My mother's ideas and mine differed at
times, especially when I got experimenting and mussed up things. The
Dutch boy was released next morning."

CHAPTER IV
THE YOUNG TELEGRAPH OPERATOR

"WHILE a newsboy on the railroad," says Edison, "I got very much
interested in electricity, probably from visiting telegraph offices with a
chum who had tastes similar to mine." It will also have been noted that he
used the telegraph to get items for his little journal, and to bulletin his
special news of the Civil War along the line. The next step was natural, and
having with his knowledge of chemistry no trouble about "setting up" his
batteries, the difficulties of securing apparatus were chiefly those connected
with the circuits and the instruments. American youths to-day are given, if
of a mechanical turn of mind, to amateur telegraphy or telephony, but
seldom, if ever, have to make any part of the system constructed. In
Edison's boyish days it was quite different, and telegraphic supplies were
hard to obtain. But he and his "chum" had a line between their homes, built
of common stove-pipe wire. The insulators were bottles set on nails driven
into trees and short poles. The magnet wire was wound with rags for
insulation, and pieces of spring brass were used for keys. With an idea of
securing current cheaply, Edison applied the little that he knew about static
electricity, and actually experimented with cats, which he treated vigorously
as frictional machines until the animals fled in dismay, and Edison had
learned his first great lesson in the relative value of sources of electrical
energy. The line was made to work, however, and additional to the
messages that the boys interchanged, Edison secured practice in an
ingenious manner. His father insisted on 11.30 as proper bedtime, which left
but a short interval after the long day on the train. But each evening, when
the boy went home with a bundle of papers that had not been sold in the
town, his father would sit up reading the "returnables." Edison, therefore,
on some excuse, left the papers with his friend, but suggested that he could
get the news from him by telegraph, bit by bit. The scheme interested his
father, and was put into effect, the messages being written down and handed
over for perusal. This yielded good practice nightly, lasting until 12 and 1
o'clock, and was maintained for some time until Mr. Edison became willing

that his son should stay up for a reasonable time. The papers were then
brought home again, and the boys amused themselves to their hearts'
content until the line was pulled down by a stray cow wandering through
the orchard. Meantime better instruments had been secured, and the
rudiments of telegraphy had been fairly mastered.
The mixed train on which Edison was employed as newsboy did the way-
freight work and shunting at the Mount Clemens station, about half an hour
being usually spent in the work. One August morning, in 1862, while the
shunting was in progress, and a laden box-car had been pushed out of a
siding, Edison, who was loitering about the platform, saw the little son of
the station agent, Mr. J. U. Mackenzie, playing with the gravel on the main
track along which the car without a brakeman was rapidly approaching.
Edison dropped his papers and his glazed cap, and made a dash for the
child, whom he picked up and lifted to safety without a second to spare, as
the wheel of the car struck his heel; and both were cut about the face and
hands by the gravel ballast on which they fell. The two boys were picked up
by the train-hands and carried to the platform, and the grateful father at
once offered to teach the rescuer, whom he knew and liked, the art of train
telegraphy and to make an operator of him. It is needless to say that the
proposal was eagerly accepted.
Edison found time for his new studies by letting one of his friends look
after the newsboy work on the train for part of the trip, reserving to himself
the run between Port Huron and Mount Clemens. That he was already well
qualified as a beginner is evident from the fact that he had mastered the
Morse code of the telegraphic alphabet, and was able to take to the station a
neat little set of instruments he had just finished with his own hands at a
gun-shop in Detroit. This was probably a unique achievement in itself
among railway operators of that day or of later times. The drill of the
student involved chiefly the acquisition of the special signals employed in
railway work, including the numerals and abbreviations applied to save
time. Some of these have passed into the slang of the day, "73" being well
known as a telegrapher's expression of compliments or good wishes, while
"23" is an accident or death message, and has been given broader popular
significance as a general synonym for "hoodoo." All of this came easily to
Edison, who had, moreover, as his Herald showed, an unusual familiarity
with train movement along that portion of the Grand Trunk road.

Three or four months were spent pleasantly and profitably by the youth
in this course of study, and Edison took to it enthusiastically, giving it no
less than eighteen hours a day. He then put up a little telegraph line from the
station to the village, a distance of about a mile, and opened an office in a
drug store; but the business was naturally very small. The telegraph
operator at Port Huron knowing of his proficiency, and wanting to get into
the United States Military Telegraph Corps, where the pay in those days of
the Civil War was high, succeeded in convincing his brother-in-law, Mr. M.
Walker, that young Edison could fill the position. Edison was, of course,
well acquainted with the operators along the road and at the southern
terminal, and took up his new duties very easily. The office was located in a
jewelry store, where newspapers and periodicals were also sold. Edison was
to be found at the office both day and night, sleeping there. "I became quite
valuable to Mr. Walker. After working all day I worked at the office nights
as well, for the reason that 'press report' came over one of the wires until 3
A.M., and I would cut in and copy it as well as I could, to become more
rapidly proficient. The goal of the rural telegraph operator was to be able to
take press. Mr. Walker tried to get my father to apprentice me at $20 per
month, but they could not agree. I then applied for a job on the Grand Trunk
Railroad as a railway operator, and was given a place, nights, at Stratford
Junction, Canada." Apparently his friend Mackenzie helped him in the
matter. The position carried a salary of $25 per month. No serious
objections were raised by his family, for the distance from Port Huron was
not great, and Stratford was near Bayfield, the old home from which the
Edisons had come, so that there were doubtless friends or even relatives in
the vicinity. This was in 1863.
Mr. Walker was an observant man, who has since that time installed a
number of waterworks systems and obtained several patents of his own. He
describes the boy of sixteen as engrossed intensely in his experiments and
scientific reading, and somewhat indifferent, for this reason, to his duties as
operator. This office was not particularly busy, taking from $50 to $75 a
month, but even the messages taken in would remain unsent on the hook
while Edison was in the cellar below trying to solve some chemical
problem. The manager would see him studying sometimes an article in such
a paper as the Scientific American, and then disappearing to buy a few
sundries for experiments. Returning from the drug store with his chemicals,
he would not be seen again until required by his duties, or until he had

found out for himself, if possible, in this offhand manner, whether what he
had read was correct or not. When he had completed his experiment all
interest in it was lost, and the jars and wires would be left to any fate that
might befall them. In like manner Edison would make free use of the
watchmaker's tools that lay on the little table in the front window, and
would take the wire pliers there without much thought as to their value as
distinguished from a lineman's tools. The one idea was to do quickly what
he wanted to do; and the same swift, almost headlong trial of anything that
comes to hand, while the fervor of a new experiment is felt, has been noted
at all stages of the inventor's career. One is reminded of Palissy's
recklessness, when in his efforts to make the enamel melt on his pottery he
used the very furniture of his home for firewood.
Mr. Edison remarks the fact that there was very little difference between
the telegraph of that time and of to-day, except the general use of the old
Morse register with the dots and dashes recorded by indenting paper strips
that could be read and checked later at leisure if necessary. He says: "The
telegraph men couldn't explain how it worked, and I was always trying to
get them to do so. I think they couldn't. I remember the best explanation I
got was from an old Scotch line repairer employed by the Montreal
Telegraph Company, which operated the railroad wires. He said that if you
had a dog like a dachshund, long enough to reach from Edinburgh to
London, if you pulled his tail in Edinburgh he would bark in London. I
could understand that, but I never could get it through me what went
through the dog or over the wire." To-day Mr. Edison is just as unable to
solve the inner mystery of electrical transmission. Nor is he alone. At the
banquet given to celebrate his jubilee in 1896 as professor at Glasgow
University, Lord Kelvin, the greatest physicist of our time, admitted with
tears in his eyes and the note of tragedy in his voice, that when it came to
explaining the nature of electricity, he knew just as little as when he had
begun as a student, and felt almost as though his life had been wasted while
he tried to grapple with the great mystery of physics.
Another episode of this period is curious in its revelation of the tenacity
with which Edison has always held to some of his oldest possessions with a
sense of personal attachment. "While working at Stratford Junction," he
says, "I was told by one of the freight conductors that in the freight-house at
Goodrich there were several boxes of old broken-up batteries. I went there
and found over eighty cells of the well-known Grove nitric-acid battery.

The operator there, who was also agent, when asked by me if I could have
the electrodes of each cell, made of sheet platinum, gave his permission
readily, thinking they were of tin. I removed them all, amounting to several
ounces. Platinum even in those days was very expensive, costing several
dollars an ounce, and I owned only three small strips. I was overjoyed at
this acquisition, and those very strips and the reworked scrap are used to
this day in my laboratory over forty years later."
It was at Stratford that Edison's inventiveness was first displayed. The
hours of work of a night operator are usually from 7 P.M. to 7 A.M., and to
insure attention while on duty it is often provided that the operator every
hour, from 9 P.M. until relieved by the day operator, shall send in the signal
"6" to the train dispatcher's office. Edison revelled in the opportunity for
study and experiment given him by his long hours of freedom in the
daytime, but needed sleep, just as any healthy youth does. Confronted by
the necessity of sending in this watchman's signal as evidence that he was
awake and on duty, he constructed a small wheel with notches on the rim,
and attached it to the clock in such a manner that the night-watchman could
start it when the line was quiet, and at each hour the wheel revolved and
sent in accurately the dots required for "sixing." The invention was a
success, the device being, indeed, similar to that of the modern district
messenger box; but it was soon noticed that, in spite of the regularity of the
report, "Sf" could not be raised even if a train message were sent
immediately after. Detection and a reprimand came in due course, but were
not taken very seriously.
A serious occurrence that might have resulted in accident drove him soon
after from Canada, although the youth could hardly be held to blame for it.
Edison says: "This night job just suited me, as I could have the whole day to
myself. I had the faculty of sleeping in a chair any time for a few minutes at
a time. I taught the night-yardman my call, so I could get half an hour's
sleep now and then between trains, and in case the station was called the
watchman would awaken me. One night I got an order to hold a freight
train, and I replied that I would. I rushed out to find the signalman, but
before I could find him and get the signal set, the train ran past. I ran to the
telegraph office, and reported that I could not hold her. The reply was:
'Hell!' The train dispatcher, on the strength of my message that I would hold
the train, had permitted another to leave the last station in the opposite
direction. There was a lower station near the junction where the day

operator slept. I started for it on foot. The night was dark, and I fell into a
culvert and was knocked senseless." Owing to the vigilance of the two
engineers on the locomotives, who saw each other approaching on the
straight single track, nothing more dreadful happened than a summons to
the thoughtless operator to appear before the general manager at Toronto.
On reaching the manager's office, his trial for neglect of duty was
fortunately interrupted by the call of two Englishmen; and while their
conversation proceeded, Edison slipped quietly out of the room, hurried to
the Grand Trunk freight depot, found a conductor he knew taking out a
freight train for Sarnia, and was not happy until the ferry-boat from Sarnia
had landed him once more on the Michigan shore. The Grand Trunk still
owes Mr. Edison the wages due him at the time he thus withdrew from its
service, but the claim has never been pressed.
The same winter of 1863-64, while at Port Huron, Edison had a further
opportunity of displaying his ingenuity. An ice-jam had broken the light
telegraph cable laid in the bed of the river across to Sarnia, and thus
communication was interrupted. The river is three-quarters of a mile wide,
and could not be crossed on foot; nor could the cable be repaired. Edison at
once suggested using the steam whistle of the locomotive, and by
manipulating the valve conversed the short and long outbursts of shrill
sound into the Morse code. An operator on the Sarnia shore was quick
enough to catch the significance of the strange whistling, and messages
were thus sent in wireless fashion across the ice-floes in the river. It is said
that such signals were also interchanged by military telegraphers during the
war, and possibly Edison may have heard of the practice; but be that as it
may, he certainly showed ingenuity and resource in applying such a method
to meet the necessity. It is interesting to note that at this point the Grand
Trunk now has its St. Clair tunnel, through which the trains are hauled
under the river-bed by electric locomotives.
Edison had now begun unconsciously the roaming and drifting that took
him during the next five years all over the Middle States, and that might
well have wrecked the career of any one less persistent and industrious. It
was a period of his life corresponding to the Wanderjahre of the German
artisan, and was an easy way of gratifying a taste for travel without the risk
of privation. To-day there is little temptation to the telegrapher to go to
distant parts of the country on the chance that he may secure a livelihood at
the key. The ranks are well filled everywhere, and of late years the

telegraph as an art or industry has shown relatively slight expansion, owing
chiefly to the development of telephony. Hence, if vacancies occur, there
are plenty of operators available, and salaries have remained so low as to
lead to one or two formidable and costly strikes that unfortunately took no
account of the economic conditions of demand and supply. But in the days
of the Civil War there was a great dearth of skilful manipulators of the key.
About fifteen hundred of the best operators in the country were at the front
on the Federal side alone, and several hundred more had enlisted. This
created a serious scarcity, and a nomadic operator going to any telegraphic
centre would be sure to find a place open waiting for him. At the close of
the war a majority of those who had been with the two opposed armies
remained at the key under more peaceful surroundings, but the rapid
development of the commercial and railroad systems fostered a new
demand, and then for a time it seemed almost impossible to train new
operators fast enough. In a few years, however, the telephone sprang into
vigorous existence, dating from 1876, drawing off some of the most
adventurous spirits from the telegraph field; and the deterrent influence of
the telephone on the telegraph had made itself felt by 1890. The expiration
of the leading Bell telephone patents, five years later, accentuated even
more sharply the check that had been put on telegraphy, as hundreds and
thousands of "independent" telephone companies were then organized,
throwing a vast network of toll lines over Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and
other States, and affording cheap, instantaneous means of communication
without any necessity for the intervention of an operator.
It will be seen that the times have changed radically since Edison became
a telegrapher, and that in this respect a chapter of electrical history has been
definitely closed. There was a day when the art offered a distinct career to
all of its practitioners, and young men of ambition and good family were
eager to begin even as messenger boys, and were ready to undergo a severe
ordeal of apprenticeship with the belief that they could ultimately attain
positions of responsibility and profit. At the same time operators have
always been shrewd enough to regard the telegraph as a stepping-stone to
other careers in life. A bright fellow entering the telegraph service to-day
finds the experience he may gain therein valuable, but he soon realizes that
there are not enough good-paying official positions to "go around," so as to
give each worthy man a chance after he has mastered the essentials of the
art. He feels, therefore, that to remain at the key involves either stagnation

or deterioration, and that after, say, twenty-five years of practice he will
have lost ground as compared with friends who started out in other
occupations. The craft of an operator, learned without much difficulty, is
very attractive to a youth, but a position at the key is no place for a man of
mature years. His services, with rare exceptions, grow less valuable as he
advances in age and nervous strain breaks him down. On the contrary, men
engaged in other professions find, as a rule, that they improve and advance
with experience, and that age brings larger rewards and opportunities.
The list of well-known Americans who have been graduates of the key is
indeed an extraordinary one, and there is no department of our national life
in which they have not distinguished themselves. The contrast, in this
respect, between them and their European colleagues is highly significant.
In Europe the telegraph systems are all under government management, the
operators have strictly limited spheres of promotion, and at the best the
transition from one kind of employment to another is not made so easily as
in the New World. But in the United States we have seen Rufus Bullock
become Governor of Georgia, and Ezra Cornell Governor of New York.
Marshall Jewell was Postmaster-General of President Grant's Cabinet, and
Daniel Lamont was Secretary of State in President Cleveland's. Gen. T. T.
Eckert, past-President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, was
Assistant Secretary of War under President Lincoln; and Robert J. Wynne,
afterward a consul-general, served as Assistant Postmaster General. A very
large proportion of the presidents and leading officials of the great railroad
systems are old telegraphers, including Messrs. W. C. Brown, President of
the New York Central Railroad, and Marvin Hughitt, President of the
Chicago & North western Railroad. In industrial and financial life there
have been Theodore N. Vail, President of the Bell telephone system; L. C.
Weir, late President of the Adams Express; A. B. Chandler, President of the
Postal Telegraph and Cable Company; Sir W. Van Home, identified with
Canadian development; Robert C. Clowry, President of the Western Union
Telegraph Company; D. H. Bates, Manager of the Baltimore & Ohio
telegraph for Robert Garrett; and Andrew Carnegie, the greatest ironmaster
the world has ever known, as well as its greatest philanthropist. In
journalism there have been leaders like Edward Rosewater, founder of the
Omaha Bee; W. J. Elverson, of the Philadelphia Press; and Frank A.
Munsey, publisher of half a dozen big magazines. George Kennan has
achieved fame in literature, and Guy Carleton and Harry de Souchet have

been successful as dramatists. These are but typical of hundreds of men
who could be named who have risen from work at the key to become
recognized leaders in differing spheres of activity.
But roving has never been favorable to the formation of steady habits.
The young men who thus floated about the country from one telegraph
office to another were often brilliant operators, noted for speed in sending
and receiving, but they were undisciplined, were without the restraining
influences of home life, and were so highly paid for their work that they
could indulge freely in dissipation if inclined that way. Subjected to nervous
tension for hours together at the key, many of them unfortunately took to
drink, and having ended one engagement in a city by a debauch that closed
the doors of the office to them, would drift away to the nearest town, and
there securing work, would repeat the performance. At one time, indeed,
these men were so numerous and so much in evidence as to constitute a
type that the public was disposed to accept as representative of the
telegraphic fraternity; but as the conditions creating him ceased to exist, the
"tramp operator" also passed into history. It was, however, among such
characters that Edison was very largely thrown in these early days of
aimless drifting, to learn something perhaps of their nonchalant philosophy
of life, sharing bed and board with them under all kinds of adverse
conditions, but always maintaining a stoic abstemiousness, and never
feeling other than a keen regret at the waste of so much genuine ability and
kindliness on the part of those knights errant of the key whose inevitable
fate might so easily have been his own.
Such a class or group of men can always be presented by an individual
type, and this is assuredly best embodied in Milton F. Adams, one of
Edison's earliest and closest friends, to whom reference will be made in
later chapters, and whose life has been so full of adventurous episodes that
he might well be regarded as the modern Gil Blas. That career is certainly
well worth the telling as "another story," to use the Kipling phrase. Of him
Edison says: "Adams was one of a class of operators never satisfied to work
at any place for any great length of time. He had the 'wanderlust.' After
enjoying hospitality in Boston in 1868-69, on the floor of my hall-bedroom,
which was a paradise for the entomologist, while the boarding-house itself
was run on the banting system of flesh reduction, he came to me one day
and said: 'Good-bye, Edison; I have got sixty cents, and I am going to San
Francisco.' And he did go. How, I never knew personally. I learned

afterward that he got a job there, and then within a week they had a
telegraphers' strike. He got a big torch and sold patent medicine on the
streets at night to support the strikers. Then he went to Peru as partner of a
man who had a grizzly bear which they proposed entering against a bull in
the bull-ring in that city. The grizzly was killed in five minutes, and so the
scheme died. Then Adams crossed the Andes, and started a market-report
bureau in Buenos Ayres. This didn't pay, so he started a restaurant in
Pernambuco, Brazil. There he did very well, but something went wrong (as
it always does to a nomad), so he went to the Transvaal, and ran a panorama
called 'Paradise Lost' in the Kaffir kraals. This didn't pay, and he became the
editor of a newspaper; then went to England to raise money for a railroad in
Cape Colony. Next I heard of him in New York, having just arrived from
Bogota, United States of Colombia, with a power of attorney and $2000
from a native of that republic, who had applied for a patent for tightening a
belt to prevent it from slipping on a pulley—a device which he thought a
new and great invention, but which was in use ever since machinery was
invented. I gave Adams, then, a position as salesman for electrical
apparatus. This he soon got tired of, and I lost sight of him." Adams, in
speaking of this episode, says that when he asked for transportation
expenses to St. Louis, Edison pulled out of his pocket a ferry ticket to
Hoboken, and said to his associates: "I'll give him that, and he'll get there
all right." This was in the early days of electric lighting; but down to the
present moment the peregrinations of this versatile genius of the key have
never ceased in one hemisphere or the other, so that as Mr. Adams himself
remarked to the authors in April, 1908: "The life has been somewhat
variegated, but never dull."
The fact remains also that throughout this period Edison, while himself a
very Ishmael, never ceased to study, explore, experiment. Referring to this
beginning of his career, he mentions a curious fact that throws light on his
ceaseless application. "After I became a telegraph operator," he says, "I
practiced for a long time to become a rapid reader of print, and got so
expert I could sense the meaning of a whole line at once. This faculty, I
believe, should be taught in schools, as it appears to be easily acquired.
Then one can read two or three books in a day, whereas if each word at a
time only is sensed, reading is laborious."

CHAPTER V
ARDUOUS YEARS IN THE CENTRAL WEST

IN 1903, when accepting the position of honorary electrician to the
International Exposition held in St. Louis in 1904, to commemorate the
centenary of the Louisiana Purchase, Mr. Edison spoke in his letter of the
Central West as a "region where as a young telegraph operator I spent many
arduous years before moving East." The term of probation thus referred to
did not end until 1868, and while it lasted Edison's wanderings carried him
from Detroit to New Orleans, and took him, among other cities, to
Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Memphis, some of which he
visited twice in his peregrinations to secure work. From Canada, after the
episodes noted in the last chapter, he went to Adrian, Michigan, and of what
happened there Edison tells a story typical of his wanderings for several
years to come. "After leaving my first job at Stratford Junction, I got a
position as operator on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern at Adrian,
Michigan, in the division superintendent's office. As usual, I took the 'night
trick,' which most operators disliked, but which I preferred, as it gave me
more leisure to experiment. I had obtained from the station agent a small
room, and had established a little shop of my own. One day the day
operator wanted to get off, and I was on duty. About 9 o'clock the
superintendent handed me a despatch which he said was very important,
and which I must get off at once. The wire at the time was very busy, and I
asked if I should break in. I got orders to do so, and acting under those
orders of the superintendent, I broke in and tried to send the despatch; but
the other operator would not permit it, and the struggle continued for ten
minutes. Finally I got possession of the wire and sent the message. The
superintendent of telegraph, who then lived in Adrian and went to his office
in Toledo every day, happened that day to be in the Western Union office
up-town—and it was the superintendent I was really struggling with! In
about twenty minutes he arrived livid with rage, and I was discharged on
the spot. I informed him that the general superintendent had told me to
break in and send the despatch, but the general superintendent then and

there repudiated the whole thing. Their families were socially close, so I
was sacrificed. My faith in human nature got a slight jar."
Edison then went to Toledo and secured a position at Fort Wayne, on the
Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad, now leased to the Pennsylvania
system. This was a "day job," and he did not like it. He drifted two months
later to Indianapolis, arriving there in the fall of 1864, when he was at first
assigned to duty at the Union Station at a salary of $75 a month for the
Western Union Telegraph Company, whose service he now entered, and
with which he has been destined to maintain highly important and close
relationships throughout a large part of his life. Superintendent Wallick
appears to have treated him generously and to have loaned him instruments,
a kindness that was greatly appreciated, for twenty years later the inventor
called on his old employer, and together they visited the scene where the
borrowed apparatus had been mounted on a rough board in the depot.
Edison did not stay long in Indianapolis, however, resigning in February,
1865, and proceeding to Cincinnati. The transfer was possibly due to
trouble caused by one of his early inventions embodying what has been
characterized by an expert as "probably the most simple and ingenious
arrangement of connections for a repeater." His ambition was to take "press
report," but finding, even after considerable practice, that he "broke"
frequently, he adjusted two embossing Morse registers—one to receive the
press matter, and the other to repeat the dots and dashes at a lower speed, so
that the message could be copied leisurely. Hence he could not be rushed or
"broken" in receiving, while he could turn out "copy" that was a marvel of
neatness and clearness. All was well so long as ordinary conditions
prevailed, but when an unusual pressure occurred the little system fell
behind, and the newspapers complained of the slowness with which reports
were delivered to them. It is easy to understand that with matter received at
a rate of forty words per minute and worked off at twenty-five words per
minute a serious congestion or delay would result, and the newspapers were
more anxious for the news than they were for fine penmanship.
Of this device Mr. Edison remarks: "Together we took press for several
nights, my companion keeping the apparatus in adjustment and I copying.
The regular press operator would go to the theatre or take a nap, only
finishing the report after 1 A.M. One of the newspapers complained of bad
copy toward the end of the report—that, is from 1 to 3 A.M., and requested
that the operator taking the report up to 1 A.M.—which was ourselves—

take it all, as the copy then was perfectly unobjectionable. This led to an
investigation by the manager, and the scheme was forbidden.
"This instrument, many years afterward, was applied by me for
transferring messages from one wire to any other wire simultaneously, or
after any interval of time. It consisted of a disk of paper, the indentations
being formed in a volute spiral, exactly as in the disk phonograph to-day. It
was this instrument which gave me the idea of the phonograph while
working on the telephone."
Arrived in Cincinnati, where he got employment in the Western Union
commercial telegraph department at a wage of $60 per month, Edison made
the acquaintance of Milton F. Adams, already referred to as facile princeps
the typical telegrapher in all his more sociable and brilliant aspects.
Speaking of that time, Mr. Adams says: "I can well recall when Edison
drifted in to take a job. He was a youth of about eighteen years, decidedly
unprepossessing in dress and rather uncouth in manner. I was twenty-one,
and very dudish. He was quite thin in those days, and his nose was very
prominent, giving a Napoleonic look to his face, although the curious
resemblance did not strike me at the time. The boys did not take to him
cheerfully, and he was lonesome. I sympathized with him, and we became
close companions. As an operator he had no superiors and very few equals.
Most of the time he was monkeying with the batteries and circuits, and
devising things to make the work of telegraphy less irksome. He also
relieved the monotony of office-work by fitting up the battery circuits to
play jokes on his fellow-operators, and to deal with the vermin that infested
the premises. He arranged in the cellar what he called his 'rat paralyzer,' a
very simple contrivance consisting of two plates insulated from each other
and connected with the main battery. They were so placed that when a rat
passed over them the fore feet on the one plate and the hind feet on the
other completed the circuit and the rat departed this life, electrocuted."
Shortly after Edison's arrival at Cincinnati came the close of the Civil
War and the assassination of President Lincoln. It was natural that
telegraphers should take an intense interest in the general struggle, for not
only did they handle all the news relating to it, but many of them were at
one time or another personal participants. For example, one of the operators
in the Cincinnati office was George Ellsworth, who was telegrapher for
Morgan, the famous Southern Guerrilla, and was with him when he made

his raid into Ohio and was captured near the Pennsylvania line. Ellsworth
himself made a narrow escape by swimming the Ohio River with the aid of
an army mule. Yet we can well appreciate the unimpressionable way in
which some of the men did their work, from an anecdote that Mr. Edison
tells of that awful night of Friday, April 14, 1865: "I noticed," he says, "an
immense crowd gathering in the street outside a newspaper office. I called
the attention of the other operators to the crowd, and we sent a messenger
boy to find the cause of the excitement. He returned in a few minutes and
shouted 'Lincoln's shot.' Instinctively the operators looked from one face to
another to see which man had received the news. All the faces were blank,
and every man said he had not taken a word about the shooting. 'Look over
your files,' said the boss to the man handling the press stuff. For a few
moments we waited in suspense, and then the man held up a sheet of paper
containing a short account of the shooting of the President. The operator
had worked so mechanically that he had handled the news without the
slightest knowledge of its significance." Mr. Adams says that at the time the
city was en fete on account of the close of the war, the name of the assassin
was received by telegraph, and it was noted with a thrill of horror that it
was that of a brother of Edwin Booth and of Junius Brutus Booth—the
latter of whom was then playing at the old National Theatre. Booth was
hurried away into seclusion, and the next morning the city that had been so
gay over night with bunting was draped with mourning.
Edison's diversions in Cincinnati were chiefly those already observed. He
read a great deal, but spent most of his leisure in experiment. Mr. Adams
remarks: "Edison and I were very fond of tragedy. Forrest and John
McCullough were playing at the National Theatre, and when our capital
was sufficient we would go to see those eminent tragedians alternate in
Othello and Iago. Edison always enjoyed Othello greatly. Aside from an
occasional visit to the Loewen Garden 'over the Rhine,' with a glass of beer
and a few pretzels, consumed while listening to the excellent music of a
German band, the theatre was the sum and substance of our innocent
dissipation."
The Cincinnati office, as a central point, appears to have been attractive
to many of the clever young operators who graduated from it to positions of
larger responsibility. Some of them were conspicuous for their skill and
versatility. Mr. Adams tells this interesting story as an illustration: "L. C.
Weir, or Charlie, as he was known, at that time agent for the Adams Express

Company, had the remarkable ability of taking messages and copying them
twenty-five words behind the sender. One day he came into the operating-
room, and passing a table he heard Louisville calling Cincinnati. He
reached over to the key and answered the call. My attention was arrested by
the fact that he walked off after responding, and the sender happened to be a
good one. Weir coolly asked for a pen, and when he sat down the sender
was just one message ahead of him with date, address, and signature.
Charlie started in, and in a beautiful, large, round hand copied that message.
The sender went right along, and when he finished with six messages closed
his key. When Weir had done with the last one the sender began to think
that after all there had been no receiver, as Weir did not 'break,' but simply
gave his O. K. He afterward became president of the Adams Express, and
was certainly a wonderful operator." The operating-room referred to was on
the fifth floor of the building with no elevators.
Those were the early days of trade unionism in telegraphy, and the
movement will probably never quite die out in the craft which has always
shown so much solidarity. While Edison was in Cincinnati a delegation of
five union operators went over from Cleveland to form a local branch, and
the occasion was one of great conviviality. Night came, but the unionists
were conspicuous by their absence, although more circuits than one were
intolerant of delay and clamorous for attention—-eight local unionists being
away. The Cleveland report wire was in special need, and Edison, almost
alone in the office, devoted himself to it all through the night and until 3
o'clock the next morning, when he was relieved.
He had previously been getting $80 a month, and had eked this out by
copying plays for the theatre. His rating was that of a "plug" or inferior
operator; but he was determined to lift himself into the class of first-class
operators, and had kept up the practice of going to the office at night to
"copy press," acting willingly as a substitute for any operator who wanted
to get off for a few hours—which often meant all night. Speaking of this
special ordeal, for which he had thus been unconsciously preparing, Edison
says: "My copy looked fine if viewed as a whole, as I could write a
perfectly straight line across the wide sheet, which was not ruled. There
were no flourishes, but the individual letters would not bear close
inspection. When I missed understanding a word, there was no time to think
what it was, so I made an illegible one to fill in, trusting to the printers to
sense it. I knew they could read anything, although Mr. Bloss, an editor of

the Inquirer, made such bad copy that one of his editorials was pasted up on
the notice-board in the telegraph office with an offer of one dollar to any
man who could 'read twenty consecutive words.' Nobody ever did it. When
I got through I was too nervous to go home, so waited the rest of the night
for the day manager, Mr. Stevens, to see what was to be the outcome of this
Union formation and of my efforts. He was an austere man, and I was afraid
of him. I got the morning papers, which came out at 4 A. M., and the press
report read perfectly, which surprised me greatly. I went to work on my
regular day wire to Portsmouth, Ohio, and there was considerable
excitement, but nothing was said to me, neither did Mr. Stevens examine
the copy on the office hook, which I was watching with great interest.
However, about 3 P. M. he went to the hook, grabbed the bunch and looked
at it as a whole without examining it in detail, for which I was thankful.
Then he jabbed it back on the hook, and I knew I was all right. He walked
over to me, and said: 'Young man, I want you to work the Louisville wire
nights; your salary will be $125.' Thus I got from the plug classification to
that of a 'first-class man.'"
But no sooner was this promotion secured than he started again on his
wanderings southward, while his friend Adams went North, neither having
any difficulty in making the trip. "The boys in those days had extraordinary
facilities for travel. As a usual thing it was only necessary for them to board
a train and tell the conductor they were operators. Then they would go as
far as they liked. The number of operators was small, and they were in
demand everywhere." It was in this way Edison made his way south as far
as Memphis, Tennessee, where the telegraph service at that time was under
military law, although the operators received $125 a month. Here again
Edison began to invent and improve on existing apparatus, with the result of
having once more to "move on." The story may be told in his own terse
language: "I was not the inventor of the auto repeater, but while in Memphis
I worked on one. Learning that the chief operator, who was a protege of the
superintendent, was trying in some way to put New York and New Orleans
together for the first time since the close of the war, I redoubled my efforts,
and at 2 o'clock one morning I had them speaking to each other. The office
of the Memphis Avalanche was in the same building. The paper got wind of
it and sent messages. A column came out in the morning about it; but when
I went to the office in the afternoon to report for duty I was discharged with
out explanation. The superintendent would not even give me a pass to

Nashville, so I had to pay my fare. I had so little money left that I nearly
starved at Decatur, Alabama, and had to stay three days before going on
north to Nashville. Arrived in that city, I went to the telegraph office, got
money enough to buy a little solid food, and secured a pass to Louisville. I
had a companion with me who was also out of a job. I arrived at Louisville
on a bitterly cold day, with ice in the gutters. I was wearing a linen duster
and was not much to look at, but got a position at once, working on a press
wire. My travelling companion was less successful on account of his
'record.' They had a limit even in those days when the telegraph service was
so demoralized."
Some reminiscences of Mr. Edison are of interest as bearing not only
upon the "demoralized" telegraph service, but the conditions from which
the New South had to emerge while working out its salvation. "The
telegraph was still under military control, not having been turned over to the
original owners, the Southern Telegraph Company. In addition to the
regular force, there was an extra force of two or three operators, and some
stranded ones, who were a burden to us, for board was high. One of these
derelicts was a great source of worry to me, personally. He would come in
at all hours and either throw ink around or make a lot of noise. One night he
built a fire in the grate and started to throw pistol cartridges into the flames.
These would explode, and I was twice hit by the bullets, which left a black-
and-blue mark. Another night he came in and got from some part of the
building a lot of stationery with 'Confederate States' printed at the head. He
was a fine operator, and wrote a beautiful hand. He would take a sheet of
this paper, write capital 'A', and then take another sheet and make the 'A'
differently; and so on through the alphabet; each time crumpling the paper
up in his hand and throwing it on the floor. He would keep this up until the
room was filled nearly flush with the table. Then he would quit.
"Everything at that time was 'wide open.' Disorganization reigned
supreme. There was no head to anything. At night myself and a companion
would go over to a gorgeously furnished faro-bank and get our midnight
lunch. Everything was free. There were over twenty keno-rooms running.
One of them that I visited was in a Baptist church, the man with the wheel
being in the pulpit, and the gamblers in the pews.
"While there the manager of the telegraph office was arrested for
something I never understood, and incarcerated in a military prison about

half a mile from the office. The building was in plain sight from the office,
and four stories high. He was kept strictly incommunicado. One day,
thinking he might be confined in a room facing the office, I put my arm out
of the window and kept signalling dots and dashes by the movement of the
arm. I tried this several times for two days. Finally he noticed it, and putting
his arm through the bars of the window he established communication with
me. He thus sent several messages to his friends, and was afterward set
free."
Another curious story told by Edison concerns a fellow-operator on night
duty at Chattanooga Junction, at the time he was at Memphis: "When it was
reported that Hood was marching on Nashville, one night a Jew came into
the office about 11 o'clock in great excitement, having heard the Hood
rumor. He, being a large sutler, wanted to send a message to save his goods.
The operator said it was impossible—that orders had been given to send no
private messages. Then the Jew wanted to bribe my friend, who steadfastly
refused for the reason, as he told the Jew, that he might be court-martialled
and shot. Finally the Jew got up to $800. The operator swore him to secrecy
and sent the message. Now there was no such order about private messages,
and the Jew, finding it out, complained to Captain Van Duzer, chief of
telegraphs, who investigated the matter, and while he would not discharge
the operator, laid him off indefinitely. Van Duzer was so lenient that if an
operator were discharged, all the operator had to do was to wait three days
and then go and sit on the stoop of Van Duzer's office all day, and he would
be taken back. But Van Duzer swore he would never give in in this case. He
said that if the operator had taken $800 and sent the message at the regular
rate, which was twenty-five cents, it would have been all right, as the Jew
would be punished for trying to bribe a military operator; but when the
operator took the $800 and then sent the message deadhead, he couldn't
stand it, and he would never relent."
A third typical story of this period deals with a cipher message for
Thomas. Mr. Edison narrates it as follows: "When I was an operator in
Cincinnati working the Louisville wire nights for a time, one night a man
over on the Pittsburg wire yelled out: 'D. I. cipher,' which meant that there
was a cipher message from the War Department at Washington and that it
was coming—and he yelled out 'Louisville.' I started immediately to call up
that place. It was just at the change of shift in the office. I could not get
Louisville, and the cipher message began to come. It was taken by the

operator on the other table direct from the War Department. It was for
General Thomas, at Nashville. I called for about twenty minutes and
notified them that I could not get Louisville. I kept at it for about fifteen
minutes longer, and notified them that there was still no answer from
Louisville. They then notified the War Department that they could not get
Louisville. Then we tried to get it by all kinds of roundabout ways, but in
no case could anybody get them at that office. Soon a message came from
the War Department to send immediately for the manager of the Cincinnati
office. He was brought to the office and several messages were exchanged,
the contents of which, of course, I did not know, but the matter appeared to
be very serious, as they were afraid of General Hood, of the Confederate
Army, who was then attempting to march on Nashville; and it was very
important that this cipher of about twelve hundred words or so should be
got through immediately to General Thomas. I kept on calling up to 12 or 1
o'clock, but no Louisville. About 1 o'clock the operator at the Indianapolis
office got hold of an operator on a wire which ran from Indianapolis to
Louisville along the railroad, who happened to come into his office. He
arranged with this operator to get a relay of horses, and the message was
sent through Indianapolis to this operator who had engaged horses to carry
the despatches to Louisville and find out the trouble, and get the despatches
through without delay to General Thomas. In those days the telegraph
fraternity was rather demoralized, and the discipline was very lax. It was
found out a couple of days afterward that there were three night operators at
Louisville. One of them had gone over to Jeffersonville and had fallen off a
horse and broken his leg, and was in a hospital. By a remarkable
coincidence another of the men had been stabbed in a keno-room, and was
also in hospital while the third operator had gone to Cynthiana to see a man
hanged and had got left by the train."

I think the most important line of
investigation is the production of
Electricity direct from carbon.
Edison

Young Edison remained in Louisville for about two years, quite a long
stay for one with such nomadic instincts. It was there that he perfected the
peculiar vertical style of writing which, beginning with him in telegraphy,
later became so much of a fad with teachers of penmanship and in the
schools. He says of this form of writing, a current example of which is

given above: "I developed this style in Louisville while taking press reports.
My wire was connected to the 'blind' side of a repeater at Cincinnati, so that
if I missed a word or sentence, or if the wire worked badly, I could not
break in and get the last words, because the Cincinnati man had no
instrument by which he could hear me. I had to take what came. When I got
the job, the cable across the Ohio River at Covington, connecting with the
line to Louisville, had a variable leak in it, which caused the strength of the
signalling current to make violent fluctuations. I obviated this by using
several relays, each with a different adjustment, working several sounders
all connected with one sounding-plate. The clatter was bad, but I could read
it with fair ease. When, in addition to this infernal leak, the wires north to
Cleveland worked badly, it required a large amount of imagination to get
the sense of what was being sent. An imagination requires an appreciable
time for its exercise, and as the stuff was coming at the rate of thirty-five to
forty words a minute, it was very difficult to write down what was coming
and imagine what wasn't coming. Hence it was necessary to become a very
rapid writer, so I started to find the fastest style. I found that the vertical
style, with each letter separate and without any flourishes, was the most
rapid, and that the smaller the letter the greater the rapidity. As I took on an
average from eight to fifteen columns of news report every day, it did not
take long to perfect this method." Mr. Edison has adhered to this
characteristic style of penmanship down to the present time.
As a matter of fact, the conditions at Louisville at that time were not
much better than they had been at Memphis. The telegraph operating-room
was in a deplorable condition. It was on the second story of a dilapidated
building on the principal street of the city, with the battery-room in the rear;
behind which was the office of the agent of the Associated Press. The
plastering was about one-third gone from the ceiling. A small stove, used
occasionally in the winter, was connected to the chimney by a tortuous pipe.
The office was never cleaned. The switchboard for manipulating the wires
was about thirty-four inches square. The brass connections on it were black
with age and with the arcing effects of lightning, which, to young Edison,
seemed particularly partial to Louisville. "It would strike on the wires," he
says, "with an explosion like a cannon-shot, making that office no place for
an operator with heart-disease." Around the dingy walls were a dozen
tables, the ends next to the wall. They were about the size of those seen in
old-fashioned country hotels for holding the wash-bowl and pitcher. The

copper wires connecting the instruments to the switchboard were small,
crystallized, and rotten. The battery-room was filled with old record-books
and message bundles, and one hundred cells of nitric-acid battery, arranged
on a stand in the centre of the room. This stand, as well as the floor, was
almost eaten through by the destructive action of the powerful acid. Grim
and uncompromising as the description reads, it was typical of the
equipment in those remote days of the telegraph at the close of the war.
Illustrative of the length to which telegraphers could go at a time when
they were so much in demand, Edison tells the following story: "When I
took the position there was a great shortage of operators. One night at 2
A.M. another operator and I were on duty. I was taking press report, and the
other man was working the New York wire. We heard a heavy tramp, tramp,
tramp on the rickety stairs. Suddenly the door was thrown open with great
violence, dislodging it from one of the hinges. There appeared in the
doorway one of the best operators we had, who worked daytime, and who
was of a very quiet disposition except when intoxicated. He was a great
friend of the manager of the office. His eyes were bloodshot and wild, and
one sleeve had been torn away from his coat. Without noticing either of us
he went up to the stove and kicked it over. The stove-pipe fell, dislocated at
every joint. It was half full of exceedingly fine soot, which floated out and
filled the room completely. This produced a momentary respite to his
labors. When the atmosphere had cleared sufficiently to see, he went around
and pulled every table away from the wall, piling them on top of the stove
in the middle of the room. Then he proceeded to pull the switchboard away
from the wall. It was held tightly by screws. He succeeded, finally, and
when it gave way he fell with the board, and striking on a table cut himself
so that he soon became covered with blood. He then went to the battery-
room and knocked all the batteries off on the floor. The nitric acid soon
began to combine with the plaster in the room below, which was the public
receiving-room for messengers and bookkeepers. The excess acid poured
through and ate up the account-books. After having finished everything to
his satisfaction, he left. I told the other operator to do nothing. We would
leave things just as they were, and wait until the manager came. In the mean
time, as I knew all the wires coming through to the switchboard, I rigged up
a temporary set of instruments so that the New York business could be
cleared up, and we also got the remainder of the press matter. At 7 o'clock
the day men began to appear. They were told to go down-stairs and wait the

coming of the manager. At 8 o'clock he appeared, walked around, went into
the battery-room, and then came to me, saying: 'Edison, who did this?' I told
him that Billy L. had come in full of soda-water and invented the ruin
before him. He walked backward and forward, about a minute, then coming
up to my table put his fist down, and said: 'If Billy L. ever does that again, I
will discharge him.' It was needless to say that there were other operators
who took advantage of that kind of discipline, and I had many calls at night
after that, but none with such destructive effects."
This was one aspect of life as it presented itself to the sensitive and
observant young operator in Louisville. But there was another, more
intellectual side, in the contact afforded with journalism and its leaders, and
the information taken in almost unconsciously as to the political and social
movements of the time. Mr. Edison looks back on this with great
satisfaction. "I remember," he says, "the discussions between the celebrated
poet and journalist George D. Prentice, then editor of the Courier-Journal,
and Mr. Tyler, of the Associated Press. I believe Prentice was the father of
the humorous paragraph of the American newspaper. He was poetic, highly
educated, and a brilliant talker. He was very thin and small. I do not think
he weighed over one hundred and twenty five pounds. Tyler was a graduate
of Harvard, and had a very clear enunciation, and, in sharp contrast to
Prentice, he was a large man. After the paper had gone to press, Prentice
would generally come over to Tyler's office and start talking. Having while
in Tyler's office heard them arguing on the immortality of the soul, etc., I
asked permission of Mr. Tyler if, after finishing the press matter, I might
come in and listen to the conversation, which I did many times after. One
thing I never could comprehend was that Tyler had a sideboard with liquors
and generally crackers. Prentice would pour out half a glass of what they
call corn whiskey, and would dip the crackers in it and eat them. Tyler took
it sans food. One teaspoonful of that stuff would put me to sleep."
Mr. Edison throws also a curious side-light on the origin of the comic
column in the modern American newspaper, the telegraph giving to a new
joke or a good story the ubiquity and instantaneity of an important historical
event. "It was the practice of the press operators all over the country at that
time, when a lull occurred, to start in and send jokes or stories the day men
had collected; and these were copied and pasted up on the bulletin-board.
Cleveland was the originating office for 'press,' which it received from New
York, and sent it out simultaneously to Milwaukee, Chicago, Toledo,

Detroit, Pittsburg, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Vincennes,
Terre Haute, St. Louis, and Louisville. Cleveland would call first on
Milwaukee, if he had anything. If so, he would send it, and Cleveland
would repeat it to all of us. Thus any joke or story originating anywhere in
that area was known the next day all over. The press men would come in
and copy anything which could be published, which was about three per
cent. I collected, too, quite a large scrap-book of it, but unfortunately have
lost it."
Edison tells an amusing story of his own pursuits at this time. Always an
omnivorous reader, he had some difficulty in getting a sufficient quantity of
literature for home consumption, and was in the habit of buying books at
auctions and second-hand stores. One day at an auction-room he secured a
stack of twenty unbound volumes of the North American Review for two
dollars. These he had bound and delivered at the telegraph office. One
morning, when he was free as usual at 3 o'clock, he started off at a rapid
pace with ten volumes on his shoulder. He found himself very soon the
subject of a fusillade. When he stopped, a breathless policeman grabbed
him by the throat and ordered him to drop his parcel and explain matters, as
a suspicious character. He opened the package showing the books,
somewhat to the disgust of the officer, who imagined he had caught a
burglar sneaking away in the dark alley with his booty. Edison explained
that being deaf he had heard no challenge, and therefore had kept moving;
and the policeman remarked apologetically that it was fortunate for Edison
he was not a better shot.
The incident is curiously revelatory of the character of the man, for it
must be admitted that while literary telegraphers are by no means scarce,
there are very few who would spend scant savings on back numbers of a
ponderous review at an age when tragedy, beer, and pretzels are far more
enticing. Through all his travels Edison has preserved those books, and has
them now in his library at Llewellyn Park, on Orange Mountain, New
Jersey.
Drifting after a time from Louisville, Edison made his way as far north as
Detroit, but, like the famous Duke of York, soon made his way back again.
Possibly the severer discipline after the happy-go-lucky regime in the
Southern city had something to do with this restlessness, which again
manifested itself, however, on his return thither. The end of the war had left

the South a scene of destruction and desolation, and many men who had
fought bravely and well found it hard to reconcile themselves to the grim
task of reconstruction. To them it seemed better to "let ill alone" and seek
some other clime where conditions would be less onerous. At this moment a
great deal of exaggerated talk was current as to the sunny life and easy
wealth of Latin America, and under its influences many "unreconstructed"
Southerners made their way to Mexico, Brazil, Peru, or the Argentine.
Telegraph operators were naturally in touch with this movement, and
Edison's fertile imagination was readily inflamed by the glowing idea of all
these vague possibilities. Again he threw up his steady work and, with a
couple of sanguine young friends, made his way to New Orleans. They had
the notion of taking positions in the Brazilian Government telegraphs, as an
advertisement had been inserted in some paper stating that operators were
wanted. They had timed their departure from Louisville so as to catch a
specially chartered steamer, which was to leave New Orleans for Brazil on a
certain day, to convey a large number of Confederates and their families,
who were disgusted with the United States and were going to settle in
Brazil, where slavery still prevailed. Edison and his friends arrived in New
Orleans just at the time of the great riot, when several hundred negroes
were killed, and the city was in the hands of a mob. The Government had
seized the steamer chartered for Brazil, in order to bring troops from the
Yazoo River to New Orleans to stop the rioting. The young operators
therefore visited another shipping-office to make inquiries as to vessels for
Brazil, and encountered an old Spaniard who sat in a chair near the steamer
agent's desk, and to whom they explained their intentions. He had lived and
worked in South America, and was very emphatic in his assertion, as he
shook his yellow, bony finger at them, that the worst mistake they could
possibly make would be to leave the United States. He would not leave on
any account, and they as young Americans would always regret it if they
forsook their native land, whose freedom, climate, and opportunities could
not be equalled anywhere on the face of the globe. Such sincere advice as
this could not be disdained, and Edison made his way North again. One
cannot resist speculation as to what might have happened to Edison himself
and to the development of electricity had he made this proposed plunge into
the enervating tropics. It will be remembered that at a somewhat similar
crisis in life young Robert Burns entertained seriously the idea of forsaking
Scotland for the West Indies. That he did not go was certainly better for

Scottish verse, to which he contributed later so many immortal lines; and it
was probably better for himself, even if he died a gauger. It is simply
impossible to imagine Edison working out the phonograph, telephone, and
incandescent lamp under the tropical climes he sought. Some years later he
was informed that both his companions had gone to Vera Cruz, Mexico, and
had died there of yellow fever.
Work was soon resumed at Louisville, where the dilapidated old office
occupied at the close of the war had been exchanged for one much more
comfortable and luxurious in its equipment. As before, Edison was allotted
to press report, and remembers very distinctly taking the Presidential
message and veto of the District of Columbia bill by President Johnson. As
the matter was received over the wire he paragraphed it so that each printer
had exactly three lines, thus enabling the matter to be set up very
expeditiously in the newspaper offices. This earned him the gratitude of the
editors, a dinner, and all the newspaper "exchanges" he wanted. Edison's
accounts of the sprees and debauches of other night operators in the loosely
managed offices enable one to understand how even a little steady
application to the work in hand would be appreciated. On one occasion
Edison acted as treasurer for his bibulous companions, holding the stakes,
so to speak, in order that the supply of liquor might last longer. One of the
mildest mannered of the party took umbrage at the parsimony of the
treasurer and knocked him down, whereupon the others in the party set
upon the assailant and mauled him so badly that he had to spend three
weeks in hospital. At another time two of his companions sharing the
temporary hospitality of his room smashed most of the furniture, and went
to bed with their boots on. Then his kindly good-nature rebelled. "I felt that
this was running hospitality into the ground, so I pulled them out and left
them on the floor to cool off from their alcoholic trance."
Edison seems on the whole to have been fairly comfortable and happy in
Louisville, surrounding himself with books and experimental apparatus, and
even inditing a treatise on electricity. But his very thirst for knowledge and
new facts again proved his undoing. The instruments in the handsome new
offices were fastened in their proper places, and operators were strictly
forbidden to remove them, or to use the batteries except on regular work.
This prohibition meant little to Edison, who had access to no other
instruments except those of the company. "I went one night," he says, "into
the battery-room to obtain some sulphuric acid for experimenting. The

carboy tipped over, the acid ran out, went through to the manager's room
below, and ate up his desk and all the carpet. The next morning I was
summoned before him, and told that what the company wanted was
operators, not experimenters. I was at liberty to take my pay and get out."
The fact that Edison is a very studious man, an insatiate lover and reader
of books, is well known to his associates; but surprise is often expressed at
his fund of miscellaneous information. This, it will be seen, is partly
explained by his work for years as a "press" reporter. He says of this: "The
second time I was in Louisville, they had moved into a new office, and the
discipline was now good. I took the press job. In fact, I was a very poor
sender, and therefore made the taking of press report a specialty. The
newspaper men allowed me to come over after going to press at 3 A.M. and
get all the exchanges I wanted. These I would take home and lay at the foot
of my bed. I never slept more than four or five hours' so that I would awake
at nine or ten and read these papers until dinner-time. I thus kept posted,
and knew from their activity every member of Congress, and what
committees they were on; and all about the topical doings, as well as the
prices of breadstuffs in all the primary markets. I was in a much better
position than most operators to call on my imagination to supply missing
words or sentences, which were frequent in those days of old, rotten wires,
badly insulated, especially on stormy nights. Upon such occasions I had to
supply in some cases one-fifth of the whole matter—pure guessing—but I
got caught only once. There had been some kind of convention in Virginia,
in which John Minor Botts was the leading figure. There was great
excitement about it, and two votes had been taken in the convention on the
two days. There was no doubt that the vote the next day would go a certain
way. A very bad storm came up about 10 o'clock, and my wire worked very
badly. Then there was a cessation of all signals; then I made out the words
'Minor Botts.' The next was a New York item. I filled in a paragraph about
the convention and how the vote had gone, as I was sure it would. But next
day I learned that instead of there being a vote the convention had
adjourned without action until the day after." In like manner, it was at
Louisville that Mr. Edison got an insight into the manner in which great
political speeches are more frequently reported than the public suspects.
"The Associated Press had a shorthand man travelling with President
Johnson when he made his celebrated swing around the circle in a private
train delivering hot speeches in defence of his conduct. The man engaged

me to write out the notes from his reading. He came in loaded and on the
verge of incoherence. We started in, but about every two minutes I would
have to scratch out whole paragraphs and insert the same things said in
another and better way. He would frequently change words, always to the
betterment of the speech. I couldn't understand this, and when he got
through, and I had copied about three columns, I asked him why those
changes, if he read from notes. 'Sonny,' he said, 'if these politicians had their
speeches published as they deliver them, a great many shorthand writers
would be out of a job. The best shorthanders and the holders of good
positions are those who can take a lot of rambling, incoherent stuff and
make a rattling good speech out of it.'"
Going back to Cincinnati and beginning his second term there as an
operator, Edison found the office in new quarters and with greatly improved
management. He was again put on night duty, much to his satisfaction. He
rented a room in the top floor of an office building, bought a cot and an oil-
stove, a foot lathe, and some tools. He cultivated the acquaintance of Mr.
Sommers, superintendent of telegraph of the Cincinnati & Indianapolis
Railroad, who gave him permission to take such scrap apparatus as he
might desire, that was of no use to the company. With Sommers on one
occasion he had an opportunity to indulge his always strong sense of humor.
"Sommers was a very witty man," he says, "and fond of experimenting. We
worked on a self-adjusting telegraph relay, which would have been very
valuable if we could have got it. I soon became the possessor of a second-
hand Ruhmkorff induction coil, which, although it would only give a small
spark, would twist the arms and clutch the hands of a man so that he could
not let go of the apparatus. One day we went down to the round-house of
the Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad and connected up the long wash-
tank in the room with the coil, one electrode being connected to earth.
Above this wash-room was a flat roof. We bored a hole through the roof,
and could see the men as they came in. The first man as he entered dipped
his hands in the water. The floor being wet he formed a circuit, and up went
his hands. He tried it the second time, with the same result. He then stood
against the wall with a puzzled expression. We surmised that he was waiting
for somebody else to come in, which occurred shortly after—with the same
result. Then they went out, and the place was soon crowded, and there was
considerable excitement. Various theories were broached to explain the
curious phenomenon. We enjoyed the sport immensely." It must be

remembered that this was over forty years ago, when there was no popular
instruction in electricity, and when its possibilities for practical joking were
known to very few. To-day such a crowd of working-men would be sure to
include at least one student of a night school or correspondence course who
would explain the mystery offhand.
Note has been made of the presence of Ellsworth in the Cincinnati office,
and his service with the Confederate guerrilla Morgan, for whom he tapped
Federal wires, read military messages, sent false ones, and did serious
mischief generally. It is well known that one operator can recognize another
by the way in which he makes his signals—it is his style of handwriting.
Ellsworth possessed in a remarkable degree the skill of imitating these
peculiarities, and thus he deceived the Union operators easily. Edison says
that while apparently a quiet man in bearing, Ellsworth, after the excitement
of fighting, found the tameness of a telegraph office obnoxious, and that he
became a bad "gun man" in the Panhandle of Texas, where he was killed.
"We soon became acquainted," says Edison of this period in Cincinnati,
"and he wanted me to invent a secret method of sending despatches so that
an intermediate operator could not tap the wire and understand it. He said
that if it could be accomplished, he could sell it to the Government for a
large sum of money. This suited me, and I started in and succeeded in
making such an instrument, which had in it the germ of my quadruplex now
used throughout the world, permitting the despatch of four messages over
one wire simultaneously. By the time I had succeeded in getting the
apparatus to work, Ellsworth suddenly disappeared. Many years afterward I
used this little device again for the same purpose. At Menlo Park, New
Jersey, I had my laboratory. There were several Western Union wires cut
into the laboratory, and used by me in experimenting at night. One day I sat
near an instrument which I had left connected during the night. I soon found
it was a private wire between New York and Philadelphia, and I heard
among a lot of stuff a message that surprised me. A week after that I had
occasion to go to New York, and, visiting the office of the lessee of the
wire, I asked him if he hadn't sent such and such a message. The expression
that came over his face was a sight. He asked me how I knew of any
message. I told him the circumstances, and suggested that he had better
cipher such communications, or put on a secret sounder. The result of the
interview was that I installed for him my old Cincinnati apparatus, which
was used thereafter for many years."

Edison did not make a very long stay in Cincinnati this time, but went
home after a while to Port Huron. Soon tiring of idleness and isolation he
sent "a cry from Macedonia" to his old friend "Milt" Adams, who was in
Boston, and whom he wished to rejoin if he could get work promptly in the
East.
Edison himself gives the details of this eventful move, when he went East
to grow up with the new art of electricity. "I had left Louisville the second
time, and went home to see my parents. After stopping at home for some
time, I got restless, and thought I would like to work in the East. Knowing
that a former operator named Adams, who had worked with me in the
Cincinnati office, was in Boston, I wrote him that I wanted a job there. He
wrote back that if I came on immediately he could get me in the Western
Union office. I had helped out the Grand Trunk Railroad telegraph people
by a new device when they lost one of the two submarine cables they had
across the river, making the remaining cable act just as well for their
purpose, as if they had two. I thought I was entitled to a pass, which they
conceded; and I started for Boston. After leaving Toronto a terrific blizzard
came up and the train got snowed under in a cut. After staying there twenty-
four hours, the trainmen made snowshoes of fence-rail splints and started
out to find food, which they did about a half mile away. They found a
roadside inn, and by means of snowshoes all the passengers were taken to
the inn. The train reached Montreal four days late. A number of the
passengers and myself went to the military headquarters to testify in favor
of a soldier who was on furlough, and was two days late, which was a
serious matter with military people, I learned. We willingly did this, for this
soldier was a great story-teller, and made the time pass quickly. I met here a
telegraph operator named Stanton, who took me to his boarding-house, the
most cheerless I have ever been in. Nobody got enough to eat; the
bedclothes were too short and too thin; it was 28 degrees below zero, and
the wash-water was frozen solid. The board was cheap, being only $1.50
per week.
"Stanton said that the usual live-stock accompaniment of operators'
boarding-houses was absent; he thought the intense cold had caused them to
hibernate. Stanton, when I was working in Cincinnati, left his position and
went out on the Union Pacific to work at Julesburg, which was a cattle town
at that time and very tough. I remember seeing him off on the train, never
expecting to see him again. Six months afterward, while working press wire

in Cincinnati, about 2 A.M., there was flung into the middle of the
operating-room a large tin box. It made a report like a pistol, and we all
jumped up startled. In walked Stanton. 'Gentlemen,' he said 'I have just
returned from a pleasure trip to the land beyond the Mississippi. All my
wealth is contained in my metallic travelling case and you are welcome to
it.' The case contained one paper collar. He sat down, and I noticed that he
had a woollen comforter around his neck with his coat buttoned closely.
The night was intensely warm. He then opened his coat and revealed the
fact that he had nothing but the bare skin. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'you see
before you an operator who has reached the limit of impecuniosity.'" Not far
from the limit of impecuniosity was Edison himself, as he landed in Boston
in 1868 after this wintry ordeal.
This chapter has run to undue length, but it must not close without one
citation from high authority as to the service of the military telegraph corps
so often referred to in it. General Grant in his Memoirs, describing the
movements of the Army of the Potomac, lays stress on the service of his
telegraph operators, and says: "Nothing could be more complete than the
organization and discipline of this body of brave and intelligent men.
Insulated wires were wound upon reels, two men and a mule detailed to
each reel. The pack-saddle was provided with a rack like a sawbuck, placed
crosswise, so that the wheel would revolve freely; there was a wagon
provided with a telegraph operator, battery, and instruments for each
division corps and army, and for my headquarters. Wagons were also loaded
with light poles supplied with an iron spike at each end to hold the wires up.
The moment troops were in position to go into camp, the men would put up
their wires. Thus in a few minutes' longer time than it took a mule to walk
the length of its coil, telegraphic communication would be effected between
all the headquarters of the army. No orders ever had to be given to establish
the telegraph."

CHAPTER VI
WORK AND INVENTION IN BOSTON

MILTON ADAMS was working in the office of the Franklin Telegraph
Company in Boston when he received Edison's appeal from Port Huron,
and with characteristic impetuosity at once made it his business to secure a
position for his friend. There was no opening in the Franklin office, so
Adams went over to the Western Union office, and asked the manager, Mr.
George F. Milliken, if he did not want an operator who, like young
Lochinvar, came out of the West. "What kind of copy does he make?" was
the cautious response. "I passed Edison's letter through the window for his
inspection. Milliken read it, and a look of surprise came over his
countenance as he asked me if he could take it off the line like that. I said he
certainly could, and that there was nobody who could stick him. Milliken
said that if he was that kind of an operator I could send for him, and I wrote
to Edison to come on, as I had a job for him in the main office of the
Western Union." Meantime Edison had secured his pass over the Grand
Trunk Railroad, and spent four days and nights on the journey, suffering
extremes of cold and hunger. Franklin's arrival in Philadelphia finds its
parallel in the very modest debut of Adams's friend in Boston.
It took only five minutes for Edison to get the "job," for Superintendent
Milliken, a fine type of telegraph official, saw quickly through the
superficialities, and realized that it was no ordinary young operator he was
engaging. Edison himself tells the story of what happened. "The manager
asked me when I was ready to go to work. 'Now,' I replied I was then told to
return at 5.30 P.M., and punctually at that hour I entered the main operating-
room and was introduced to the night manager. The weather being cold, and
being clothed poorly, my peculiar appearance caused much mirth, and, as I
afterward learned, the night operators had consulted together how they
might 'put up a job on the jay from the woolly West.' I was given a pen and
assigned to the New York No. 1 wire. After waiting an hour, I was told to
come over to a special table and take a special report for the Boston Herald,
the conspirators having arranged to have one of the fastest senders in New

York send the despatch and 'salt' the new man. I sat down unsuspiciously at
the table, and the New York man started slowly. Soon he increased his
speed, to which I easily adapted my pace. This put my rival on his mettle,
and he put on his best powers, which, however, were soon reached. At this
point I happened to look up, and saw the operators all looking over my
shoulder, with their faces shining with fun and excitement. I knew then that
they were trying to put up a job on me, but kept my own counsel. The New
York man then commenced to slur over his words, running them together
and sticking the signals; but I had been used to this style of telegraphy in
taking report, and was not in the least discomfited. Finally, when I thought
the fun had gone far enough, and having about completed the special, I
quietly opened the key and remarked, telegraphically, to my New York
friend: 'Say, young man, change off and send with your other foot.' This
broke the New York man all up, and he turned the job over to another man
to finish."
Edison had a distaste for taking press report, due to the fact that it was
steady, continuous work, and interfered with the studies and investigations
that could be carried on in the intervals of ordinary commercial telegraphy.
He was not lazy in any sense. While he had no very lively interest in the
mere routine work of a telegraph office, he had the profoundest curiosity as
to the underlying principles of electricity that made telegraphy possible, and
he had an unflagging desire and belief in his own ability to improve the
apparatus he handled daily. The whole intellectual atmosphere of Boston
was favorable to the development of the brooding genius in this shy,
awkward, studious youth, utterly indifferent to clothes and personal
appearance, but ready to spend his last dollar on books and scientific
paraphernalia. It is matter of record that he did once buy a new suit for
thirty dollars in Boston, but the following Sunday, while experimenting
with acids in his little workshop, the suit was spoiled. "That is what I get for
putting so much money in a new suit," was the laconic remark of the youth,
who was more than delighted to pick up a complete set of Faraday's works
about the same time. Adams says that when Edison brought home these
books at 4 A.M. he read steadily until breakfast-time, and then he remarked,
enthusiastically: "Adams, I have got so much to do and life is so short, I am
going to hustle." And thereupon he started on a run for breakfast. Edison
himself says: "It was in Boston I bought Faraday's works. I think I must
have tried about everything in those books. His explanations were simple.

He used no mathematics. He was the Master Experimenter. I don't think
there were many copies of Faraday's works sold in those days. The only
people who did anything in electricity were the telegraphers and the
opticians making simple school apparatus to demonstrate the principles."
One of these firms was Palmer & Hall, whose catalogue of 1850 showed a
miniature electric locomotive made by Mr. Thomas Hall, and exhibited in
operation the following year at the Charitable Mechanics' Fair in Boston. In
1852 Mr. Hall made for a Dr. A. L. Henderson, of Buffalo, New York, a
model line of railroad with electric-motor engine, telegraph line, and
electric railroad signals, together with a figure operating the signals at each
end of the line automatically. This was in reality the first example of
railroad trains moved by telegraph signals, a practice now so common and
universal as to attract no comment. To show how little some fundamental
methods can change in fifty years, it may be noted that Hall conveyed the
current to his tiny car through forty feet of rail, using the rail as conductor,
just as Edison did more than thirty years later in his historic experiments for
Villard at Menlo Park; and just as a large proportion of American trolley
systems do at this present moment.
It was among such practical, investigating folk as these that Edison was
very much at home. Another notable man of this stamp, with whom Edison
was thrown in contact, was the late Mr. Charles Williams, who, beginning
his career in the electrical field in the forties, was at the height of activity as
a maker of apparatus when Edison arrived in the city; and who afterward, as
an associate of Alexander Graham Bell, enjoyed the distinction of being the
first manufacturer in the world of telephones. At his Court Street workshop
Edison was a frequent visitor. Telegraph repairs and experiments were
going on constantly, especially on the early fire-alarm telegraphs [1] of
Farmer and Gamewell, and with the aid of one of the men there—probably
George Anders—Edison worked out into an operative model his first
invention, a vote-recorder, the first Edison patent, for which papers were
executed on October 11, 1868, and which was taken out June 1, 1869, No.
90,646. The purpose of this particular device was to permit a vote in the
National House of Representatives to be taken in a minute or so, complete
lists being furnished of all members voting on the two sides of any question
Mr. Edison, in recalling the circumstances, says: "Roberts was the telegraph
operator who was the financial backer to the extent of $100. The invention
when completed was taken to Washington. I think it was exhibited before a

committee that had something to do with the Capitol. The chairman of the
committee, after seeing how quickly and perfectly it worked, said: 'Young
man, if there is any invention on earth that we don't want down here, it is
this. One of the greatest weapons in the hands of a minority to prevent bad
legislation is filibustering on votes, and this instrument would prevent it.' I
saw the truth of this, because as press operator I had taken miles of
Congressional proceedings, and to this day an enormous amount of time is
wasted during each session of the House in foolishly calling the members'
names and recording and then adding their votes, when the whole operation
could be done in almost a moment by merely pressing a particular button at
each desk. For filibustering purposes, however, the present methods are
most admirable." Edison determined from that time forth to devote his
inventive faculties only to things for which there was a real, genuine
demand, something that subserved the actual necessities of humanity. This
first patent was taken out for him by the late Hon. Carroll D. Wright,
afterward U. S. Commissioner of Labor, and a well-known publicist, then
practicing patent law in Boston. He describes Edison as uncouth in manner,
a chewer rather than a smoker of tobacco, but full of intelligence and ideas.

[Footnote 1: The general scheme of a fire-alarm telegraph
system embodies a central office to which notice can be sent
from any number of signal boxes of the outbreak of a fire in
the district covered by the box, the central office in turn
calling out the nearest fire engines, and warning the fire
department in general of the occurrence. Such fire alarms
can be exchanged automatically, or by operators, and are
sometimes associated with a large fire-alarm bell or
whistle. Some boxes can be operated by the passing public;
others need special keys. The box mechanism is usually of
the ratchet, step-by-step movement, familiar in district
messenger call-boxes.]

Edison's curiously practical, though imaginative, mind demanded
realities to work upon, things that belong to "human nature's daily food,"
and he soon harked back to telegraphy, a domain in which he was destined
to succeed, and over which he was to reign supreme as an inventor. He did
not, however, neglect chemistry, but indulged his tastes in that direction
freely, although we have no record that this work was anything more, at that
time, than the carrying out of experiments outlined in the books. The
foundations were being laid for the remarkable chemical knowledge that
later on grappled successfully with so many knotty problems in the realm of
chemistry; notably with the incandescent lamp and the storage battery. Of

one incident in his chemical experiments he tells the following story: "I had
read in a scientific paper the method of making nitroglycerine, and was so
fired by the wonderful properties it was said to possess, that I determined to
make some of the compound. We tested what we considered a very small
quantity, but this produced such terrible and unexpected results that we
became alarmed, the fact dawning upon us that we had a very large white
elephant in our possession. At 6 A.M. I put the explosive into a sarsaparilla
bottle, tied a string to it, wrapped it in a paper, and gently let it down into
the sewer, corner of State and Washington Streets." The associate in this
was a man whom he had found endeavoring to make electrical apparatus for
sleight-of-hand performances.
In the Boston telegraph office at that time, as perhaps at others, there
were operators studying to enter college; possibly some were already in
attendance at Harvard University. This condition was not unusual at one
time; the first electrical engineer graduated from Columbia University, New
York, followed up his studies while a night operator, and came out
brilliantly at the head of his class. Edison says of these scholars that they
paraded their knowledge rather freely, and that it was his delight to go to the
second-hand book stores on Cornhill and study up questions which he could
spring upon them when he got an occasion. With those engaged on night
duty he got midnight lunch from an old Irishman called "the Cake Man,"
who appeared regularly with his wares at 12 midnight. "The office was on
the ground floor, and had been a restaurant previous to its occupation by the
Western Union Telegraph Company. It was literally loaded with
cockroaches, which lived between the wall and the board running around
the room at the floor, and which came after the lunch. These were such a
bother on my table that I pasted two strips of tinfoil on the wall at my desk,
connecting one piece to the positive pole of the big battery supplying
current to the wires and the negative pole to the other strip. The
cockroaches moving up on the wall would pass over the strips. The moment
they got their legs across both strips there was a flash of light and the
cockroaches went into gas. This automatic electrocuting device attracted so
much attention, and got half a column in an evening paper, that the manager
made me stop it." The reader will remember that a similar plan of campaign
against rats was carried out by Edison while in the West.
About this time Edison had a narrow escape from injury that might easily
have shortened his career, and he seems to have provoked the trouble more

or less innocently by using a little elementary chemistry. "After being in
Boston several months," he says, "working New York wire No. 1, I was
requested to work the press wire, called the 'milk route,' as there were so
many towns on it taking press simultaneously. New York office had
reported great delays on the wire, due to operators constantly interrupting,
or 'breaking,' as it was called, to have words repeated which they had failed
to get; and New York claimed that Boston was one of the worst offenders. It
was a rather hard position for me, for if I took the report without breaking,
it would prove the previous Boston operator incompetent. The results made
the operator have some hard feelings against me. He was put back on the
wire, and did much better after that. It seems that the office boy was down
on this man. One night he asked me if I could tell him how to fix a key so
that it would not 'break,' even if the circuit-breaker was open, and also so
that it could not be easily detected. I told him to jab a penful of ink on the
platinum points, as there was sugar enough to make it sufficiently thick to
hold up when the operator tried to break—the current still going through the
ink so that he could not break.
"The next night about 1 A.M. this operator, on the press wire, while I was
standing near a House printer studying it, pulled out a glass insulator, then
used upside down as a substitute for an ink-bottle, and threw it with great
violence at me, just missing my head. It would certainly have killed me if it
had not missed. The cause of the trouble was that this operator was doing
the best he could not to break, but being compelled to, opened his key and
found he couldn't. The press matter came right along, and he could not stop
it. The office boy had put the ink in a few minutes before, when the
operator had turned his head during a lull. He blamed me instinctively as
the cause of the trouble. Later on we became good friends. He took his
meals at the same emaciator that I did. His main object in life seemed to be
acquiring the art of throwing up wash-pitchers and catching them without
breaking them. About one-third of his salary was used up in paying for
pitchers."
One day a request reached the Western Union Telegraph office in Boston,
from the principal of a select school for young ladies, to the effect that she
would like some one to be sent up to the school to exhibit and describe the
Morse telegraph to her "children." There has always been a warm interest in
Boston in the life and work of Morse, who was born there, at Charlestown,
barely a mile from the birthplace of Franklin, and this request for a little

lecture on Morse's telegraph was quite natural. Edison, who was always
ready to earn some extra money for his experiments, and was already
known as the best-informed operator in the office, accepted the invitation.
What happened is described by Adams as follows: "We gathered up a
couple of sounders, a battery, and sonic wire, and at the appointed time
called on her to do the stunt. Her school-room was about twenty by twenty
feet, not including a small platform. We rigged up the line between the two
ends of the room, Edison taking the stage while I was at the other end of the
room. All being in readiness, the principal was told to bring in her children.
The door opened and in came about twenty young ladies elegantly gowned,
not one of whom was under seventeen. When Edison saw them I thought he
would faint. He called me on the line and asked me to come to the stage and
explain the mysteries of the Morse system. I replied that I thought he was in
the right place, and told him to get busy with his talk on dots and dashes.
Always modest, Edison was so overcome he could hardly speak, but he
managed to say, finally, that as his friend Mr. Adams was better equipped
with cheek than he was, we would change places, and he would do the
demonstrating while I explained the whole thing. This caused the bevy to
turn to see where the lecturer was. I went on the stage, said something, and
we did some telegraphing over the line. I guess it was satisfactory; we got
the money, which was the main point to us." Edison tells the story in a
similar manner, but insists that it was he who saved the situation. "I
managed to say that I would work the apparatus, and Mr. Adams would
make the explanations. Adams was so embarrassed that he fell over an
ottoman. The girls tittered, and this increased his embarrassment until he
couldn't say a word. The situation was so desperate that for a reason I never
could explain I started in myself and talked and explained better than I ever
did before or since. I can talk to two or three persons; but when there are
more they radiate some unknown form of influence which paralyzes my
vocal cords. However, I got out of this scrape, and many times afterward
when I chanced with other operators to meet some of the young ladies on
their way home from school, they would smile and nod, much to the
mystification of the operators, who were ignorant of this episode."
Another amusing story of this period of impecuniosity and financial
strain is told thus by Edison: "My friend Adams was working in the
Franklin Telegraph Company, which competed with the Western Union.
Adams was laid off, and as his financial resources had reached absolute

zero centigrade, I undertook to let him sleep in my hall bedroom. I
generally had hall bedrooms, because they were cheap and I needed money
to buy apparatus. I also had the pleasure of his genial company at the
boarding-house about a mile distant, but at the sacrifice of some apparatus.
One morning, as we were hastening to breakfast, we came into Tremont
Row, and saw a large crowd in front of two small 'gents' furnishing goods
stores. We stopped to ascertain the cause of the excitement. One store put
up a paper sign in the display window which said: 'Three-hundred pairs of
stockings received this day, five cents a pair—no connection with the store
next door.' Presently the other store put up a sign stating they had received
three hundred pairs, price three cents per pair, and stated that they had no
connection with the store next door. Nobody went in. The crowd kept
increasing. Finally, when the price had reached three pairs for one cent,
Adams said to me: 'I can't stand this any longer; give me a cent.' I gave him
a nickel, and he elbowed his way in; and throwing the money on the
counter, the store being filled with women clerks, he said: 'Give me three
pairs.' The crowd was breathless, and the girl took down a box and drew out
three pairs of baby socks. 'Oh!' said Adams, 'I want men's size.' 'Well, sir,
we do not permit one to pick sizes for that amount of money.' And the
crowd roared; and this broke up the sales."
It has generally been supposed that Edison did not take up work on the
stock ticker until after his arrival a little later in New York; but he says:
"After the vote-recorder I invented a stock ticker, and started a ticker
service in Boston; had thirty or forty subscribers, and operated from a room
over the Gold Exchange. This was about a year after Callahan started in
New York." To say the least, this evidenced great ability and enterprise on
the part of the youth. The dealings in gold during the Civil War and after its
close had brought gold indicators into use, and these had soon been
followed by "stock tickers," the first of which was introduced in New York
in 1867. The success of this new but still primitively crude class of
apparatus was immediate. Four manufacturers were soon busy trying to
keep pace with the demands for it from brokers; and the Gold & Stock
Telegraph Company formed to exploit the system soon increased its capital
from $200,000 to $300,000, paying 12 per cent. dividends on the latter
amount. Within its first year the capital was again increased to $1,000,000,
and dividends of 10 per cent. were paid easily on that sum also. It is
needless to say that such facts became quickly known among the operators,

from whose ranks, of course, the new employees were enlisted; and it was a
common ambition among the more ingenious to produce a new ticker. From
the beginning, each phase of electrical development—indeed, each step in
mechanics—has been accompanied by the well-known phenomenon of
invention; namely, the attempt of the many to perfect and refine and even
re-invent where one or two daring spirits have led the way. The figures of
capitalization and profit just mentioned were relatively much larger in the
sixties than they are to-day; and to impressionable young operators they
spelled illimitable wealth. Edison was, how ever, about the only one in
Boston of whom history makes record as achieving any tangible result in
this new art; and he soon longed for the larger telegraphic opportunity of
New York. His friend, Milt Adams, went West with quenchless zest for that
kind of roving life and aimless adventure of which the serious minded
Edison had already had more than enough. Realizing that to New York he
must look for further support in his efforts, Edison, deep in debt for his
embryonic inventions, but with high hope and courage, now made the next
momentous step in his career. He was far riper in experience and practice of
his art than any other telegrapher of his age, and had acquired, moreover, no
little knowledge of the practical business of life. Note has been made above
of his invention of a stock ticker in Boston, and of his establishing a stock-
quotation circuit. This was by no means all, and as a fitting close to this
chapter he may be quoted as to some other work and its perils in
experimentation: "I also engaged in putting up private lines, upon which I
used an alphabetical dial instrument for telegraphing between business
establishments, a forerunner of modern telephony. This instrument was very
simple and practical, and any one could work it after a few minutes'
explanation. I had these instruments made at Mr. Hamblet's, who had a little
shop where he was engaged in experimenting with electric clocks. Mr.
Hamblet was the father and introducer in after years of the Western Union
Telegraph system of time distribution. My laboratory was the headquarters
for the men, and also of tools and supplies for those private lines. They
were put up cheaply, as I used the roofs of houses, just as the Western
Union did. It never occurred to me to ask permission from the owners; all
we did was to go to the store, etc., say we were telegraph men, and wanted
to go up to the wires on the roof; and permission was always granted.
"In this laboratory I had a large induction coil which I had borrowed to
make some experiments with. One day I got hold of both electrodes of the

coil, and it clinched my hand on them so that I couldn't let go. The battery
was on a shelf. The only way I could get free was to back off and pull the
coil, so that the battery wires would pull the cells off the shelf and thus
break the circuit. I shut my eyes and pulled, but the nitric acid splashed all
over my face and ran down my back. I rushed to a sink, which was only
half big enough, and got in as well as I could and wiggled around for
several minutes to permit the water to dilute the acid and stop the pain. My
face and back were streaked with yellow; the skin was thoroughly oxidized.
I did not go on the street by daylight for two weeks, as the appearance of
my face was dreadful. The skin, however, peeled off, and new skin replaced
it without any damage."

CHAPTER VII
THE STOCK TICKER

"THE letters and figures used in the language of the tape," said a well-
known Boston stock speculator, "are very few, but they spell ruin in ninety-
nine million ways." It is not to be inferred, however, that the modern stock
ticker has anything to do with the making or losing of fortunes. There were
regular daily stock-market reports in London newspapers in 1825, and New
York soon followed the example. As far back as 1692, Houghton issued in
London a weekly review of financial and commercial transactions, upon
which Macaulay based the lively narrative of stock speculation in the
seventeenth century, given in his famous history. That which the ubiquitous
stock ticker has done is to give instantaneity to the news of what the stock
market is doing, so that at every minute, thousands of miles apart, brokers,
investors, and gamblers may learn the exact conditions. The existence of
such facilities is to be admired rather than deplored. News is vital to Wall
Street, and there is no living man on whom the doings in Wall Street are
without effect. The financial history of the United States and of the world,
as shown by the prices of government bonds and general securities, has
been told daily for forty years on these narrow strips of paper tape, of which
thousands of miles are run yearly through the "tickers" of New York alone.
It is true that the record of the chattering little machine, made in cabalistic
abbreviations on the tape, can drive a man suddenly to the very verge of
insanity with joy or despair; but if there be blame for that, it attaches to the
American spirit of speculation and not to the ingenious mechanism which
reads and registers the beating of the financial pulse.
Edison came first to New York in 1868, with his early stock printer,
which he tried unsuccessfully to sell. He went back to Boston, and quite
undismayed got up a duplex telegraph. "Toward the end of my stay in
Boston," he says, "I obtained a loan of money, amounting to $800, to build
a peculiar kind of duplex telegraph for sending two messages over a single
wire simultaneously. The apparatus was built, and I left the Western Union
employ and went to Rochester, New York, to test the apparatus on the lines

of the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph between that city and New York. But the
assistant at the other end could not be made to understand anything,
notwithstanding I had written out a very minute description of just what to
do. After trying for a week I gave it up and returned to New York with but a
few cents in my pocket." Thus he who has never speculated in a stock in his
life was destined to make the beginnings of his own fortune by providing
for others the apparatus that should bring to the eye, all over a great city, the
momentary fluctuations of stocks and bonds. No one could have been in
direr poverty than he when the steamboat landed him in New York in 1869.
He was in debt, and his few belongings in books and instruments had to be
left behind. He was not far from starving. Mr. W. S. Mallory, an associate of
many years, quotes directly from him on this point: "Some years ago we
had a business negotiation in New York which made it necessary for Mr.
Edison and me to visit the city five or six times within a comparatively
short period. It was our custom to leave Orange about 11 A.M., and on
arrival in New York to get our lunch before keeping the appointments,
which were usually made for two o'clock. Several of these lunches were had
at Delmonico's, Sherry's, and other places of similar character, but one day,
while en route, Mr. Edison said: 'I have been to lunch with you several
times; now to-day I am going to take you to lunch with me, and give you
the finest lunch you ever had.' When we arrived in Hoboken, we took the
downtown ferry across the Hudson, and when we arrived on the Manhattan
side Mr. Edison led the way to Smith & McNell's, opposite Washington
Market, and well known to old New Yorkers. We went inside and as soon as
the waiter appeared Mr. Edison ordered apple dumplings and a cup of
coffee for himself. He consumed his share of the lunch with the greatest
possible pleasure. Then, as soon as he had finished, he went to the cigar
counter and purchased cigars. As we walked to keep the appointment he
gave me the following reminiscence: When he left Boston and decided to
come to New York he had only money enough for the trip. After leaving the
boat his first thought was of breakfast; but he was without money to obtain
it. However, in passing a wholesale tea-house he saw a man tasting tea, so
he went in and asked the 'taster' if he might have some of the tea. This the
man gave him, and thus he obtained his first breakfast in New York. He
knew a telegraph operator here, and on him he depended for a loan to tide
him over until such time as he should secure a position. During the day he
succeeded in locating this operator, but found that he also was out of a job,

and that the best he could do was to loan him one dollar, which he did. This
small sum of money represented both food and lodging until such time as
work could be obtained. Edison said that as the result of the time consumed
and the exercise in walking while he found his friend, he was extremely
hungry, and that he gave most serious consideration as to what he should
buy in the way of food, and what particular kind of food would be most
satisfying and filling. The result was that at Smith & McNell's he decided
on apple dumplings and a cup of coffee, than which he never ate anything
more appetizing. It was not long before he was at work and was able to live
in a normal manner."
During the Civil War, with its enormous increase in the national debt and
the volume of paper money, gold had gone to a high premium; and, as ever,
by its fluctuations in price the value of all other commodities was
determined. This led to the creation of a "Gold Room" in Wall Street, where
the precious metal could be dealt in; while for dealings in stocks there also
existed the "Regular Board," the "Open Board," and the "Long Room."
Devoted to one, but the leading object of speculation, the "Gold Room" was
the very focus of all the financial and gambling activity of the time, and its
quotations governed trade and commerce. At first notations in chalk on a
blackboard sufficed, but seeing their inadequacy, Dr. S. S. Laws, vice-
president and actual presiding officer of the Gold Exchange, devised and
introduced what was popularly known as the "gold indicator." This
exhibited merely the prevailing price of gold; but as its quotations changed
from instant to instant, it was in a most literal sense "the cynosure of
neighboring eyes." One indicator looked upon the Gold Room; the other
opened toward the street. Within the exchange the face could easily be seen
high up on the west wall of the room, and the machine was operated by Mr.
Mersereau, the official registrar of the Gold Board.
Doctor Laws, who afterward became President of the State University of
Missouri, was an inventor of unusual ability and attainments. In his early
youth he had earned his livelihood in a tool factory; and, apparently with
his savings, he went to Princeton, where he studied electricity under no less
a teacher than the famous Joseph Henry. At the outbreak of the war in 1861
he was president of one of the Presbyterian synodical colleges in the South,
whose buildings passed into the hands of the Government. Going to Europe,
he returned to New York in 1863, and, becoming interested with a relative
in financial matters, his connection with the Gold Exchange soon followed,

when it was organized. The indicating mechanism he now devised was
electrical, controlled at central by two circuit-closing keys, and was a
prototype of all the later and modern step-by-step printing telegraphs, upon
which the distribution of financial news depends. The "fraction" drum of
the indicator could be driven in either direction, known as the advance and
retrograde movements, and was divided and marked in eighths. It geared
into a "unit" drum, just as do speed-indicators and cyclometers. Four
electrical pulsations were required to move the drum the distance between
the fractions. The general operation was simple, and in normally active
times the mechanism and the registrar were equal to all emergencies. But it
is obvious that the record had to be carried away to the brokers' offices and
other places by messengers; and the delay, confusion, and mistakes soon
suggested to Doctor Laws the desirability of having a number of indicators
at such scattered points, operated by a master transmitter, and dispensing
with the regiments of noisy boys. He secured this privilege of distribution,
and, resigning from the exchange, devoted his exclusive attention to the
"Gold Reporting Telegraph," which he patented, and for which, at the end
of 1866, he had secured fifty subscribers. His indicators were small oblong
boxes, in the front of which was a long slot, allowing the dials as they
travelled past, inside, to show the numerals constituting the quotation; the
dials or wheels being arranged in a row horizontally, overlapping each
other, as in modern fare registers which are now seen on most trolley cars.
It was not long before there were three hundred subscribers; but the very
success of this device brought competition and improvement. Mr. E. A.
Callahan, an ingenious printing-telegraph operator, saw that there were
unexhausted possibilities in the idea, and his foresight and inventiveness
made him the father of the "ticker," in connection with which he was thus,
like Laws, one of the first to grasp and exploit the underlying principle of
the "central station" as a universal source of supply. The genesis of his
invention Mr. Callahan has told in an interesting way: "In 1867, on the site
of the present Mills Building on Broad Street, opposite the Stock Exchange
of today, was an old building which had been cut up to subserve the
necessities of its occupants, all engaged in dealing in gold and stocks. It had
one main entrance from the street to a hallway, from which entrance to the
offices of two prominent broker firms was obtained. Each firm had its own
army of boys, numbering from twelve to fifteen, whose duties were to
ascertain the latest quotations from the different exchanges. Each boy

devoted his attention to some particularly active stock. Pushing each other
to get into these narrow quarters, yelling out the prices at the door, and
pushing back for later ones, the hustle made this doorway to me a most
undesirable refuge from an April shower. I was simply whirled into the
street. I naturally thought that much of this noise and confusion might be
dispensed with, and that the prices might be furnished through some system
of telegraphy which would not require the employment of skilled operators.
The conception of the stock ticker dates from this incident."
Mr. Callahan's first idea was to distribute gold quotations, and to this end
he devised an "indicator." It consisted of two dials mounted separately, each
revolved by an electromagnet, so that the desired figures were brought to an
aperture in the case enclosing the apparatus, as in the Laws system. Each
shaft with its dial was provided with two ratchet wheels, one the reverse of
the other. One was used in connection with the propelling lever, which was
provided with a pawl to fit into the teeth of the reversed ratchet wheel on its
forward movement. It was thus made impossible for either dial to go by
momentum beyond its limit. Learning that Doctor Laws, with the skilful aid
of F. L. Pope, was already active in the same direction, Mr. Callahan, with
ready wit, transformed his indicator into a "ticker" that would make a
printed record. The name of the "ticker" came through the casual remark of
an observer to whom the noise was the most striking feature of the
mechanism. Mr. Callahan removed the two dials, and, substituting type
wheels, turned the movements face to face, so that each type wheel could
imprint its characters upon a paper tape in two lines. Three wires stranded
together ran from the central office to each instrument. Of these one
furnished the current for the alphabet wheel, one for the figure wheel, and
one for the mechanism that took care of the inking and printing on the tape.
Callahan made the further innovation of insulating his circuit wires,
although the cost was then forty times as great as that of bare wire. It will
be understood that electromagnets were the ticker's actuating agency. The
ticker apparatus was placed under a neat glass shade and mounted on a
shelf. Twenty-five instruments were energized from one circuit, and the
quotations were supplied from a "central" at 18 New Street. The Gold &
Stock Telegraph Company was promptly organized to supply to brokers the
system, which was very rapidly adopted throughout the financial district of
New York, at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Quotations were
transmitted by the Morse telegraph from the floor of the Stock Exchange to

the "central," and thence distributed to the subscribers. Success with the
"stock" news system was instantaneous.
It was at this juncture that Edison reached New York, and according to
his own statement found shelter at night in the battery-room of the Gold
Indicator Company, having meantime applied for a position as operator
with the Western Union. He had to wait a few days, and during this time he
seized the opportunity to study the indicators and the complicated general
transmitter in the office, controlled from the keyboard of the operator on the
floor of the Gold Exchange. What happened next has been the basis of
many inaccurate stories, but is dramatic enough as told in Mr. Edison's own
version: "On the third day of my arrival and while sitting in the office, the
complicated general instrument for sending on all the lines, and which
made a very great noise, suddenly came to a stop with a crash. Within two
minutes over three hundred boys—a boy from every broker in the street—
rushed up-stairs and crowded the long aisle and office, that hardly had room
for one hundred, all yelling that such and such a broker's wire was out of
order and to fix it at once. It was pandemonium, and the man in charge
became so excited that he lost control of all the knowledge he ever had. I
went to the indicator, and, having studied it thoroughly, knew where the
trouble ought to be, and found it. One of the innumerable contact springs
had broken off and had fallen down between the two gear wheels and
stopped the instrument; but it was not very noticeable. As I went out to tell
the man in charge what the matter was, Doctor Laws appeared on the scene,
the most excited person I had seen. He demanded of the man the cause of
the trouble, but the man was speechless. I ventured to say that I knew what
the trouble was, and he said, 'Fix it! Fix it! Be quick!' I removed the spring
and set the contact wheels at zero; and the line, battery, and inspecting men
all scattered through the financial district to set the instruments. In about
two hours things were working again. Doctor Laws came in to ask my name
and what I was doing. I told him, and he asked me to come to his private
office the following day. His office was filled with stacks of books all
relating to metaphysics and kindred matters. He asked me a great many
questions about the instruments and his system, and I showed him how he
could simplify things generally. He then requested that I should call next
day. On arrival, he stated at once that he had decided to put me in charge of
the whole plant, and that my salary would be $300 per month! This was
such a violent jump from anything I had ever seen before, that it rather

paralyzed me for a while, I thought it was too much to be lasting, but I
determined to try and live up to that salary if twenty hours a day of hard
work would do it. I kept this position, made many improvements, devised
several stock tickers, until the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company
consolidated with the Gold Indicator Company." Certainly few changes in
fortune have been more sudden and dramatic in any notable career than this
which thus placed an ill-clad, unkempt, half-starved, eager lad in a position
of such responsibility in days when the fluctuations in the price of gold at
every instant meant fortune or ruin to thousands.
Edison, barely twenty-one years old, was a keen observer of the stirring
events around him. "Wall Street" is at any time an interesting study, but it
was never at a more agitated and sensational period of its history than at
this time. Edison's arrival in New York coincided with an active speculation
in gold which may, indeed, be said to have provided him with occupation;
and was soon followed by the attempt of Mr. Jay Gould and his associates
to corner the gold market, precipitating the panic of Black Friday,
September 24, 1869. Securing its import duties in the precious metal and
thus assisting to create an artificial stringency in the gold market, the
Government had made it a practice to relieve the situation by selling a
million of gold each month. The metal was thus restored to circulation. In
some manner, President Grant was persuaded that general conditions and
the movement of the crops would be helped if the sale of gold were
suspended for a time; and, this put into effect, he went to visit an old friend
in Pennsylvania remote from railroads and telegraphs. The Gould pool had
acquired control of $10,000,000 in gold, and drove the price upward rapidly
from 144 toward their goal of 200. On Black Friday they purchased another
$28,000,000 at 160, and still the price went up. The financial and
commercial interests of the country were in panic; but the pool persevered
in its effort to corner gold, with a profit of many millions contingent on
success. Yielding to frantic requests, President Grant, who returned to
Washington, caused Secretary Boutwell, of the Treasury, to throw
$4,000,000 of gold into the market. Relief was instantaneous, the corner
was broken, but the harm had been done. Edison's remarks shed a vivid
side-light on this extraordinary episode: "On Black Friday," he says, "we
had a very exciting time with the indicators. The Gould and Fisk crowd had
cornered gold, and had run the quotations up faster than the indicator could
follow. The indicator was composed of several wheels; on the

circumference of each wheel were the numerals; and one wheel had
fractions. It worked in the same way as an ordinary counter; one wheel
made ten revolutions, and at the tenth it advanced the adjacent wheel; and
this in its turn having gone ten revolutions, advanced the next wheel, and so
on. On the morning of Black Friday the indicator was quoting 150
premium, whereas the bids by Gould's agents in the Gold Room were 165
for five millions or any part. We had a paper-weight at the transmitter (to
speed it up), and by one o'clock reached the right quotation. The excitement
was prodigious. New Street, as well as Broad Street, was jammed with
excited people. I sat on the top of the Western Union telegraph booth to
watch the surging, crazy crowd. One man came to the booth, grabbed a
pencil, and attempted to write a message to Boston. The first stroke went
clear off the blank; he was so excited that he had the operator write the
message for him. Amid great excitement Speyer, the banker, went crazy and
it took five men to hold him; and everybody lost their head. The Western
Union operator came to me and said: 'Shake, Edison, we are O. K. We
haven't got a cent.' I felt very happy because we were poor. These occasions
are very enjoyable to a poor man; but they occur rarely."
There is a calm sense of detachment about this description that has been
possessed by the narrator even in the most anxious moments of his career.
He was determined to see all that could be seen, and, quitting his perch on
the telegraph booth, sought the more secluded headquarters of the pool
forces. "A friend of mine was an operator who worked in the office of
Belden & Company, 60 Broadway, which were headquarters for Fisk. Mr.
Gould was up-town in the Erie offices in the Grand Opera House. The firm
on Broad Street, Smith, Gould & Martin, was the other branch. All were
connected with wires. Gould seemed to be in charge, Fisk being the
executive down-town. Fisk wore a velvet corduroy coat and a very peculiar
vest. He was very chipper, and seemed to be light-hearted and happy.
Sitting around the room were about a dozen fine-looking men. All had the
complexion of cadavers. There was a basket of champagne. Hundreds of
boys were rushing in paying checks, all checks being payable to Belden &
Company. When James Brown, of Brown Brothers & Company, broke the
corner by selling five million gold, all payments were repudiated by Smith,
Gould & Martin; but they continued to receive checks at Belden &
Company's for some time, until the Street got wind of the game. There was
some kind of conspiracy with the Government people which I could not

make out, but I heard messages that opened my eyes as to the ramifications
of Wall Street. Gold fell to 132, and it took us all night to get the indicator
back to that quotation. All night long the streets were full of people. Every
broker's office was brilliantly lighted all night, and all hands were at work.
The clearing-house for gold had been swamped, and all was mixed up. No
one knew if he was bankrupt or not."
Edison in those days rather liked the modest coffee-shops, and mentions
visiting one. "When on the New York No. 1 wire, that I worked in Boston,
there was an operator named Jerry Borst at the other end. He was a first-
class receiver and rapid sender. We made up a scheme to hold this wire, so
he changed one letter of the alphabet and I soon got used to it; and finally
we changed three letters. If any operator tried to receive from Borst, he
couldn't do it, so Borst and I always worked together. Borst did less talking
than any operator I ever knew. Never having seen him, I went while in New
York to call upon him. I did all the talking. He would listen, stroke his
beard, and say nothing. In the evening I went over to an all-night lunch-
house in Printing House Square in a basement—Oliver's. Night editors,
including Horace Greeley, and Henry Raymond, of the New York Times,
took their midnight lunch there. When I went with Borst and another
operator, they pointed out two or three men who were then celebrated in the
newspaper world. The night was intensely hot and close. After getting our
lunch and upon reaching the sidewalk, Borst opened his mouth, and said:
'That's a great place; a plate of cakes, a cup of coffee, and a Russian bath,
for ten cents.' This was about fifty per cent. of his conversation for two
days."
The work of Edison on the gold-indicator had thrown him into close
relationship with Mr. Franklin L. Pope, the young telegraph engineer then
associated with Doctor Laws, and afterward a distinguished expert and
technical writer, who became President of the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers in 1886. Each recognized the special ability of the
other, and barely a week after the famous events of Black Friday the
announcement of their partnership appeared in the Telegrapher of October
1, 1869. This was the first "professional card," if it may be so described,
ever issued in America by a firm of electrical engineers, and is here
reproduced. It is probable that the advertisement, one of the largest in the
Telegrapher, and appearing frequently, was not paid for at full rates, as the
publisher, Mr. J. N. Ashley, became a partner in the firm, and not altogether

a "sleeping one" when it came to a division of profits, which at times were
considerable. In order to be nearer his new friend Edison boarded with Pope
at Elizabeth, New Jersey, for some time, living "the strenuous life" in the
performance of his duties. Associated with Pope and Ashley, he followed up
his work on telegraph printers with marked success. "While with them I
devised a printer to print gold quotations instead of indicating them. The
lines were started, and the whole was sold out to the Gold & Stock
Telegraph Company. My experimenting was all done in the small shop of a
Doctor Bradley, located near the station of the Pennsylvania Railroad in
Jersey City. Every night I left for Elizabeth on the 1 A.M. train, then walked
half a mile to Mr. Pope's house and up at 6 A.M. for breakfast to catch the 7
A.M. train. This continued all winter, and many were the occasions when I
was nearly frozen in the Elizabeth walk." This Doctor Bradley appears to
have been the first in this country to make electrical measurements of
precision with the galvanometer, but was an old-school experimenter who
would work for years on an instrument without commercial value. He was
also extremely irascible, and when on one occasion the connecting wire
would not come out of one of the binding posts of a new and costly
galvanometer, he jerked the instrument to the floor and then jumped on it.
He must have been, however, a man of originality, as evidenced by his
attempt to age whiskey by electricity, an attempt that has often since been
made. "The hobby he had at the time I was there," says Edison, "was the
aging of raw whiskey by passing strong electric currents through it. He had
arranged twenty jars with platinum electrodes held in place by hard rubber.
When all was ready, he filled the cells with whiskey, connected the battery,
locked the door of the small room in which they were placed, and gave
positive orders that no one should enter. He then disappeared for three days.
On the second day we noticed a terrible smell in the shop, as if from some
dead animal. The next day the doctor arrived and, noticing the smell, asked
what was dead. We all thought something had got into his whiskey-room
and died. He opened it and was nearly overcome. The hard rubber he used
was, of course, full of sulphur, and this being attacked by the nascent
hydrogen, had produced sulphuretted hydrogen gas in torrents, displacing
all of the air in the room. Sulphuretted hydrogen is, as is well known, the
gas given off by rotten eggs."
Another glimpse of this period of development is afforded by an
interesting article on the stock-reporting telegraph in the Electrical World of

March 4, 1899, by Mr. Ralph W. Pope, the well-known Secretary of the
American Institute of Electrical Engineers, who had as a youth an active
and intimate connection with that branch of electrical industry. In the course
of his article he mentions the curious fact that Doctor Laws at first, in
receiving quotations from the Exchanges, was so distrustful of the Morse
system that he installed long lines of speaking-tube as a more satisfactory
and safe device than a telegraph wire. As to the relations of that time Mr.
Pope remarks: "The rivalry between the two concerns resulted in
consolidation, Doctor Laws's enterprise being absorbed by the Gold &
Stock Telegraph Company, while the Laws stock printer was relegated to
the scrap-heap and the museum. Competition in the field did not, however,
cease. Messrs. Pope and Edison invented a one-wire printer, and started a
system of 'gold printers' devoted to the recording of gold quotations and
sterling exchange only. It was intended more especially for importers and
exchange brokers, and was furnished at a lower price than the indicator
service.... The building and equipment of private telegraph lines was also
entered upon. This business was also subsequently absorbed by the Gold &
Stock Telegraph Company, which was probably at this time at the height of
its prosperity. The financial organization of the company was peculiar and
worthy of attention. Each subscriber for a machine paid in $100 for the
privilege of securing an instrument. For the service he paid $25 weekly. In
case he retired or failed, he could transfer his 'right,' and employees were
constantly on the alert for purchasable rights, which could be disposed of at
a profit. It was occasionally worth the profit to convince a man that he did
not actually own the machine which had been placed in his office.... The
Western Union Telegraph Company secured a majority of its stock, and
Gen. Marshall Lefferts was elected president. A private-line department was
established, and the business taken over from Pope, Edison, and Ashley was
rapidly enlarged."
At this juncture General Lefferts, as President of the Gold & Stock
Telegraph Company, requested Edison to go to work on improving the stock
ticker, furnishing the money; and the well-known "Universal" ticker, in
wide-spread use in its day, was one result. Mr. Edison gives a graphic
picture of the startling effect on his fortunes: "I made a great many
inventions; one was the special ticker used for many years outside of New
York in the large cities. This was made exceedingly simple, as they did not
have the experts we had in New York to handle anything complicated. The

same ticker was used on the London Stock Exchange. After I had made a
great number of inventions and obtained patents, the General seemed
anxious that the matter should be closed up. One day I exhibited and
worked a successful device whereby if a ticker should get out of unison in a
broker's office and commence to print wild figures, it could be brought to
unison from the central station, which saved the labor of many men and
much trouble to the broker. He called me into his office, and said: 'Now,
young man, I want to close up the matter of your inventions. How much do
you think you should receive?' I had made up my mind that, taking into
consideration the time and killing pace I was working at, I should be
entitled to $5000, but could get along with $3000. When the psychological
moment arrived, I hadn't the nerve to name such a large sum, so I said:
'Well, General, suppose you make me an offer.' Then he said: 'How would
$40,000 strike you?' This caused me to come as near fainting as I ever got. I
was afraid he would hear my heart beat. I managed to say that I thought it
was fair. 'All right, I will have a contract drawn; come around in three days
and sign it, and I will give you the money.' I arrived on time, but had been
doing some considerable thinking on the subject. The sum seemed to be
very large for the amount of work, for at that time I determined the value by
the time and trouble, and not by what the invention was worth to others. I
thought there was something unreal about it. However, the contract was
handed to me. I signed without reading it." Edison was then handed the first
check he had ever received, one for $40,000 drawn on the Bank of New
York, at the corner of William and Wall Streets. On going to the bank and
passing in the check at the wicket of the paying teller, some brief remarks
were made to him, which in his deafness he did not understand. The check
was handed back to him, and Edison, fancying for a moment that in some
way he had been cheated, went outside "to the large steps to let the cold
sweat evaporate." He then went back to the General, who, with his
secretary, had a good laugh over the matter, told him the check must be
endorsed, and sent with him a young man to identify him. The ceremony of
identification performed with the paying teller, who was quite merry over
the incident, Edison was given the amount in bundles of small bills "until
there certainly seemed to be one cubic foot." Unaware that he was the
victim of a practical joke, Edison proceeded gravely to stow away the
money in his overcoat pockets and all his other pockets. He then went to
Newark and sat up all night with the money for fear it might be stolen.

Once more he sought help next morning, when the General laughed
heartily, and, telling the clerk that the joke must not be carried any further,
enabled him to deposit the currency in the bank and open an account.
Thus in an inconceivably brief time had Edison passed from poverty to
independence; made a deep impression as to his originality and ability on
important people, and brought out valuable inventions; lifting himself at
one bound out of the ruck of mediocrity, and away from the deadening
drudgery of the key. Best of all he was enterprising, one of the leaders and
pioneers for whom the world is always looking; and, to use his own
criticism of himself, he had "too sanguine a temperament to keep money in
solitary confinement." With quiet self-possession he seized his opportunity,
began to buy machinery, rented a shop and got work for it. Moving quickly
into a larger shop, Nos. 10 and 12 Ward Street, Newark, New Jersey, he
secured large orders from General Lefferts to build stock tickers, and
employed fifty men. As business increased he put on a night force, and was
his own foreman on both shifts. Half an hour of sleep three or four times in
the twenty-four hours was all he needed in those days, when one invention
succeeded another with dazzling rapidity, and when he worked with the
fierce, eruptive energy of a great volcano, throwing out new ideas
incessantly with spectacular effect on the arts to which they related. It has
always been a theory with Edison that we sleep altogether too much; but on
the other hand he never, until long past fifty, knew or practiced the slightest
moderation in work or in the use of strong coffee and black cigars. He has,
moreover, while of tender and kindly disposition, never hesitated to use
men up as freely as a Napoleon or Grant; seeing only the goal of a complete
invention or perfected device, to attain which all else must become
subsidiary. He gives a graphic picture of his first methods as a
manufacturer: "Nearly all my men were on piece work, and I allowed them
to make good wages, and never cut until the pay became absurdly high as
they got more expert. I kept no books. I had two hooks. All the bills and
accounts I owed I jabbed on one hook; and memoranda of all owed to
myself I put on the other. When some of the bills fell due, and I couldn't
deliver tickers to get a supply of money, I gave a note. When the notes were
due, a messenger came around from the bank with the note and a protest
pinned to it for $1.25. Then I would go to New York and get an advance, or
pay the note if I had the money. This method of giving notes for my
accounts and having all notes protested I kept up over two years, yet my

credit was fine. Every store I traded with was always glad to furnish goods,
perhaps in amazed admiration of my system of doing business, which was
certainly new." After a while Edison got a bookkeeper, whose vagaries
made him look back with regret on the earlier, primitive method. "The first
three months I had him go over the books to find out how much we had
made. He reported $3000. I gave a supper to some of my men to celebrate
this, only to be told two days afterward that he had made a mistake, and that
we had lost $500; and then a few days after that he came to me again and
said he was all mixed up, and now found that we had made over $7000."
Edison changed bookkeepers, but never thereafter counted anything real
profit until he had paid all his debts and had the profits in the bank.
The factory work at this time related chiefly to stock tickers, principally
the "Universal," of which at one time twelve hundred were in use. Edison's
connection with this particular device was very close while it lasted. In a
review of the ticker art, Mr. Callahan stated, with rather grudging praise,
that "a ticker at the present time (1901) would be considered as
impracticable and unsalable if it were not provided with a unison device,"
and he goes on to remark: "The first unison on stock tickers was one used
on the Laws printer. [2] It was a crude and unsatisfactory piece of
mechanism and necessitated doubling of the battery in order to bring it into
action. It was short-lived. The Edison unison comprised a lever with a free
end travelling in a spiral or worm on the type-wheel shaft until it met a pin
at the end of the worm, thus obstructing the shaft and leaving the type-
wheels at the zero-point until released by the printing lever. This device is
too well known to require a further description. It is not applicable to any
instrument using two independently moving type-wheels; but on nearly if
not all other instruments will be found in use." The stock ticker has enjoyed
the devotion of many brilliant inventors—G. M. Phelps, H. Van
Hoevenbergh, A. A. Knudson, G. B. Scott, S. D. Field, John Burry—and
remains in extensive use as an appliance for which no substitute or
competitor has been found. In New York the two great stock exchanges
have deemed it necessary to own and operate a stock-ticker service for the
sole benefit of their members; and down to the present moment the process
of improvement has gone on, impelled by the increasing volume of business
to be reported. It is significant of Edison's work, now dimmed and overlaid
by later advances, that at the very outset he recognized the vital importance
of interchangeability in the construction of this delicate and sensitive

apparatus. But the difficulties of these early days were almost
insurmountable. Mr. R. W. Pope says of the "Universal" machines that they
were simple and substantial and generally satisfactory, but adds: "These
instruments were supposed to have been made with interchangeable parts;
but as a matter of fact the instances in which these parts would fit were very
few. The instruction-book prepared for the use of inspectors stated that 'The
parts should not be tinkered nor bent, as they are accurately made and
interchangeable.' The difficulties encountered in fitting them properly
doubtless gave rise to a story that Mr. Edison had stated that there were
three degrees of interchangeability. This was interpreted to mean: First, the
parts will fit; second, they will almost fit; third, they do not fit, and can't be
made to fit."

[Footnote 2: This I invented as well.—T. A. E.]

This early shop affords an illustration of the manner in which Edison has
made a deep impression on the personnel of the electrical arts. At a single
bench there worked three men since rich or prominent. One was Sigmund
Bergmann, for a time partner with Edison in his lighting developments in
the United States, and now head and principal owner of electrical works in
Berlin employing ten thousand men. The next man adjacent was John
Kruesi, afterward engineer of the great General Electric Works at
Schenectady. A third was Schuckert, who left the bench to settle up his
father's little estate at Nuremberg, stayed there and founded electrical
factories, which became the third largest in Germany, their proprietor dying
very wealthy. "I gave them a good training as to working hours and
hustling," says their quondam master; and this is equally true as applied to
many scores of others working in companies bearing the Edison name or
organized under Edison patents. It is curiously significant in this connection
that of the twenty-one presidents of the national society, the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers, founded in 1884, eight have been
intimately associated with Edison—namely, Norvin Green and F. L. Pope,
as business colleagues of the days of which we now write; while Messrs.
Frank J. Sprague, T. C. Martin, A. E. Kennelly, S. S. Wheeler, John W. Lieb,
Jr., and Louis A. Ferguson have all been at one time or another in the
Edison employ. The remark was once made that if a famous American
teacher sat at one end of a log and a student at the other end, the elements of
a successful university were present. It is equally true that in Edison and the

many men who have graduated from his stern school of endeavor, America
has had its foremost seat of electrical engineering.

CHAPTER VIII
AUTOMATIC, DUPLEX, AND QUADRUPLEX
TELEGRAPHY

WORK of various kinds poured in upon the young manufacturer, busy
also with his own schemes and inventions, which soon began to follow so
many distinct lines of inquiry that it ceases to be easy or necessary for the
historian to treat them all in chronological sequence. Some notion of his
ceaseless activity may be formed from the fact that he started no fewer than
three shops in Newark during 1870-71, and while directing these was also
engaged by the men who controlled the Automatic Telegraph Company of
New York, which had a circuit to Washington, to help it out of its
difficulties. "Soon after starting the large shop (10 and 12 Ward Street,
Newark), I rented shop-room to the inventor of a new rifle. I think it was
the Berdan. In any event, it was a rifle which was subsequently adopted by
the British Army. The inventor employed a tool-maker who was the finest
and best tool-maker I had ever seen. I noticed that he worked pretty near the
whole of the twenty-four hours. This kind of application I was looking for.
He was getting $21.50 per week, and was also paid for overtime. I asked
him if he could run the shop. 'I don't know; try me!' he said. 'All right, I will
give you $60 per week to run both shifts.' He went at it. His executive
ability was greater than that of any other man I have yet seen. His memory
was prodigious, conversation laconic, and movements rapid. He doubled
the production inside three months, without materially increasing the pay-
roll, by increasing the cutting speeds of tools, and by the use of various
devices. When in need of rest he would lie down on a work-bench, sleep
twenty or thirty minutes, and wake up fresh. As this was just what I could
do, I naturally conceived a great pride in having such a man in charge of my
work. But almost everything has trouble connected with it. He disappeared
one day, and although I sent men everywhere that it was likely he could be
found, he was not discovered. After two weeks he came into the factory in a
terrible condition as to clothes and face. He sat down and, turning to me,
said: 'Edison, it's no use, this is the third time; I can't stand prosperity. Put

my salary back and give me a job.' I was very sorry to learn that it was
whiskey that spoiled such a career. I gave him an inferior job and kept him
for a long time."
Edison had now entered definitely upon that career as an inventor which
has left so deep an imprint on the records of the United States Patent Office,
where from his first patent in 1869 up to the summer of 1910 no fewer than
1328 separate patents have been applied for in his name, averaging thirty-
two every year, and one about every eleven days; with a substantially
corresponding number issued. The height of this inventive activity was
attained about 1882, in which year no fewer than 141 patents were applied
for, and seventy-five granted to him, or nearly nine times as many as in
1876, when invention as a profession may be said to have been adopted by
this prolific genius. It will be understood, of course, that even these figures
do not represent the full measure of actual invention, as in every process
and at every step there were many discoveries that were not brought to
patent registration, but remained "trade secrets." And furthermore, that in
practically every case the actual patented invention followed from one to a
dozen or more gradually developing forms of the same idea.
An Englishman named George Little had brought over a system of
automatic telegraphy which worked well on a short line, but was a failure
when put upon the longer circuits for which automatic methods are best
adapted. The general principle involved in automatic or rapid telegraphs,
except the photographic ones, is that of preparing the message in advance,
for dispatch, by perforating narrow strips of paper with holes—work which
can be done either by hand-punches or by typewriter apparatus. A certain
group of perforations corresponds to a Morse group of dots and dashes for a
letter of the alphabet. When the tape thus made ready is run rapidly through
a transmitting machine, electrical contact occurs wherever there is a
perforation, permitting the current from the battery to flow into the line and
thus transmit signals correspondingly. At the distant end these signals are
received sometimes on an ink-writing recorder as dots and dashes, or even
as typewriting letters; but in many of the earlier systems, like that of Bain,
the record at the higher rates of speed was effected by chemical means, a
tell-tale stain being made on the travelling strip of paper by every spurt of
incoming current. Solutions of potassium iodide were frequently used for
this purpose, giving a sharp, blue record, but fading away too rapidly.

The Little system had perforating apparatus operated by electromagnets;
its transmitting machine was driven by a small electromagnetic motor; and
the record was made by electrochemical decomposition, the writing
member being a minute platinum roller instead of the more familiar iron
stylus. Moreover, a special type of wire had been put up for the single
circuit of two hundred and eighty miles between New York and
Washington. This is believed to have been the first "compound" wire made
for telegraphic or other signalling purposes, the object being to secure
greater lightness with textile strength and high conductivity. It had a steel
core, with a copper ribbon wound spirally around it, and tinned to the core
wire. But the results obtained were poor, and in their necessity the parties in
interest turned to Edison.
Mr. E. H. Johnson tells of the conditions: "Gen. W. J. Palmer and some
New York associates had taken up the Little automatic system and had
expended quite a sum in its development, when, thinking they had reduced
it to practice, they got Tom Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad to send his
superintendent of telegraph over to look into and report upon it. Of course
he turned it down. The syndicate was appalled at this report, and in this
extremity General Palmer thought of the man who had impressed him as
knowing it all by the telling of telegraphic tales as a means of whiling away
lonesome hours on the plains of Colorado, where they were associated in
railroad-building. So this man—it was I—was sent for to come to New
York and assuage their grief if possible. My report was that the system was
sound fundamentally, that it contained the germ of a good thing, but needed
working out. Associated with General Palmer was one Col. Josiah C. Reiff,
then Eastern bond agent for the Kansas Pacific Railroad. The Colonel was
always resourceful, and didn't fail in this case. He knew of a young fellow
who was doing some good work for Marshall Lefferts, and who it was said
was a genius at invention, and a very fiend for work. His name was Edison,
and he had a shop out at Newark, New Jersey. He came and was put in my
care for the purpose of a mutual exchange of ideas and for a report by me as
to his competency in the matter. This was my introduction to Edison. He
confirmed my views of the automatic system. He saw its possibilities, as
well as the chief obstacles to be overcome—viz., the sluggishness of the
wire, together with the need of mechanical betterment of the apparatus; and
he agreed to take the job on one condition—namely, that Johnson would
stay and help, as 'he was a man with ideas.' Mr. Johnson was accordingly

given three months' leave from Colorado railroad-building, and has never
seen Colorado since."
Applying himself to the difficulties with wonted energy, Edison devised
new apparatus, and solved the problem to such an extent that he and his
assistants succeeded in transmitting and recording one thousand words per
minute between New York and Washington, and thirty-five hundred words
per minute to Philadelphia. Ordinary manual transmission by key is not in
excess of forty to fifty words a minute. Stated very briefly, Edison's
principal contribution to the commercial development of the automatic was
based on the observation that in a line of considerable length electrical
impulses become enormously extended, or sluggish, due to a phenomenon
known as self-induction, which with ordinary Morse work is in a measure
corrected by condensers. But in the automatic the aim was to deal with
impulses following each other from twenty-five to one hundred times as
rapidly as in Morse lines, and to attempt to receive and record intelligibly
such a lightning-like succession of signals would have seemed impossible.
But Edison discovered that by utilizing a shunt around the receiving
instrument, with a soft iron core, the self-induction would produce a
momentary and instantaneous reversal of the current at the end of each
impulse, and thereby give an absolutely sharp definition to each signal. This
discovery did away entirely with sluggishness, and made it possible to
secure high speeds over lines of comparatively great lengths. But Edison's
work on the automatic did not stop with this basic suggestion, for he took
up and perfected the mechanical construction of the instruments, as well as
the perforators, and also suggested numerous electrosensitive chemicals for
the receivers, so that the automatic telegraph, almost entirely by reason of
his individual work, was placed on a plane of commercial practicability.
The long line of patents secured by him in this art is an interesting exhibit
of the development of a germ to a completed system, not, as is usually the
case, by numerous inventors working over considerable periods of time, but
by one man evolving the successive steps at a white heat of activity.
This system was put in commercial operation, but the company, now
encouraged, was quite willing to allow Edison to work out his idea of an
automatic that would print the message in bold Roman letters instead of in
dots and dashes; with consequent gain in speed in delivery of the message
after its receipt in the operating-room, it being obviously necessary in the
case of any message received in Morse characters to copy it in script before

delivery to the recipient. A large shop was rented in Newark, equipped with
$25,000 worth of machinery, and Edison was given full charge. Here he
built their original type of apparatus, as improved, and also pushed his
experiments on the letter system so far that at a test, between New York and
Philadelphia, three thousand words were sent in one minute and recorded in
Roman type. Mr. D. N. Craig, one of the early organizers of the Associated
Press, became interested in this company, whose president was Mr. George
Harrington, formerly Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury.
Mr. Craig brought with him at this time—the early seventies—from
Milwaukee a Mr. Sholes, who had a wooden model of a machine to which
had been given the then new and unfamiliar name of "typewriter." Craig
was interested in the machine, and put the model in Edison's hands to
perfect. "This typewriter proved a difficult thing," says Edison, "to make
commercial. The alignment of the letters was awful. One letter would be
one-sixteenth of an inch above the others; and all the letters wanted to
wander out of line. I worked on it till the machine gave fair results. [3]
Some were made and used in the office of the Automatic company. Craig
was very sanguine that some day all business letters would be written on a
typewriter. He died before that took place; but it gradually made its way.
The typewriter I got into commercial shape is now known as the
Remington. About this time I got an idea I could devise an apparatus by
which four messages could simultaneously be sent over a single wire
without interfering with each other. I now had five shops, and with
experimenting on this new scheme I was pretty busy; at least I did not have
ennui."

[Footnote 3: See illustration on opposite page, showing
reproduction of the work done with this machine.]

A very interesting picture of Mr. Edison at this time is furnished by Mr.
Patrick B. Delany, a well-known inventor in the field of automatic and
multiplex telegraphy, who at that time was a chief operator of the Franklin
Telegraph Company at Philadelphia. His remark about Edison that "his
ingenuity inspired confidence, and wavering financiers stiffened up when it
became known that he was to develop the automatic" is a noteworthy
evidence of the manner in which the young inventor had already gained a
firm footing. He continues: "Edward H. Johnson was brought on from the
Denver & Rio Grande Railway to assist in the practical introduction of

automatic telegraphy on a commercial basis, and about this time, in 1872, I
joined the enterprise. Fairly good results were obtained between New York
and Washington, and Edison, indifferent to theoretical difficulties, set out to
prove high speeds between New York and Charleston, South Carolina, the
compound wire being hitched up to one of the Southern & Atlantic wires
from Washington to Charleston for the purpose of experimentation. Johnson
and I went to the Charleston end to carry out Edison's plans, which were
rapidly unfolded by telegraph every night from a loft on lower Broadway,
New York. We could only get the wire after all business was cleared,
usually about midnight, and for months, in the quiet hours, that wire was
subjected to more electrical acrobatics than any other wire ever
experienced. When the experiments ended, Edison's system was put into
regular commercial operation between New York and Washington; and did
fine work. If the single wire had not broken about every other day, the
venture would have been a financial success; but moisture got in between
the copper ribbon and the steel core, setting up galvanic action which made
short work of the steel. The demonstration was, however, sufficiently
successful to impel Jay Gould to contract to pay about $4,000,000 in stock
for the patents. The contract was never completed so far as the $4,000,000
were concerned, but Gould made good use of it in getting control of the
Western Union."
One of the most important persons connected with the automatic
enterprise was Mr. George Harrington, to whom we have above referred,
and with whom Mr. Edison entered into close confidential relations, so that
the inventions made were held jointly, under a partnership deed covering
"any inventions or improvements that may be useful or desired in automatic
telegraphy." Mr. Harrington was assured at the outset by Edison that while
the Little perforator would give on the average only seven or eight words
per minute, which was not enough for commercial purposes, he could
devise one giving fifty or sixty words, and that while the Little solution for
the receiving tape cost $15 to $17 per gallon, he could furnish a ferric
solution costing only five or six cents per gallon. In every respect Edison
"made good," and in a short time the system was a success, "Mr. Little
having withdrawn his obsolete perforator, his ineffective resistance, his
costly chemical solution, to give place to Edison's perforator, Edison's
resistance and devices, and Edison's solution costing a few cents per gallon.
But," continues Mr. Harrington, in a memorable affidavit, "the inventive

efforts of Mr. Edison were not confined to automatic telegraphy, nor did
they cease with the opening of that line to Washington." They all led up to
the quadruplex.
Flattered by their success, Messrs. Harrington and Reiff, who owned with
Edison the foreign patents for the new automatic system, entered into an
arrangement with the British postal telegraph authorities for a trial of the
system in England, involving its probable adoption if successful. Edison
was sent to England to make the demonstration, in 1873, reporting there to
Col. George E. Gouraud, who had been an associate in the United States
Treasury with Mr. Harrington, and was now connected with the new
enterprise. With one small satchel of clothes, three large boxes of
instruments, and a bright fellow-telegrapher named Jack Wright, he took
voyage on the Jumping Java, as she was humorously known, of the Cunard
line. The voyage was rough and the little Java justified her reputation by
jumping all over the ocean. "At the table," says Edison, "there were never
more than ten or twelve people. I wondered at the time how it could pay to
run an ocean steamer with so few people; but when we got into calm water
and could see the green fields, I was astounded to see the number of people
who appeared. There were certainly two or three hundred. I learned
afterward that they were mostly going to the Vienna Exposition. Only two
days could I get on deck, and on one of these a gentleman had a bad scalp
wound from being thrown against the iron wall of a small smoking-room
erected over a freight hatch."
Arrived in London, Edison set up his apparatus at the Telegraph Street
headquarters, and sent his companion to Liverpool with the instruments for
that end. The condition of the test was that he was to send from Liverpool
and receive in London, and to record at the rate of one thousand words per
minute, five hundred words to be sent every half hour for six hours. Edison
was given a wire and batteries to operate with, but a preliminary test soon
showed that he was going to fail. Both wire and batteries were poor, and
one of the men detailed by the authorities to watch the test remarked
quietly, in a friendly way: "You are not going to have much show. They are
going to give you an old Bridgewater Canal wire that is so poor we don't
work it, and a lot of 'sand batteries' at Liverpool." [4] The situation was
rather depressing to the young American thus encountering, for the first
time, the stolid conservatism and opposition to change that characterizes so
much of official life and methods in Europe. "I thanked him," says Edison,

"and hoped to reciprocate somehow. I knew I was in a hole. I had been
staying at a little hotel in Covent Garden called the Hummums! and got
nothing but roast beef and flounders, and my imagination was getting into a
coma. What I needed was pastry. That night I found a French pastry shop in
High Holborn Street and filled up. My imagination got all right. Early in the
morning I saw Gouraud, stated my case, and asked if he would stand for the
purchase of a powerful battery to send to Liverpool. He said 'Yes.' I went
immediately to Apps on the Strand and asked if he had a powerful battery.
He said he hadn't; that all that he had was Tyndall's Royal Institution
battery, which he supposed would not serve. I saw it—one hundred cells—
and getting the price—one hundred guineas—hurried to Gouraud. He said
'Go ahead.' I telegraphed to the man in Liverpool. He came on, got the
battery to Liverpool, set up and ready, just two hours before the test
commenced. One of the principal things that made the system a success was
that the line was put to earth at the sending end through a magnet, and the
extra current from this, passed to the line, served to sharpen the recording
waves. This new battery was strong enough to pass a powerful current
through the magnet without materially diminishing the strength of the line
current."

[Footnote 4: The sand battery is now obsolete. In this type,
the cell containing the elements was filled with sand, which
was kept moist with an electrolyte.]

The test under these more favorable circumstances was a success. "The
record was as perfect as copper plate, and not a single remark was made in
the 'time lost' column." Edison was now asked if he thought he could get a
greater speed through submarine cables with this system than with the
regular methods, and replied that he would like a chance to try it. For this
purpose, twenty-two hundred miles of Brazilian cable then stored under
water in tanks at the Greenwich works of the Telegraph Construction &
Maintenance Company, near London, was placed at his disposal from 8
P.M. until 6 A.M. "This just suited me, as I preferred night-work. I got my
apparatus down and set up, and then to get a preliminary idea of what the
distortion of the signal would be, I sent a single dot, which should have
been recorded upon my automatic paper by a mark about one-thirty-second
of an inch long. Instead of that it was twenty-seven feet long! If I ever had
any conceit, it vanished from my boots up. I worked on this cable more than
two weeks, and the best I could do was two words per minute, which was

only one-seventh of what the guaranteed speed of the cable should be when
laid. What I did not know at the time was that a coiled cable, owing to
induction, was infinitely worse than when laid out straight, and that my
speed was as good as, if not better than, with the regular system; but no one
told me this." While he was engaged on these tests Colonel Gouraud came
down one night to visit him at the lonely works, spent a vigil with him, and
toward morning wanted coffee. There was only one little inn near by,
frequented by longshoremen and employees from the soap-works and
cement-factories—a rough lot—and there at daybreak they went as soon as
the other customers had left for work. "The place had a bar and six bare
tables, and was simply infested with roaches. The only things that I ever
could get were coffee made from burnt bread, with brown molasses-cake. I
ordered these for Gouraud. The taste of the coffee, the insects, etc., were too
much. He fainted. I gave him a big dose of gin, and this revived him. He
went back to the works and waited until six when the day men came, and
telegraphed for a carriage. He lost all interest in the experiments after that,
and I was ordered back to America." Edison states, however, that the
automatic was finally adopted in England and used for many years; indeed,
is still in use there. But they took whatever was needed from his system,
and he "has never had a cent from them."
Arduous work was at once resumed at home on duplex and quadruplex
telegraphy, just as though there had been no intermission or discouragement
over dots twenty-seven feet long. A clue to his activity is furnished in the
fact that in 1872 he had applied for thirty-eight patents in the class of
telegraphy, and twenty-five in 1873; several of these being for duplex
methods, on which he had experimented. The earlier apparatus had been
built several years prior to this, as shown by a curious little item of news
that appeared in the Telegrapher of January 30, 1869: "T. A. Edison has
resigned his situation in the Western Union office, Boston, and will devote
his time to bringing out his inventions." Oh, the supreme, splendid
confidence of youth! Six months later, as we have seen, he had already
made his mark, and the same journal, in October, 1869, could say: "Mr.
Edison is a young man of the highest order of mechanical talent, combined
with good scientific electrical knowledge and experience. He has already
invented and patented a number of valuable and useful inventions, among
which may be mentioned the best instrument for double transmission yet
brought out." Not bad for a novice of twenty-two. It is natural, therefore,

after his intervening work on indicators, stock tickers, automatic telegraphs,
and typewriters, to find him harking back to duplex telegraphy, if, indeed,
he can be said to have dropped it in the interval. It has always been one of
the characteristic features of Edison's method of inventing that work in
several lines has gone forward at the same time. No one line of
investigation has ever been enough to occupy his thoughts fully; or to
express it otherwise, he has found rest in turning from one field of work to
another, having absolutely no recreations or hobbies, and not needing them.
It may also be said that, once entering it, Mr. Edison has never abandoned
any field of work. He may change the line of attack; he may drop the
subject for a time; but sooner or later the note-books or the Patent Office
will bear testimony to the reminiscent outcropping of latent thought on the
matter. His attention has shifted chronologically, and by process of
evolution, from one problem to another, and some results are found to be
final; but the interest of the man in the thing never dies out. No one sees
more vividly than he the fact that in the interplay of the arts one industry
shapes and helps another, and that no invention lives to itself alone.
The path to the quadruplex lay through work on the duplex, which,
suggested first by Moses G. Farmer in 1852, had been elaborated by many
ingenious inventors, notably in this country by Stearns, before Edison once
again applied his mind to it. The different methods of such multiple
transmission—namely, the simultaneous dispatch of the two
communications in opposite directions over the same wire, or the dispatch
of both at once in the same direction—gave plenty of play to ingenuity.
Prescott's Elements of the Electric Telegraph, a standard work in its day,
described "a method of simultaneous transmission invented by T. A. Edison,
of New Jersey, in 1873," and says of it: "Its peculiarity consists in the fact
that the signals are transmitted in one direction by reversing the polarity of
a constant current, and in the opposite direction by increasing or decreasing
the strength of the same current." Herein lay the germ of the Edison
quadruplex. It is also noted that "In 1874 Edison invented a method of
simultaneous transmission by induced currents, which has given very
satisfactory results in experimental trials." Interest in the duplex as a field
of invention dwindled, however, as the quadruplex loomed up, for while the
one doubled the capacity of a circuit, the latter created three "phantom
wires," and thus quadruplexed the working capacity of any line to which it
was applied. As will have been gathered from the above, the principle

embodied in the quadruplex is that of working over the line with two
currents from each end that differ from each other in strength or nature, so
that they will affect only instruments adapted to respond to just such
currents and no others; and by so arranging the receiving apparatus as not to
be affected by the currents transmitted from its own end of the line. Thus by
combining instruments that respond only to variation in the strength of
current from the distant station, with instruments that respond only to the
change in the direction of current from the distant station, and by grouping
a pair of these at each end of the line, the quadruplex is the result. Four
sending and four receiving operators are kept busy at each end, or eight in
all. Aside from other material advantages, it is estimated that at least from
$15,000,000 to $20,000,000 has been saved by the Edison quadruplex
merely in the cost of line construction in America.
The quadruplex has not as a rule the same working efficiency that four
separate wires have. This is due to the fact that when one of the receiving
operators is compelled to "break" the sending operator for any reason, the
"break" causes the interruption of the work of eight operators, instead of
two, as would be the case on a single wire. The working efficiency of the
quadruplex, therefore, with the apparatus in good working condition,
depends entirely upon the skill of the operators employed to operate it. But
this does not reflect upon or diminish the ingenuity required for its
invention. Speaking of the problem involved, Edison said some years later
to Mr. Upton, his mathematical assistant, that "he always considered he was
only working from one room to another. Thus he was not confused by the
amount of wire and the thought of distance."
The immense difficulties of reducing such a system to practice may be
readily conceived, especially when it is remembered that the "line" itself,
running across hundreds of miles of country, is subject to all manner of
atmospheric conditions, and varies from moment to moment in its ability to
carry current, and also when it is borne in mind that the quadruplex requires
at each end of the line a so-called "artificial line," which must have the
exact resistance of the working line and must be varied with the variations
in resistance of the working line. At this juncture other schemes were
fermenting in his brain; but the quadruplex engrossed him. "This problem
was of most difficult and complicated kind, and I bent all my energies
toward its solution. It required a peculiar effort of the mind, such as the
imagining of eight different things moving simultaneously on a mental

plane, without anything to demonstrate their efficiency." It is perhaps hardly
to be wondered at that when notified he would have to pay 12 1/2 per cent.
extra if his taxes in Newark were not at once paid, he actually forgot his
own name when asked for it suddenly at the City Hall, lost his place in the
line, and, the fatal hour striking, had to pay the surcharge after all!
So important an invention as the quadruplex could not long go begging,
but there were many difficulties connected with its introduction, some of
which are best described in Mr. Edison's own words: "Around 1873 the
owners of the Automatic Telegraph Company commenced negotiations with
Jay Gould for the purchase of the wires between New York and
Washington, and the patents for the system, then in successful operation.
Jay Gould at that time controlled the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph
Company, and was competing with the Western Union and endeavoring to
depress Western Union stock on the Exchange. About this time I invented
the quadruplex. I wanted to interest the Western Union Telegraph Company
in it, with a view of selling it, but was unsuccessful until I made an
arrangement with the chief electrician of the company, so that he could be
known as a joint inventor and receive a portion of the money. At that time I
was very short of money, and needed it more than glory. This electrician
appeared to want glory more than money, so it was an easy trade. I brought
my apparatus over and was given a separate room with a marble-tiled floor,
which, by-the-way, was a very hard kind of floor to sleep on, and started in
putting on the finishing touches.
"After two months of very hard work, I got a detail at regular times of
eight operators, and we got it working nicely from one room to another over
a wire which ran to Albany and back. Under certain conditions of weather,
one side of the quadruplex would work very shakily, and I had not
succeeded in ascertaining the cause of the trouble. On a certain day, when
there was a board meeting of the company, I was to make an exhibition test.
The day arrived. I had picked the best operators in New York, and they were
familiar with the apparatus. I arranged that if a storm occurred, and the bad
side got shaky, they should do the best they could and draw freely on their
imaginations. They were sending old messages. About 1, o'clock everything
went wrong, as there was a storm somewhere near Albany, and the bad side
got shaky. Mr. Orton, the president, and Wm. H. Vanderbilt and the other
directors came in. I had my heart trying to climb up around my oesophagus.
I was paying a sheriff five dollars a day to withhold judgment which had

been entered against me in a case which I had paid no attention to; and if
the quadruplex had not worked before the president, I knew I was to have
trouble and might lose my machinery. The New York Times came out next
day with a full account. I was given $5000 as part payment for the
invention, which made me easy, and I expected the whole thing would be
closed up. But Mr. Orton went on an extended tour just about that time. I
had paid for all the experiments on the quadruplex and exhausted the
money, and I was again in straits. In the mean time I had introduced the
apparatus on the lines of the company, where it was very successful.
"At that time the general superintendent of the Western Union was Gen.
T. T. Eckert (who had been Assistant Secretary of War with Stanton). Eckert
was secretly negotiating with Gould to leave the Western Union and take
charge of the Atlantic & Pacific—Gould's company. One day Eckert called
me into his office and made inquiries about money matters. I told him Mr.
Orton had gone off and left me without means, and I was in straits. He told
me I would never get another cent, but that he knew a man who would buy
it. I told him of my arrangement with the electrician, and said I could not
sell it as a whole to anybody; but if I got enough for it, I would sell all my
interest in any SHARE I might have. He seemed to think his party would
agree to this. I had a set of quadruplex over in my shop, 10 and 12 Ward
Street, Newark, and he arranged to bring him over next evening to see the
apparatus. So the next morning Eckert came over with Jay Gould and
introduced him to me. This was the first time I had ever seen him. I
exhibited and explained the apparatus, and they departed. The next day
Eckert sent for me, and I was taken up to Gould's house, which was near the
Windsor Hotel, Fifth Avenue. In the basement he had an office. It was in the
evening, and we went in by the servants' entrance, as Eckert probably
feared that he was watched. Gould started in at once and asked me how
much I wanted. I said: 'Make me an offer.' Then he said: 'I will give you
$30,000.' I said: 'I will sell any interest I may have for that money,' which
was something more than I thought I could get. The next morning I went
with Gould to the office of his lawyers, Sherman & Sterling, and received a
check for $30,000, with a remark by Gould that I had got the steamboat
Plymouth Rock, as he had sold her for $30,000 and had just received the
check. There was a big fight on between Gould's company and the Western
Union, and this caused more litigation. The electrician, on account of the
testimony involved, lost his glory. The judge never decided the case, but

went crazy a few months afterward." It was obviously a characteristically
shrewd move on the part of Mr. Gould to secure an interest in the
quadruplex, as a factor in his campaign against the Western Union, and as a
decisive step toward his control of that system, by the subsequent merger
that included not only the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company, but the
American Union Telegraph Company.
Nor was Mr. Gould less appreciative of the value of Edison's automatic
system. Referring to matters that will be taken up later in the narrative,
Edison says: "After this Gould wanted me to help install the automatic
system in the Atlantic & Pacific company, of which General Eckert had
been elected president, the company having bought the Automatic
Telegraph Company. I did a lot of work for this company making automatic
apparatus in my shop at Newark. About this time I invented a district
messenger call-box system, and organized a company called the Domestic
Telegraph Company, and started in to install the system in New York. I had
great difficulty in getting subscribers, having tried several canvassers, who,
one after the other, failed to get subscribers. When I was about to give it up,
a test operator named Brown, who was on the Automatic Telegraph wire
between New York and Washington, which passed through my Newark
shop, asked permission to let him try and see if he couldn't get subscribers. I
had very little faith in his ability to get any, but I thought I would give him a
chance, as he felt certain of his ability to succeed. He started in, and the
results were surprising. Within a month he had procured two hundred
subscribers, and the company was a success. I have never quite understood
why six men should fail absolutely, while the seventh man should succeed.
Perhaps hypnotism would account for it. This company was sold out to the
Atlantic & Pacific company." As far back as 1872, Edison had applied for a
patent on district messenger signal boxes, but it was not issued until
January, 1874, another patent being granted in September of the same year.
In this field of telegraph application, as in others, Edison was a very early
comer, his only predecessor being the fertile and ingenious Callahan, of
stock-ticker fame. The first president of the Gold & Stock Telegraph
Company, Elisha W. Andrews, had resigned in 1870 in order to go to
England to introduce the stock ticker in London. He lived in Englewood,
New Jersey, and the very night he had packed his trunk the house was
burglarized. Calling on his nearest friend the next morning for even a pair
of suspenders, Mr. Andrews was met with regrets of inability, because the

burglars had also been there. A third and fourth friend in the vicinity was
appealed to with the same disheartening reply of a story of wholesale
spoliation. Mr. Callahan began immediately to devise a system of protection
for Englewood; but at that juncture a servant-girl who had been for many
years with a family on the Heights in Brooklyn went mad suddenly and held
an aged widow and her daughter as helpless prisoners for twenty-four hours
without food or water. This incident led to an extension of the protective
idea, and very soon a system was installed in Brooklyn with one hundred
subscribers. Out of this grew in turn the district messenger system, for it
was just as easy to call a messenger as to sound a fire-alarm or summon the
police. To-day no large city in America is without a service of this
character, but its function was sharply limited by the introduction of the
telephone.
Returning to the automatic telegraph it is interesting to note that so long
as Edison was associated with it as a supervising providence it did splendid
work, which renders the later neglect of automatic or "rapid telegraphy" the
more remarkable. Reid's standard Telegraph in America bears astonishing
testimony on this point in 1880, as follows: "The Atlantic & Pacific
Telegraph Company had twenty-two automatic stations. These included the
chief cities on the seaboard, Buffalo, Chicago, and Omaha. The through
business during nearly two years was largely transmitted in this way.
Between New York and Boston two thousand words a minute have been
sent. The perforated paper was prepared at the rate of twenty words per
minute. Whatever its demerits this system enabled the Atlantic & Pacific
company to handle a much larger business during 1875 and 1876 than it
could otherwise have done with its limited number of wires in their then
condition." Mr. Reid also notes as a very thorough test of the perfect
practicability of the system, that it handled the President's message,
December 3, 1876, of 12,600 words with complete success. This long
message was filed at Washington at 1.05 and delivered in New York at 2.07.
The first 9000 words were transmitted in forty-five minutes. The perforated
strips were prepared in thirty minutes by ten persons, and duplicated by
nine copyists. But to-day, nearly thirty-five years later, telegraphy in
America is still practically on a basis of hand transmission!
Of this period and his association with Jay Gould, some very interesting
glimpses are given by Edison. "While engaged in putting in the automatic
system, I saw a great deal of Gould, and frequently went uptown to his

office to give information. Gould had no sense of humor. I tried several
times to get off what seemed to me a funny story, but he failed to see any
humor in them. I was very fond of stories, and had a choice lot, always kept
fresh, with which I could usually throw a man into convulsions. One
afternoon Gould started in to explain the great future of the Union Pacific
Railroad, which he then controlled. He got a map, and had an immense
amount of statistics. He kept at it for over four hours, and got very
enthusiastic. Why he should explain to me, a mere inventor, with no capital
or standing, I couldn't make out. He had a peculiar eye, and I made up my
mind that there was a strain of insanity somewhere. This idea was
strengthened shortly afterward when the Western Union raised the monthly
rental of the stock tickers. Gould had one in his house office, which he
watched constantly. This he had removed, to his great inconvenience,
because the price had been advanced a few dollars! He railed over it. This
struck me as abnormal. I think Gould's success was due to abnormal
development. He certainly had one trait that all men must have who want to
succeed. He collected every kind of information and statistics about his
schemes, and had all the data. His connection with men prominent in
official life, of which I was aware, was surprising to me. His conscience
seemed to be atrophied, but that may be due to the fact that he was
contending with men who never had any to be atrophied. He worked
incessantly until 12 or 1 o'clock at night. He took no pride in building up an
enterprise. He was after money, and money only. Whether the company was
a success or a failure mattered not to him. After he had hammered the
Western Union through his opposition company and had tired out Mr.
Vanderbilt, the latter retired from control, and Gould went in and
consolidated his company and controlled the Western Union. He then
repudiated the contract with the Automatic Telegraph people, and they
never received a cent for their wires or patents, and I lost three years of very
hard labor. But I never had any grudge against him, because he was so able
in his line, and as long as my part was successful the money with me was a
secondary consideration. When Gould got the Western Union I knew no
further progress in telegraphy was possible, and I went into other lines."
The truth is that General Eckert was a conservative—even a reactionary—
and being prejudiced like many other American telegraph managers against
"machine telegraphy," threw out all such improvements.

The course of electrical history has been variegated by some very
remarkable litigation; but none was ever more extraordinary than that
referred to here as arising from the transfer of the Automatic Telegraph
Company to Mr. Jay Gould and the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company.
The terms accepted by Colonel Reiff from Mr. Gould, on December 30,
1874, provided that the purchasing telegraph company should increase its
capital to $15,000,000, of which the Automatic interests were to receive
$4,000,000 for their patents, contracts, etc. The stock was then selling at
about 25, and in the later consolidation with the Western Union "went in" at
about 60; so that the real purchase price was not less than $1,000,000 in
cash. There was a private arrangement in writing with Mr. Gould that he
was to receive one-tenth of the "result" to the Automatic group, and a tenth
of the further results secured at home and abroad. Mr. Gould personally
bought up and gave money and bonds for one or two individual interests on
the above basis, including that of Harrington, who in his representative
capacity executed assignments to Mr. Gould. But payments were then
stopped, and the other owners were left without any compensation,
although all that belonged to them in the shape of property and patents was
taken over bodily into Atlantic & Pacific hands, and never again left them.
Attempts at settlement were made in their behalf, and dragged wearily, due
apparently to the fact that the plans were blocked by General Eckert, who
had in some manner taken offence at a transaction effected without his
active participation in all the details. Edison, who became under the
agreement the electrician of the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company, has
testified to the unfriendly attitude assumed toward him by General Eckert,
as president. In a graphic letter from Menlo Park to Mr. Gould, dated
February 2, 1877, Edison makes a most vigorous and impassioned
complaint of his treatment, "which, acting cumulatively, was a long,
unbroken disappointment to me"; and he reminds Mr. Gould of promises
made to him the day the transfer had been effected of Edison's interest in
the quadruplex. The situation was galling to the busy, high-spirited young
inventor, who, moreover, "had to live"; and it led to his resumption of work
for the Western Union Telegraph Company, which was only too glad to get
him back. Meantime, the saddened and perplexed Automatic group was left
unpaid, and it was not until 1906, on a bill filed nearly thirty years before,
that Judge Hazel, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern
District of New York, found strongly in favor of the claimants and ordered

an accounting. The court held that there had been a most wrongful
appropriation of the patents, including alike those relating to the automatic,
the duplex, and the quadruplex, all being included in the general
arrangement under which Mr. Gould had held put his tempting bait of
$4,000,000. In the end, however, the complainant had nothing to show for
all his struggle, as the master who made the accounting set the damages at
one dollar!
Aside from the great value of the quadruplex, saving millions of dollars,
for a share in which Edison received $30,000, the automatic itself is
described as of considerable utility by Sir William Thomson in his juror
report at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, recommending it for award.
This leading physicist of his age, afterward Lord Kelvin, was an adept in
telegraphy, having made the ocean cable talk, and he saw in Edison's
"American Automatic," as exhibited by the Atlantic & Pacific company, a
most meritorious and useful system. With the aid of Mr. E. H. Johnson he
made exhaustive tests, carrying away with him to Glasgow University the
surprising records that he obtained. His official report closes thus: "The
electromagnetic shunt with soft iron core, invented by Mr. Edison, utilizing
Professor Henry's discovery of electromagnetic induction in a single circuit
to produce a momentary reversal of the line current at the instant when the
battery is thrown off and so cut off the chemical marks sharply at the proper
instant, is the electrical secret of the great speed he has achieved. The main
peculiarities of Mr. Edison's automatic telegraph shortly stated in
conclusion are: (1) the perforator; (2) the contact-maker; (3) the
electromagnetic shunt; and (4) the ferric cyanide of iron solution. It
deserves award as a very important step in land telegraphy." The attitude
thus disclosed toward Mr. Edison's work was never changed, except that
admiration grew as fresh inventions were brought forward. To the day of his
death Lord Kelvin remained on terms of warmest friendship with his
American co-laborer, with whose genius he thus first became acquainted at
Philadelphia in the environment of Franklin.
It is difficult to give any complete idea of the activity maintained at the
Newark shops during these anxious, harassed years, but the statement that
at one time no fewer than forty-five different inventions were being worked
upon, will furnish some notion of the incandescent activity of the inventor
and his assistants. The hours were literally endless; and upon one occasion,
when the order was in hand for a large quantity of stock tickers, Edison

locked his men in until the job had been finished of making the machine
perfect, and "all the bugs taken out," which meant sixty hours of
unintermitted struggle with the difficulties. Nor were the problems and
inventions all connected with telegraphy. On the contrary, Edison's mind
welcomed almost any new suggestion as a relief from the regular work in
hand. Thus: "Toward the latter part of 1875, in the Newark shop, I invented
a device for multiplying copies of letters, which I sold to Mr. A. B. Dick, of
Chicago, and in the years since it has been universally introduced
throughout the world. It is called the 'Mimeograph.' I also invented devices
for and introduced paraffin paper, now used universally for wrapping up
candy, etc." The mimeograph employs a pointed stylus, used as in writing
with a lead-pencil, which is moved over a kind of tough prepared paper
placed on a finely grooved steel plate. The writing is thus traced by means
of a series of minute perforations in the sheet, from which, as a stencil,
hundreds of copies can be made. Such stencils can be prepared on
typewriters. Edison elaborated this principle in two other forms—one
pneumatic and one electric—the latter being in essence a reciprocating
motor. Inside the barrel of the electric pen a little plunger, carrying the
stylus, travels to and fro at a very high rate of speed, due to the attraction
and repulsion of the solenoid coils of wire surrounding it; and as the hand
of the writer guides it the pen thus makes its record in a series of very
minute perforations in the paper. The current from a small battery suffices
to energize the pen, and with the stencil thus made hundreds of copies of
the document can be furnished. As a matter of fact, as many as three
thousand copies have been made from a single mimeographic stencil of this
character.

CHAPTER IX
THE TELEPHONE, MOTOGRAPH, AND MICROPHONE

A VERY great invention has its own dramatic history. Episodes full of
human interest attend its development. The periods of weary struggle, the
daring adventure along unknown paths, the clash of rival claimants, are
closely similar to those which mark the revelation and subjugation of a new
continent. At the close of the epoch of discovery it is seen that mankind as a
whole has made one more great advance; but in the earlier stages one
watched chiefly the confused vicissitudes of fortune of the individual
pioneers. The great modern art of telephony has had thus in its beginnings,
its evolution, and its present status as a universal medium of intercourse, all
the elements of surprise, mystery, swift creation of wealth, tragic interludes,
and colossal battle that can appeal to the imagination and hold public
attention. And in this new electrical industry, in laying its essential
foundations, Edison has again been one of the dominant figures.
As far back as 1837, the American, Page, discovered the curious fact that
an iron bar, when magnetized and demagnetized at short intervals of time,
emitted sounds due to the molecular disturbances in the mass. Philipp Reis,
a simple professor in Germany, utilized this principle in the construction of
apparatus for the transmission of sound; but in the grasp of the idea he was
preceded by Charles Bourseul, a young French soldier in Algeria, who in
1854, under the title of "Electrical Telephony," in a Parisian illustrated
paper, gave a brief and lucid description as follows:
"We know that sounds are made by vibrations, and are made sensible to
the ear by the same vibrations, which are reproduced by the intervening
medium. But the intensity of the vibrations diminishes very rapidly with the
distance; so that even with the aid of speaking-tubes and trumpets it is
impossible to exceed somewhat narrow limits. Suppose a man speaks near a
movable disk sufficiently flexible to lose none of the vibrations of the
voice; that this disk alternately makes and breaks the connection with a
battery; you may have at a distance another disk which will simultaneously
execute the same vibrations.... Any one who is not deaf and dumb may use

this mode of transmission, which would require no apparatus except an
electric battery, two vibrating disks, and a wire."
This would serve admirably for a portrayal of the Bell telephone, except
that it mentions distinctly the use of the make-and-break method (i. e.,
where the circuit is necessarily opened and closed as in telegraphy,
although, of course, at an enormously higher rate), which has never proved
practical.
So far as is known Bourseul was not practical enough to try his own
suggestion, and never made a telephone. About 1860, Reis built several
forms of electrical telephonic apparatus, all imitating in some degree the
human ear, with its auditory tube, tympanum, etc., and examples of the
apparatus were exhibited in public not only in Germany, but in England.
There is a variety of testimony to the effect that not only musical sounds,
but stray words and phrases, were actually transmitted with mediocre,
casual success. It was impossible, however, to maintain the devices in
adjustment for more than a few seconds, since the invention depended upon
the make-and-break principle, the circuit being made and broken every time
an impulse-creating sound went through it, causing the movement of the
diaphragm on which the sound-waves impinged. Reis himself does not
appear to have been sufficiently interested in the marvellous possibilities of
the idea to follow it up—remarking to the man who bought his telephonic
instruments and tools that he had shown the world the way. In reality it was
not the way, although a monument erected to his memory at Frankfort styles
him the inventor of the telephone. As one of the American judges said, in
deciding an early litigation over the invention of the telephone, a hundred
years of Reis would not have given the world the telephonic art for public
use. Many others after Reis tried to devise practical make-and-break
telephones, and all failed; although their success would have rendered them
very valuable as a means of fighting the Bell patent. But the method was a
good starting-point, even if it did not indicate the real path. If Reis had been
willing to experiment with his apparatus so that it did not make-and-break,
he would probably have been the true father of the telephone, besides
giving it the name by which it is known. It was not necessary to slam the
gate open and shut. All that was required was to keep the gate closed, and
rattle the latch softly. Incidentally it may be noted that Edison in
experimenting with the Reis transmitter recognized at once the defect
caused by the make-and-break action, and sought to keep the gap closed by

the use, first, of one drop of water, and later of several drops. But the water
decomposed, and the incurable defect was still there.
The Reis telephone was brought to America by Dr. P. H. Van der Weyde,
a well-known physicist in his day, and was exhibited by him before a
technical audience at Cooper Union, New York, in 1868, and described
shortly after in the technical press. The apparatus attracted attention, and a
set was secured by Prof. Joseph Henry for the Smithsonian Institution.
There the famous philosopher showed and explained it to Alexander
Graham Bell, when that young and persevering Scotch genius went to get
help and data as to harmonic telegraphy, upon which he was working, and
as to transmitting vocal sounds. Bell took up immediately and energetically
the idea that his two predecessors had dropped—and reached the goal. In
1875 Bell, who as a student and teacher of vocal physiology had unusual
qualifications for determining feasible methods of speech transmission,
constructed his first pair of magneto telephones for such a purpose. In
February of 1876 his first telephone patent was applied for, and in March it
was issued. The first published account of the modern speaking telephone
was a paper read by Bell before the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in Boston in May of that year; while at the Centennial Exposition
at Philadelphia the public first gained any familiarity with it. It was greeted
at once with scientific acclaim and enthusiasm as a distinctly new and great
invention, although at first it was regarded more as a scientific toy than as a
commercially valuable device.
By an extraordinary coincidence, the very day that Bell's application for a
patent went into the United States Patent Office, a caveat was filed there by
Elisha Gray, of Chicago, covering the specific idea of transmitting speech
and reproducing it in a telegraphic circuit "through an instrument capable of
vibrating responsively to all the tones of the human voice, and by which
they are rendered audible." Out of this incident arose a struggle and a
controversy whose echoes are yet heard as to the legal and moral rights of
the two inventors, the assertion even being made that one of the most
important claims of Gray, that on a liquid battery transmitter, was
surreptitiously "lifted" into the Bell application, then covering only the
magneto telephone. It was also asserted that the filing of the Gray caveat
antedated by a few hours the filing of the Bell application. All such issues
when brought to the American courts were brushed aside, the Bell patent
being broadly maintained in all its remarkable breadth and fullness,

embracing an entire art; but Gray was embittered and chagrined, and to the
last expressed his belief that the honor and glory should have been his. The
path of Gray to the telephone was a natural one. A Quaker carpenter who
studied five years at Oberlin College, he took up electrical invention, and
brought out many ingenious devices in rapid succession in the telegraphic
field, including the now universal needle annunciator for hotels, etc., the
useful telautograph, automatic self-adjusting relays, private-line printers—
leading up to his famous "harmonic" system. This was based upon the
principle that a sound produced in the presence of a reed or tuning-fork
responding to the sound, and acting as the armature of a magnet in a closed
circuit, would, by induction, set up electric impulses in the circuit and cause
a distant magnet having a similarly tuned armature to produce the same
tone or note. He also found that over the same wire at the same time another
series of impulses corresponding to another note could be sent through the
agency of a second set of magnets without in any way interfering with the
first series of impulses. Building the principle into apparatus, with a
keyboard and vibrating "reeds" before his magnets, Doctor Gray was able
not only to transmit music by his harmonic telegraph, but went so far as to
send nine different telegraph messages at the same instant, each set of
instruments depending on its selective note, while any intermediate office
could pick up the message for itself by simply tuning its relays to the
keynote required. Theoretically the system could be split up into any
number of notes and semi-tones. Practically it served as the basis of some
real telegraphic work, but is not now in use. Any one can realize, however,
that it did not take so acute and ingenious a mind very long to push forward
to the telephone, as a dangerous competitor with Bell, who had also, like
Edison, been working assiduously in the field of acoustic and multiple
telegraphs. Seen in the retrospect, the struggle for the goal at this moment
was one of the memorable incidents in electrical history.
Among the interesting papers filed at the Orange Laboratory is a
lithograph, the size of an ordinary patent drawing, headed "First Telephone
on Record." The claim thus made goes back to the period when all was war,
and when dispute was hot and rife as to the actual invention of the
telephone. The device shown, made by Edison in 1875, was actually
included in a caveat filed January 14, 1876, a month before Bell or Gray. It
shows a little solenoid arrangement, with one end of the plunger attached to
the diaphragm of a speaking or resonating chamber. Edison states that while

the device is crudely capable of use as a magneto telephone, he did not
invent it for transmitting speech, but as an apparatus for analyzing the
complex waves arising from various sounds. It was made in pursuance of
his investigations into the subject of harmonic telegraphs. He did not try the
effect of sound-waves produced by the human voice until Bell came
forward a few months later; but he found then that this device, made in
1875, was capable of use as a telephone. In his testimony and public
utterances Edison has always given Bell credit for the discovery of the
transmission of articulate speech by talking against a diaphragm placed in
front of an electromagnet; but it is only proper here to note, in passing, the
curious fact that he had actually produced a device that COULD talk, prior
to 1876, and was therefore very close to Bell, who took the one great step
further. A strong characterization of the value and importance of the work
done by Edison in the development of the carbon transmitter will be found
in the decision of Judge Brown in the United States Circuit Court of
Appeals, sitting in Boston, on February 27, 1901, declaring void the famous
Berliner patent of the Bell telephone system. [5]

[Footnote 5: See Federal Reporter, vol. 109, p. 976 et seq.]

Bell's patent of 1876 was of an all-embracing character, which only the
make-and-break principle, if practical, could have escaped. It was pointed
out in the patent that Bell discovered the great principle that electrical
undulations induced by the vibrations of a current produced by sound-
waves can be represented graphically by the same sinusoidal curve that
expresses the original sound vibrations themselves; or, in other words, that
a curve representing sound vibrations will correspond precisely to a curve
representing electric impulses produced or generated by those identical
sound vibrations—as, for example, when the latter impinge upon a
diaphragm acting as an armature of an electromagnet, and which by
movement to and fro sets up the electric impulses by induction. To speak
plainly, the electric impulses correspond in form and character to the sound
vibration which they represent. This reduced to a patent "claim" governed
the art as firmly as a papal bull for centuries enabled Spain to hold the
Western world. The language of the claim is: "The method of and apparatus
for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically as herein described,
by causing electrical undulations similar in form to the vibrations of the air
accompanying the said vocal or other sounds substantially as set forth." It

was a long time, however, before the inclusive nature of this grant over
every possible telephone was understood or recognized, and litigation for
and against the patent lasted during its entire life. At the outset, the
commercial value of the telephone was little appreciated by the public, and
Bell had the greatest difficulty in securing capital; but among far-sighted
inventors there was an immediate "rush to the gold fields." Bell's first
apparatus was poor, the results being described by himself as
"unsatisfactory and discouraging," which was almost as true of the devices
he exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial. The new-comers, like Edison,
Berliner, Blake, Hughes, Gray, Dolbear, and others, brought a wealth of
ideas, a fund of mechanical ingenuity, and an inventive ability which soon
made the telephone one of the most notable gains of the century, and one of
the most valuable additions to human resources. The work that Edison did
was, as usual, marked by infinite variety of method as well as by the power
to seize on the one needed element of practical success. Every one of the six
million telephones in use in the United States, and of the other millions in
use through out the world, bears the imprint of his genius, as at one time the
instruments bore his stamped name. For years his name was branded on
every Bell telephone set, and his patents were a mainstay of what has been
popularly called the "Bell monopoly." Speaking of his own efforts in this
field, Mr. Edison says:
"In 1876 I started again to experiment for the Western Union and Mr.
Orton. This time it was the telephone. Bell invented the first telephone,
which consisted of the present receiver, used both as a transmitter and a
receiver (the magneto type). It was attempted to introduce it commercially,
but it failed on account of its faintness and the extraneous sounds which
came in on its wires from various causes. Mr. Orton wanted me to take hold
of it and make it commercial. As I had also been working on a telegraph
system employing tuning-forks, simultaneously with both Bell and Gray, I
was pretty familiar with the subject. I started in, and soon produced the
carbon transmitter, which is now universally used.
"Tests were made between New York and Philadelphia, also between
New York and Washington, using regular Western Union wires. The noises
were so great that not a word could be heard with the Bell receiver when
used as a transmitter between New York and Newark, New Jersey. Mr.
Orton and W. K. Vanderbilt and the board of directors witnessed and took
part in the tests. The Western Union then put them on private lines. Mr.

Theodore Puskas, of Budapest, Hungary, was the first man to suggest a
telephone exchange, and soon after exchanges were established. The
telephone department was put in the hands of Hamilton McK. Twombly,
Vanderbilt's ablest son-in-law, who made a success of it. The Bell company,
of Boston, also started an exchange, and the fight was on, the Western
Union pirating the Bell receiver, and the Boston company pirating the
Western Union transmitter. About this time I wanted to be taken care of. I
threw out hints of this desire. Then Mr. Orton sent for me. He had learned
that inventors didn't do business by the regular process, and concluded he
would close it right up. He asked me how much I wanted. I had made up
my mind it was certainly worth $25,000, if it ever amounted to anything for
central-station work, so that was the sum I had in mind to stick to and get—
obstinately. Still it had been an easy job, and only required a few months,
and I felt a little shaky and uncertain. So I asked him to make me an offer.
He promptly said he would give me $100,000. 'All right,' I said. 'It is yours
on one condition, and that is that you do not pay it all at once, but pay me at
the rate of $6000 per year for seventeen years'—the life of the patent. He
seemed only too pleased to do this, and it was closed. My ambition was
about four times too large for my business capacity, and I knew that I would
soon spend this money experimenting if I got it all at once, so I fixed it that
I couldn't. I saved seventeen years of worry by this stroke."
Thus modestly is told the debut of Edison in the telephone art, to which
with his carbon transmitter he gave the valuable principle of varying the
resistance of the transmitting circuit with changes in the pressure, as well as
the vital practice of using the induction coil as a means of increasing the
effective length of the talking circuit. Without these, modern telephony
would not and could not exist. [6] But Edison, in telephonic work, as in
other directions, was remarkably fertile and prolific. His first inventions in
the art, made in 1875-76, continue through many later years, including all
kinds of carbon instruments —the water telephone, electrostatic telephone,
condenser telephone, chemical telephone, various magneto telephones,
inertia telephone, mercury telephone, voltaic pile telephone, musical
transmitter, and the electromotograph. All were actually made and tested.

[Footnote 6: Briefly stated, the essential difference
between Bell's telephone and Edison's is this: With the
former the sound vibrations impinge upon a steel diaphragm
arranged adjacent to the pole of a bar electromagnet,
whereby the diaphragm acts as an armature, and by its

vibrations induces very weak electric impulses in the
magnetic coil. These impulses, according to Bell's theory,
correspond in form to the sound-waves, and passing over the
line energize the magnet coil at the receiving end, and by
varying the magnetism cause the receiving diaphragm to be
similarly vibrated to reproduce the sounds. A single
apparatus is therefore used at each end, performing the
double function of transmitter and receiver. With Edison's
telephone a closed circuit is used on which is constantly
flowing a battery current, and included in that circuit is a
pair of electrodes, one or both of which is of carbon. These
electrodes are always in contact with a certain initial
pressure, so that current will be always flowing over the
circuit. One of the electrodes is connected with the
diaphragm on which the sound-waves impinge, and the
vibration of this diaphragm causes the pressure between the
electrodes to be correspondingly varied, and thereby effects
a variation in the current, resulting in the production of
impulses which actuate the receiving magnet. In other words,
with Bell's telephone the sound-waves themselves generate
the electric impulses, which are hence extremely faint. With
the Edison telephone, the sound-waves actuate an electric
valve, so to speak, and permit variations in a current of
any desired strength.

A second distinction between the two telephones is this:
With the Bell apparatus the very weak electric impulses
generated by the vibration of the transmitting diaphragm
pass over the entire line to the receiving end, and in
consequence the permissible length of line is limited to a
few miles under ideal conditions. With Edison's telephone
the battery current does not flow on the main line, but
passes through the primary circuit of an induction coil, by
which corresponding impulses of enormously higher potential
are sent out on the main line to the receiving end. In
consequence, the line may be hundreds of miles in length. No
modern telephone system in use to-day lacks these
characteristic features—the varying resistance and the
induction coil.]

The principle of the electromotograph was utilized by Edison in more
ways than one, first of all in telegraphy at this juncture. The well-known
Page patent, which had lingered in the Patent Office for years, had just been
issued, and was considered a formidable weapon. It related to the use of a
retractile spring to withdraw the armature lever from the magnet of a
telegraph or other relay or sounder, and thus controlled the art of telegraphy,
except in simple circuits. "There was no known way," remarks Edison,
"whereby this patent could be evaded, and its possessor would eventually
control the use of what is known as the relay and sounder, and this was vital
to telegraphy. Gould was pounding the Western Union on the Stock
Exchange, disturbing its railroad contracts, and, being advised by his
lawyers that this patent was of great value, bought it. The moment Mr.
Orton heard this he sent for me and explained the situation, and wanted me

to go to work immediately and see if I couldn't evade it or discover some
other means that could be used in case Gould sustained the patent. It
seemed a pretty hard job, because there was no known means of moving a
lever at the other end of a telegraph wire except by the use of a magnet. I
said I would go at it that night. In experimenting some years previously, I
had discovered a very peculiar phenomenon, and that was that if a piece of
metal connected to a battery was rubbed over a moistened piece of chalk
resting on a metal connected to the other pole, when the current passed the
friction was greatly diminished. When the current was reversed the friction
was greatly increased over what it was when no current was passing.
Remembering this, I substituted a piece of chalk rotated by a small electric
motor for the magnet, and connecting a sounder to a metallic finger resting
on the chalk, the combination claim of Page was made worthless. A hitherto
unknown means was introduced in the electric art. Two or three of the
devices were made and tested by the company's expert. Mr. Orton, after he
had me sign the patent application and got it in the Patent Office, wanted to
settle for it at once. He asked my price. Again I said: 'Make me an offer.'
Again he named $100,000. I accepted, providing he would pay it at the rate
of $6000 a year for seventeen years. This was done, and thus, with the
telephone money, I received $12,000 yearly for that period from the
Western Union Telegraph Company."
A year or two later the motograph cropped up again in Edison's work in a
curious manner. The telephone was being developed in England, and Edison
had made arrangements with Colonel Gouraud, his old associate in the
automatic telegraph, to represent his interests. A company was formed, a
large number of instruments were made and sent to Gouraud in London,
and prospects were bright. Then there came a threat of litigation from the
owners of the Bell patent, and Gouraud found he could not push the
enterprise unless he could avoid using what was asserted to be an
infringement of the Bell receiver. He cabled for help to Edison, who sent
back word telling him to hold the fort. "I had recourse again," says Edison,
"to the phenomenon discovered by me years previous, that the friction of a
rubbing electrode passing over a moist chalk surface was varied by
electricity. I devised a telephone receiver which was afterward known as the
'loud-speaking telephone,' or 'chalk receiver.' There was no magnet, simply
a diaphragm and a cylinder of compressed chalk about the size of a thimble.
A thin spring connected to the centre of the diaphragm extended outwardly

and rested on the chalk cylinder, and was pressed against it with a pressure
equal to that which would be due to a weight of about six pounds. The chalk
was rotated by hand. The volume of sound was very great. A person talking
into the carbon transmitter in New York had his voice so amplified that he
could be heard one thousand feet away in an open field at Menlo Park. This
great excess of power was due to the fact that the latter came from the
person turning the handle. The voice, instead of furnishing all the power as
with the present receiver, merely controlled the power, just as an engineer
working a valve would control a powerful engine.
"I made six of these receivers and sent them in charge of an expert on the
first steamer. They were welcomed and tested, and shortly afterward I
shipped a hundred more. At the same time I was ordered to send twenty
young men, after teaching them to become expert. I set up an exchange,
around the laboratory, of ten instruments. I would then go out and get each
one out of order in every conceivable way, cutting the wires of one, short-
circuiting another, destroying the adjustment of a third, putting dirt between
the electrodes of a fourth, and so on. A man would be sent to each to find
out the trouble. When he could find the trouble ten consecutive times, using
five minutes each, he was sent to London. About sixty men were sifted to
get twenty. Before all had arrived, the Bell company there, seeing we could
not be stopped, entered into negotiations for consolidation. One day I
received a cable from Gouraud offering '30,000' for my interest. I cabled
back I would accept. When the draft came I was astonished to find it was
for L30,000. I had thought it was dollars."
In regard to this singular and happy conclusion, Edison makes some
interesting comments as to the attitude of the courts toward inventors, and
the difference between American and English courts. "The men I sent over
were used to establish telephone exchanges all over the Continent, and
some of them became wealthy. It was among this crowd in London that
Bernard Shaw was employed before he became famous. The chalk
telephone was finally discarded in favor of the Bell receiver—the latter
being more simple and cheaper. Extensive litigation with new-comers
followed. My carbon-transmitter patent was sustained, and preserved the
monopoly of the telephone in England for many years. Bell's patent was not
sustained by the courts. Sir Richard Webster, now Chief-Justice of England,
was my counsel, and sustained all of my patents in England for many years.
Webster has a marvellous capacity for understanding things scientific; and

his address before the courts was lucidity itself. His brain is highly
organized. My experience with the legal fraternity is that scientific subjects
are distasteful to them, and it is rare in this country, on account of the
system of trying patent suits, for a judge really to reach the meat of the
controversy, and inventors scarcely ever get a decision squarely and entirely
in their favor. The fault rests, in my judgment, almost wholly with the
system under which testimony to the extent of thousands of pages bearing
on all conceivable subjects, many of them having no possible connection
with the invention in dispute, is presented to an over-worked judge in an
hour or two of argument supported by several hundred pages of briefs; and
the judge is supposed to extract some essence of justice from this mass of
conflicting, blind, and misleading statements. It is a human impossibility,
no matter how able and fair-minded the judge may be. In England the case
is different. There the judges are face to face with the experts and other
witnesses. They get the testimony first-hand and only so much as they need,
and there are no long-winded briefs and arguments, and the case is decided
then and there, a few months perhaps after suit is brought, instead of many
years afterward, as in this country. And in England, when a case is once
finally decided it is settled for the whole country, while here it is not so.
Here a patent having once been sustained, say, in Boston, may have to be
litigated all over again in New York, and again in Philadelphia, and so on
for all the Federal circuits. Furthermore, it seems to me that scientific
disputes should be decided by some court containing at least one or two
scientific men—men capable of comprehending the significance of an
invention and the difficulties of its accomplishment—if justice is ever to be
given to an inventor. And I think, also, that this court should have the power
to summon before it and examine any recognized expert in the special art,
who might be able to testify to FACTS for or against the patent, instead of
trying to gather the truth from the tedious essays of hired experts, whose
depositions are really nothing but sworn arguments. The real gist of patent
suits is generally very simple, and I have no doubt that any judge of fair
intelligence, assisted by one or more scientific advisers, could in a couple of
days at the most examine all the necessary witnesses; hear all the necessary
arguments, and actually decide an ordinary patent suit in a way that would
more nearly be just, than can now be done at an expenditure of a hundred
times as much money and months and years of preparation. And I have no
doubt that the time taken by the court would be enormously less, because if

a judge attempts to read the bulky records and briefs, that work alone would
require several days.
"Acting as judges, inventors would not be very apt to correctly decide a
complicated law point; and on the other hand, it is hard to see how a lawyer
can decide a complicated scientific point rightly. Some inventors complain
of our Patent Office, but my own experience with the Patent Office is that
the examiners are fair-minded and intelligent, and when they refuse a patent
they are generally right; but I think the whole trouble lies with the system in
vogue in the Federal courts for trying patent suits, and in the fact, which
cannot be disputed, that the Federal judges, with but few exceptions, do not
comprehend complicated scientific questions. To secure uniformity in the
several Federal circuits and correct errors, it has been proposed to establish
a central court of patent appeals in Washington. This I believe in; but this
court should also contain at least two scientific men, who would not be
blind to the sophistry of paid experts. [7] Men whose inventions would have
created wealth of millions have been ruined and prevented from making any
money whereby they could continue their careers as creators of wealth for
the general good, just because the experts befuddled the judge by their
misleading statements."

[Footnote 7: As an illustration of the perplexing nature of
expert evidence in patent cases, the reader will probably be
interested in perusing the following extracts from the
opinion of Judge Dayton, in the suit of Bryce Bros. Co. vs.
Seneca Glass Co., tried in the United States Circuit Court,
Northern District of West Virginia, reported in The Federal
Reporter, 140, page 161:

"On this subject of the validity of this patent, a vast
amount of conflicting, technical, perplexing, and almost
hypercritical discussion and opinion has been indulged, both
in the testimony and in the able and exhaustive arguments
and briefs of counsel. Expert Osborn for defendant, after
setting forth minutely his superior qualifications
mechanical education, and great experience, takes up in
detail the patent claims, and shows to his own entire
satisfaction that none of them are new; that all of them
have been applied, under one form or another, in some
twenty-two previous patents, and in two other machines, not
patented, to-wit, the Central Glass and Kuny Kahbel ones;
that the whole machine is only 'an aggregation of well-known
mechanical elements that any skilled designer would bring to
his use in the construction of such a machine.' This
certainly, under ordinary conditions, would settle the
matter beyond peradventure; for this witness is a very wise
and learned man in these things, and very positive. But
expert Clarke appears for the plaintiff, and after setting
forth just as minutely his superior qualifications,

mechanical education, and great experience, which appear
fully equal in all respects to those of expert Osborn,
proceeds to take up in detail the patent claims, and shows
to his entire satisfaction that all, with possibly one
exception, are new, show inventive genius, and distinct
advances upon the prior art. In the most lucid, and even
fascinating, way he discusses all the parts of this machine,
compares it with the others, draws distinctions, points out
the merits of the one in controversy and the defects of all
the others, considers the twenty-odd patents referred to by
Osborn, and in the politest, but neatest, manner imaginable
shows that expert Osborn did not know what he was talking
about, and sums the whole matter up by declaring this
'invention of Mr. Schrader's, as embodied in the patent in
suit, a radical and wide departure, from the Kahbel machine'
(admitted on all sides to be nearest prior approach to it),
'a distinct and important advance in the art of engraving
glassware, and generally a machine for this purpose which
has involved the exercise of the inventive faculty in the
highest degree.'

"Thus a more radical and irreconcilable disagreement between
experts touching the same thing could hardly be found. So it
is with the testimony. If we take that for the defendant,
the Central Glass Company machine, and especially the Kuny
Kahbel machine, built and operated years before this patent
issued, and not patented, are just as good, just as
effective and practical, as this one, and capable of turning
out just as perfect work and as great a variety of it. On
the other hand, if we take that produced by the plaintiff,
we are driven to the conclusion that these prior machines,
the product of the same mind, were only progressive steps
forward from utter darkness, so to speak, into full
inventive sunlight, which made clear to him the solution of
the problem in this patented machine. The shortcomings of
the earlier machines are minutely set forth, and the
witnesses for the plaintiff are clear that they are neither
practical nor profitable.

"But this is not all of the trouble that confronts us in
this case. Counsel of both sides, with an indomitable
courage that must command admiration, a courage that has led
them to a vast amount of study, investigation, and thought,
that in fact has made them all experts, have dissected this
record of 356 closely printed pages, applied all mechanical
principles and laws to the facts as they see them, and,
besides, have ransacked the law-books and cited an enormous
number of cases, more or less in point, as illustration of
their respective contentions. The courts find nothing more
difficult than to apply an abstract principle to all classes
of cases that may arise. The facts in each case so
frequently create an exception to the general rule that such
rule must be honored rather in its breach than in its
observance. Therefore, after a careful examination of these
cases, it is no criticism of the courts to say that both
sides have found abundant and about an equal amount of
authority to sustain their respective contentions, and, as a
result, counsel have submitted, in briefs, a sum total of
225 closely printed pages, in which they have clearly, yet,
almost to a mathematical certainty, demonstrated on the one
side that this Schrader machine is new and patentable, and

on the other that it is old and not so. Under these
circumstances, it would be unnecessary labor and a fruitless
task for me to enter into any further technical discussion
of the mechanical problems involved, for the purpose of
seeking to convince either side of its error. In cases of
such perplexity as this generally some incidents appear that
speak more unerringly than do the tongues of the witnesses,
and to some of these I purpose to now refer."]

Mr. Bernard Shaw, the distinguished English author, has given a most
vivid and amusing picture of this introduction of Edison's telephone into
England, describing the apparatus as "a much too ingenious invention,
being nothing less than a telephone of such stentorian efficiency that it
bellowed your most private communications all over the house, instead of
whispering them with some sort of discretion." Shaw, as a young man, was
employed by the Edison Telephone Company, and was very much alive to
his surroundings, often assisting in public demonstrations of the apparatus
"in a manner which I am persuaded laid the foundation of Mr. Edison's
reputation." The sketch of the men sent over from America is graphic:
"Whilst the Edison Telephone Company lasted it crowded the basement of a
high pile of offices in Queen Victoria Street with American artificers. These
deluded and romantic men gave me a glimpse of the skilled proletariat of
the United States. They sang obsolete sentimental songs with genuine
emotion; and their language was frightful even to an Irishman. They worked
with a ferocious energy which was out of all proportion to the actual result
achieved. Indomitably resolved to assert their republican manhood by
taking no orders from a tall-hatted Englishman whose stiff politeness
covered his conviction that they were relatively to himself inferior and
common persons, they insisted on being slave-driven with genuine
American oaths by a genuine free and equal American foreman. They
utterly despised the artfully slow British workman, who did as little for his
wages as he possibly could; never hurried himself; and had a deep
reverence for one whose pocket could be tapped by respectful behavior.
Need I add that they were contemptuously wondered at by this same British
workman as a parcel of outlandish adult boys who sweated themselves for
their employer's benefit instead of looking after their own interest? They
adored Mr. Edison as the greatest man of all time in every possible
department of science, art, and philosophy, and execrated Mr. Graham Bell,
the inventor of the rival telephone, as his Satanic adversary; but each of
them had (or intended to have) on the brink of completion an improvement
on the telephone, usually a new transmitter. They were free-souled

creatures, excellent company, sensitive, cheerful, and profane; liars,
braggarts, and hustlers, with an air of making slow old England hum, which
never left them even when, as often happened, they were wrestling with
difficulties of their own making, or struggling in no-thoroughfares, from
which they had to be retrieved like stray sheep by Englishmen without
imagination enough to go wrong."
Mr. Samuel Insull, who afterward became private secretary to Mr.
Edison, and a leader in the development of American electrical
manufacturing and the central-station art, was also in close touch with the
London situation thus depicted, being at the time private secretary to
Colonel Gouraud, and acting for the first half hour as the amateur telephone
operator in the first experimental exchange erected in Europe. He took
notes of an early meeting where the affairs of the company were discussed
by leading men like Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) and the Right Hon.
E. P. Bouverie (then a cabinet minister), none of whom could see in the
telephone much more than an auxiliary for getting out promptly in the next
morning's papers the midnight debates in Parliament. "I remember another
incident," says Mr. Insull. "It was at some celebration of one of the Royal
Societies at the Burlington House, Piccadilly. We had a telephone line
running across the roofs to the basement of the building. I think it was to
Tyndall's laboratory in Burlington Street. As the ladies and gentlemen came
through, they naturally wanted to look at the great curiosity, the loud-
speaking telephone: in fact, any telephone was a curiosity then. Mr. and
Mrs. Gladstone came through. I was handling the telephone at the
Burlington House end. Mrs. Gladstone asked the man over the telephone
whether he knew if a man or woman was speaking; and the reply came in
quite loud tones that it was a man!"
With Mr. E. H. Johnson, who represented Edison, there went to England
for the furtherance of this telephone enterprise, Mr. Charles Edison, a
nephew of the inventor. He died in Paris, October, 1879, not twenty years of
age. Stimulated by the example of his uncle, this brilliant youth had already
made a mark for himself as a student and inventor, and when only eighteen
he secured in open competition the contract to install a complete fire-alarm
telegraph system for Port Huron. A few months later he was eagerly
welcomed by his uncle at Menlo Park, and after working on the telephone
was sent to London to aid in its introduction. There he made the
acquaintance of Professor Tyndall, exhibited the telephone to the late King

of England; and also won the friendship of the late King of the Belgians,
with whom he took up the project of establishing telephonic communication
between Belgium and England. At the time of his premature death he was
engaged in installing the Edison quadruplex between Brussels and Paris,
being one of the very few persons then in Europe familiar with the working
of that invention.
Meantime, the telephonic art in America was undergoing very rapid
development. In March, 1878, addressing "the capitalists of the Electric
Telephone Company" on the future of his invention, Bell outlined with
prophetic foresight and remarkable clearness the coming of the modern
telephone exchange. Comparing with gas and water distribution, he said:
"In a similar manner, it is conceivable that cables of telephone wires could
be laid underground or suspended overhead communicating by branch
wires with private dwellings, country houses, shops, manufactories, etc.,
uniting them through the main cable with a central office, where the wire
could be connected as desired, establishing direct communication between
any two places in the city.... Not only so, but I believe, in the future, wires
will unite the head offices of telephone companies in different cities; and a
man in one part of the country may communicate by word of mouth with
another in a distant place."
All of which has come to pass. Professor Bell also suggested how this
could be done by "the employ of a man in each central office for the
purpose of connecting the wires as directed." He also indicated the two
methods of telephonic tariff—a fixed rental and a toll; and mentioned the
practice, now in use on long-distance lines, of a time charge. As a matter of
fact, this "centralizing" was attempted in May, 1877, in Boston, with the
circuits of the Holmes burglar-alarm system, four banking-houses being
thus interconnected; while in January of 1878 the Bell telephone central-
office system at New Haven, Connecticut, was opened for business, "the
first fully equipped commercial telephone exchange ever established for
public or general service."
All through this formative period Bell had adhered to and introduced the
magneto form of telephone, now used only as a receiver, and very poorly
adapted for the vital function of a speech-transmitter. From August, 1877,
the Western Union Telegraph Company worked along the other line, and in
1878, with its allied Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, it brought into

existence the American Speaking Telephone Company to introduce the
Edison apparatus, and to create telephone exchanges all over the country. In
this warfare, the possession of a good battery transmitter counted very
heavily in favor of the Western Union, for upon that the real expansion of
the whole industry depended; but in a few months the Bell system had its
battery transmitter, too, tending to equalize matters. Late in the same year
patent litigation was begun which brought out clearly the merits of Bell,
through his patent, as the original and first inventor of the electric speaking
telephone; and the Western Union Telegraph Company made terms with its
rival. A famous contract bearing date of November 10, 1879, showed that
under the Edison and other controlling patents the Western Union Company
had already set going some eighty-five exchanges, and was making large
quantities of telephonic apparatus. In return for its voluntary retirement
from the telephonic field, the Western Union Telegraph Company, under
this contract, received a royalty of 20 per cent. of all the telephone earnings
of the Bell system while the Bell patents ran; and thus came to enjoy an
annual income of several hundred thousand dollars for some years, based
chiefly on its modest investment in Edison's work. It was also paid several
thousand dollars in cash for the Edison, Phelps, Gray, and other apparatus
on hand. It secured further 40 per cent. of the stock of the local telephone
systems of New York and Chicago; and last, but by no means least, it
exacted from the Bell interests an agreement to stay out of the telegraph
field.
By March, 1881, there were in the United States only nine cities of more
than ten thousand inhabitants, and only one of more than fifteen thousand,
without a telephone exchange. The industry thrived under competition, and
the absence of it now had a decided effect in checking growth; for when the
Bell patent expired in 1893, the total of telephone sets in operation in the
United States was only 291,253. To quote from an official Bell statement:
"The brief but vigorous Western Union competition was a kind of
blessing in disguise. The very fact that two distinct interests were actively
engaged in the work of organizing and establishing competing telephone
exchanges all over the country, greatly facilitated the spread of the idea and
the growth of the business, and familiarized the people with the use of the
telephone as a business agency; while the keenness of the competition,
extending to the agents and employees of both companies, brought about a
swift but quite unforeseen and unlooked-for expansion in the individual

exchanges of the larger cities, and a corresponding advance in their
importance, value, and usefulness."
The truth of this was immediately shown in 1894, after the Bell patents
had expired, by the tremendous outburst of new competitive activity, in
"independent" country systems and toll lines through sparsely settled
districts—work for which the Edison apparatus and methods were
peculiarly adapted, yet against which the influence of the Edison patent was
invoked. The data secured by the United States Census Office in 1902
showed that the whole industry had made gigantic leaps in eight years, and
had 2,371,044 telephone stations in service, of which 1,053,866 were
wholly or nominally independent of the Bell. By 1907 an even more notable
increase was shown, and the Census figures for that year included no fewer
than 6,118,578 stations, of which 1,986,575 were "independent." These six
million instruments every single set employing the principle of the carbon
transmitter—were grouped into 15,527 public exchanges, in the very
manner predicted by Bell thirty years before, and they gave service in the
shape of over eleven billions of talks. The outstanding capitalized value of
the plant was $814,616,004, the income for the year was nearly
$185,000,000, and the people employed were 140,000. If Edison had done
nothing else, his share in the creation of such an industry would have
entitled him to a high place among inventors.
This chapter is of necessity brief in its reference to many extremely
interesting points and details; and to some readers it may seem incomplete
in its references to the work of other men than Edison, whose influence on
telephony as an art has also been considerable. In reply to this pertinent
criticism, it may be pointed out that this is a life of Edison, and not of any
one else; and that even the discussion of his achievements alone in these
various fields requires more space than the authors have at their disposal.
The attempt has been made, however, to indicate the course of events and
deal fairly with the facts. The controversy that once waged with great
excitement over the invention of the microphone, but has long since died
away, is suggestive of the difficulties involved in trying to do justice to
everybody. A standard history describes the microphone thus:
"A form of apparatus produced during the early days of the telephone by
Professor Hughes, of England, for the purpose of rendering faint, indistinct
sounds distinctly audible, depended for its operation on the changes that

result in the resistance of loose contacts. This apparatus was called the
microphone, and was in reality but one of the many forms that it is possible
to give to the telephone transmitter. For example, the Edison granular
transmitter was a variety of microphone, as was also Edison's transmitter, in
which the solid button of carbon was employed. Indeed, even the platinum
point, which in the early form of the Reis transmitter pressed against the
platinum contact cemented to the centre of the diaphragm, was a
microphone."
At a time when most people were amazed at the idea of hearing, with the
aid of a "microphone," a fly walk at a distance of many miles, the priority
of invention of such a device was hotly disputed. Yet without desiring to
take anything from the credit of the brilliant American, Hughes, whose
telegraphic apparatus is still in use all over Europe, it may be pointed out
that this passage gives Edison the attribution of at least two original forms
of which those suggested by Hughes were mere variations and
modifications. With regard to this matter, Mr. Edison himself remarks:
"After I sent one of my men over to London especially, to show Preece the
carbon transmitter, and where Hughes first saw it, and heard it—then within
a month he came out with the microphone, without any acknowledgment
whatever. Published dates will show that Hughes came along after me."
There have been other ways also in which Edison has utilized the
peculiar property that carbon possesses of altering its resistance to the
passage of current, according to the pressure to which it is subjected,
whether at the surface, or through closer union of the mass. A loose road
with a few inches of dust or pebbles on it offers appreciable resistance to
the wheels of vehicles travelling over it; but if the surface is kept hard and
smooth the effect is quite different. In the same way carbon, whether solid
or in the shape of finely divided powder, offers a high resistance to the
passage of electricity; but if the carbon is squeezed together the conditions
change, with less resistance to electricity in the circuit. For his quadruplex
system, Mr. Edison utilized this fact in the construction of a rheostat or
resistance box. It consists of a series of silk disks saturated with a sizing of
plumbago and well dried. The disks are compressed by means of an
adjustable screw; and in this manner the resistance of a circuit can be varied
over a wide range.

In like manner Edison developed a "pressure" or carbon relay, adapted to
the transference of signals of variable strength from one circuit to another.
An ordinary relay consists of an electromagnet inserted in the main line for
telegraphing, which brings a local battery and sounder circuit into play,
reproducing in the local circuit the signals sent over the main line. The relay
is adjusted to the weaker currents likely to be received, but the signals
reproduced on the sounder by the agency of the relay are, of course, all of
equal strength, as they depend upon the local battery, which has only this
steady work to perform. In cases where it is desirable to reproduce the
signals in the local circuit with the same variations in strength as they are
received by the relay, the Edison carbon pressure relay does the work. The
poles of the electromagnet in the local circuit are hollowed out and filled up
with carbon disks or powdered plumbago. The armature and the carbon-
tipped poles of the electromagnet form part of the local circuit; and if the
relay is actuated by a weak current the armature will be attracted but feebly.
The carbon being only slightly compressed will offer considerable
resistance to the flow of current from the local battery, and therefore the
signal on the local sounder will be weak. If, on the contrary, the incoming
current on the main line be strong, the armature will be strongly attracted,
the carbon will be sharply compressed, the resistance in the local circuit
will be proportionately lowered, and the signal heard on the local sounder
will be a loud one. Thus it will be seen, by another clever juggle with the
willing agent, carbon, for which he has found so many duties, Edison is
able to transfer or transmit exactly, to the local circuit, the main-line current
in all its minutest variations.
In his researches to determine the nature of the motograph phenomena,
and to open up other sources of electrical current generation, Edison has
worked out a very ingenious and somewhat perplexing piece of apparatus
known as the "chalk battery." It consists of a series of chalk cylinders
mounted on a shaft revolved by hand. Resting against each of these
cylinders is a palladium-faced spring, and similar springs make contact with
the shaft between each cylinder. By connecting all these springs in circuit
with a galvanometer and revolving the shaft rapidly, a notable deflection is
obtained of the galvanometer needle, indicating the production of electrical
energy. The reason for this does not appear to have been determined.
Last but not least, in this beautiful and ingenious series, comes the
"tasimeter," an instrument of most delicate sensibility in the presence of

heat. The name is derived from the Greek, the use of the apparatus being
primarily to measure extremely minute differences of pressure. A strip of
hard rubber with pointed ends rests perpendicularly on a platinum plate,
beneath which is a carbon button, under which again lies another platinum
plate. The two plates and the carbon button form part of an electric circuit
containing a battery and a galvanometer. The hard-rubber strip is
exceedingly sensitive to heat. The slightest degree of heat imparted to it
causes it to expand invisibly, thus increasing the pressure contact on the
carbon button and producing a variation in the resistance of the circuit,
registered immediately by the little swinging needle of the galvanometer.
The instrument is so sensitive that with a delicate galvanometer it will show
the impingement of the heat from a person's hand thirty feet away. The
suggestion to employ such an apparatus in astronomical observations occurs
at once, and it may be noted that in one instance the heat of rays of light
from the remote star Arcturus gave results.

CHAPTER X
THE PHONOGRAPH

AT the opening of the Electrical Show in New York City in October,
1908, to celebrate the jubilee of the Atlantic Cable and the first quarter
century of lighting with the Edison service on Manhattan Island, the
exercises were all conducted by means of the Edison phonograph. This
included the dedicatory speech of Governor Hughes, of New York; the
modest remarks of Mr. Edison, as president; the congratulations of the
presidents of several national electric bodies, and a number of vocal and
instrumental selections of operatic nature. All this was heard clearly by a
very large audience, and was repeated on other evenings. The same
speeches were used again phonographically at the Electrical Show in
Chicago in 1909—and now the records are preserved for reproduction a
hundred or a thousand years hence. This tour de force, never attempted
before, was merely an exemplification of the value of the phonograph not
only in establishing at first hand the facts of history, but in preserving the
human voice. What would we not give to listen to the very accents and
tones of the Sermon on the Mount, the orations of Demosthenes, the first
Pitt's appeal for American liberty, the Farewell of Washington, or the
Address at Gettysburg? Until Edison made his wonderful invention in 1877,
the human race was entirely without means for preserving or passing on to
posterity its own linguistic utterances or any other vocal sound. We have
some idea how the ancients looked and felt and wrote; the abundant
evidence takes us back to the cave-dwellers. But all the old languages are
dead, and the literary form is their embalmment. We do not even know
definitely how Shakespeare's and Goldsmith's plays were pronounced on
the stage in the theatres of the time; while it is only a guess that perhaps
Chaucer would sound much more modern than he scans.
The analysis of sound, which owes so much to Helmholtz, was one step
toward recording; and the various means of illustrating the phenomena of
sound to the eye and ear, prior to the phonograph, were all ingenious. One
can watch the dancing little flames of Koenig, and see a voice expressed in

tongues of fire; but the record can only be photographic. In like manner, the
simple phonautograph of Leon Scott, invented about 1858, records on a
revolving cylinder of blackened paper the sound vibrations transmitted
through a membrane to which a tiny stylus is attached; so that a human
mouth uses a pen and inscribes its sign vocal. Yet after all we are just as far
away as ever from enabling the young actors at Harvard to give
Aristophanes with all the true, subtle intonation and inflection of the Athens
of 400 B.C. The instrument is dumb. Ingenuity has been shown also in the
invention of "talking-machines," like Faber's, based on the reed organ pipe.
These automata can be made by dexterous manipulation to jabber a little,
like a doll with its monotonous "ma-ma," or a cuckoo clock; but they lack
even the sterile utility of the imitative art of ventriloquism. The real great
invention lies in creating devices that shall be able to evoke from tinfoil,
wax, or composition at any time to-day or in the future the sound that once
was as evanescent as the vibrations it made on the air.
Contrary to the general notion, very few of the great modern inventions
have been the result of a sudden inspiration by which, Minerva-like, they
have sprung full-fledged from their creators' brain; but, on the contrary, they
have been evolved by slow and gradual steps, so that frequently the final
advance has been often almost imperceptible. The Edison phonograph is an
important exception to the general rule; not, of course, the phonograph of
the present day with all of its mechanical perfection, but as an instrument
capable of recording and reproducing sound. Its invention has been
frequently attributed to the discovery that a point attached to a telephone
diaphragm would, under the effect of sound-waves, vibrate with sufficient
force to prick the finger. The story, though interesting, is not founded on
fact; but, if true, it is difficult to see how the discovery in question could
have contributed materially to the ultimate accomplishment. To a man of
Edison's perception it is absurd to suppose that the effect of the so-called
discovery would not have been made as a matter of deduction long before
the physical sensation was experienced. As a matter of fact, the invention of
the phonograph was the result of pure reason. Some time prior to 1877,
Edison had been experimenting on an automatic telegraph in which the
letters were formed by embossing strips of paper with the proper
arrangement of dots and dashes. By drawing this strip beneath a contact
lever, the latter was actuated so as to control the circuits and send the
desired signals over the line. It was observed that when the strip was moved

very rapidly the vibration of the lever resulted in the production of an
audible note. With these facts before him, Edison reasoned that if the paper
strip could be imprinted with elevations and depressions representative of
sound-waves, they might be caused to actuate a diaphragm so as to
reproduce the corresponding sounds. The next step in the line of
development was to form the necessary undulations on the strip, and it was
then reasoned that original sounds themselves might be utilized to form a
graphic record by actuating a diaphragm and causing a cutting or indenting
point carried thereby to vibrate in contact with a moving surface, so as to
cut or indent the record therein. Strange as it may seem, therefore, and
contrary to the general belief, the phonograph was developed backward, the
production of the sounds being of prior development to the idea of actually
recording them.
Mr. Edison's own account of the invention of the phonograph is intensely
interesting. "I was experimenting," he says, "on an automatic method of
recording telegraph messages on a disk of paper laid on a revolving platen,
exactly the same as the disk talking-machine of to-day. The platen had a
spiral groove on its surface, like the disk. Over this was placed a circular
disk of paper; an electromagnet with the embossing point connected to an
arm travelled over the disk; and any signals given through the magnets were
embossed on the disk of paper. If this disk was removed from the machine
and put on a similar machine provided with a contact point, the embossed
record would cause the signals to be repeated into another wire. The
ordinary speed of telegraphic signals is thirty-five to forty words a minute;
but with this machine several hundred words were possible.
"From my experiments on the telephone I knew of the power of a
diaphragm to take up sound vibrations, as I had made a little toy which,
when you recited loudly in the funnel, would work a pawl connected to the
diaphragm; and this engaging a ratchet-wheel served to give continuous
rotation to a pulley. This pulley was connected by a cord to a little paper toy
representing a man sawing wood. Hence, if one shouted: 'Mary had a little
lamb,' etc., the paper man would start sawing wood. I reached the
conclusion that if I could record the movements of the diaphragm properly,
I could cause such record to reproduce the original movements imparted to
the diaphragm by the voice, and thus succeed in recording and reproducing
the human voice.

"Instead of using a disk I designed a little machine using a cylinder
provided with grooves around the surface. Over this was to be placed
tinfoil, which easily received and recorded the movements of the
diaphragm. A sketch was made, and the piece-work price, $18, was marked
on the sketch. I was in the habit of marking the price I would pay on each
sketch. If the workman lost, I would pay his regular wages; if he made more
than the wages, he kept it. The workman who got the sketch was John
Kruesi. I didn't have much faith that it would work, expecting that I might
possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea.
Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I told him I
was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He
thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then
shouted 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the
machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my life.
Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid of things that worked the
first time. Long experience proved that there were great drawbacks found
generally before they could be got commercial; but here was something
there was no doubt of."
No wonder that honest John Kruesi, as he stood and listened to the
marvellous performance of the simple little machine he had himself just
finished, ejaculated in an awe-stricken tone: "Mein Gott im Himmel!" And
yet he had already seen Edison do a few clever things. No wonder they sat
up all night fixing and adjusting it so as to get better and better results—
reciting and singing, trying each other's voices, and then listening with
involuntary awe as the words came back again and again, just as long as
they were willing to revolve the little cylinder with its dotted spiral
indentations in the tinfoil under the vibrating stylus of the reproducing
diaphragm. It took a little time to acquire the knack of turning the crank
steadily while leaning over the recorder to talk into the machine; and there
was some deftness required also in fastening down the tinfoil on the
cylinder where it was held by a pin running in a longitudinal slot. Paraffined
paper appears also to have been experimented with as an impressible
material. It is said that Carman, the foreman of the machine shop, had gone
the length of wagering Edison a box of cigars that the device would not
work. All the world knows that he lost.
The original Edison phonograph thus built by Kruesi is preserved in the
South Kensington Museum, London. That repository can certainly have no

greater treasure of its kind. But as to its immediate use, the inventor says:
"That morning I took it over to New York and walked into the office of the
Scientific American, went up to Mr. Beach's desk, and said I had something
to show him. He asked what it was. I told him I had a machine that would
record and reproduce the human voice. I opened the package, set up the
machine and recited, 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc. Then I reproduced it so
that it could be heard all over the room. They kept me at it until the crowd
got so great Mr. Beach was afraid the floor would collapse; and we were
compelled to stop. The papers next morning contained columns. None of
the writers seemed to understand how it was done. I tried to explain, it was
so very simple, but the results were so surprising they made up their minds
probably that they never would understand it—and they didn't.
"I started immediately making several larger and better machines, which
I exhibited at Menlo Park to crowds. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran special
trains. Washington people telegraphed me to come on. I took a phonograph
to Washington and exhibited it in the room of James G. Blaine's niece (Gail
Hamilton); and members of Congress and notable people of that city came
all day long until late in the evening. I made one break. I recited 'Mary,' etc.,
and another ditty:

'There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.'

"It will be remembered that Senator Roscoe Conkling, then very
prominent, had a curl of hair on his forehead; and all the caricaturists
developed it abnormally. He was very sensitive about the subject. When he
came in he was introduced; but being rather deaf, I didn't catch his name,
but sat down and started the curl ditty. Everybody tittered, and I was told
that Mr. Conkling was displeased. About 11 o'clock at night word was
received from President Hayes that he would be very much pleased if I
would come up to the White House. I was taken there, and found Mr. Hayes
and several others waiting. Among them I remember Carl Schurz, who was
playing the piano when I entered the room. The exhibition continued till
about 12.30 A.M., when Mrs. Hayes and several other ladies, who had been
induced to get up and dress, appeared. I left at 3.30 A.M.
"For a long time some people thought there was trickery. One morning at
Menlo Park a gentleman came to the laboratory and asked to see the

phonograph. It was Bishop Vincent, who helped Lewis Miller found the
Chautauqua I exhibited it, and then he asked if he could speak a few words.
I put on a fresh foil and told him to go ahead. He commenced to recite
Biblical names with immense rapidity. On reproducing it he said: 'I am
satisfied, now. There isn't a man in the United States who could recite those
names with the same rapidity.'"
The phonograph was now fairly launched as a world sensation, and a
reference to the newspapers of 1878 will show the extent to which it and
Edison were themes of universal discussion. Some of the press notices of
the period were most amazing—and amusing. As though the real
achievements of this young man, barely thirty, were not tangible and solid
enough to justify admiration of his genius, the "yellow journalists" of the
period began busily to create an "Edison myth," with gross absurdities of
assertion and attribution from which the modest subject of it all has not yet
ceased to suffer with unthinking people. A brilliantly vicious example of
this method of treatment is to be found in the Paris Figaro of that year,
which under the appropriate title of "This Astounding Eddison" lay bare
before the French public the most startling revelations as to the inventor's
life and character. "It should be understood," said this journal, "that Mr.
Eddison does not belong to himself. He is the property of the telegraph
company which lodges him in New York at a superb hotel; keeps him on a
luxurious footing, and pays him a formidable salary so as to be the one to
know of and profit by his discoveries. The company has, in the dwelling of
Eddison, men in its employ who do not quit him for a moment, at the table,
on the street, in the laboratory. So that this wretched man, watched more
closely than ever was any malefactor, cannot even give a moment's thought
to his own private affairs without one of his guards asking him what he is
thinking about." This foolish "blague" was accompanied by a description of
Edison's new "aerophone," a steam machine which carried the voice a
distance of one and a half miles. "You speak to a jet of vapor. A friend
previously advised can answer you by the same method." Nor were
American journals backward in this wild exaggeration.
The furor had its effect in stimulating a desire everywhere on the part of
everybody to see and hear the phonograph. A small commercial
organization was formed to build and exploit the apparatus, and the shops at
Menlo Park laboratory were assisted by the little Bergmann shop in New
York. Offices were taken for the new enterprise at 203 Broadway, where the

Mail and Express building now stands, and where, in a general way, under
the auspices of a talented dwarf, C. A. Cheever, the embryonic phonograph
and the crude telephone shared rooms and expenses. Gardiner G. Hubbard,
father-in-law of Alex. Graham Bell, was one of the stockholders in the
Phonograph Company, which paid Edison $10,000 cash and a 20 per cent.
royalty. This curious partnership was maintained for some time, even when
the Bell Telephone offices were removed to Reade Street, New York,
whither the phonograph went also; and was perhaps explained by the fact
that just then the ability of the phonograph as a money-maker was much
more easily demonstrated than was that of the telephone, still in its short
range magneto stage and awaiting development with the aid of the carbon
transmitter.
The earning capacity of the phonograph then, as largely now, lay in its
exhibition qualities. The royalties from Boston, ever intellectually awake
and ready for something new, ran as high as $1800 a week. In New York
there was a ceaseless demand for it, and with the aid of Hilbourne L.
Roosevelt, a famous organ builder, and uncle of ex-President Roosevelt,
concerts were given at which the phonograph was "featured." To manage
this novel show business the services of James Redpath were called into
requisition with great success. Redpath, famous as a friend and biographer
of John Brown, as a Civil War correspondent, and as founder of the
celebrated Redpath Lyceum Bureau in Boston, divided the country into
territories, each section being leased for exhibition purposes on a basis of a
percentage of the "gate money." To 203 Broadway from all over the Union
flocked a swarm of showmen, cranks, and particularly of old operators,
who, the seedier they were in appearance, the more insistent they were that
"Tom" should give them, for the sake of "Auld lang syne," this chance to
make a fortune for him and for themselves. At the top of the building was a
floor on which these novices were graduated in the use and care of the
machine, and then, with an equipment of tinfoil and other supplies, they
were sent out on the road. It was a diverting experience while it lasted. The
excitement over the phonograph was maintained for many months, until a
large proportion of the inhabitants of the country had seen it; and then the
show receipts declined and dwindled away. Many of the old operators,
taken on out of good-nature, were poor exhibitors and worse accountants,
and at last they and the machines with which they had been intrusted faded
from sight. But in the mean time Edison had learned many lessons as to this

practical side of development that were not forgotten when the renascence
of the phonograph began a few years later, leading up to the present
enormous and steady demand for both machines and records.
It deserves to be pointed out that the phonograph has changed little in the
intervening years from the first crude instruments of 1877-78. It has simply
been refined and made more perfect in a mechanical sense. Edison was
immensely impressed with its possibilities, and greatly inclined to work
upon it, but the coming of the electric light compelled him to throw all his
energies for a time into the vast new field awaiting conquest. The original
phonograph, as briefly noted above, was rotated by hand, and the cylinder
was fed slowly longitudinally by means of a nut engaging a screw thread on
the cylinder shaft. Wrapped around the cylinder was a sheet of tinfoil, with
which engaged a small chisel-like recording needle, connected adhesively
with the centre of an iron diaphragm. Obviously, as the cylinder was turned,
the needle followed a spiral path whose pitch depended upon that of the
feed screw. Along this path a thread was cut in the cylinder so as to permit
the needle to indent the foil readily as the diaphragm vibrated. By rotating
the cylinder and by causing the diaphragm to vibrate under the effect of
vocal or musical sounds, the needle-like point would form a series of
indentations in the foil corresponding to and characteristic of the sound-
waves. By now engaging the point with the beginning of the grooved record
so formed, and by again rotating the cylinder, the undulations of the record
would cause the needle and its attached diaphragm to vibrate so as to effect
the reproduction. Such an apparatus was necessarily undeveloped, and was
interesting only from a scientific point of view. It had many mechanical
defects which prevented its use as a practical apparatus. Since the cylinder
was rotated by hand, the speed at which the record was formed would vary
considerably, even with the same manipulator, so that it would have been
impossible to record and reproduce music satisfactorily; in doing which
exact uniformity of speed is essential. The formation of the record in tinfoil
was also objectionable from a practical standpoint, since such a record was
faint and would be substantially obliterated after two or three reproductions.
Furthermore, the foil could not be easily removed from and replaced upon
the instrument, and consequently the reproduction had to follow the
recording immediately, and the successive tinfoils were thrown away. The
instrument was also heavy and bulky. Notwithstanding these objections the
original phonograph created, as already remarked, an enormous popular

excitement, and the exhibitions were considered by many sceptical persons
as nothing more than clever ventriloquism. The possibilities of the
instrument as a commercial apparatus were recognized from the very first,
and some of the fields in which it was predicted that the phonograph would
be used are now fully occupied. Some have not yet been realized. Writing in
1878 in the North American-Review, Mr. Edison thus summed up his own
ideas as to the future applications of the new invention:
"Among the many uses to which the phonograph will be applied are the
following:
1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a
stenographer.
2. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort
on their part.
3. The teaching of elocution.
4. Reproduction of music.
5. The 'Family Record'—a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc., by
members of a family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying
persons.
6. Music-boxes and toys.
7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going
home, going to meals, etc.
8. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction of the manner of
pronouncing.
9. Educational purposes; such as preserving the explanations made by a
teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and spelling or
other lessons placed upon the phonograph for convenience in committing to
memory.
10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that instrument an
auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records, instead
of being the recipient of momentary and fleeting communication."
Of the above fields of usefulness in which it was expected that the
phonograph might be applied, only three have been commercially realized
—namely, the reproduction of musical, including vaudeville or talking
selections, for which purpose a very large proportion of the phonographs

now made is used; the employment of the machine as a mechanical
stenographer, which field has been taken up actively only within the past
few years; and the utilization of the device for the teaching of languages,
for which purpose it has been successfully employed, for example, by the
International Correspondence Schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for
several years. The other uses, however, which were early predicted for the
phonograph have not as yet been worked out practically, although the time
seems not far distant when its general utility will be widely enlarged. Both
dolls and clocks have been made, but thus far the world has not taken them
seriously.
The original phonograph, as invented by Edison, remained in its crude
and immature state for almost ten years—still the object of philosophical
interest, and as a convenient text-book illustration of the effect of sound
vibration. It continued to be a theme of curious interest to the imaginative,
and the subject of much fiction, while its neglected commercial possibilities
were still more or less vaguely referred to. During this period of arrested
development, Edison was continuously working on the invention and
commercial exploitation of the incandescent lamp. In 1887 his time was
comparatively free, and the phonograph was then taken up with renewed
energy, and the effort made to overcome its mechanical defects and to
furnish a commercial instrument, so that its early promise might be realized.
The important changes made from that time up to 1890 converted the
phonograph from a scientific toy into a successful industrial apparatus. The
idea of forming the record on tinfoil had been early abandoned, and in its
stead was substituted a cylinder of wax-like material, in which the record
was cut by a minute chisel-like gouging tool. Such a record or phonogram,
as it was then called, could be removed from the machine or replaced at any
time, many reproductions could be obtained without wearing out the record,
and whenever desired the record could be shaved off by a turning-tool so as
to present a fresh surface on which a new record could be formed,
something like an ancient palimpsest. A wax cylinder having walls less than
one-quarter of an inch in thickness could be used for receiving a large
number of records, since the maximum depth of the record groove is hardly
ever greater than one one-thousandth of an inch. Later on, and as the
crowning achievement in the phonograph field, from a commercial point of
view, came the duplication of records to the extent of many thousands from
a single "master." This work was actively developed between the years

1890 and 1898, and its difficulties may be appreciated when the problem is
stated; the copying from a single master of many millions of excessively
minute sound-waves having a maximum width of one hundredth of an inch,
and a maximum depth of one thousandth of an inch, or less than the
thickness of a sheet of tissue-paper. Among the interesting developments of
this process was the coating of the original or master record with a
homogeneous film of gold so thin that three hundred thousand of these
piled one on top of the other would present a thickness of only one inch!
Another important change was in the nature of a reversal of the original
arrangement, the cylinder or mandrel carrying the record being mounted in
fixed bearings, and the recording or reproducing device being fed
lengthwise, like the cutting-tool of a lathe, as the blank or record was
rotated. It was early recognized that a single needle for forming the record
and the reproduction therefrom was an undesirable arrangement, since the
formation of the record required a very sharp cutting-tool, while satisfactory
and repeated reproduction suggested the use of a stylus which would result
in the minimum wear. After many experiments and the production of a
number of types of machines, the present recorders and reproducers were
evolved, the former consisting of a very small cylindrical gouging tool
having a diameter of about forty thousandths of an inch, and the latter a ball
or button-shaped stylus with a diameter of about thirty-five thousandths of
an inch. By using an incisor of this sort, the record is formed of a series of
connected gouges with rounded sides, varying in depth and width, and with
which the reproducer automatically engages and maintains its engagement.
Another difficulty encountered in the commercial development of the
phonograph was the adjustment of the recording stylus so as to enter the
wax-like surface to a very slight depth, and of the reproducer so as to
engage exactly the record when formed. The earlier types of machines were
provided with separate screws for effecting these adjustments; but
considerable skill was required to obtain good results, and great difficulty
was experienced in meeting the variations in the wax-like cylinders, due to
the warping under atmospheric changes. Consequently, with the early types
of commercial phonographs, it was first necessary to shave off the blank
accurately before a record was formed thereon, in order that an absolutely
true surface might be presented. To overcome these troubles, the very
ingenious suggestion was then made and adopted, of connecting the
recording and reproducing styluses to their respective diaphragms through

the instrumentality of a compensating weight, which acted practically as a
fixed support under the very rapid sound vibrations, but which yielded
readily to distortions or variations in the wax-like cylinders. By reason of
this improvement, it became possible to do away with all adjustments, the
mass of the compensating weight causing the recorder to engage the blank
automatically to the required depth, and to maintain the reproducing stylus
always with the desired pressure on the record when formed. These
automatic adjustments were maintained even though the blank or record
might be so much out of true as an eighth of an inch, equal to more than
two hundred times the maximum depth of the record groove.
Another improvement that followed along the lines adopted by Edison
for the commercial development of the phonograph was making the
recording and reproducing styluses of sapphire, an extremely hard, non-
oxidizable jewel, so that those tiny instruments would always retain their
true form and effectively resist wear. Of course, in this work many other
things were done that may still be found on the perfected phonograph as it
stands to-day, and many other suggestions were made which were
contemporaneously adopted, but which were later abandoned. For the
curious-minded, reference is made to the records in the Patent Office, which
will show that up to 1893 Edison had obtained upward of sixty-five patents
in this art, from which his line of thought can be very closely traced. The
phonograph of to-day, except for the perfection of its mechanical features,
in its beauty of manufacture and design, and in small details, may be
considered identical with the machine of 1889, with the exception that with
the latter the rotation of the record cylinder was effected by an electric
motor.
Its essential use as then contemplated was as a substitute for
stenographers, and the most extravagant fancies were indulged in as to
utility in that field. To exploit the device commercially, the patents were
sold to Philadelphia capitalists, who organized the North American
Phonograph Company, through which leases for limited periods were
granted to local companies doing business in special territories, generally
within the confines of a single State. Under that plan, resembling the
methods of 1878, the machines and blank cylinders were manufactured by
the Edison Phonograph Works, which still retains its factories at Orange,
New Jersey. The marketing enterprise was early doomed to failure,
principally because the instruments were not well understood, and did not

possess the necessary refinements that would fit them for the special field in
which they were to be used. At first the instruments were leased; but it was
found that the leases were seldom renewed. Efforts were then made to sell
them, but the prices were high—from $100 to $150. In the midst of these
difficulties, the chief promoter of the enterprise, Mr. Lippincott, died; and it
was soon found that the roseate dreams of success entertained by the
sanguine promoters were not to be realized. The North American
Phonograph Company failed, its principal creditor being Mr. Edison, who,
having acquired the assets of the defunct concern, organized the National
Phonograph Company, to which he turned over the patents; and with
characteristic energy he attempted again to build up a business with which
his favorite and, to him, most interesting invention might be successfully
identified. The National Phonograph Company from the very start
determined to retire at least temporarily from the field of stenographic use,
and to exploit the phonograph for musical purposes as a competitor of the
music-box. Hence it was necessary that for such work the relatively heavy
and expensive electric motor should be discarded, and a simple spring
motor constructed with a sufficiently sensitive governor to permit accurate
musical reproduction. Such a motor was designed, and is now used on all
phonographs except on such special instruments as may be made with
electric motors, as well as on the successful apparatus that has more
recently been designed and introduced for stenographic use. Improved
factory facilities were introduced; new tools were made, and various types
of machines were designed so that phonographs can now be bought at
prices ranging from $10 to $200. Even with the changes which were thus
made in the two machines, the work of developing the business was slow,
as a demand had to be created; and the early prejudice of the public against
the phonograph, due to its failure as a stenographic apparatus, had to be
overcome. The story of the phonograph as an industrial enterprise, from this
point of departure, is itself full of interest, but embraces so many details that
it is necessarily given in a separate later chapter. We must return to the days
of 1878, when Edison, with at least three first-class inventions to his credit
—the quadruplex, the carbon telephone, and the phonograph—had become
a man of mark and a "world character."
The invention of the phonograph was immediately followed, as usual, by
the appearance of several other incidental and auxiliary devices, some
patented, and others remaining simply the application of the principles of

apparatus that had been worked out. One of these was the telephonograph, a
combination of a telephone at a distant station with a phonograph. The
diaphragm of the phonograph mouthpiece is actuated by an electromagnet
in the same way as that of an ordinary telephone receiver, and in this
manner a record of the message spoken from a distance can be obtained and
turned into sound at will. Evidently such a process is reversible, and the
phonograph can send a message to the distant receiver.
This idea was brilliantly demonstrated in practice in February, 1889, by
Mr. W. J. Hammer, one of Edison's earliest and most capable associates,
who carried on telephonographic communication between New York and an
audience in Philadelphia. The record made in New York on the Edison
phonograph was repeated into an Edison carbon transmitter, sent over one
hundred and three miles of circuit, including six miles of underground
cable; received by an Edison motograph; repeated by that on to a
phonograph; transferred from the phonograph to an Edison carbon
transmitter, and by that delivered to the Edison motograph receiver in the
enthusiastic lecture-hall, where every one could hear each sound and
syllable distinctly. In real practice this spectacular playing with sound
vibrations, as if they were lacrosse balls to toss around between the goals,
could be materially simplified.
The modern megaphone, now used universally in making announcements
to large crowds, particularly at sporting events, is also due to this period as
a perfection by Edison of many antecedent devices going back, perhaps,
much further than the legendary funnels through which Alexander the Great
is said to have sent commands to his outlying forces. The improved Edison
megaphone for long-distance work comprised two horns of wood or metal
about six feet long, tapering from a diameter of two feet six inches at the
mouth to a small aperture provided with ear-tubes. These converging horns
or funnels, with a large speaking-trumpet in between them, are mounted on
a tripod, and the megaphone is complete. Conversation can be carried on
with this megaphone at a distance of over two miles, as with a ship or the
balloon. The modern megaphone now employs the receiver form thus
introduced as its very effective transmitter, with which the old-fashioned
speaking-trumpet cannot possibly compete; and the word "megaphone" is
universally applied to the single, side-flaring horn.

A further step in this line brought Edison to the "aerophone," around
which the Figaro weaved its fanciful description. In the construction of the
aerophone the same kind of tympanum is used as in the phonograph, but the
imitation of the human voice, or the transmission of sound, is effected by
the quick opening and closing of valves placed within a steam-whistle or an
organ-pipe. The vibrations of the diaphragm communicated to the valves
cause them to operate in synchronism, so that the vibrations are thrown
upon the escaping air or steam; and the result is an instrument with a
capacity of magnifying the sounds two hundred times, and of hurling them
to great distances intelligibly, like a huge fog-siren, but with immense
clearness and penetration. All this study of sound transmission over long
distances without wires led up to the consideration and invention of pioneer
apparatus for wireless telegraphy—but that also is another chapter.
Yet one more ingenious device of this period must be noted—Edison's
vocal engine, the patent application for which was executed in August,
1878, the patent being granted the following December. Reference to this
by Edison himself has already been quoted. The "voice-engine," or
"phonomotor," converts the vibrations of the voice or of music, acting on
the diaphragm, into motion which is utilized to drive some secondary
appliance, whether as a toy or for some useful purpose. Thus a man can
actually talk a hole through a board.
Somewhat weary of all this work and excitement, and not having enjoyed
any cessation from toil, or period of rest, for ten years, Edison jumped
eagerly at the opportunity afforded him in the summer of 1878 of making a
westward trip. Just thirty years later, on a similar trip over the same ground,
he jotted down for this volume some of his reminiscences. The lure of 1878
was the opportunity to try the ability of his delicate tasimeter during the
total eclipse of the sun, July 29. His admiring friend, Prof. George F.
Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, with whom he had now been on
terms of intimacy for some years, suggested the holiday, and was himself a
member of the excursion party that made its rendezvous at Rawlins,
Wyoming Territory. Edison had tested his tasimeter, and was satisfied that it
would measure down to the millionth part of a degree Fahrenheit. It was
just ten years since he had left the West in poverty and obscurity, a
penniless operator in search of a job; but now he was a great inventor and
famous, a welcome addition to the band of astronomers and physicists
assembled to observe the eclipse and the corona.

"There were astronomers from nearly every nation," says Mr. Edison.
"We had a special car. The country at that time was rather new; game was in
great abundance, and could be seen all day long from the car window,
especially antelope. We arrived at Rawlins about 4 P.M. It had a small
machine shop, and was the point where locomotives were changed for the
next section. The hotel was a very small one, and by doubling up we were
barely accommodated. My room-mate was Fox, the correspondent of the
New York Herald. After we retired and were asleep a thundering knock on
the door awakened us. Upon opening the door a tall, handsome man with
flowing hair dressed in western style entered the room. His eyes were
bloodshot, and he was somewhat inebriated. He introduced himself as
'Texas Jack'—Joe Chromondo—and said he wanted to see Edison, as he had
read about me in the newspapers. Both Fox and I were rather scared, and
didn't know what was to be the result of the interview. The landlord
requested him not to make so much noise, and was thrown out into the hall.
Jack explained that he had just come in with a party which had been
hunting, and that he felt fine. He explained, also, that he was the boss
pistol-shot of the West; that it was he who taught the celebrated Doctor
Carver how to shoot. Then suddenly pointing to a weather-vane on the
freight depot, he pulled out a Colt revolver and fired through the window,
hitting the vane. The shot awakened all the people, and they rushed in to see
who was killed. It was only after I told him I was tired and would see him
in the morning that he left. Both Fox and I were so nervous we didn't sleep
any that night.
"We were told in the morning that Jack was a pretty good fellow, and was
not one of the 'bad men,' of whom they had a good supply. They had one in
the jail, and Fox and I went over to see him. A few days before he had held
up a Union Pacific train and robbed all the passengers. In the jail also was a
half-breed horse-thief. We interviewed the bad man through bars as big as
railroad rails. He looked like a 'bad man.' The rim of his ear all around came
to a sharp edge and was serrated. His eyes were nearly white, and appeared
as if made of glass and set in wrong, like the life-size figures of Indians in
the Smithsonian Institution. His face was also extremely irregular. He
wouldn't answer a single question. I learned afterward that he got seven
years in prison, while the horse-thief was hanged. As horses ran wild, and
there was no protection, it meant death to steal one."

This was one interlude among others. "The first thing the astronomers did
was to determine with precision their exact locality upon the earth. A
number of observations were made, and Watson, of Michigan University,
with two others, worked all night computing, until they agreed. They said
they were not in error more than one hundred feet, and that the station was
twelve miles out of the position given on the maps. It seemed to take an
immense amount of mathematics. I preserved one of the sheets, which
looked like the time-table of a Chinese railroad. The instruments of the
various parties were then set up in different parts of the little town, and got
ready for the eclipse which was to occur in three or four days. Two days
before the event we all got together, and obtaining an engine and car, went
twelve miles farther west to visit the United States Government
astronomers at a place called Separation, the apex of the Great Divide,
where the waters run east to the Mississippi and west to the Pacific. Fox and
I took our Winchester rifles with an idea of doing a little shooting. After
calling on the Government people we started to interview the telegraph
operator at this most lonely and desolate spot. After talking over old
acquaintances I asked him if there was any game around. He said, 'Plenty of
jack-rabbits.' These jack-rabbits are a very peculiar species. They have ears
about six inches long and very slender legs, about three times as long as
those of an ordinary rabbit, and travel at a great speed by a series of jumps,
each about thirty feet long, as near as I could judge. The local people called
them 'narrow-gauge mules.' Asking the operator the best direction, he
pointed west, and noticing a rabbit in a clear space in the sage bushes, I
said, 'There is one now.' I advanced cautiously to within one hundred feet
and shot. The rabbit paid no attention. I then advanced to within ten feet and
shot again—the rabbit was still immovable. On looking around, the whole
crowd at the station were watching—and then I knew the rabbit was
stuffed! However, we did shoot a number of live ones until Fox ran out of
cartridges. On returning to the station I passed away the time shooting at
cans set on a pile of tins. Finally the operator said to Fox: 'I have a fine
Springfield musket, suppose you try it!' So Fox took the musket and fired. It
knocked him nearly over. It seems that the musket had been run over by a
handcar, which slightly bent the long barrel, but not sufficiently for an
amateur like Fox to notice. After Fox had his shoulder treated with arnica at
the Government hospital tent, we returned to Rawlins."

The eclipse was, however, the prime consideration, and Edison followed
the example of his colleagues in making ready. The place which he secured
for setting up his tasimeter was an enclosure hardly suitable for the purpose,
and he describes the results as follows:
"I had my apparatus in a small yard enclosed by a board fence six feet
high, at one end there was a house for hens. I noticed that they all went to
roost just before totality. At the same time a slight wind arose, and at the
moment of totality the atmosphere was filled with thistle-down and other
light articles. I noticed one feather, whose weight was at least one hundred
and fifty milligrams, rise perpendicularly to the top of the fence, where it
floated away on the wind. My apparatus was entirely too sensitive, and I got
no results." It was found that the heat from the corona of the sun was ten
times the index capacity of the instrument; but this result did not leave the
value of the device in doubt. The Scientific American remarked;
"Seeing that the tasimeter is affected by a wider range of etheric
undulations than the eye can take cognizance of, and is withal far more
acutely sensitive, the probabilities are that it will open up hitherto
inaccessible regions of space, and possibly extend the range of aerial
knowledge as far beyond the limit obtained by the telescope as that is
beyond the narrow reach of unaided vision."
The eclipse over, Edison, with Professor Barker, Major Thornberg,
several soldiers, and a number of railroad officials, went hunting about one
hundred miles south of the railroad in the Ute country. A few months later
the Major and thirty soldiers were ambushed near the spot at which the
hunting-party had camped, and all were killed. Through an introduction
from Mr. Jay Gould, who then controlled the Union Pacific, Edison was
allowed to ride on the cow-catchers of the locomotives. "The different
engineers gave me a small cushion, and every day I rode in this manner,
from Omaha to the Sacramento Valley, except through the snow-shed on the
summit of the Sierras, without dust or anything else to obstruct the view.
Only once was I in danger when the locomotive struck an animal about the
size of a small cub bear—which I think was a badger. This animal struck
the front of the locomotive just under the headlight with great violence, and
was then thrown off by the rebound. I was sitting to one side grasping the
angle brace, so no harm was done."

This welcome vacation lasted nearly two months; but Edison was back in
his laboratory and hard at work before the end of August, gathering up
many loose ends, and trying out many thoughts and ideas that had
accumulated on the trip. One hot afternoon—August 30th, as shown by the
document in the case—Mr. Edison was found by one of the authors of this
biography employed most busily in making a mysterious series of tests on
paper, using for ink acids that corrugated and blistered the paper where
written upon. When interrogated as to his object, he stated that the plan was
to afford blind people the means of writing directly to each other, especially
if they were also deaf and could not hear a message on the phonograph. The
characters which he was thus forming on the paper were high enough in
relief to be legible to the delicate touch of a blind man's fingers, and with
simple apparatus letters could be thus written, sent, and read. There was
certainly no question as to the result obtained at the moment, which was all
that was asked; but the Edison autograph thus and then written now shows
the paper eaten out by the acid used, although covered with glass for many
years. Mr. Edison does not remember that he ever recurred to this very
interesting test.
He was, however, ready for anything new or novel, and no record can
ever be made or presented that would do justice to a tithe of the thoughts
and fancies daily and hourly put upon the rack. The famous note-books, to
which reference will be made later, were not begun as a regular series, as it
was only the profusion of these ideas that suggested the vital value of such
systematic registration. Then as now, the propositions brought to Edison
ranged over every conceivable subject, but the years have taught him
caution in grappling with them. He tells an amusing story of one dilemma
into which his good-nature led him at this period: "At Menlo Park one day,
a farmer came in and asked if I knew any way to kill potato-bugs. He had
twenty acres of potatoes, and the vines were being destroyed. I sent men out
and culled two quarts of bugs, and tried every chemical I had to destroy
them. Bisulphide of carbon was found to do it instantly. I got a drum and
went over to the potato farm and sprinkled it on the vines with a pot. Every
bug dropped dead. The next morning the farmer came in very excited and
reported that the stuff had killed the vines as well. I had to pay $300 for not
experimenting properly."
During this year, 1878, the phonograph made its way also to Europe, and
various sums of money were paid there to secure the rights to its

manufacture and exploitation. In England, for example, the Microscopic
Company paid $7500 down and agreed to a royalty, while arrangements
were effected also in France, Russia, and other countries. In every instance,
as in this country, the commercial development had to wait several years,
for in the mean time another great art had been brought into existence,
demanding exclusive attention and exhaustive toil. And when the work was
done the reward was a new heaven and a new earth—in the art of
illumination.

CHAPTER XI
THE INVENTION OF THE INCANDESCENT LAMP

IT is possible to imagine a time to come when the hours of work and rest
will once more be regulated by the sun. But the course of civilization has
been marked by an artificial lengthening of the day, and by a constant
striving after more perfect means of illumination. Why mankind should
sleep through several hours of sunlight in the morning, and stay awake
through a needless time in the evening, can probably only be attributed to
total depravity. It is certainly a most stupid, expensive, and harmful habit.
In no one thing has man shown greater fertility of invention than in lighting;
to nothing does he cling more tenaciously than to his devices for furnishing
light. Electricity to-day reigns supreme in the field of illumination, but
every other kind of artificial light that has ever been known is still in use
somewhere. Toward its light-bringers the race has assumed an attitude of
veneration, though it has forgotten, if it ever heard, the names of those who
first brightened its gloom and dissipated its darkness. If the tallow candle,
hitherto unknown, were now invented, its creator would be hailed as one of
the greatest benefactors of the present age.
Up to the close of the eighteenth century, the means of house and street
illumination were of two generic kinds—grease and oil; but then came a
swift and revolutionary change in the adoption of gas. The ideas and
methods of Murdoch and Lebon soon took definite shape, and "coal smoke"
was piped from its place of origin to distant points of consumption. As early
as 1804, the first company ever organized for gas lighting was formed in
London, one side of Pall Mall being lit up by the enthusiastic pioneer,
Winsor, in 1807. Equal activity was shown in America, and Baltimore
began the practice of gas lighting in 1816. It is true that there were
explosions, and distinguished men like Davy and Watt opined that the
illuminant was too dangerous; but the "spirit of coal" had demonstrated its
usefulness convincingly, and a commercial development began, which, for
extent and rapidity, was not inferior to that marking the concurrent adoption
of steam in industry and transportation.

Meantime the wax candle and the Argand oil lamp held their own
bravely. The whaling fleets, long after gas came into use, were one of the
greatest sources of our national wealth. To New Bedford, Massachusetts,
alone, some three or four hundred ships brought their whale and sperm oil,
spermaceti, and whalebone; and at one time that port was accounted the
richest city in the United States in proportion to its population. The ship-
owners and refiners of that whaling metropolis were slow to believe that
their monopoly could ever be threatened by newer sources of illumination;
but gas had become available in the cities, and coal-oil and petroleum were
now added to the list of illuminating materials. The American whaling fleet,
which at the time of Edison's birth mustered over seven hundred sail, had
dwindled probably to a bare tenth when he took up the problem of
illumination; and the competition of oil from the ground with oil from the
sea, and with coal-gas, had made the artificial production of light cheaper
than ever before, when up to the middle of the century it had remained one
of the heaviest items of domestic expense. Moreover, just about the time
that Edison took up incandescent lighting, water-gas was being introduced
on a large scale as a commercial illuminant that could be produced at a
much lower cost than coal-gas.
Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century the search for a
practical electric light was almost wholly in the direction of employing
methods analogous to those already familiar; in other words, obtaining the
illumination from the actual consumption of the light-giving material. In the
third quarter of the century these methods were brought to practicality, but
all may be referred back to the brilliant demonstrations of Sir Humphry
Davy at the Royal Institution, circa 1809-10, when, with the current from a
battery of two thousand cells, he produced an intense voltaic arc between
the points of consuming sticks of charcoal. For more than thirty years the
arc light remained an expensive laboratory experiment; but the coming of
the dynamo placed that illuminant on a commercial basis. The mere fact
that electrical energy from the least expensive chemical battery using up
zinc and acids costs twenty times as much as that from a dynamo—driven
by steam-engine—is in itself enough to explain why so many of the electric
arts lingered in embryo after their fundamental principles had been
discovered. Here is seen also further proof of the great truth that one
invention often waits for another.

From 1850 onward the improvements in both the arc lamp and the
dynamo were rapid; and under the superintendence of the great Faraday, in
1858, protecting beams of intense electric light from the voltaic arc were
shed over the waters of the Straits of Dover from the beacons of South
Foreland and Dungeness. By 1878 the arc-lighting industry had sprung into
existence in so promising a manner as to engender an extraordinary fever
and furor of speculation. At the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876,
Wallace-Farmer dynamos built at Ansonia, Connecticut, were shown, with
the current from which arc lamps were there put in actual service. A year or
two later the work of Charles F. Brush and Edward Weston laid the deep
foundation of modern arc lighting in America, securing as well substantial
recognition abroad.
Thus the new era had been ushered in, but it was based altogether on the
consumption of some material—carbon—in a lamp open to the air. Every
lamp the world had ever known did this, in one way or another. Edison
himself began at that point, and his note-books show that he made various
experiments with this type of lamp at a very early stage. Indeed, his
experiments had led him so far as to anticipate in 1875 what are now known
as "flaming arcs," the exceedingly bright and generally orange or rose-
colored lights which have been introduced within the last few years, and are
now so frequently seen in streets and public places. While the arcs with
plain carbons are bluish-white, those with carbons containing calcium
fluoride have a notable golden glow.
He was convinced, however, that the greatest field of lighting lay in the
illumination of houses and other comparatively enclosed areas, to replace
the ordinary gas light, rather than in the illumination of streets and other
outdoor places by lights of great volume and brilliancy. Dismissing from his
mind quickly the commercial impossibility of using arc lights for general
indoor illumination, he arrived at the conclusion that an electric lamp giving
light by incandescence was the solution of the problem.
Edison was familiar with the numerous but impracticable and
commercially unsuccessful efforts that had been previously made by other
inventors and investigators to produce electric light by incandescence, and
at the time that he began his experiments, in 1877, almost the whole
scientific world had pronounced such an idea as impossible of fulfilment.
The leading electricians, physicists, and experts of the period had been

studying the subject for more than a quarter of a century, and with but one
known exception had proven mathematically and by close reasoning that
the "Subdivision of the Electric Light," as it was then termed, was
practically beyond attainment. Opinions of this nature have ever been but a
stimulus to Edison when he has given deep thought to a subject, and has
become impressed with strong convictions of possibility, and in this
particular case he was satisfied that the subdivision of the electric light—or,
more correctly, the subdivision of the electric current—was not only
possible but entirely practicable.
It will have been perceived from the foregoing chapters that from the
time of boyhood, when he first began to rub against the world, his
commercial instincts were alert and predominated in almost all of the
enterprises that he set in motion. This characteristic trait had grown stronger
as he matured, having received, as it did, fresh impetus and strength from
his one lapse in the case of his first patented invention, the vote-recorder.
The lesson he then learned was to devote his inventive faculties only to
things for which there was a real, genuine demand, and that would subserve
the actual necessities of humanity; and it was probably a fortunate
circumstance that this lesson was learned at the outset of his career as an
inventor. He has never assumed to be a philosopher or "pure scientist."
In order that the reader may grasp an adequate idea of the magnitude and
importance of Edison's invention of the incandescent lamp, it will be
necessary to review briefly the "state of the art" at the time he began his
experiments on that line. After the invention of the voltaic battery, early in
the last century, experiments were made which determined that heat could
be produced by the passage of the electric current through wires of platinum
and other metals, and through pieces of carbon, as noted already, and it was,
of course, also observed that if sufficient current were passed through these
conductors they could be brought from the lower stage of redness up to the
brilliant white heat of incandescence. As early as 1845 the results of these
experiments were taken advantage of when Starr, a talented American who
died at the early age of twenty-five, suggested, in his English patent of that
year, two forms of small incandescent electric lamps, one having a burner
made from platinum foil placed under a glass cover without excluding the
air; and the other composed of a thin plate or pencil of carbon enclosed in a
Torricellian vacuum. These suggestions of young Starr were followed by
many other experimenters, whose improvements consisted principally in

devices to increase the compactness and portability of the lamp, in the
sealing of the lamp chamber to prevent the admission of air, and in means
for renewing the carbon burner when it had been consumed. Thus Roberts,
in 1852, proposed to cement the neck of the glass globe into a metallic cup,
and to provide it with a tube or stop-cock for exhaustion by means of a
hand-pump. Lodyguine, Konn, Kosloff, and Khotinsky, between 1872 and
1877, proposed various ingenious devices for perfecting the joint between
the metal base and the glass globe, and also provided their lamps with
several short carbon pencils, which were automatically brought into circuit
successively as the pencils were consumed. In 1876 or 1877, Bouliguine
proposed the employment of a long carbon pencil, a short section only of
which was in circuit at any one time and formed the burner, the lamp being
provided with a mechanism for automatically pushing other sections of the
pencil into position between the contacts to renew the burner. Sawyer and
Man proposed, in 1878, to make the bottom plate of glass instead of metal,
and provided ingenious arrangements for charging the lamp chamber with
an atmosphere of pure nitrogen gas which does not support combustion.
These lamps and many others of similar character, ingenious as they
were, failed to become of any commercial value, due, among other things,
to the brief life of the carbon burner. Even under the best conditions it was
found that the carbon members were subject to a rapid disintegration or
evaporation, which experimenters assumed was due to the disrupting action
of the electric current; and hence the conclusion that carbon contained in
itself the elements of its own destruction, and was not a suitable material for
the burner of an incandescent lamp. On the other hand, platinum, although
found to be the best of all materials for the purpose, aside from its great
expense, and not combining with oxygen at high temperatures as does
carbon, required to be brought so near the melting-point in order to give
light, that a very slight increase in the temperature resulted in its
destruction. It was assumed that the difficulty lay in the material of the
burner itself, and not in its environment.
It was not realized up to such a comparatively recent date as 1879 that
the solution of the great problem of subdivision of the electric current
would not, however, be found merely in the production of a durable
incandescent electric lamp—even if any of the lamps above referred to had
fulfilled that requirement. The other principal features necessary to
subdivide the electric current successfully were: the burning of an indefinite

number of lights on the same circuit; each light to give a useful and
economical degree of illumination; and each light to be independent of all
the others in regard to its operation and extinguishment.
The opinions of scientific men of the period on the subject are well
represented by the two following extracts—the first, from a lecture at the
Royal United Service Institution, about February, 1879, by Mr. (Sir) W. H.
Preece, one of the most eminent electricians in England, who, after
discussing the question mathematically, said: "Hence the sub-division of the
light is an absolute ignis fatuus." The other extract is from a book written by
Paget Higgs, LL.D., D.Sc., published in London in 1879, in which he says:
"Much nonsense has been talked in relation to this subject. Some inventors
have claimed the power to 'indefinitely divide' the electric current, not
knowing or forgetting that such a statement is incompatible with the well-
proven law of conservation of energy."
"Some inventors," in the last sentence just quoted, probably—indeed, we
think undoubtedly—refers to Edison, whose earlier work in electric lighting
(1878) had been announced in this country and abroad, and who had then
stated boldly his conviction of the practicability of the subdivision of the
electrical current. The above extracts are good illustrations, however, of
scientific opinions up to the end of 1879, when Mr. Edison's epoch-making
invention rendered them entirely untenable. The eminent scientist, John
Tyndall, while not sharing these precise views, at least as late as January 17,
1879, delivered a lecture before the Royal Institution on "The Electric
Light," when, after pointing out the development of the art up to Edison's
work, and showing the apparent hopelessness of the problem, he said:
"Knowing something of the intricacy of the practical problem, I should
certainly prefer seeing it in Edison's hands to having it in mine."
The reader may have deemed this sketch of the state of the art to be a
considerable digression; but it is certainly due to the subject to present the
facts in such a manner as to show that this great invention was neither the
result of improving some process or device that was known or existing at
the time, nor due to any unforeseen lucky chance, nor the accidental result
of other experiments. On the contrary, it was the legitimate outcome of a
series of exhaustive experiments founded upon logical and original
reasoning in a mind that had the courage and hardihood to set at naught the
confirmed opinions of the world, voiced by those generally acknowledged

to be the best exponents of the art—experiments carried on amid a storm of
jeers and derision, almost as contemptuous as if the search were for the
discovery of perpetual motion. In this we see the man foreshadowed by the
boy who, when he obtained his books on chemistry or physics, did not
accept any statement of fact or experiment therein, but worked out every
one of them himself to ascertain whether or not they were true.
Although this brings the reader up to the year 1879, one must turn back
two years and accompany Edison in his first attack on the electric-light
problem. In 1877 he sold his telephone invention (the carbon transmitter) to
the Western Union Telegraph Company, which had previously come into
possession also of his quadruplex inventions, as already related. He was still
busily engaged on the telephone, on acoustic electrical transmission,
sextuplex telegraphs, duplex telegraphs, miscellaneous carbon articles, and
other inventions of a minor nature. During the whole of the previous year
and until late in the summer of 1877, he had been working with
characteristic energy and enthusiasm on the telephone; and, in developing
this invention to a successful issue, had preferred the use of carbon and had
employed it in numerous forms, especially in the form of carbonized paper.
Eighteen hundred and seventy-seven in Edison's laboratory was a
veritable carbon year, for it was carbon in some shape or form for
interpolation in electric circuits of various kinds that occupied the thoughts
of the whole force from morning to night. It is not surprising, therefore, that
in September of that year, when Edison turned his thoughts actively toward
electric lighting by incandescence, his early experiments should be in the
line of carbon as an illuminant. His originality of method was displayed at
the very outset, for one of the first experiments was the bringing to
incandescence of a strip of carbon in the open air to ascertain merely how
much current was required. This conductor was a strip of carbonized paper
about an inch long, one-sixteenth of an inch broad, and six or seven one-
thousandths of an inch thick, the ends of which were secured to clamps that
formed the poles of a battery. The carbon was lighted up to incandescence,
and, of course, oxidized and disintegrated immediately. Within a few days
this was followed by experiments with the same kind of carbon, but in
vacuo by means of a hand-worked air-pump. This time the carbon strip
burned at incandescence for about eight minutes. Various expedients to
prevent oxidization were tried, such, for instance, as coating the carbon

with powdered glass, which in melting would protect the carbon from the
atmosphere, but without successful results.
Edison was inclined to concur in the prevailing opinion as to the easy
destructibility of carbon, but, without actually settling the point in his mind,
he laid aside temporarily this line of experiment and entered a new field. He
had made previously some trials of platinum wire as an incandescent burner
for a lamp, but left it for a time in favor of carbon. He now turned to the use
of almost infusible metals—such as boron, ruthenium, chromium, etc.—as
separators or tiny bridges between two carbon points, the current acting so
as to bring these separators to a high degree of incandescence, at which
point they would emit a brilliant light. He also placed some of these
refractory metals directly in the circuit, bringing them to incandescence,
and used silicon in powdered form in glass tubes placed in the electric
circuit. His notes include the use of powdered silicon mixed with lime or
other very infusible non-conductors or semi-conductors. Edison's
conclusions on these substances were that, while in some respects they were
within the bounds of possibility for the subdivision of the electric current,
they did not reach the ideal that he had in mind for commercial results.
Edison's systematized attacks on the problem were two in number, the
first of which we have just related, which began in September, 1877, and
continued until about January, 1878. Contemporaneously, he and his force
of men were very busily engaged day and night on other important
enterprises and inventions. Among the latter, the phonograph may be
specially mentioned, as it was invented in the late fall of 1877. From that
time until July, 1878, his time and attention day and night were almost
completely absorbed by the excitement caused by the invention and
exhibition of the machine. In July, feeling entitled to a brief vacation after
several years of continuous labor, Edison went with the expedition to
Wyoming to observe an eclipse of the sun, and incidentally to test his
tasimeter, a delicate instrument devised by him for measuring heat
transmitted through immense distances of space. His trip has been already
described. He was absent about two months. Coming home rested and
refreshed, Mr. Edison says: "After my return from the trip to observe the
eclipse of the sun, I went with Professor Barker, Professor of Physics in the
University of Pennsylvania, and Doctor Chandler, Professor of Chemistry
in Columbia College, to see Mr. Wallace, a large manufacturer of brass in
Ansonia, Connecticut. Wallace at this time was experimenting on series arc

lighting. Just at that time I wanted to take up something new, and Professor
Barker suggested that I go to work and see if I could subdivide the electric
light so it could be got in small units like gas. This was not a new
suggestion, because I had made a number of experiments on electric
lighting a year before this. They had been laid aside for the phonograph. I
determined to take up the search again and continue it. On my return home I
started my usual course of collecting every kind of data about gas; bought
all the transactions of the gas-engineering societies, etc., all the back
volumes of gas journals, etc. Having obtained all the data, and investigated
gas-jet distribution in New York by actual observations, I made up my mind
that the problem of the subdivision of the electric current could be solved
and made commercial." About the end of August, 1878, he began his
second organized attack on the subdivision of the current, which was
steadily maintained until he achieved signal victory a year and two months
later.
The date of this interesting visit to Ansonia is fixed by an inscription
made by Edison on a glass goblet which he used. The legend in diamond
scratches runs: "Thomas A. Edison, September 8, 1878, made under the
electric light." Other members of the party left similar memorials, which
under the circumstances have come to be greatly prized. A number of
experiments were witnessed in arc lighting, and Edison secured a small
Wallace-Farmer dynamo for his own work, as well as a set of Wallace arc
lamps for lighting the Menlo Park laboratory. Before leaving Ansonia,
Edison remarked, significantly: "Wallace, I believe I can beat you making
electric lights. I don't think you are working in the right direction." Another
date which shows how promptly the work was resumed is October 14,
1878, when Edison filed an application for his first lighting patent:
"Improvement in Electric Lights." In after years, discussing the work of
Wallace, who was not only a great pioneer electrical manufacturer, but one
of the founders of the wire-drawing and brass-working industry, Edison
said: "Wallace was one of the earliest pioneers in electrical matters in this
country. He has done a great deal of good work, for which others have
received the credit; and the work which he did in the early days of electric
lighting others have benefited by largely, and he has been crowded to one
side and forgotten." Associated in all this work with Wallace at Ansonia was
Prof. Moses G. Farmer, famous for the introduction of the fire-alarm
system; as the discoverer of the self-exciting principle of the modern

dynamo; as a pioneer experimenter in the electric-railway field; as a
telegraph engineer, and as a lecturer on mines and explosives to naval
classes at Newport. During 1858, Farmer, who, like Edison, was a ceaseless
investigator, had made a series of studies upon the production of light by
electricity, and had even invented an automatic regulator by which a
number of platinum lamps in multiple arc could be kept at uniform voltage
for any length of time. In July, 1859, he lit up one of the rooms of his house
at Salem, Massachusetts, every evening with such lamps, using in them
small pieces of platinum and iridium wire, which were made to incandesce
by means of current from primary batteries. Farmer was not one of the party
that memorable day in September, but his work was known through his
intimate connection with Wallace, and there is no doubt that reference was
made to it. Such work had not led very far, the "lamps" were hopelessly
short-lived, and everything was obviously experimental; but it was all
helpful and suggestive to one whose open mind refused no hint from any
quarter.
At the commencement of his new attempts, Edison returned to his
experiments with carbon as an incandescent burner for a lamp, and made a
very large number of trials, all in vacuo. Not only were the ordinary strip
paper carbons tried again, but tissue-paper coated with tar and lampblack
was rolled into thin sticks, like knitting-needles, carbonized and raised to
incandescence in vacuo. Edison also tried hard carbon, wood carbons, and
almost every conceivable variety of paper carbon in like manner. With the
best vacuum that he could then get by means of the ordinary air-pump, the
carbons would last, at the most, only from ten to fifteen minutes in a state of
incandescence. Such results were evidently not of commercial value.
Edison then turned his attention in other directions. In his earliest
consideration of the problem of subdividing the electric current, he had
decided that the only possible solution lay in the employment of a lamp
whose incandescing body should have a high resistance combined with a
small radiating surface, and be capable of being used in what is called
"multiple arc," so that each unit, or lamp, could be turned on or off without
interfering with any other unit or lamp. No other arrangement could
possibly be considered as commercially practicable.
The full significance of the three last preceding sentences will not be
obvious to laymen, as undoubtedly many of the readers of this book may

be; and now being on the threshold of the series of Edison's experiments
that led up to the basic invention, we interpolate a brief explanation, in
order that the reader may comprehend the logical reasoning and work that
in this case produced such far-reaching results.
If we consider a simple circuit in which a current is flowing, and include
in the circuit a carbon horseshoe-like conductor which it is desired to bring
to incandescence by the heat generated by the current passing through it, it
is first evident that the resistance offered to the current by the wires
themselves must be less than that offered by the burner, because, otherwise
current would be wasted as heat in the conducting wires. At the very
foundation of the electric-lighting art is the essentially commercial
consideration that one cannot spend very much for conductors, and Edison
determined that, in order to use wires of a practicable size, the voltage of
the current (i.e., its pressure or the characteristic that overcomes resistance
to its flow) should be one hundred and ten volts, which since its adoption
has been the standard. To use a lower voltage or pressure, while making the
solution of the lighting problem a simple one as we shall see, would make it
necessary to increase the size of the conducting wires to a prohibitive
extent. To increase the voltage or pressure materially, while permitting
some saving in the cost of conductors, would enormously increase the
difficulties of making a sufficiently high resistance conductor to secure light
by incandescence. This apparently remote consideration —weight of copper
used—was really the commercial key to the problem, just as the
incandescent burner was the scientific key to that problem. Before Edison's
invention incandescent lamps had been suggested as a possibility, but they
were provided with carbon rods or strips of relatively low resistance, and to
bring these to incandescence required a current of low pressure, because a
current of high voltage would pass through them so readily as not to
generate heat; and to carry a current of low pressure through wires without
loss would require wires of enormous size. [8] Having a current of
relatively high pressure to contend with, it was necessary to provide a
carbon burner which, as compared with what had previously been
suggested, should have a very great resistance. Carbon as a material,
determined after patient search, apparently offered the greatest hope, but
even with this substance the necessary high resistance could be obtained
only by making the burner of extremely small cross-section, thereby also
reducing its radiating surface. Therefore, the crucial point was the

production of a hair-like carbon filament, with a relatively great resistance
and small radiating surface, capable of withstanding mechanical shock, and
susceptible of being maintained at a temperature of over two thousand
degrees for a thousand hours or more before breaking. And this filamentary
conductor required to be supported in a vacuum chamber so perfectly
formed and constructed that during all those hours, and subjected as it is to
varying temperatures, not a particle of air should enter to disintegrate the
filament. And not only so, but the lamp after its design must not be a mere
laboratory possibility, but a practical commercial article capable of being
manufactured at low cost and in large quantities. A statement of what had to
be done in those days of actual as well as scientific electrical darkness is
quite sufficient to explain Tyndall's attitude of mind in preferring that the
problem should be in Edison's hands rather than in his own. To say that the
solution of the problem lay merely in reducing the size of the carbon burner
to a mere hair, is to state a half-truth only; but who, we ask, would have had
the temerity even to suggest that such an attenuated body could be
maintained at a white heat, without disintegration, for a thousand hours?
The solution consisted not only in that, but in the enormous mass of
patiently worked-out details—the manufacture of the filaments, their
uniform carbonization, making the globes, producing a perfect vacuum, and
countless other factors, the omission of any one of which would probably
have resulted eventually in failure.

[Footnote 8: As a practical illustration of these facts it
was calculated by Professor Barker, of the University of
Pennsylvania (after Edison had invented the incandescent
lamp), that if it should cost $100,000 for copper conductors
to supply current to Edison lamps in a given area, it would
cost about $200,000,000 for copper conductors for lighting
the same area by lamps of the earlier experimenters—such,
for instance, as the lamp invented by Konn in 1875. This
enormous difference would be accounted for by the fact that
Edison's lamp was one having a high resistance and
relatively small radiating surface, while Konn's lamp was
one having a very low resistance and large radiating
surface.]

Continuing the digression one step farther in order to explain the term
"multiple arc," it may be stated that there are two principal systems of
distributing electric current, one termed "series," and the other "multiple
arc." The two are illustrated, diagrammatically, side by side, the arrows
indicating flow of current. The series system, it will be seen, presents one
continuous path for the current. The current for the last lamp must pass

through the first and all the intermediate lamps. Hence, if any one light goes
out, the continuity of the path is broken, current cannot flow, and all the
lamps are extinguished unless a loop or by-path is provided. It is quite
obvious that such a system would be commercially impracticable where
small units, similar to gas jets, were employed. On the other hand, in the
multiple-arc system, current may be considered as flowing in two parallel
conductors like the vertical sides of a ladder, the ends of which never come
together. Each lamp is placed in a separate circuit across these two
conductors, like a rung in the ladder, thus making a separate and
independent path for the current in each case. Hence, if a lamp goes out,
only that individual subdivision, or ladder step, is affected; just that one
particular path for the current is interrupted, but none of the other lamps is
interfered with. They remain lighted, each one independent of the other. The
reader will quite readily understand, therefore, that a multiple-arc system is
the only one practically commercial where electric light is to be used in
small units like those of gas or oil.
Such was the nature of the problem that confronted Edison at the outset.
There was nothing in the whole world that in any way approximated a
solution, although the most brilliant minds in the electrical art had been
assiduously working on the subject for a quarter of a century preceding. As
already seen, he came early to the conclusion that the only solution lay in
the use of a lamp of high resistance and small radiating surface, and, with
characteristic fervor and energy, he attacked the problem from this
standpoint, having absolute faith in a successful outcome. The mere fact
that even with the successful production of the electric lamp the assault on
the complete problem of commercial lighting would hardly be begun did
not deter him in the slightest. To one of Edison's enthusiastic self-
confidence the long vista of difficulties ahead—we say it in all sincerity—
must have been alluring.
After having devoted several months to experimental trials of carbon, at
the end of 1878, as already detailed, he turned his attention to the platinum
group of metals and began a series of experiments in which he used chiefly
platinum wire and iridium wire, and alloys of refractory metals in the form
of wire burners for incandescent lamps. These metals have very high
fusing-points, and were found to last longer than the carbon strips
previously used when heated up to incandescence by the electric current,
although under such conditions as were then possible they were melted by

excess of current after they had been lighted a comparatively short time,
either in the open air or in such a vacuum as could be obtained by means of
the ordinary air-pump.
Nevertheless, Edison continued along this line of experiment with
unremitting vigor, making improvement after improvement, until about
April, 1879, he devised a means whereby platinum wire of a given length,
which would melt in the open air when giving a light equal to four candles,
would emit a light of twenty-five candle-power without fusion. This was
accomplished by introducing the platinum wire into an all-glass globe,
completely sealed and highly exhausted of air, and passing a current
through the platinum wire while the vacuum was being made. In this, which
was a new and radical invention, we see the first step toward the modern
incandescent lamp. The knowledge thus obtained that current passing
through the platinum during exhaustion would drive out occluded gases
(i.e., gases mechanically held in or upon the metal), and increase the
infusibility of the platinum, led him to aim at securing greater perfection in
the vacuum, on the theory that the higher the vacuum obtained, the higher
would be the infusibility of the platinum burner. And this fact also was of
the greatest importance in making successful the final use of carbon,
because without the subjection of the carbon to the heating effect of current
during the formation of the vacuum, the presence of occluded gases would
have been a fatal obstacle.
Continuing these experiments with most fervent zeal, taking no account
of the passage of time, with an utter disregard for meals, and but scanty
hours of sleep snatched reluctantly at odd periods of the day or night,
Edison kept his laboratory going without cessation. A great variety of lamps
was made of the platinum-iridium type, mostly with thermal devices to
regulate the temperature of the burner and prevent its being melted by an
excess of current. The study of apparatus for obtaining more perfect vacua
was unceasingly carried on, for Edison realized that in this there lay a
potent factor of ultimate success. About August he had obtained a pump that
would produce a vacuum up to about the one-hundred-thousandth part of an
atmosphere, and some time during the next month, or beginning of October,
had obtained one that would produce a vacuum up to the one-millionth part
of an atmosphere. It must be remembered that the conditions necessary for
MAINTAINING this high vacuum were only made possible by his
invention of the one-piece all-glass globe, in which all the joints were

hermetically sealed during its manufacture into a lamp, whereby a high
vacuum could be retained continuously for any length of time.
In obtaining this perfection of vacuum apparatus, Edison realized that he
was approaching much nearer to a solution of the problem. In his
experiments with the platinum-iridium lamps, he had been working all the
time toward the proposition of high resistance and small radiating surface,
until he had made a lamp having thirty feet of fine platinum wire wound
upon a small bobbin of infusible material; but the desired economy,
simplicity, and durability were not obtained in this manner, although at all
times the burner was maintained at a critically high temperature. After
attaining a high degree of perfection with these lamps, he recognized their
impracticable character, and his mind reverted to the opinion he had formed
in his early experiments two years before—viz., that carbon had the
requisite resistance to permit a very simple conductor to accomplish the
object if it could be used in the form of a hair-like "filament," provided the
filament itself could be made sufficiently homogeneous. As we have
already seen, he could not use carbon successfully in his earlier
experiments, for the strips of carbon he then employed, although they were
much larger than "filaments," would not stand, but were consumed in a few
minutes under the imperfect conditions then at his command.
Now, however, that he had found means for obtaining and maintaining
high vacua, Edison immediately went back to carbon, which from the first
he had conceived of as the ideal substance for a burner. His next step
proved conclusively the correctness of his old deductions. On October 21,
1879, after many patient trials, he carbonized a piece of cotton sewing-
thread bent into a loop or horseshoe form, and had it sealed into a glass
globe from which he exhausted the air until a vacuum up to one-millionth
of an atmosphere was produced. This lamp, when put on the circuit, lighted
up brightly to incandescence and maintained its integrity for over forty
hours, and lo! the practical incandescent lamp was born. The impossible, so
called, had been attained; subdivision of the electric-light current was made
practicable; the goal had been reached; and one of the greatest inventions of
the century was completed. Up to this time Edison had spent over $40,000
in his electric-light experiments, but the results far more than justified the
expenditure, for with this lamp he made the discovery that the FILAMENT
of carbon, under the conditions of high vacuum, was commercially stable
and would stand high temperatures without the disintegration and oxidation

that took place in all previous attempts that he knew of for making an
incandescent burner out of carbon. Besides, this lamp possessed the
characteristics of high resistance and small radiating surface, permitting
economy in the outlay for conductors, and requiring only a small current for
each unit of light—conditions that were absolutely necessary of fulfilment
in order to accomplish commercially the subdivision of the electric-light
current.
This slender, fragile, tenuous thread of brittle carbon, glowing steadily
and continuously with a soft light agreeable to the eyes, was the tiny key
that opened the door to a world revolutionized in its interior illumination. It
was a triumphant vindication of Edison's reasoning powers, his clear
perceptions, his insight into possibilities, and his inventive faculty, all of
which had already been productive of so many startling, practical, and
epoch-making inventions. And now he had stepped over the threshold of a
new art which has since become so world-wide in its application as to be an
integral part of modern human experience. [9]

[Footnote 9: The following extract from Walker on Patents
(4th edition) will probably be of interest to the reader:

"Sec. 31a. A meritorious exception, to the rule of the last
section, is involved in the adjudicated validity of the
Edison incandescent-light patent. The carbon filament, which
constitutes the only new part of the combination of the
second claim of that patent, differs from the earlier carbon
burners of Sawyer and Man, only in having a diameter of one-
sixty-fourth of an inch or less, whereas the burners of
Sawyer and Man had a diameter of one-thirty-second of an
inch or more. But that reduction of one-half in diameter
increased the resistance of the burner FOURFOLD, and reduced
its radiating surface TWOFOLD, and thus increased eightfold,
its ratio of resistance to radiating surface. That eightfold
increase of proportion enabled the resistance of the
conductor of electricity from the generator to the burner to
be increased eightfold, without any increase of percentage
of loss of energy in that conductor, or decrease of
percentage of development of heat in the burner; and thus
enabled the area of the cross-section of that conductor to
be reduced eightfold, and thus to be made with one-eighth of
the amount of copper or other metal, which would be required
if the reduction of diameter of the burner from one-thirty-
second to one-sixty-fourth of an inch had not been made. And
that great reduction in the size and cost of conductors,
involved also a great difference in the composition of the
electric energy employed in the system; that difference
consisting in generating the necessary amount of electrical
energy with comparatively high electromotive force, and
comparatively low current, instead of contrariwise. For this
reason, the use of carbon filaments, one-sixty-fourth of an
inch in diameter or less, instead of carbon burners one-

thirty-second of an inch in diameter or more, not only
worked an enormous economy in conductors, but also
necessitated a great change in generators, and did both
according to a philosophy, which Edison was the first to
know, and which is stated in this paragraph in its simplest
form and aspect, and which lies at the foundation of the
incandescent electric lighting of the world."]

No sooner had the truth of this new principle been established than the
work to establish it firmly and commercially was carried on more
assiduously than ever. The next immediate step was a further investigation
of the possibilities of improving the quality of the carbon filament. Edison
had previously made a vast number of experiments with carbonized paper
for various electrical purposes, with such good results that he once more
turned to it and now made fine filament-like loops of this material which
were put into other lamps. These proved even more successful
(commercially considered) than the carbonized thread—so much so that
after a number of such lamps had been made and put through severe tests,
the manufacture of lamps from these paper carbons was begun and carried
on continuously. This necessitated first the devising and making of a large
number of special tools for cutting the carbon filaments and for making and
putting together the various parts of the lamps. Meantime, great excitement
had been caused in this country and in Europe by the announcement of
Edison's success. In the Old World, scientists generally still declared the
impossibility of subdividing the electric-light current, and in the public
press Mr. Edison was denounced as a dreamer. Other names of a less
complimentary nature were applied to him, even though his lamp were
actually in use, and the principle of commercial incandescent lighting had
been established.
Between October 21, 1879, and December 21, 1879, some hundreds of
these paper-carbon lamps had been made and put into actual use, not only in
the laboratory, but in the streets and several residences at Menlo Park, New
Jersey, causing great excitement and bringing many visitors from far and
near. On the latter date a full-page article appeared in the New York Herald
which so intensified the excited feeling that Mr. Edison deemed it advisable
to make a public exhibition. On New Year's Eve, 1879, special trains were
run to Menlo Park by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and over three thousand
persons took advantage of the opportunity to go out there and witness this
demonstration for themselves. In this great crowd were many public

officials and men of prominence in all walks of life, who were enthusiastic
in their praises.
In the mean time, the mind that conceived and made practical this
invention could not rest content with anything less than perfection, so far as
it could be realized. Edison was not satisfied with paper carbons. They were
not fully up to the ideal that he had in mind. What he sought was a perfectly
uniform and homogeneous carbon, one like the "One-Hoss Shay," that had
no weak spots to break down at inopportune times. He began to carbonize
everything in nature that he could lay hands on. In his laboratory note-
books are innumerable jottings of the things that were carbonized and tried,
such as tissue-paper, soft paper, all kinds of cardboards, drawing-paper of
all grades, paper saturated with tar, all kinds of threads, fish-line, threads
rubbed with tarred lampblack, fine threads plaited together in strands,
cotton soaked in boiling tar, lamp-wick, twine, tar and lampblack mixed
with a proportion of lime, vulcanized fibre, celluloid, boxwood, cocoanut
hair and shell, spruce, hickory, baywood, cedar and maple shavings,
rosewood, punk, cork, bagging, flax, and a host of other things. He also
extended his searches far into the realms of nature in the line of grasses,
plants, canes, and similar products, and in these experiments at that time
and later he carbonized, made into lamps, and tested no fewer than six
thousand different species of vegetable growths.
The reasons for such prodigious research are not apparent on the face of
the subject, nor is this the occasion to enter into an explanation, as that
alone would be sufficient to fill a fair-sized book. Suffice it to say that
Edison's omnivorous reading, keen observation, power of assimilating facts
and natural phenomena, and skill in applying the knowledge thus attained to
whatever was in hand, now came into full play in determining that the
results he desired could only be obtained in certain directions.
At this time he was investigating everything with a microscope, and one
day in the early part of 1880 he noticed upon a table in the laboratory an
ordinary palm-leaf fan. He picked it up and, looking it over, observed that it
had a binding rim made of bamboo, cut from the outer edge of the cane; a
very long strip. He examined this, and then gave it to one of his assistants,
telling him to cut it up and get out of it all the filaments he could, carbonize
them, put them into lamps, and try them. The results of this trial were
exceedingly successful, far better than with anything else thus far used;

indeed, so much so, that after further experiments and microscopic
examinations Edison was convinced that he was now on the right track for
making a thoroughly stable, commercial lamp; and shortly afterward he sent
a man to Japan to procure further supplies of bamboo. The fascinating story
of the bamboo hunt will be told later; but even this bamboo lamp was only
one item of a complete system to be devised—a system that has since
completely revolutionized the art of interior illumination.
Reference has been made in this chapter to the preliminary study that
Edison brought to bear on the development of the gas art and industry. This
study was so exhaustive that one can only compare it to the careful
investigation made in advance by any competent war staff of the elements
of strength and weakness, on both sides, in a possible campaign. A popular
idea of Edison that dies hard, pictures a breezy, slap-dash, energetic
inventor arriving at new results by luck and intuition, making boastful
assertions and then winning out by mere chance. The native simplicity of
the man, the absence of pose and ceremony, do much to strengthen this
notion; but the real truth is that while gifted with unusual imagination,
Edison's march to the goal of a new invention is positively humdrum and
monotonous in its steady progress. No one ever saw Edison in a hurry; no
one ever saw him lazy; and that which he did with slow, careful scrutiny six
months ago, he will be doing with just as much calm deliberation of
research six months hence—and six years hence if necessary. If, for
instance, he were asked to find the most perfect pebble on the Atlantic shore
of New Jersey, instead of hunting here, there, and everywhere for the
desired object, we would no doubt find him patiently screening the entire
beach, sifting out the most perfect stones and eventually, by gradual
exclusion, reaching the long-sought-for pebble; and the mere fact that in
this search years might be taken, would not lessen his enthusiasm to the
slightest extent.
In the "prospectus book" among the series of famous note-books, all the
references and data apply to gas. The book is numbered 184, falls into the
period now dealt with, and runs along casually with items spread out over
two or three years. All these notes refer specifically to "Electricity vs. Gas
as General Illuminants," and cover an astounding range of inquiry and
comment. One of the very first notes tells the whole story: "Object, Edison
to effect exact imitation of all done by gas, so as to replace lighting by gas
by lighting by electricity. To improve the illumination to such an extent as

to meet all requirements of natural, artificial, and commercial conditions."
A large programme, but fully executed! The notes, it will be understood, are
all in Edison's handwriting. They go on to observe that "a general system of
distribution is the only possible means of economical illumination," and
they dismiss isolated-plant lighting as in mills and factories as of so little
importance to the public—"we shall leave the consideration of this out of
this book." The shrewd prophecy is made that gas will be manufactured less
for lighting, as the result of electrical competition, and more and more for
heating, etc., thus enlarging its market and increasing its income. Comment
is made on kerosene and its cost, and all kinds of general statistics are jotted
down as desirable. Data are to be obtained on lamp and dynamo efficiency,
and "Another review of the whole thing as worked out upon pure science
principles by Rowland, Young, Trowbridge; also Rowland on the
possibilities and probabilities of cheaper production by better manufacture
—higher incandescence without decrease of life of lamps." Notes are also
made on meters and motors. "It doesn't matter if electricity is used for light
or for power"; while small motors, it is observed, can be used night or day,
and small steam-engines are inconvenient. Again the shrewd comment:
"Generally poorest district for light, best for power, thus evening up whole
city—the effect of this on investment."
It is pointed out that "Previous inventions failed—necessities for
commercial success and accomplishment by Edison. Edison's great effort—
not to make a large light or a blinding light, but a small light having the
mildness of gas." Curves are then called for of iron and copper investment
—also energy line—curves of candle-power and electromotive force;
curves on motors; graphic representation of the consumption of gas January
to December; tables and formulae; representations graphically of what one
dollar will buy in different kinds of light; "table, weight of copper required
different distance, 100-ohm lamp, 16 candles"; table with curves showing
increased economy by larger engine, higher power, etc. There is not much
that is dilettante about all this. Note is made of an article in April, 1879,
putting the total amount of gas investment in the whole world at that time at
$1,500,000,000; which is now (1910) about the amount of the electric-
lighting investment in the United States. Incidentally a note remarks: "So
unpleasant is the effect of the products of gas that in the new Madison
Square Theatre every gas jet is ventilated by special tubes to carry away the
products of combustion." In short, there is no aspect of the new problem to

which Edison failed to apply his acutest powers; and the speed with which
the new system was worked out and introduced was simply due to his initial
mastery of all the factors in the older art. Luther Stieringer, an expert gas
engineer and inventor, whose services were early enlisted, once said that
Edison knew more about gas than any other man he had ever met. The
remark is an evidence of the kind of preparation Edison gave himself for his
new task.

CHAPTER XII
MEMORIES OF MENLO PARK

FROM the spring of 1876 to 1886 Edison lived and did his work at
Menlo Park; and at this stage of the narrative, midway in that interesting
and eventful period, it is appropriate to offer a few notes and jottings on the
place itself, around which tradition is already weaving its fancies, just as at
the time the outpouring of new inventions from it invested the name with
sudden prominence and with the glamour of romance. "In 1876 I moved,"
says Edison, "to Menlo Park, New Jersey, on the Pennsylvania Railroad,
several miles below Elizabeth. The move was due to trouble I had about
rent. I had rented a small shop in Newark, on the top floor of a padlock
factory, by the month. I gave notice that I would give it up at the end of the
month, paid the rent, moved out, and delivered the keys. Shortly afterward I
was served with a paper, probably a judgment, wherein I was to pay nine
months' rent. There was some law, it seems, that made a monthly renter
liable for a year. This seemed so unjust that I determined to get out of a
place that permitted such injustice." For several Sundays he walked through
different parts of New Jersey with two of his assistants before he decided on
Menlo Park. The change was a fortunate one, for the inventor had married
Miss Mary E. Stillwell, and was now able to establish himself comfortably
with his wife and family while enjoying immediate access to the new
laboratory. Every moment thus saved was valuable.
To-day the place and region have gone back to the insignificance from
which Edison's genius lifted them so startlingly. A glance from the car
windows reveals only a gently rolling landscape dotted with modest
residences and unpretentious barns; and there is nothing in sight by way of
memorial to suggest that for nearly a decade this spot was the scene of the
most concentrated and fruitful inventive activity the world has ever known.
Close to the Menlo Park railway station is a group of gaunt and deserted
buildings, shelter of the casual tramp, and slowly crumbling away when not
destroyed by the carelessness of some ragged smoker. This silent group of
buildings comprises the famous old laboratory and workshops of Mr.

Edison, historic as being the birthplace of the carbon transmitter, the
phonograph, the incandescent lamp, and the spot where Edison also worked
out his systems of electrical distribution, his commercial dynamo, his
electric railway, his megaphone, his tasimeter, and many other inventions of
greater or lesser degree. Here he continued, moreover, his earlier work on
the quadruplex, sextuplex, multiplex, and automatic telegraphs, and did his
notable pioneer work in wireless telegraphy. As the reader knows, it had
been a master passion with Edison from boyhood up to possess a laboratory,
in which with free use of his own time and powers, and with command of
abundant material resources, he could wrestle with Nature and probe her
closest secrets. Thus, from the little cellar at Port Huron, from the scant
shelves in a baggage car, from the nooks and corners of dingy telegraph
offices, and the grimy little shops in New York and Newark, he had now
come to the proud ownership of an establishment to which his favorite word
"laboratory" might justly be applied. Here he could experiment to his heart's
content and invent on a larger, bolder scale than ever—and he did!
Menlo Park was the merest hamlet. Omitting the laboratory structures, it
had only about seven houses, the best looking of which Edison lived in, a
place that had a windmill pumping water into a reservoir. One of the stories
of the day was that Edison had his front gate so connected with the
pumping plant that every visitor as he opened or closed the gate added
involuntarily to the supply in the reservoir. Two or three of the houses were
occupied by the families of members of the staff; in the others boarders
were taken, the laboratory, of course, furnishing all the patrons. Near the
railway station was a small saloon kept by an old Scotchman named Davis,
where billiards were played in idle moments, and where in the long winter
evenings the hot stove was a centre of attraction to loungers and story-
tellers. The truth is that there was very little social life of any kind possible
under the strenuous conditions prevailing at the laboratory, where, if
anywhere, relaxation was enjoyed at odd intervals of fatigue and waiting.
The main laboratory was a spacious wooden building of two floors. The
office was in this building at first, until removed to the brick library when
that was finished. There S. L. Griffin, an old telegraph friend of Edison,
acted as his secretary and had charge of a voluminous and amazing
correspondence. The office employees were the Carman brothers and the
late John F. Randolph, afterwards secretary. According to Mr. Francis Jehl,
of Budapest, then one of the staff, to whom the writers are indebted for a

great deal of valuable data on this period: "It was on the upper story of this
laboratory that the most important experiments were executed, and where
the incandescent lamp was born. This floor consisted of a large hall
containing several long tables, upon which could be found all the various
instruments, scientific and chemical apparatus that the arts at that time
could produce. Books lay promiscuously about, while here and there long
lines of bichromate-of-potash cells could be seen, together with
experimental models of ideas that Edison or his assistants were engaged
upon. The side walls of this hall were lined with shelves filled with bottles,
phials, and other receptacles containing every imaginable chemical and
other material that could be obtained, while at the end of this hall, and near
the organ which stood in the rear, was a large glass case containing the
world's most precious metals in sheet and wire form, together with very rare
and costly chemicals. When evening came on, and the last rays of the
setting sun penetrated through the side windows, this hall looked like a
veritable Faust laboratory.
"On the ground floor we had our testing-table, which stood on two large
pillars of brick built deep into the earth in order to get rid of all vibrations
on account of the sensitive instruments that were upon it. There was the
Thomson reflecting mirror galvanometer and electrometer, while nearby
were the standard cells by which the galvanometers were adjusted and
standardized. This testing-table was connected by means of wires with all
parts of the laboratory and machine-shop, so that measurements could be
conveniently made from a distance, as in those days we had no portable and
direct-reading instruments, such as now exist. Opposite this table we
installed, later on, our photometrical chamber, which was constructed on the
Bunsen principle. A little way from this table, and separated by a partition,
we had the chemical laboratory with its furnaces and stink-chambers. Later
on another chemical laboratory was installed near the photometer-room, and
this Dr. A. Haid had charge of."
Next to the laboratory in importance was the machine-shop, a large and
well-lighted building of brick, at one end of which there was the boiler and
engine-room. This shop contained light and heavy lathes, boring and
drilling machines, all kinds of planing machines; in fact, tools of all
descriptions, so that any apparatus, however delicate or heavy, could be
made and built as might be required by Edison in experimenting. Mr. John
Kruesi had charge of this shop, and was assisted by a number of skilled

mechanics, notably John Ott, whose deft fingers and quick intuitive grasp of
the master's ideas are still in demand under the more recent conditions at the
Llewellyn Park laboratory in Orange.
Between the machine-shop and the laboratory was a small building of
wood used as a carpenter-shop, where Tom Logan plied his art. Nearby was
the gasoline plant. Before the incandescent lamp was perfected, the only
illumination was from gasoline gas; and that was used later for
incandescent-lamp glass-blowing, which was done in another small
building on one side of the laboratory. Apparently little or no lighting
service was obtained from the Wallace-Farmer arc lamps secured from
Ansonia, Connecticut. The dynamo was probably needed for Edison's own
experiments.
On the outskirts of the property was a small building in which lampblack
was crudely but carefully manufactured and pressed into very small cakes,
for use in the Edison carbon transmitters of that time. The night-watchman,
Alfred Swanson, took care of this curious plant, which consisted of a
battery of petroleum lamps that were forced to burn to the sooting point.
During his rounds in the night Swanson would find time to collect from the
chimneys the soot that the lamps gave. It was then weighed out into very
small portions, which were pressed into cakes or buttons by means of a
hand-press. These little cakes were delicately packed away between layers
of cotton in small, light boxes and shipped to Bergmann in New York, by
whom the telephone transmitters were being made. A little later the Edison
electric railway was built on the confines of the property out through the
woods, at first only a third of a mile in length, but reaching ultimately to
Pumptown, almost three miles away.
Mr. Edison's own words may be quoted as to the men with whom he
surrounded himself here and upon whose services he depended principally
for help in the accomplishment of his aims. In an autobiographical article in
the Electrical World of March 5, 1904, he says: "It is interesting to note that
in addition to those mentioned above (Charles Batchelor and Frank Upton),
I had around me other men who ever since have remained active in the
field, such as Messrs. Francis Jehl, William J. Hammer, Martin Force,
Ludwig K. Boehm, not forgetting that good friend and co-worker, the late
John Kruesi. They found plenty to do in the various developments of the
art, and as I now look back I sometimes wonder how we did so much in so

short a time." Mr. Jehl in his reminiscences adds another name to the above
—namely, that of John W. Lawson, and then goes on to say: "These are the
names of the pioneers of incandescent lighting, who were continuously at
the side of Edison day and night for some years, and who, under his
guidance, worked upon the carbon-filament lamp from its birth to ripe
maturity. These men all had complete faith in his ability and stood by him
as on a rock, guarding their work with the secretiveness of a burglar-proof
safe. Whenever it leaked out in the world that Edison was succeeding in his
work on the electric light, spies and others came to the Park; so it was of the
utmost importance that the experiments and their results should be kept a
secret until Edison had secured the protection of the Patent Office." With
this staff was associated from the first Mr. E. H. Johnson, whose work with
Mr. Edison lay chiefly, however, outside the laboratory, taking him to all
parts of the country and to Europe. There were also to be regarded as
detached members of it the Bergmann brothers, manufacturing for Mr.
Edison in New York, and incessantly experimenting for him. In addition
there must be included Mr. Samuel Insull, whose activities for many years
as private secretary and financial manager were devoted solely to Mr.
Edison's interests, with Menlo Park as a centre and main source of anxiety
as to pay-rolls and other constantly recurring obligations. The names of yet
other associates occur from time to time in this narrative—"Edison men"
who have been very proud of their close relationship to the inventor and his
work at old Menlo. "There was also Mr. Charles L. Clarke, who devoted
himself mainly to engineering matters, and later on acted as chief engineer
of the Edison Electric Light Company for some years. Then there were
William Holzer and James Hipple, both of whom took an active part in the
practical development of the glass-blowing department of the laboratory,
and, subsequently, at the first Edison lamp factory at Menlo Park. Later on
Messrs. Jehl, Hipple, and Force assisted Mr. Batchelor to install the lamp-
works of the French Edison Company at Ivry-sur-Seine. Then there were
Messrs. Charles T. Hughes, Samuel D. Mott, and Charles T. Mott, who
devoted their time chiefly to commercial affairs. Mr. Hughes conducted
most of this work, and later on took a prominent part in Edison's electric-
railway experiments. His business ability was on a high level, while his
personal character endeared him to us all."
Among other now well-known men who came to us and assisted in
various kinds of work were Messrs. Acheson, Worth, Crosby, Herrick, and

Hill, while Doctor Haid was placed by Mr. Edison in charge of a special
chemical laboratory. Dr. E. L. Nichols was also with us for a short time
conducting a special series of experiments. There was also Mr. Isaacs, who
did a great deal of photographic work, and to whom we must be thankful
for the pictures of Menlo Park in connection with Edison's work.
"Among others who were added to Mr. Kruesi's staff in the machine-shop
were Messrs. J. H. Vail and W. S. Andrews. Mr. Vail had charge of the
dynamo-room. He had a good general knowledge of machinery, and very
soon acquired such familiarity with the dynamos that he could skip about
among them with astonishing agility to regulate their brushes or to throw
rosin on the belts when they began to squeal. Later on he took an active part
in the affairs and installations of the Edison Light Company. Mr. Andrews
stayed on Mr. Kruesi's staff as long as the laboratory machine-shop was
kept open, after which he went into the employ of the Edison Electric Light
Company and became actively engaged in the commercial and technical
exploitation of the system. Another man who was with us at Menlo Park
was Mr. Herman Claudius, an Austrian, who at one time was employed in
connection with the State Telegraphs of his country. To him Mr. Edison
assigned the task of making a complete model of the network of conductors
for the contemplated first station in New York."
Mr. Francis R. Upton, who was early employed by Mr. Edison as his
mathematician, furnishes a pleasant, vivid picture of his chief associates
engaged on the memorable work at Menlo Park. He says: "Mr. Charles
Batchelor was Mr. Edison's principal assistant at that time. He was an
Englishman, and came to this country to set up the thread-weaving
machinery for the Clark thread-works. He was a most intelligent, patient,
competent, and loyal assistant to Mr. Edison. I remember distinctly seeing
him work many hours to mount a small filament; and his hand would be as
steady and his patience as unyielding at the end of those many hours as it
was at the beginning, in spite of repeated failures. He was a wonderful
mechanic; the control that he had of his fingers was marvellous, and his
eyesight was sharp. Mr. Batchelor's judgment and good sense were always
in evidence.
"Mr. Kruesi was the superintendent, a Swiss trained in the best Swiss
ideas of accuracy. He was a splendid mechanic with a vigorous temper, and
wonderful ability to work continuously and to get work out of men. It was

an ideal combination, that of Edison, Batchelor, and Kruesi. Mr. Edison
with his wonderful flow of ideas which were sharply defined in his mind, as
can be seen by any of the sketches that he made, as he evidently always
thinks in three dimensions; Mr. Kruesi, willing to take the ideas, and
capable of comprehending them, would distribute the work so as to get it
done with marvellous quickness and great accuracy. Mr. Batchelor was
always ready for any special fine experimenting or observation, and could
hold to whatever he was at as long as Mr. Edison wished; and always
brought to bear on what he was at the greatest skill."
While Edison depended upon Upton for his mathematical work, he was
wont to check it up in a very practical manner, as evidenced by the
following incident described by Mr. Jehl: "I was once with Mr. Upton
calculating some tables which he had put me on, when Mr. Edison appeared
with a glass bulb having a pear-shaped appearance in his hand. It was the
kind that we were going to use for our lamp experiments; and Mr. Edison
asked Mr. Upton to please calculate for him its cubic contents in
centimetres. Now Mr. Upton was a very able mathematician, who, after he
finished his studies at Princeton, went to Germany and got his final gloss
under that great master, Helmholtz. Whatever he did and worked on was
executed in a pure mathematical manner, and any wrangler at Oxford would
have been delighted to see him juggle with integral and differential
equations, with a dexterity that was surprising. He drew the shape of the
bulb exactly on paper, and got the equation of its lines with which he was
going to calculate its contents, when Mr. Edison again appeared and asked
him what it was. He showed Edison the work he had already done on the
subject, and told him that he would very soon finish calculating it. 'Why,'
said Edison, 'I would simply take that bulb and fill it with mercury and
weigh it; and from the weight of the mercury and its specific gravity I'll get
it in five minutes, and use less mental energy than is necessary in such a
fatiguing operation.'"
Menlo Park became ultimately the centre of Edison's business life as it
was of his inventing. After the short distasteful period during the
introduction of his lighting system, when he spent a large part of his time at
the offices at 65 Fifth Avenue, New York, or on the actual work connected
with the New York Edison installation, he settled back again in Menlo Park
altogether. Mr. Samuel Insull describes the business methods which
prevailed throughout the earlier Menlo Park days of "storm and stress," and

the curious conditions with which he had to deal as private secretary: "I
never attempted to systematize Edison's business life. Edison's whole
method of work would upset the system of any office. He was just as likely
to be at work in his laboratory at midnight as midday. He cared not for the
hours of the day or the days of the week. If he was exhausted he might more
likely be asleep in the middle of the day than in the middle of the night, as
most of his work in the way of inventions was done at night. I used to run
his office on as close business methods as my experience admitted; and I
would get at him whenever it suited his convenience. Sometimes he would
not go over his mail for days at a time; but other times he would go
regularly to his office in the morning. At other times my engagements used
to be with him to go over his business affairs at Menlo Park at night, if I
was occupied in New York during the day. In fact, as a matter of
convenience I used more often to get at him at night, as it left my days free
to transact his affairs, and enabled me, probably at a midnight luncheon, to
get a few minutes of his time to look over his correspondence and get his
directions as to what I should do in some particular negotiation or matter of
finance. While it was a matter of suiting Edison's convenience as to when I
should transact business with him, it also suited my own ideas, as it enabled
me after getting through my business with him to enjoy the privilege of
watching him at his work, and to learn something about the technical side
of matters. Whatever knowledge I may have of the electric light and power
industry I feel I owe it to the tuition of Edison. He was about the most
willing tutor, and I must confess that he had to be a patient one."
Here again occurs the reference to the incessant night-work at Menlo
Park, a note that is struck in every reminiscence and in every record of the
time. But it is not to be inferred that the atmosphere of grim determination
and persistent pursuit of the new invention characteristic of this period
made life a burden to the small family of laborers associated with Edison.
Many a time during the long, weary nights of experimenting Edison would
call a halt for refreshments, which he had ordered always to be sent in when
night-work was in progress. Everything would be dropped, all present
would join in the meal, and the last good story or joke would pass around.
In his notes Mr. Jehl says: "Our lunch always ended with a cigar, and I may
mention here that although Edison was never fastidious in eating, he always
relished a good cigar, and seemed to find in it consolation and solace.... It
often happened that while we were enjoying the cigars after our midnight

repast, one of the boys would start up a tune on the organ and we would all
sing together, or one of the others would give a solo. Another of the boys
had a voice that sounded like something between the ring of an old tomato
can and a pewter jug. He had one song that he would sing while we roared
with laughter. He was also great in imitating the tin-foil phonograph....
When Boehm was in good-humor he would play his zither now and then,
and amuse us by singing pretty German songs. On many of these occasions
the laboratory was the rendezvous of jolly and convivial visitors, mostly old
friends and acquaintances of Mr. Edison. Some of the office employees
would also drop in once in a while, and as everybody present was always
welcome to partake of the midnight meal, we all enjoyed these gatherings.
After a while, when we were ready to resume work, our visitors would
intimate that they were going home to bed, but we fellows could stay up
and work, and they would depart, generally singing some song like Good-
night, ladies! . . . It often happened that when Edison had been working up
to three or four o'clock in the morning, he would lie down on one of the
laboratory tables, and with nothing but a couple of books for a pillow,
would fall into a sound sleep. He said it did him more good than being in a
soft bed, which spoils a man. Some of the laboratory assistants could be
seen now and then sleeping on a table in the early morning hours. If their
snoring became objectionable to those still at work, the 'calmer' was
applied. This machine consisted of a Babbitt's soap box without a cover.
Upon it was mounted a broad ratchet-wheel with a crank, while into the
teeth of the wheel there played a stout, elastic slab of wood. The box would
be placed on the table where the snorer was sleeping and the crank turned
rapidly. The racket thus produced was something terrible, and the sleeper
would jump up as though a typhoon had struck the laboratory. The
irrepressible spirit of humor in the old days, although somewhat strenuous
at times, caused many a moment of hilarity which seemed to refresh the
boys, and enabled them to work with renewed vigor after its manifestation."
Mr. Upton remarks that often during the period of the invention of the
incandescent lamp, when under great strain and fatigue, Edison would go to
the organ and play tunes in a primitive way, and come back to crack jokes
with the staff. "But I have often felt that Mr. Edison never could
comprehend the limitations of the strength of other men, as his own
physical and mental strength have always seemed to be without limit. He
could work continuously as long as he wished, and had sleep at his

command. His sleep was always instant, profound, and restful. He has told
me that he never dreamed. I have known Mr. Edison now for thirty-one
years, and feel that he has always kept his mind direct and simple, going
straight to the root of troubles. One of the peculiarities I have noticed is that
I have never known him to break into a conversation going on around him,
and ask what people were talking about. The nearest he would ever come to
it was when there had evidently been some story told, and his face would
express a desire to join in the laugh, which would immediately invite telling
the story to him."
Next to those who worked with Edison at the laboratory and were with
him constantly at Menlo Park were the visitors, some of whom were his
business associates, some of them scientific men, and some of them hero-
worshippers and curiosity-hunters. Foremost in the first category was Mr. E.
H. Johnson, who was in reality Edison's most intimate friend, and was
required for constant consultation; but whose intense activity, remarkable
grasp of electrical principles, and unusual powers of exposition, led to his
frequent detachment for long trips, including those which resulted in the
introduction of the telephone, phonograph, and electric light in England and
on the Continent. A less frequent visitor was Mr. S. Bergmann, who had all
he needed to occupy his time in experimenting and manufacturing, and
whose contemporaneous Wooster Street letter-heads advertised Edison's
inventions as being made there, Among the scientists were Prof. George F.
Barker, of Philadelphia, a big, good-natured philosopher, whose valuable
advice Edison esteemed highly. In sharp contrast to him was the earnest,
serious Rowland, of Johns Hopkins University, afterward the leading
American physicist of his day. Profs. C. F. Brackett and C. F. Young, of
Princeton University, were often received, always interested in what Edison
was doing, and proud that one of their own students, Mr. Upton, was taking
such a prominent part in the development of the work.
Soon after the success of the lighting experiments and the installation at
Menlo Park became known, Edison was besieged by persons from all parts
of the world anxious to secure rights and concessions for their respective
countries. Among these was Mr. Louis Rau, of Paris, who organized the
French Edison Company, the pioneer Edison lighting corporation in Europe,
and who, with the aid of Mr. Batchelor, established lamp-works and a
machine-shop at Ivry sur-Seine, near Paris, in 1882. It was there that Mr.
Nikola Tesla made his entree into the field of light and power, and began his

own career as an inventor; and there also Mr. Etienne Fodor, general
manager of the Hungarian General Electric Company at Budapest, received
his early training. It was he who erected at Athens the first European Edison
station on the now universal three-wire system. Another visitor from
Europe, a little later, was Mr. Emil Rathenau, the present director of the
great Allgemeine Elektricitaets Gesellschaft of Germany. He secured the
rights for the empire, and organized the Berlin Edison system, now one of
the largest in the world. Through his extraordinary energy and enterprise the
business made enormous strides, and Mr. Rathenau has become one of the
most conspicuous industrial figures in his native country. From Italy came
Professor Colombo, later a cabinet minister, with his friend Signor Buzzi, of
Milan. The rights were secured for the peninsula; Colombo and his friends
organized the Italian Edison Company, and erected at Milan the first central
station in that country. Mr. John W. Lieb, Jr., now a vice-president of the
New York Edison Company, was sent over by Mr. Edison to steer the
enterprise technically, and spent ten years in building it up, with such
brilliant success that he was later decorated as Commander of the Order of
the Crown of Italy by King Victor. Another young American enlisted into
European service was Mr. E. G. Acheson, the inventor of carborundum,
who built a number of plants in Italy and France before he returned home.
Mr. Lieb has since become President of the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers and the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, while
Doctor Acheson has been President of the American Electrochemical
Society.
Switzerland sent Messrs. Turrettini, Biedermann, and Thury, all
distinguished engineers, to negotiate for rights in the republic; and so it
went with regard to all the other countries of Europe, as well as those of
South America. It was a question of keeping such visitors away rather than
of inviting them to take up the exploitation of the Edison system; for what
time was not spent in personal interviews was required for the masses of
letters from every country under the sun, all making inquiries, offering
suggestions, proposing terms. Nor were the visitors merely those on
business bent. There were the lion-hunters and celebrities, of whom Sarah
Bernhardt may serve as a type. One visit of note was that paid by Lieut. G.
W. De Long, who had an earnest and protracted conversation with Edison
over the Arctic expedition he was undertaking with the aid of Mr. James
Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald. The Jeannette was being fitted

out, and Edison told De Long that he would make and present him with a
small dynamo machine, some incandescent lamps, and an arc lamp. While
the little dynamo was being built all the men in the laboratory wrote their
names on the paper insulation that was wound upon the iron core of the
armature. As the Jeannette had no steam-engine on board that could be used
for the purpose, Edison designed the dynamo so that it could be worked by
man power and told Lieutenant De Long "it would keep the boys warm up
in the Arctic," when they generated current with it. The ill-fated ship never
returned from her voyage, but went down in the icy waters of the North,
there to remain until some future cataclysm of nature, ten thousand years
hence, shall reveal the ship and the first marine dynamo as curious relics of
a remote civilization.
Edison also furnished De Long with a set of telephones provided with
extensible circuits, so that parties on the ice-floes could go long distances
from the ship and still keep in communication with her. So far as the writers
can ascertain this is the first example of "field telephony." Another nautical
experiment that he made at this time, suggested probably by the
requirements of the Arctic expedition, was a buoy that was floated in New
York harbor, and which contained a small Edison dynamo and two or three
incandescent lamps. The dynamo was driven by the wave or tide motion
through intermediate mechanism, and thus the lamps were lit up from time
to time, serving as signals. These were the prototypes of the lighted buoys
which have since become familiar, as in the channel off Sandy Hook.
One notable afternoon was that on which the New York board of
aldermen took a special train out to Menlo Park to see the lighting system
with its conductors underground in operation. The Edison Electric
Illuminating Company was applying for a franchise, and the aldermen, for
lack of scientific training and specific practical information, were very
sceptical on the subject—as indeed they might well be. "Mr. Edison
demonstrated personally the details and merits of the system to them. The
voltage was increased to a higher pressure than usual, and all the
incandescent lamps at Menlo Park did their best to win the approbation of
the New York City fathers. After Edison had finished exhibiting all the good
points of his system, he conducted his guests upstairs in the laboratory,
where a long table was spread with the best things that one of the most
prominent New York caterers could furnish. The laboratory witnessed high
times that night, for all were in the best of humor, and many a bottle was

drained in toasting the health of Edison and the aldermen." This was one of
the extremely rare occasions on which Edison has addressed an audience;
but the stake was worth the effort. The representatives of New York could
with justice drink the health of the young inventor, whose system is one of
the greatest boons the city has ever had conferred upon it.
Among other frequent visitors was Mr, Edison's father, "one of those
amiable, patriarchal characters with a Horace Greeley beard, typical
Americans of the old school," who would sometimes come into the
laboratory with his two grandchildren, a little boy and girl called "Dash"
and "Dot." He preferred to sit and watch his brilliant son at work "with an
expression of satisfaction on his face that indicated a sense of happiness and
content that his boy, born in that distant, humble home in Ohio, had risen to
fame and brought such honor upon the name. It was, indeed, a pathetic sight
to see a father venerate his son as the elder Edison did." Not less at home
was Mr. Mackenzie, the Mt. Clemens station agent, the life of whose child
Edison had saved when a train newsboy. The old Scotchman was one of the
innocent, chartered libertines of the place, with an unlimited stock of good
jokes and stories, but seldom of any practical use. On one occasion,
however, when everything possible and impossible under the sun was being
carbonized for lamp filaments, he allowed a handful of his bushy red beard
to be taken for the purpose; and his laugh was the loudest when the Edison-
Mackenzie hair lamps were brought up to incandescence—their richness in
red rays being slyly attributed to the nature of the filamentary material!
Oddly enough, a few years later, some inventor actually took out a patent
for making incandescent lamps with carbonized hair for filaments!
Yet other visitors again haunted the place, and with the following
reminiscence of one of them, from Mr. Edison himself, this part of the
chapter must close: "At Menlo Park one cold winter night there came into
the laboratory a strange man in a most pitiful condition. He was nearly
frozen, and he asked if he might sit by the stove. In a few moments he
asked for the head man, and I was brought forward. He had a head of
abnormal size, with highly intellectual features and a very small and
emaciated body. He said he was suffering very much, and asked if I had any
morphine. As I had about everything in chemistry that could be bought, I
told him I had. He requested that I give him some, so I got the morphine
sulphate. He poured out enough to kill two men, when I told him that we
didn't keep a hotel for suicides, and he had better cut the quantity down. He

then bared his legs and arms, and they were literally pitted with scars, due
to the use of hypodermic syringes. He said he had taken it for years, and it
required a big dose to have any effect. I let him go ahead. In a short while
he seemed like another man and began to tell stories, and there were about
fifty of us who sat around listening until morning. He was a man of great
intelligence and education. He said he was a Jew, but there was no
distinctive feature to verify this assertion. He continued to stay around until
he finished every combination of morphine with an acid that I had, probably
ten ounces all told. Then he asked if he could have strychnine. I had an
ounce of the sulphate. He took enough to kill a horse, and asserted it had as
good an effect as morphine. When this was gone, the only thing I had left
was a chunk of crude opium, perhaps two or three pounds. He chewed this
up and disappeared. I was greatly disappointed, because I would have laid
in another stock of morphine to keep him at the laboratory. About a week
afterward he was found dead in a barn at Perth Amboy."
Returning to the work itself, note of which has already been made in this
and preceding chapters, we find an interesting and unique reminiscence in
Mr. Jehl's notes of the reversion to carbon as a filament in the lamps,
following an exhibition of metallic-filament lamps given in the spring of
1879 to the men in the syndicate advancing the funds for these experiments:
"They came to Menlo Park on a late afternoon train from New York. It was
already dark when they were conducted into the machine-shop, where we
had several platinum lamps installed in series. When Edison had finished
explaining the principles and details of the lamp, he asked Kruesi to let the
dynamo machine run. It was of the Gramme type, as our first dynamo of the
Edison design was not yet finished. Edison then ordered the 'juice' to be
turned on slowly. To-day I can see those lamps rising to a cherry red, like
glowbugs, and hear Mr. Edison saying 'a little more juice,' and the lamps
began to glow. 'A little more' is the command again, and then one of the
lamps emits for an instant a light like a star in the distance, after which
there is an eruption and a puff; and the machine-shop is in total darkness.
We knew instantly which lamp had failed, and Batchelor replaced that by a
good one, having a few in reserve near by. The operation was repeated two
or three times with about the same results, after which the party went into
the library until it was time to catch the train for New York."
Such an exhibition was decidedly discouraging, and it was not a jubilant
party that returned to New York, but: "That night Edison remained in the

laboratory meditating upon the results that the platinum lamp had given so
far. I was engaged reading a book near a table in the front, while Edison
was seated in a chair by a table near the organ. With his head turned
downward, and that conspicuous lock of hair hanging loosely on one side,
he looked like Napoleon in the celebrated picture, On the Eve of a Great
Battle. Those days were heroic ones, for he then battled against mighty
odds, and the prospects were dim and not very encouraging. In cases of
emergency Edison always possessed a keen faculty of deciding immediately
and correctly what to do; and the decision he then arrived at was
predestined to be the turning-point that led him on to ultimate success....
After that exhibition we had a house-cleaning at the laboratory, and the
metallic-filament lamps were stored away, while preparations were made
for our experiments on carbon lamps."
Thus the work went on. Menlo Park has hitherto been associated in the
public thought with the telephone, phonograph, and incandescent lamp; but
it was there, equally, that the Edison dynamo and system of distribution
were created and applied to their specific purposes. While all this study of a
possible lamp was going on, Mr. Upton was busy calculating the economy
of the "multiple arc" system, and making a great many tables to determine
what resistance a lamp should have for the best results, and at what point
the proposed general system would fall off in economy when the lamps
were of the lower resistance that was then generally assumed to be
necessary. The world at that time had not the shadow of an idea as to what
the principles of a multiple arc system should be, enabling millions of
lamps to be lighted off distributing circuits, each lamp independent of every
other; but at Menlo Park at that remote period in the seventies Mr. Edison's
mathematician was formulating the inventor's conception in clear,
instructive figures; "and the work then executed has held its own ever
since." From the beginning of his experiments on electric light, Mr. Edison
had a well-defined idea of producing not only a practicable lamp, but also a
SYSTEM of commercial electric lighting. Such a scheme involved the
creation of an entirely new art, for there was nothing on the face of the earth
from which to draw assistance or precedent, unless we except the
elementary forms of dynamos then in existence. It is true, there were
several types of machines in use for the then very limited field of arc
lighting, but they were regarded as valueless as a part of a great
comprehensive scheme which could supply everybody with light. Such

machines were confessedly inefficient, although representing the farthest
reach of a young art. A commission appointed at that time by the Franklin
Institute, and including Prof. Elihu Thomson, investigated the merits of
existing dynamos and reported as to the best of them: "The Gramme
machine is the most economical as a means of converting motive force into
electricity; it utilizes in the arc from 38 to 41 per cent. of the motive work
produced, after deduction is made for friction and the resistance of the air."
They reported also that the Brush arc lighting machine "produces in the
luminous arc useful work equivalent to 31 per cent. of the motive power
employed, or to 38 1/2 per cent. after the friction has been deducted."
Commercial possibilities could not exist in the face of such low economy as
this, and Mr. Edison realized that he would have to improve the dynamo
himself if he wanted a better machine. The scientific world at that time was
engaged in a controversy regarding the external and internal resistance of a
circuit in which a generator was situated. Discussing the subject Mr. Jehl, in
his biographical notes, says: "While this controversy raged in the scientific
papers, and criticism and confusion seemed at its height, Edison and Upton
discussed this question very thoroughly, and Edison declared he did not
intend to build up a system of distribution in which the external resistance
would be equal to the internal resistance. He said he was just about going to
do the opposite; he wanted a large external resistance and a low internal
one. He said he wanted to sell the energy outside of the station and not
waste it in the dynamo and conductors, where it brought no profits.... In
these later days, when these ideas of Edison are used as common property,
and are applied in every modern system of distribution, it is astonishing to
remember that when they were propounded they met with most vehement
antagonism from the world at large." Edison, familiar with batteries in
telegraphy, could not bring himself to believe that any substitute generator
of electrical energy could be efficient that used up half its own possible
output before doing an equal amount of outside work.
Undaunted by the dicta of contemporaneous science, Mr. Edison attacked
the dynamo problem with his accustomed vigor and thoroughness. He chose
the drum form for his armature, and experimented with different kinds of
iron. Cores were made of cast iron, others of forged iron; and still others of
sheets of iron of various thicknesses separated from each other by paper or
paint. These cores were then allowed to run in an excited field, and after a
given time their temperature was measured and noted. By such practical

methods Edison found that the thin, laminated cores of sheet iron gave the
least heat, and had the least amount of wasteful eddy currents. His
experiments and ideas on magnetism at that period were far in advance of
the time. His work and tests regarding magnetism were repeated later on by
Hopkinson and Kapp, who then elucidated the whole theory mathematically
by means of formulae and constants. Before this, however, Edison had
attained these results by pioneer work, founded on his original reasoning,
and utilized them in the construction of his dynamo, thus revolutionizing
the art of building such machines.
After thorough investigation of the magnetic qualities of different kinds
of iron, Edison began to make a study of winding the cores, first
determining the electromotive force generated per turn of wire at various
speeds in fields of different intensities. He also considered various forms
and shapes for the armature, and by methodical and systematic research
obtained the data and best conditions upon which he could build his
generator. In the field magnets of his dynamo he constructed the cores and
yoke of forged iron having a very large cross-section, which was a new
thing in those days. Great attention was also paid to all the joints, which
were smoothed down so as to make a perfect magnetic contact. The Edison
dynamo, with its large masses of iron, was a vivid contrast to the then
existing types with their meagre quantities of the ferric element. Edison also
made tests on his field magnets by slowly raising the strength of the
exciting current, so that he obtained figures similar to those shown by a
magnetic curve, and in this way found where saturation commenced, and
where it was useless to expend more current on the field. If he had asked
Upton at the time to formulate the results of his work in this direction, for
publication, he would have anticipated the historic work on magnetism that
was executed by the two other investigators; Hopkinson and Kapp, later on.
The laboratory note-books of the period bear abundant evidence of the
systematic and searching nature of these experiments and investigations, in
the hundreds of pages of notes, sketches, calculations, and tables made at
the time by Edison, Upton, Batchelor, Jehl, and by others who from time to
time were intrusted with special experiments to elucidate some particular
point. Mr. Jehl says: "The experiments on armature-winding were also very
interesting. Edison had a number of small wooden cores made, at both ends
of which we inserted little brass nails, and we wound the wooden cores with
twine as if it were wire on an armature. In this way we studied armature-

winding, and had matches where each of us had a core, while bets were
made as to who would be the first to finish properly and correctly a certain
kind of winding. Care had to be taken that the wound core corresponded to
the direction of the current, supposing it were placed in a field and
revolved. After Edison had decided this question, Upton made drawings and
tables from which the real armatures were wound and connected to the
commutator. To a student of to-day all this seems simple, but in those days
the art of constructing dynamos was about as dark as air navigation is at
present.... Edison also improved the armature by dividing it and the
commutator into a far greater number of sections than up to that time had
been the practice. He was also the first to use mica in insulating the
commutator sections from each other."
In the mean time, during the progress of the investigations on the
dynamo, word had gone out to the world that Edison expected to invent a
generator of greater efficiency than any that existed at the time. Again he
was assailed and ridiculed by the technical press, for had not the foremost
electricians and physicists of Europe and America worked for years on the
production of dynamos and arc lamps as they then existed? Even though
this young man at Menlo Park had done some wonderful things for
telegraphy and telephony; even if he had recorded and reproduced human
speech, he had his limitations, and could not upset the settled dictum of
science that the internal resistance must equal the external resistance.
Such was the trend of public opinion at the time, but "after Mr. Kruesi
had finished the first practical dynamo, and after Mr. Upton had tested it
thoroughly and verified his figures and results several times—for he also
was surprised—Edison was able to tell the world that he had made a
generator giving an efficiency of 90 per cent." Ninety per cent. as against 40
per cent. was a mighty hit, and the world would not believe it. Criticism and
argument were again at their height, while Upton, as Edison's duellist, was
kept busy replying to private and public challenges of the fact.... "The
tremendous progress of the world in the last quarter of a century, owing to
the revolution caused by the all-conquering march of 'Heavy Current
Engineering,' is the outcome of Edison's work at Menlo Park that raised the
efficiency of the dynamo from 40 per cent. to 90 per cent."
Mr. Upton sums it all up very precisely in his remarks upon this period:
"What has now been made clear by accurate nomenclature was then very

foggy in the text-books. Mr. Edison had completely grasped the effect of
subdivision of circuits, and the influence of wires leading to such
subdivisions, when it was most difficult to express what he knew in
technical language. I remember distinctly when Mr. Edison gave me the
problem of placing a motor in circuit in multiple arc with a fixed resistance;
and I had to work out the problem entirely, as I could find no prior solution.
There was nothing I could find bearing upon the counter electromotive
force of the armature, and the effect of the resistance of the armature on the
work given out by the armature. It was a wonderful experience to have
problems given me out of the intuitions of a great mind, based on enormous
experience in practical work, and applying to new lines of progress. One of
the main impressions left upon me after knowing Mr. Edison for many
years is the marvellous accuracy of his guesses. He will see the general
nature of a result long before it can be reached by mathematical calculation.
His greatness was always to be clearly seen when difficulties arose. They
always made him cheerful, and started him thinking; and very soon would
come a line of suggestions which would not end until the difficulty was met
and overcome, or found insurmountable. I have often felt that Mr. Edison
got himself purposely into trouble by premature publications and otherwise,
so that he would have a full incentive to get himself out of the trouble."
This chapter may well end with a statement from Mr. Jehl, shrewd and
observant, as a participator in all the early work of the development of the
Edison lighting system: "Those who were gathered around him in the old
Menlo Park laboratory enjoyed his confidence, and he theirs. Nor was this
confidence ever abused. He was respected with a respect which only great
men can obtain, and he never showed by any word or act that he was their
employer in a sense that would hurt the feelings, as is often the case in the
ordinary course of business life. He conversed, argued, and disputed with us
all as if he were a colleague on the same footing. It was his winning ways
and manners that attached us all so loyally to his side, and made us ever
ready with a boundless devotion to execute any request or desire." Thus
does a great magnet, run through a heap of sand and filings, exert its lines
of force and attract irresistibly to itself the iron and steel particles that are
its affinity, and having sifted them out, leaving the useless dust behind, hold
them to itself with responsive tenacity.

CHAPTER XIII
A WORLD-HUNT FOR FILAMENT MATERIAL

IN writing about the old experimenting days at Menlo Park, Mr. F. R.
Upton says: "Edison's day is twenty-four hours long, for he has always
worked whenever there was anything to do, whether day or night, and
carried a force of night workers, so that his experiments could go on
continually. If he wanted material, he always made it a principle to have it
at once, and never hesitated to use special messengers to get it. I remember
in the early days of the electric light he wanted a mercury pump for
exhausting the lamps. He sent me to Princeton to get it. I got back to
Metuchen late in the day, and had to carry the pump over to the laboratory
on my back that evening, set it up, and work all night and the next day
getting results."
This characteristic principle of obtaining desired material in the quickest
and most positive way manifested itself in the search that Edison instituted
for the best kind of bamboo for lamp filaments, immediately after the
discovery related in a preceding chapter. It is doubtful whether, in the
annals of scientific research and experiment, there is anything quite
analogous to the story of this search and the various expeditions that went
out from the Edison laboratory in 1880 and subsequent years, to scour the
earth for a material so apparently simple as a homogeneous strip of
bamboo, or other similar fibre. Prolonged and exhaustive experiment,
microscopic examination, and an intimate knowledge of the nature of wood
and plant fibres, however, had led Edison to the conclusion that bamboo or
similar fibrous filaments were more suitable than anything else then known
for commercial incandescent lamps, and he wanted the most perfect for that
purpose. Hence, the quickest way was to search the tropics until the proper
material was found.
The first emissary chosen for this purpose was the late William H.
Moore, of Rahway, New Jersey, who left New York in the summer of 1880,
bound for China and Japan, these being the countries preeminently noted
for the production of abundant species of bamboo. On arrival in the East he

quickly left the cities behind and proceeded into the interior, extending his
search far into the more remote country districts, collecting specimens on
his way, and devoting much time to the study of the bamboo, and in roughly
testing the relative value of its fibre in canes of one, two, three, four, and
five year growths. Great bales of samples were sent to Edison, and after
careful tests a certain variety and growth of Japanese bamboo was
determined to be the most satisfactory material for filaments that had been
found. Mr. Moore, who was continuing his searches in that country, was
instructed to arrange for the cultivation and shipment of regular supplies of
this particular species. Arrangements to this end were accordingly made
with a Japanese farmer, who began to make immediate shipments, and who
subsequently displayed so much ingenuity in fertilizing and cross-fertilizing
that the homogeneity of the product was constantly improved. The use of
this bamboo for Edison lamp filaments was continued for many years.
Although Mr. Moore did not meet with the exciting adventures of some
subsequent explorers, he encountered numerous difficulties and novel
experiences in his many months of travel through the hinterland of Japan
and China. The attitude toward foreigners thirty years ago was not as
friendly as it has since become, but Edison, as usual, had made a happy
choice of messengers, as Mr. Moore's good nature and diplomacy attested.
These qualities, together with his persistence and perseverance and faculty
of intelligent discrimination in the matter of fibres, helped to make his
mission successful, and gave to him the honor of being the one who found
the bamboo which was adopted for use as filaments in commercial Edison
lamps.
Although Edison had satisfied himself that bamboo furnished the most
desirable material thus far discovered for incandescent-lamp filaments, he
felt that in some part of the world there might be found a natural product of
the same general character that would furnish a still more perfect and
homogeneous material. In his study of this subject, and during the
prosecution of vigorous and searching inquiries in various directions, he
learned that Mr. John C. Brauner, then residing in Brooklyn, New York, had
an expert knowledge of indigenous plants of the particular kind desired.
During the course of a geological survey which he had made for the
Brazilian Government, Mr. Brauner had examined closely the various
species of palms which grow plentifully in that country, and of them there
was one whose fibres he thought would be just what Edison wanted.

Accordingly, Mr. Brauner was sent for and dispatched to Brazil in
December, 1880, to search for and send samples of this and such other
palms, fibres, grasses, and canes as, in his judgment, would be suitable for
the experiments then being carried on at Menlo Park. Landing at Para, he
crossed over into the Amazonian province, and thence proceeded through
the heart of the country, making his way by canoe on the rivers and their
tributaries, and by foot into the forests and marshes of a vast and almost
untrodden wilderness. In this manner Mr. Brauner traversed about two
thousand miles of the comparatively unknown interior of Southern Brazil,
and procured a large variety of fibrous specimens, which he shipped to
Edison a few months later. When these fibres arrived in the United States
they were carefully tested and a few of them found suitable but not superior
to the Japanese bamboo, which was then being exclusively used in the
manufacture of commercial Edison lamps.
Later on Edison sent out an expedition to explore the wilds of Cuba and
Jamaica. A two months' investigation of the latter island revealed a variety
of bamboo growths, of which a great number of specimens were obtained
and shipped to Menlo Park; but on careful test they were found inferior to
the Japanese bamboo, and hence rejected. The exploration of the glades and
swamps of Florida by three men extended over a period of five months in a
minute search for fibrous woods of the palmetto species. A great variety
was found, and over five hundred boxes of specimens were shipped to the
laboratory from time to time, but none of them tested out with entirely
satisfactory results.
The use of Japanese bamboo for carbon filaments was therefore
continued in the manufacture of lamps, although an incessant search was
maintained for a still more perfect material. The spirit of progress, so
pervasive in Edison's character, led him, however, to renew his
investigations further afield by sending out two other men to examine the
bamboo and similar growths of those parts of South America not covered
by Mr. Brauner. These two men were Frank McGowan and C. F. Hanington,
both of whom had been for nearly seven years in the employ of the Edison
Electric Light Company in New York. The former was a stocky, rugged
Irishman, possessing the native shrewdness and buoyancy of his race,
coupled with undaunted courage and determination; and the latter was a
veteran of the Civil War, with some knowledge of forest and field, acquired
as a sportsman. They left New York in September, 1887, arriving in due

time at Para, proceeding thence twenty-three hundred miles up the Amazon
River to Iquitos. Nothing of an eventful nature occurred during this trip, but
on arrival at Iquitos the two men separated; Mr. McGowan to explore on
foot and by canoe in Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, while Mr. Hanington
returned by the Amazon River to Para. Thence Hanington went by steamer
to Montevideo, and by similar conveyance up the River de la Plata and
through Uruguay, Argentine, and Paraguay to the southernmost part of
Brazil, collecting a large number of specimens of palms and grasses.
The adventures of Mr. McGowan, after leaving Iquitos, would fill a book
if related in detail. The object of the present narrative and the space at the
authors' disposal, however, do not permit of more than a brief mention of
his experiences. His first objective point was Quito, about five hundred
miles away, which he proposed to reach on foot and by means of canoeing
on the Napo River through a wild and comparatively unknown country
teeming with tribes of hostile natives. The dangers of the expedition were
pictured to him in glowing colors, but spurning prophecies of dire disaster,
he engaged some native Indians and a canoe and started on his explorations,
reaching Quito in eighty-seven days, after a thorough search of the country
on both sides of the Napo River. From Quito he went to Guayaquil, from
there by steamer to Buenaventura, and thence by rail, twelve miles, to
Cordova. From this point he set out on foot to explore the Cauca Valley and
the Cordilleras.
Mr. McGowan found in these regions a great variety of bamboo, small
and large, some species growing seventy-five to one hundred feet in height,
and from six to nine inches in diameter. He collected a large number of
specimens, which were subsequently sent to Orange for Edison's
examination. After about fifteen months of exploration attended by much
hardship and privation, deserted sometimes by treacherous guides, twice
laid low by fevers, occasionally in peril from Indian attacks, wild animals
and poisonous serpents, tormented by insect pests, endangered by floods,
one hundred and nineteen days without meat, ninety-eight days without
taking off his clothes, Mr. McGowan returned to America, broken in health
but having faithfully fulfilled the commission intrusted to him. The Evening
Sun, New York, obtained an interview with him at that time, and in its issue
of May 2, 1889, gave more than a page to a brief story of his interesting
adventures, and then commented editorially upon them, as follows:

"A ROMANCE OF SCIENCE"
"The narrative given elsewhere in the Evening Sun of the wanderings of
Edison's missionary of science, Mr. Frank McGowan, furnishes a new proof
that the romances of real life surpass any that the imagination can frame.
"In pursuit of a substance that should meet the requirements of the
Edison incandescent lamp, Mr. McGowan penetrated the wilderness of the
Amazon, and for a year defied its fevers, beasts, reptiles, and deadly insects
in his quest of a material so precious that jealous Nature has hidden it in her
most secret fastnesses.
"No hero of mythology or fable ever dared such dragons to rescue some
captive goddess as did this dauntless champion of civilization. Theseus, or
Siegfried, or any knight of the fairy books might envy the victories of
Edison's irresistible lieutenant.
"As a sample story of adventure, Mr. McGowan's narrative is a marvel fit
to be classed with the historic journeyings of the greatest travellers. But it
gains immensely in interest when we consider that it succeeded in its
scientific purpose. The mysterious bamboo was discovered, and large
quantities of it were procured and brought to the Wizard's laboratory, there
to suffer another wondrous change and then to light up our pleasure-haunts
and our homes with a gentle radiance."
A further, though rather sad, interest attaches to the McGowan story, for
only a short time had elapsed after his return to America when he
disappeared suddenly and mysteriously, and in spite of long-continued and
strenuous efforts to obtain some light on the subject, no clew or trace of him
was ever found. He was a favorite among the Edison "oldtimers," and his
memory is still cherished, for when some of the "boys" happen to get
together, as they occasionally do, some one is almost sure to "wonder what
became of poor 'Mac.'" He was last seen at Mouquin's famous old French
restaurant on Fulton Street, New York, where he lunched with one of the
authors of this book and the late Luther Stieringer. He sat with them for two
or three hours discussing his wonderful trip, and telling some fascinating
stories of adventure. Then the party separated at the Ann Street door of the
restaurant, after making plans to secure the narrative in more detailed form
for subsequent use—and McGowan has not been seen from that hour to
this. The trail of the explorer was more instantly lost in New York than in
the vast recesses of the Amazon swamps.

The next and last explorer whom Edison sent out in search of natural
fibres was Mr. James Ricalton, of Maplewood, New Jersey, a school-
principal, a well-known traveller, and an ardent student of natural science.
Mr. Ricalton's own story of his memorable expedition is so interesting as to
be worthy of repetition here:
"A village schoolmaster is not unaccustomed to door-rappings; for the
steps of belligerent mothers are often thitherward bent seeking redress for
conjured wrongs to their darling boobies.
"It was a bewildering moment, therefore, to the Maplewood teacher
when, in answering a rap at the door one afternoon, he found, instead of an
irate mother, a messenger from the laboratory of the world's greatest
inventor bearing a letter requesting an audience a few hours later.
"Being the teacher to whom reference is made, I am now quite willing to
confess that for the remainder of that afternoon, less than a problem in
Euclid would have been sufficient to disqualify me for the remaining
scholastic duties of the hour. I felt it, of course, to be no small honor for a
humble teacher to be called to the sanctum of Thomas A. Edison. The letter,
however, gave no intimation of the nature of the object for which I had been
invited to appear before Mr. Edison....
"When I was presented to Mr. Edison his way of setting forth the mission
he had designated for me was characteristic of how a great mind conceives
vast undertakings and commands great things in few words. At this time
Mr. Edison had discovered that the fibre of a certain bamboo afforded a
very desirable carbon for the electric lamp, and the variety of bamboo used
was a product of Japan. It was his belief that in other parts of the world
other and superior varieties might be found, and to that end he had
dispatched explorers to bamboo regions in the valleys of the great South
American rivers, where specimens were found of extraordinary quality; but
the locality in which these specimens were found was lost in the limitless
reaches of those great river-bottoms. The great necessity for more durable
carbons became a desideratum so urgent that the tireless inventor decided to
commission another explorer to search the tropical jungles of the Orient.
"This brings me then to the first meeting of Edison, when he set forth
substantially as follows, as I remember it twenty years ago, the purpose for
which he had called me from my scholastic duties. With a quizzical gleam
in his eye, he said: 'I want a man to ransack all the tropical jungles of the

East to find a better fibre for my lamp; I expect it to be found in the palm or
bamboo family. How would you like that job?' Suiting my reply to his love
of brevity and dispatch, I said, 'That would suit me.' 'Can you go to-
morrow?' was his next question. 'Well, Mr. Edison, I must first of all get a
leave of absence from my Board of Education, and assist the board to
secure a substitute for the time of my absence. How long will it take, Mr.
Edison?' 'How can I tell? Maybe six months, and maybe five years; no
matter how long, find it.' He continued: 'I sent a man to South America to
find what I want; he found it; but lost the place where he found it, so he
might as well never have found it at all.' Hereat I was enjoined to proceed
forthwith to court the Board of Education for a leave of absence, which I
did successfully, the board considering that a call so important and honorary
was entitled to their unqualified favor, which they generously granted.
"I reported to Mr. Edison on the following day, when he instructed me to
come to the laboratory at once to learn all the details of drawing and
carbonizing fibres, which it would be necessary to do in the Oriental
jungles. This I did, and, in the mean time, a set of suitable tools for this
purpose had been ordered to be made in the laboratory. As soon as I learned
my new trade, which I accomplished in a few days, Mr. Edison directed me
to the library of the laboratory to occupy a few days in studying the
geography of the Orient and, particularly, in drawing maps of the tributaries
of the Ganges, the Irrawaddy, and the Brahmaputra rivers, and other regions
which I expected to explore.
"It was while thus engaged that Mr. Edison came to me one day and said:
'If you will go up to the house' (his palatial home not far away) 'and look
behind the sofa in the library you will find a joint of bamboo, a specimen of
that found in South America; bring it down and make a study of it; if you
find something equal to that I will be satisfied.' At the home I was guided to
the library by an Irish servant-woman, to whom I communicated my
knowledge of the definite locality of the sample joint. She plunged her arm,
bare and herculean, behind the aforementioned sofa, and holding aloft a
section of wood, called out in a mood of discovery: 'Is that it?' Replying in
the affirmative, she added, under an impulse of innocent divination that
whatever her wizard master laid hands upon could result in nothing short of
an invention, 'Sure, sor, and what's he going to invint out o' that?'

"My kit of tools made, my maps drawn, my Oriental geography
reviewed, I come to the point when matters of immediate departure are
discussed; and when I took occasion to mention to my chief that, on the
subject of life insurance, underwriters refuse to take any risks on an
enterprise so hazardous, Mr. Edison said that, if I did not place too high a
valuation on my person, he would take the risk himself. I replied that I was
born and bred in New York State, but now that I had become a Jersey man I
did not value myself at above fifteen hundred dollars. Edison laughed and
said that he would assume the risk, and another point was settled. The next
matter was the financing of the trip, about which Mr. Edison asked in a
tentative way about the rates to the East. I told him the expense of such a
trip could not be determined beforehand in detail, but that I had established
somewhat of a reputation for economic travel, and that I did not believe any
traveller could surpass me in that respect. He desired no further assurance in
that direction, and thereupon ordered a letter of credit made out with
authorization to order a second when the first was exhausted. Herein then
are set forth in briefest space the preliminaries of a circuit of the globe in
quest of fibre.
"It so happened that the day on which I set out fell on Washington's
Birthday, and I suggested to my boys and girls at school that they make a
line across the station platform near the school at Maplewood, and from this
line I would start eastward around the world, and if good-fortune should
bring me back I would meet them from the westward at the same line. As I
had often made them 'toe the scratch,' for once they were only too well
pleased to have me toe the line for them.
"This was done, and I sailed via England and the Suez Canal to Ceylon,
that fair isle to which Sindbad the Sailor made his sixth voyage,
picturesquely referred to in history as the 'brightest gem in the British
Colonial Crown.' I knew Ceylon to be eminently tropical; I knew it to be
rich in many varieties of the bamboo family, which has been called the king
of the grasses; and in this family had I most hope of finding the desired
fibre. Weeks were spent in this paradisiacal isle. Every part was visited.
Native wood craftsmen were offered a premium on every new species
brought in, and in this way nearly a hundred species were tested, a greater
number than was found in any other country. One of the best specimens
tested during the entire trip around the world was found first in Ceylon,
although later in Burmah, it being indigenous to the latter country. It is a

gigantic tree-grass or reed growing in clumps of from one to two hundred,
often twelve inches in diameter, and one hundred and fifty feet high, and
known as the giant bamboo (Bambusa gigantia). This giant grass stood the
highest test as a carbon, and on account of its extraordinary size and
qualities I extend it this special mention. With others who have given much
attention to this remarkable reed, I believe that in its manifold uses the
bamboo is the world's greatest dendral benefactor.
"From Ceylon I proceeded to India, touching the great peninsula first at
Cape Comorin, and continuing northward by way of Pondicherry, Madura,
and Madras; and thence to the tableland of Bangalore and the Western
Ghauts, testing many kinds of wood at every point, but particularly the
palm and bamboo families. From the range of the Western Ghauts I went to
Bombay and then north by the way of Delhi to Simla, the summer capital of
the Himalayas; thence again northward to the headwaters of the Sutlej
River, testing everywhere on my way everything likely to afford the desired
carbon.
"On returning from the mountains I followed the valleys of the Jumna
and the Ganges to Calcutta, whence I again ascended the Sub-Himalayas to
Darjeeling, where the numerous river-bottoms were sprinkled plentifully
with many varieties of bamboo, from the larger sizes to dwarfed species
covering the mountain slopes, and not longer than the grass of meadows.
Again descending to the plains I passed eastward to the Brahmaputra River,
which I ascended to the foot-hills in Assam; but finding nothing of superior
quality in all this northern region I returned to Calcutta and sailed thence to
Rangoon, in Burmah; and there, finding no samples giving more excellent
tests in the lower reaches of the Irrawaddy, I ascended that river to
Mandalay, where, through Burmese bamboo wiseacres, I gathered in from
round about and tested all that the unusually rich Burmese flora could
furnish. In Burmah the giant bamboo, as already mentioned, is found
indigenous; but beside it no superior varieties were found. Samples tested at
several points on the Malay Peninsula showed no new species, except at a
point north of Singapore, where I found a species large and heavy which
gave a test nearly equal to that of the giant bamboo in Ceylon.
"After completing the Malay Peninsula I had planned to visit Java and
Borneo; but having found in the Malay Peninsula and in Ceylon a bamboo
fibre which averaged a test from one to two hundred per cent. better than

that in use at the lamp factory, I decided it was unnecessary to visit these
countries or New Guinea, as my 'Eureka' had already been established, and
that I would therefore set forth over the return hemisphere, searching China
and Japan on the way. The rivers in Southern China brought down to
Canton bamboos of many species, where this wondrously utilitarian reed
enters very largely into the industrial life of that people, and not merely into
the industrial life, but even into the culinary arts, for bamboo sprouts are a
universal vegetable in China; but among all the bamboos of China I found
none of superexcellence in carbonizing qualities. Japan came next in the
succession of countries to be explored, but there the work was much
simplified, from the fact that the Tokio Museum contains a complete
classified collection of all the different species in the empire, and there
samples could be obtained and tested.
"Now the last of the important bamboo-producing countries in the globe
circuit had been done, and the 'home-lap' was in order; the broad Pacific
was spanned in fourteen days; my natal continent in six; and on the 22d of
February, on the same day, at the same hour, at the same minute, one year to
a second, 'little Maude,' a sweet maid of the school, led me across the line
which completed the circuit of the globe, and where I was greeted by the
cheers of my boys and girls. I at once reported to Mr. Edison, whose
manner of greeting my return was as characteristic of the man as his
summary and matter-of-fact manner of my dispatch. His little catechism of
curious inquiry was embraced in four small and intensely Anglo-Saxon
words—with his usual pleasant smile he extended his hand and said: 'Did
you get it?' This was surely a summing of a year's exploration not less
laconic than Caesar's review of his Gallic campaign. When I replied that I
had, but that he must be the final judge of what I had found, he said that
during my absence he had succeeded in making an artificial carbon which
was meeting the requirements satisfactorily; so well, indeed, that I believe
no practical use was ever made of the bamboo fibres thereafter.
"I have herein given a very brief resume of my search for fibre through
the Orient; and during my connection with that mission I was at all times
not less astonished at Mr. Edison's quick perception of conditions and his
instant decision and his bigness of conceptions, than I had always been with
his prodigious industry and his inventive genius.

"Thinking persons know that blatant men never accomplish much, and
Edison's marvellous brevity of speech along with his miraculous
achievements should do much to put bores and garrulity out of fashion."
Although Edison had instituted such a costly and exhaustive search
throughout the world for the most perfect of natural fibres, he did not
necessarily feel committed for all time to the exclusive use of that material
for his lamp filaments. While these explorations were in progress, as indeed
long before, he had given much thought to the production of some artificial
compound that would embrace not only the required homogeneity, but also
many other qualifications necessary for the manufacture of an improved
type of lamp which had become desirable by reason of the rapid adoption of
his lighting system.
At the very time Mr. McGowan was making his explorations deep in
South America, and Mr. Ricalton his swift trip around the world, Edison,
after much investigation and experiment, had produced a compound which
promised better results than bamboo fibres. After some changes dictated by
experience, this artificial filament was adopted in the manufacture of lamps.
No radical change was immediately made, however, but the product of the
lamp factory was gradually changed over, during the course of a few years,
from the use of bamboo to the "squirted" filament, as the new material was
called. An artificial compound of one kind or another has indeed been
universally adopted for the purpose by all manufacturers; hence the
incandescing conductors in all carbon-filament lamps of the present day are
made in that way. The fact remains, however, that for nearly nine years all
Edison lamps (many millions in the aggregate) were made with bamboo
filaments, and many of them for several years after that, until bamboo was
finally abandoned in the early nineties, except for use in a few special types
which were so made until about the end of 1908. The last few years have
witnessed a remarkable advance in the manufacture of incandescent lamps
in the substitution of metallic filaments for those of carbon. It will be
remembered that many of the earlier experiments were based on the use of
strips of platinum; while other rare metals were the subject of casual trial.
No real success was attained in that direction, and for many years the
carbon-filament lamp reigned supreme. During the last four or five years
lamps with filaments made from tantalum and tungsten have been produced
and placed on the market with great success, and are now largely used.
Their price is still very high, however, as compared with that of the carbon

lamp, which has been vastly improved in methods of construction, and
whose average price of fifteen cents is only one-tenth of what it was when
Edison first brought it out.
With the close of Mr. McGowan's and Mr. Ricalton's expeditions, there
ended the historic world-hunt for natural fibres. From start to finish the
investigations and searches made by Edison himself, and carried on by
others under his direction, are remarkable not only from the fact that they
entailed a total expenditure of about $100,000, (disbursed under his
supervision by Mr. Upton), but also because of their unique inception and
thoroughness they illustrate one of the strongest traits of his character—an
invincible determination to leave no stone unturned to acquire that which he
believes to be in existence, and which, when found, will answer the purpose
that he has in mind.

CHAPTER XIV
INVENTING A COMPLETE SYSTEM OF LIGHTING

IN Berlin, on December 11, 1908, with notable eclat, the seventieth
birthday was celebrated of Emil Rathenau, the founder of the great
Allgemein Elektricitaets Gesellschaft. This distinguished German, creator
of a splendid industry, then received the congratulations of his fellow-
countrymen, headed by Emperor William, who spoke enthusiastically of his
services to electro-technics and to Germany. In his interesting
acknowledgment, Mr. Rathenau told how he went to Paris in 1881, and at
the electrical exhibition there saw the display of Edison's inventions in
electric lighting "which have met with as little proper appreciation as his
countless innovations in connection with telegraphy, telephony, and the
entire electrical industry." He saw the Edison dynamo, and he saw the
incandescent lamp, "of which millions have been manufactured since that
day without the great master being paid the tribute to his invention." But
what impressed the observant, thoroughgoing German was the breadth with
which the whole lighting art had been elaborated and perfected, even at that
early day. "The Edison system of lighting was as beautifully conceived
down to the very details, and as thoroughly worked out as if it had been
tested for decades in various towns. Neither sockets, switches, fuses, lamp-
holders, nor any of the other accessories necessary to complete the
installation were wanting; and the generating of the current, the regulation,
the wiring with distributing boxes, house connections, meters, etc., all
showed signs of astonishing skill and incomparable genius."
Such praise on such an occasion from the man who introduced
incandescent electric lighting into Germany is significant as to the
continued appreciation abroad of Mr. Edison's work. If there is one thing
modern Germany is proud and jealous of, it is her leadership in electrical
engineering and investigation. But with characteristic insight, Mr. Rathenau
here placed his finger on the great merit that has often been forgotten.
Edison was not simply the inventor of a new lamp and a new dynamo. They
were invaluable elements, but far from all that was necessary. His was the

mighty achievement of conceiving and executing in all its details an art and
an industry absolutely new to the world. Within two years this man
completed and made that art available in its essential, fundamental facts,
which remain unchanged after thirty years of rapid improvement and
widening application.
Such a stupendous feat, whose equal is far to seek anywhere in the
history of invention, is worth studying, especially as the task will take us
over much new ground and over very little of the territory already covered.
Notwithstanding the enormous amount of thought and labor expended on
the incandescent lamp problem from the autumn of 1878 to the winter of
1879, it must not be supposed for one moment that Edison's whole
endeavor and entire inventive skill had been given to the lamp alone, or the
dynamo alone. We have sat through the long watches of the night while
Edison brooded on the real solution of the swarming problems. We have
gazed anxiously at the steady fingers of the deft and cautious Batchelor, as
one fragile filament after another refused to stay intact until it could be
sealed into its crystal prison and there glow with light that never was before
on land or sea. We have calculated armatures and field coils for the new
dynamo with Upton, and held the stakes for Jehl and his fellows at their
winding bees. We have seen the mineral and vegetable kingdoms rifled and
ransacked for substances that would yield the best "filament." We have had
the vague consciousness of assisting at a great development whose
evidences to-day on every hand attest its magnitude. We have felt the fierce
play of volcanic effort, lifting new continents of opportunity from the
infertile sea, without any devastation of pre-existing fields of human toil
and harvest. But it still remains to elucidate the actual thing done; to reduce
it to concrete data, and in reducing, to unfold its colossal dimensions.
The lighting system that Edison contemplated in this entirely new
departure from antecedent methods included the generation of electrical
energy, or current, on a very large scale; its distribution throughout
extended areas, and its division and subdivision into small units converted
into light at innumerable points in every direction from the source of
supply, each unit to be independent of every other and susceptible to
immediate control by the user.
This was truly an altogether prodigious undertaking. We need not wonder
that Professor Tyndall, in words implying grave doubt as to the possibility

of any solution of the various problems, said publicly that he would much
rather have the matter in Edison's hands than in his own. There were no
precedents, nothing upon which to build or improve. The problems could
only be answered by the creation of new devices and methods expressly
worked out for their solution. An electric lamp answering certain specific
requirements would, indeed, be the key to the situation, but its commercial
adaptation required a multifarious variety of apparatus and devices. The
word "system" is much abused in invention, and during the early days of
electric lighting its use applied to a mere freakish lamp or dynamo was
often ludicrous. But, after all, nothing short of a complete system could give
real value to the lamp as an invention; nothing short of a system could body
forth the new art to the public. Let us therefore set down briefly a few of the
leading items needed for perfect illumination by electricity, all of which
were part of the Edison programme:
First—To conceive a broad and fundamentally correct method of
distributing the current, satisfactory in a scientific sense and practical
commercially in its efficiency and economy. This meant, ready made, a
comprehensive plan analogous to illumination by gas, with a network of
conductors all connected together, so that in any given city area the lights
could be fed with electricity from several directions, thus eliminating any
interruption due to the disturbance on any particular section.
Second—To devise an electric lamp that would give about the same
amount of light as a gas jet, which custom had proven to be a suitable and
useful unit. This lamp must possess the quality of requiring only a small
investment in the copper conductors reaching it. Each lamp must be
independent of every other lamp. Each and all the lights must be produced
and operated with sufficient economy to compete on a commercial basis
with gas. The lamp must be durable, capable of being easily and safely
handled by the public, and one that would remain capable of burning at full
incandescence and candle-power a great length of time.
Third—To devise means whereby the amount of electrical energy
furnished to each and every customer could be determined, as in the case of
gas, and so that this could be done cheaply and reliably by a meter at the
customer's premises.
Fourth—To elaborate a system or network of conductors capable of being
placed underground or overhead, which would allow of being tapped at any

intervals, so that service wires could be run from the main conductors in the
street into each building. Where these mains went below the surface of the
thoroughfare, as in large cities, there must be protective conduit or pipe for
the copper conductors, and these pipes must allow of being tapped
wherever necessary. With these conductors and pipes must also be furnished
manholes, junction-boxes, connections, and a host of varied paraphernalia
insuring perfect general distribution.
Fifth—To devise means for maintaining at all points in an extended area
of distribution a practically even pressure of current, so that all the lamps,
wherever located, near or far away from the central station, should give an
equal light at all times, independent of the number that might be turned on;
and safeguarding the lamps against rupture by sudden and violent
fluctuations of current. There must also be means for thus regulating at the
point where the current was generated the quality or pressure of the current
throughout the whole lighting area, with devices for indicating what such
pressure might actually be at various points in the area.
Sixth—To design efficient dynamos, such not being in existence at the
time, that would convert economically the steam-power of high-speed
engines into electrical energy, together with means for connecting and
disconnecting them with the exterior consumption circuits; means for
regulating, equalizing their loads, and adjusting the number of dynamos to
be used according to the fluctuating demands on the central station. Also the
arrangement of complete stations with steam and electric apparatus and
auxiliary devices for insuring their efficient and continuous operation.
Seventh—To invent devices that would prevent the current from
becoming excessive upon any conductors, causing fire or other injury; also
switches for turning the current on and off; lamp-holders, fixtures, and the
like; also means and methods for establishing the interior circuits that were
to carry current to chandeliers and fixtures in buildings.
Here was the outline of the programme laid down in the autumn of 1878,
and pursued through all its difficulties to definite accomplishment in about
eighteen months, some of the steps being made immediately, others being
taken as the art evolved. It is not to be imagined for one moment that
Edison performed all the experiments with his own hands. The method of
working at Menlo Park has already been described in these pages by those
who participated. It would not only have been physically impossible for one

man to have done all this work himself, in view of the time and labor
required, and the endless detail; but most of the apparatus and devices
invented or suggested by him as the art took shape required the handiwork
of skilled mechanics and artisans of a high order of ability. Toward the end
of 1879 the laboratory force thus numbered at least one hundred earnest
men. In this respect of collaboration, Edison has always adopted a policy
that must in part be taken to explain his many successes. Some inventors of
the greatest ability, dealing with ideas and conceptions of importance, have
found it impossible to organize or even to tolerate a staff of co-workers,
preferring solitary and secret toil, incapable of team work, or jealous of any
intrusion that could possibly bar them from a full and complete claim to the
result when obtained. Edison always stood shoulder to shoulder with his
associates, but no one ever questioned the leadership, nor was it ever in
doubt where the inspiration originated. The real truth is that Edison has
always been so ceaselessly fertile of ideas himself, he has had more than his
whole staff could ever do to try them all out; he has sought co-operation,
but no exterior suggestion. As a matter of fact a great many of the "Edison
men" have made notable inventions of their own, with which their names
are imperishably associated; but while they were with Edison it was with
his work that they were and must be busied.
It was during this period of "inventing a system" that so much systematic
and continuous work with good results was done by Edison in the design
and perfection of dynamos. The value of his contributions to the art of
lighting comprised in this work has never been fully understood or
appreciated, having been so greatly overshadowed by his invention of the
incandescent lamp, and of a complete system of distribution. It is a fact,
however, that the principal improvements he made in dynamo-electric
generators were of a radical nature and remain in the art. Thirty years bring
about great changes, especially in a field so notably progressive as that of
the generation of electricity; but different as are the dynamos of to-day from
those of the earlier period, they embody essential principles and elements
that Edison then marked out and elaborated as the conditions of success.
There was indeed prompt appreciation in some well-informed quarters of
what Edison was doing, evidenced by the sensation caused in the summer
of 1881, when he designed, built, and shipped to Paris for the first Electrical
Exposition ever held, the largest dynamo that had been built up to that time.
It was capable of lighting twelve hundred incandescent lamps, and weighed

with its engine twenty-seven tons, the armature alone weighing six tons. It
was then, and for a long time after, the eighth wonder of the scientific
world, and its arrival and installation in Paris were eagerly watched by the
most famous physicists and electricians of Europe.
Edison's amusing description of his experience in shipping the dynamo to
Paris when built may appropriately be given here: "I built a very large
dynamo with the engine directly connected, which I intended for the Paris
Exposition of 1881. It was one or two sizes larger than those I had
previously built. I had only a very short period in which to get it ready and
put it on a steamer to reach the Exposition in time. After the machine was
completed we found the voltage was too low. I had to devise a way of
raising the voltage without changing the machine, which I did by adding
extra magnets. After this was done, we tested the machine, and the crank-
shaft of the engine broke and flew clear across the shop. By working night
and day a new crank-shaft was put in, and we only had three days left from
that time to get it on board the steamer; and had also to run a test. So we
made arrangements with the Tammany leader, and through him with the
police, to clear the street—one of the New York crosstown streets—and line
it with policemen, as we proposed to make a quick passage, and didn't know
how much time it would take. About four hours before the steamer had to
get it, the machine was shut down after the test, and a schedule was made
out in advance of what each man had to do. Sixty men were put on top of
the dynamo to get it ready, and each man had written orders as to what he
was to perform. We got it all taken apart and put on trucks and started off.
They drove the horses with a fire-bell in front of them to the French pier,
the policemen lining the streets. Fifty men were ready to help the stevedores
get it on the steamer—and we were one hour ahead of time."
This Exposition brings us, indeed, to a dramatic and rather pathetic
parting of the ways. The hour had come for the old laboratory force that had
done such brilliant and memorable work to disband, never again to
assemble under like conditions for like effort, although its members all
remained active in the field, and many have ever since been associated
prominently with some department of electrical enterprise. The fact was
they had done their work so well they must now disperse to show the world
what it was, and assist in its industrial exploitation. In reality, they were too
few for the demands that reached Edison from all parts of the world for the
introduction of his system; and in the emergency the men nearest to him

and most trusted were those upon whom he could best depend for such
missionary work as was now required. The disciples full of fire and
enthusiasm, as well as of knowledge and experience, were soon scattered to
the four winds, and the rapidity with which the Edison system was
everywhere successfully introduced is testimony to the good judgment with
which their leader had originally selected them as his colleagues. No one
can say exactly just how this process of disintegration began, but Mr. E. H.
Johnson had already been sent to England in the Edison interests, and now
the question arose as to what should be done with the French demands and
the Paris Electrical Exposition, whose importance as a point of new
departure in electrical industry was speedily recognized on both sides of the
Atlantic. It is very interesting to note that as the earlier staff broke up,
Edison became the centre of another large body, equally devoted, but more
particularly concerned with the commercial development of his ideas. Mr.
E. G. Acheson mentions in his personal notes on work at the laboratory, that
in December of 1880, while on some experimental work, he was called to
the new lamp factory started recently at Menlo Park, and there found
Edison, Johnson, Batchelor, and Upton in conference, and "Edison
informed me that Mr. Batchelor, who was in charge of the construction,
development, and operation of the lamp factory, was soon to sail for Europe
to prepare for the exhibit to be made at the Electrical Exposition to be held
in Paris during the coming summer." These preparations overlap the
reinforcement of the staff with some notable additions, chief among them
being Mr. Samuel Insull, whose interesting narrative of events fits
admirably into the story at this stage, and gives a vivid idea of the intense
activity and excitement with which the whole atmosphere around Edison
was then surcharged: "I first met Edison on March 1, 1881. I arrived in New
York on the City of Chester about five or six in the evening, and went direct
to 65 Fifth Avenue. I had come over to act as Edison's private secretary, the
position having been obtained for me through the good offices of Mr. E. H.
Johnson, whom I had known in London, and who wrote to Mr. U. H.
Painter, of Washington, about me in the fall of 1880. Mr. Painter sent the
letter on to Mr. Batchelor, who turned it over to Edison. Johnson returned to
America late in the fall of 1880, and in January, 1881, cabled to me to come
to this country. At the time he cabled for me Edison was still at Menlo Park,
but when I arrived in New York the famous offices of the Edison Electric
Light Company had been opened at '65' Fifth Avenue, and Edison had

moved into New York with the idea of assisting in the exploitation of the
Light Company's business.
"I was taken by Johnson direct from the Inman Steamship pier to 65 Fifth
Avenue, and met Edison for the first time. There were three rooms on the
ground floor at that time. The front one was used as a kind of reception-
room; the room immediately behind it was used as the office of the
president of the Edison Electric Light Company, Major S. B. Eaton. The
rear room, which was directly back of the front entrance hall, was Edison's
office, and there I first saw him. There was very little in the room except a
couple of walnut roller-top desks—which were very generally used in
American offices at that time. Edison received me with great cordiality. I
think he was possibly disappointed at my being so young a man; I had only
just turned twenty-one, and had a very boyish appearance. The picture of
Edison is as vivid to me now as if the incident occurred yesterday, although
it is now more than twenty-nine years since that first meeting. I had been
connected with Edison's affairs in England as private secretary to his
London agent for about two years; and had been taught by Johnson to look
on Edison as the greatest electrical inventor of the day—a view of him, by-
the-way, which has been greatly strengthened as the years have rolled by.
Owing to this, and to the fact that I felt highly flattered at the appointment
as his private secretary, I was naturally prepared to accept him as a hero.
With my strict English ideas as to the class of clothes to be worn by a
prominent man, there was nothing in Edison's dress to impress me. He wore
a rather seedy black diagonal Prince Albert coat and waistcoat, with
trousers of a dark material, and a white silk handkerchief around his neck,
tied in a careless knot falling over the stiff bosom of a white shirt somewhat
the worse for wear. He had a large wide-awake hat of the sombrero pattern
then generally used in this country, and a rough, brown overcoat, cut
somewhat similarly to his Prince Albert coat. His hair was worn quite long,
and hanging carelessly over his fine forehead. His face was at that time, as
it is now, clean shaven. He was full in face and figure, although by no
means as stout as he has grown in recent years. What struck me above
everything else was the wonderful intelligence and magnetism of his
expression, and the extreme brightness of his eyes. He was far more modest
than in my youthful picture of him. I had expected to find a man of
distinction. His appearance, as a whole, was not what you would call
'slovenly,' it is best expressed by the word 'careless.'"

Mr. Insull supplements this pen-picture by another, bearing upon the
hustle and bustle of the moment: "After a short conversation Johnson
hurried me off to meet his family, and later in the evening, about eight
o'clock, he and I returned to Edison's office; and I found myself launched
without further ceremony into Edison's business affairs. Johnson had
already explained to me that he was sailing the next morning, March 2d, on
the S.S. Arizona, and that Mr. Edison wanted to spend the evening
discussing matters in connection with his European affairs. It was assumed,
inasmuch as I had just arrived from London, that I would be able to give
more or less information on this subject. As Johnson was to sail the next
morning at five o'clock, Edison explained that it would be necessary for him
to have an understanding of European matters. Edison started out by
drawing from his desk a check-book and stating how much money he had in
the bank; and he wanted to know what European telephone securities were
most salable, as he wished to raise the necessary funds to put on their feet
the incandescent lamp factory, the Electric Tube works, and the necessary
shops to build dynamos. All through the interview I was tremendously
impressed with Edison's wonderful resourcefulness and grasp, and his
immediate appreciation of any suggestion of consequence bearing on the
subject under discussion.
"He spoke with very great enthusiasm of the work before him—namely,
the development of his electric-lighting system; and his one idea seemed to
be to raise all the money he could with the object of pouring it into the
manufacturing side of the lighting business. I remember how
extraordinarily I was impressed with him on this account, as I had just come
from a circle of people in London who not only questioned the possibility
of the success of Edison's invention, but often expressed doubt as to
whether the work he had done could be called an invention at all. After
discussing affairs with Johnson—who was receiving his final instructions
from Edison—far into the night, and going down to the steamer to see
Johnson aboard, I finished my first night's business with Edison somewhere
between four and five in the morning, feeling thoroughly imbued with the
idea that I had met one of the great master minds of the world. You must
allow for my youthful enthusiasm, but you must also bear in mind Edison's
peculiar gift of magnetism, which has enabled him during his career to
attach so many men to him. I fell a victim to the spell at the first interview."