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Contrary
to popular belief, Thomas Edison was not born into poverty in a
backwater mid-western town. Actually, he was born (on Feb. 11,
1847) to middle-class parents in the bustling port of Milan, Ohio, a
community that - next to Odessa, Russia - was the largest wheat
shipping center in the world. In 1854, his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, which ultimately surpassed the
commercial preeminence of both Milan and Odessa....
At age seven - after spending 12
weeks in a noisy one-room schoolhouse with 38 other students of all
ages - Tom's overworked and short tempered teacher finally lost his
patience with the child's relatively self centered behavior and
persistent questioning.... Noting that Tom's head was "slightly
larger than average" he made no secret of his belief that the
hyperactive youngster's brains were "addled" or scrambled.
If modern psychology had existed
back then, Tom would have probably been deemed a victim of A D S
(attention deficit syndrome) and proscribed a hefty dose of the
"miracle drug" Ritalin. Instead, when his beloved mother - whom he
once said "... was the making of me... and was always so true
and so sure of me, I felt I had someone to live for.... someone I
must not disappoint...." - became aware of the situation, she
promptly withdrew him from school and began to "home-teach" him.
A descendant of the prominent
Elliot family of New England, the devout daughter of a highly
respected Presbyterian minister, and an educator in her own right,
Nancy Edison (above) now commenced teaching her last and favorite
son the "Three Rs" and the Bible. Meanwhile, his rather
roguish and "worldly" father, Samuel, was more inclined towards
having him master the great classics, giving him a ten cents reward
for each one he completed.
It wasn't long before the serious
minded youngster developed a deep interest in world history and
English literature. For example, many years later, Tom's abiding
fondness for Shakespeare's plays lead him to briefly consider
becoming an actor. However, because of his high-pitched voice and
extreme shyness before every audience - except those he was trying
to influence into helping him finance an invention - he soon gave up
the idea.
Tom also enjoyed reading and
reciting poems. His favorite was Gray's Elegy In A Country
Churchyard. Indeed, his favorite lines - which he endlessly
chanted to friends, associates, and even himself - came from its 9th
stanza: “The boast of heraldry of
pomp and power, All that beauty all that wealth ere gave, Alike
await the inevitable hour. The path to glory leads but to the grave.”
At age 11, Tom's parents tried to
appease his ever more voracious appetite for knowledge by teaching
him how to use the resources of the local library. This was the
earliest of many factors that gradually led him to prefer learning
through independent self instruction.
Starting with the last book on
the bottom shelf, Tom began to read what he planned would be "every
book in the building." However, his mother wisely directed him
towards being more selective.... By age 12, Tom had not only
completed Gibbon's Rise And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Sears' History
Of The World, and Burton's Anatomy Of Melancholy, he had devoured
The World Dictionary of Science and a number of works on
practical Chemistry.
In spite of their noble efforts,
Tom's dedicated parents eventually found themselves incapable of
addressing his growing interest in the Classical Sciences. For
example, when he began to question them about concepts dealing with
physics - such as those contained in Isaac Newton's "Principia" -
they were utterly stymied. Accordingly, they scraped enough money
together to hire a clever tutor to help their precocious
son understand Newton's mathematical principles and unique
style....
Unfortunately, the
experience had some negative affects on the highly impressionable
boy. Essentially, he was so disillusioned by how Newton's
sensational theories were written in classical aristocratic terms -
which he felt were unnecessarily confusing to the average person -
he overreacted and developed a hearty dislike for all such
"high-tone" language and mathematics....
On the other hand, the
simple beauty of Newton's physical laws did not escape him.
They helped him sharpen his own free wheeling style of
clear and solid thinking, proving all things to himself
through his own forms of objective examination and
experimentation."
Tom's respose to the
Principia also enhanced his propensity towards gleaning
insights from the writings and activities of great men of wisdom,
while always keeping in mind that "even they might be entrenched
in preconceived dogma and mired down in associated error...."
Meantime, Tom cultivated a
strong sense of perseverance, readily expending whatever amount of
perspiration was needed to meet and overcome all types of
challenges - a characteristic which he later noted was contrary to
how most people tend to respond.... Certainly, his extraordinary
mental, and physical, stamina stood him in good stead when he took
on the incredible rigors of a being a successful inventor in the
late 19th Century....
Tom's unique personality
was also very much shaped by his gradual loss of hearing..... Even
though this condition - and the fact that he had only three months
of formal schooling prevented him from taking advantage of the
benefits of a secondary education in contemporary mathematics,
physics, and engineering - he never let it interfere with finding
ways of compensating....
Lastly, Tom's "free
wheeling" style of acquiring knowledge eventually led him to
question many of the prevailing theories on the workings of
electricity..... Approaching the subject like a "lone eagle," he
used his kaleidoscopic mind, along with his legendary memory,
dexterity, and patience to eagerly perform whatever experiments
were necessary to come up with his own ideas, theories, on
things. As most of his contemporaries were indulging in
popularized electrical pontifications, he developed a style of
dispassionately, and not always covertly, questioning and
challenging them...."
Of course, possessing such a
perspective during the latter half of the 19th Century, enabled Tom
to gradually establish a unique foothold in the world of
practical science and invention. And, at the dawn of the "Age
Of Light And Power," nothing would serve his destiny any
more....
In any event, by
age 12, Tom had become a virtual adult... He had not only talked his
parents into letting him go to work selling newspapers, snacks, and
candy on the railroad, he had started an entirely separate business
selling fruits and vegetables.....
At age 14 - during the time of
the famous pre-Civil War debates between Lincoln and Douglas - he
exploited his access to the associated news releases that were being
teletyped into the station each day and published them in a
flyer.... By focusing upon such "scoops," he gradually enticed
scores of commuters to subscribe to his splendid little newspaper:
The Weekly Herald. Interestingly, because this was the first such
publication ever to be type-set, printed, and sold on a train
anywhere, an English journal gave him his first exposure to
international notoriety when it featured this story in 1860.
After his hero, Abraham
Lincoln, was finally nominated for president, Tom distributed
campaign literature on his behalf and peddled flattering photographs
of "the great emancipator" until he was elected President.
(Interestingly, some 25 years later, Tom's feelings about abolition
caused him to select Brockton, Massachusetts as the first place to
model a standardized central power system.)
At its peak, Tom's
mini-publishing venture was selling 400 daily copies and was
netting him more than ten dollars per day. Because this was
considerably more than enough to provide for his own support, he had
a good deal of extra income, most of which went towards outfitting
the chemical laboratory he had set up in the basement of his home.
When his usually tolerant mother finally complained about the odors
and danger of all the "poisons" he was amassing, he transferred most
of them to a locked room in the basement and put the remainder in
his locker room on the train.
One day, while traversing a bumpy
section of track, the train lurched, causing a stick of phosphorous
to roll onto the floor and ignite. Within moments, the baggage car
caught fire. The conductor was so angry, he severely chastised the
boy and struck him with a powerful blow to the side of his head.
Later, Tom was penalized by being restricted to peddling his
newspaper to only railroad stations....
Late in his 14th hear, Tom
contracted scarlet fever. While it has never been ascertained, some
biographers have surmised that it was the after effects of this
condition - and (or) being struck by the conductor - that destroyed
most of his hearing....
Whatever the cause - it now
became virtually impossible for him to acquire knowledge in a
typical educational setting. Amazingly, however, he did never seemed
to fret a whole lot over the matter.... Naturally inclined towards
accepting his fate in life - and promptly adapting to whatever he
became convinced was out of his control - he simply committed
himself to compensating via alternative methods....
Ultimately, Tom finally became
totally deaf in his left ear, and approximately 80% deaf in his
right ear. He once said that the worst thing about this condition
was that he was unable to enjoy the beautiful sounds of singing
birds. Indeed, he loved the little creatures so much, he later
amassed an aviary of over 5,000 of them. In the meantime, he
learned to use the silence associated with deafness to greatly
enhance his powers of concentration.
In fact, not long after he
had acquired the means to have an operation that "would have likely
restored his hearing," he flatly refused to act upon the option....
His rationale was that he was afraid he "would have difficulty
re-learning how to channel his thinking in an ever more noisy
world."
In any event, Tom's career of
producing and selling his newspaper on a train finally came to an
abrupt end when he and his press were permanently thrown off the
vehicle by an irate railroad supervisor. Shaken and confused by the
incident, he continued to frequent the station area. One day, the
stationmaster's young son happened to wander onto the tracks in
front of an oncoming boxcar. Tom leaped to action. Luckily - as
they tumbled away from its oncoming wheels - they ended up being
only slightly injured.
One of the most significant
events in Tom's life now occurred when - as a reward for his heroism
- the boy's grateful father taught him how to master the use of
Morse code and the telegraph. In the "age of telegraphy,"
this was akin to being introduced to learning how to use a
state-of-the-art computer.
By age 15, Tom had pretty
much mastered the basics of this fascinating new career and obtained
a job as a replacement for one of the thousands of "brass pounders"
(telegraph operators) who had gone off to serve in the Civil War. He
now had a golden opportunity to enhance his speed and efficiency in
sending and receiving code and performing experiments designed to
improve this device....
oonce the Civil War ended, to his
mother's great dismay, Tom decided - that it was time to "seek his
fortune." So, over the next few years, he meandered throughout the
Central States, supporting himself as a "tramp operator.
At age 16, after working in a
variety of telegraph offices, where he performed numerous
"moonlight" experiments, he finally came up with his first
authentic invention. Called an "automatic repeater," it
transmitted telegraph signals between unmanned stations, allowing
virtually anyone to easily and accurately translate code at their
own speed and convenience. Curiously, he never patented the initial
version of this idea.
In 1868 - after making a name for
himself amongst fellow telegraphers for being a rather flamboyant
and quick witted character who enjoyed playing "mostly harmless"
practical jokes - he returned home one day ragged and penniless.
Sadly, he found his parents in an even worse predicament.... First,
his beloved mother was beginning to show signs of insanity "which
was probably aggravated by the strains of an often difficult life."
Making matters worse, his rather impulsive father had just quit his
job and the local bank was about to foreclose on the family
homestead.
Tom promptly came to grips with
the pathos of this situation and - perhaps for the first time in his
life - also resolved to come to grips with a number of his own
immature shortcomings. After a good deal of soul searching, he
finally decided that the best thing he could do would be to get
right back out on his own and try to make some serious money....
Shortly thereafter, Tom accepted
the suggestion of a fellow "lightening slinger" named Billy Adams to
come East and apply for a permanent job as a telegrapher with the
relatively prestigious Western Union Company in Boston. His willingness to travel over a thousand miles from home was at
least partly influenced by the fact that he had been given a free
rail ticket by the local street railway company for some repairs he
had done for them. The most important factor, however, was the fact
that Boston was considered to be "the hub of the scientific,
educational, and cultural universe at this time...."
Throughout the mid-19th century,
New England had many features that were analogous to today's Silicon
Valley in California. However, instead of being a haven for the
thousands of young "tekkies" - who communicate with each other in
computerese and internet code of today - it was the home of scores
of young telegraphers who anxiously stayed abreast of the emerging
age of electricity and the telephone etc. by conversing with via
Morse code.
During these latter days of the
"age of the telegraph," Tom toiled 12 hours a day and six days a
week for Western Union. Meanwhile, he continued "moonlighting" on
his own projects and, within six months, had applied for and
received his very first patent. A beautifully constructed electric
vote-recording machine, this first "legitimate" invention he was to
come up with turned out to be a disaster.
When he tried to market it to
members of the Massachusetts Legislature, they thoroughly denigrated
it, claiming "its speed in tallying votes would disrupt the delicate
political status-quo." The specific issue was that - during times
of stress - political groups regularly relied upon the brief delays
that were provided by the process of manually counting votes
to influence and hopefully change the opinions of their
colleagues.... "This is exactly what we do not want" a
seasoned politician scolded him, adding that "Your invention would
not only destroy the only hope the minority would have in
influencing legislation, it would deliver them over - bound hand and
foot - to the majority."
Although Tom was very much
disappointed by this turn of events, he immediately grasped the
implications. Even though his remarkable invention allowed each
voter to instantly cast his vote from his seat - exactly as it was
supposed to do - he realized his idea was so far ahead of its time
it was completely devoid of any immediate sales appeal.
Because of his continuing
desperate need for money, Tom now made a critically significant
adjustment in his, heretofore, relatively naive outlook on the world
of business and marketing.... From now on, he vowed, he would
"never waste time inventing things that people would not want to
buy."
It is important to add here that
it was during Tom's 17 month stint in Boston that he was first
exposed to lectures at Boston Tech (which was founded in 1861 and
became the Mass. Institute of Technology in 1916) and the ideas of
several associates on the state-of-the-art of "multiplexing"
telegraph signals. This theory and related experimental quests
involved the transmission of electrical impulses at different
frequencies over telegraph wires, producing horn-like simulations of
the human voice and even crude images (the first internet?) via an
instrument called the harmonic telegraph.
Not surprisingly, Alexander
Graham Bell, who was also living in Boston at the time, was equally
fascinated by this exciting new aspect of communication science. And
no wonder. The priciples surrounding it ultimately led to the
invention of the first articulating telephone, the first fax
machine, the first microphone, etc.
During this epiphany, Edison
also became very well acquainted with Benjamin Bredding. The same
age as Bell and Edison, this 21 year old genius would soon provide
critically important assistance to Bell in perfecting long distance
telephony, the first reciprocating telephone, and the magneto
phone. A crack electrician, Bredding, with Watson's assistance,
later set up the world's first two-way long distance telephone
apparatus for his close friend Alexander Graham Bell,
who at the time
"knew almost nothing about electricity."
Copyrighted - never before published
- tintype of Bredding and Bell in October of 1876 on the day they
successfully communicated across Boston's Charles River in the
world's first long distance two-way telephone conversation. i.e.,
"The world's first practical telephone conversation."
Bredding had originally
worked for the well known promoter, George B. Stearns, who - with
Bredding's help - had beaten everyone to the punch when he
obtained the first patent for a duplex telegraph line. A
device that exploits the fact that electromagnetism and the number
and direction of wire windings associated with a connection between
telegraph keys can influence the current that flows between them,
and greatly facilitate two-way telegraphic communication, it
powerfully intrigued Edison....
Stearns, finally sold the
patent for this highly significant cost-cutting invention to Western
Union for $750,000. Bredding (and Edison, of course) wound up
getting absolutely nothing from the venture. In the meantime,
however, Bredding provided his pal, Tom Edison, with his first
detailed introduction and understanding of the state-of-the-art of
the harmonograph and the multiplex transmitter....
Unlike Edison, Bredding was
an extremely modest individual with little taste for aggrandizement
and self promotion... The pathetic upshot of all this was that -
while the caprice associated with the rough and tumble world of
patenting inventions in the mid-19th century ultimately crushed
Bridden's innately mild and somewhat naive spirit and his
extraordinary potential - it merely spurred the tough-minded Edison
on to not only improve the duplex transmitter, but to later patent
the world's first quadruplex transmitter....
Deeply in debt and about to be fired by Western Union for "not
concentrating on his primary responsibilities and doing too much
moonlighting," Edison now borrowed $35.00 from his fellow
telegrapher and "night owl" pal, Benjamin Bredding, to purchase a
steamship ticket to the "more commercially oriented city of New
York."
During the third week after
arriving in "the big apple" Tom (seen above) was purportedly "on the
verge of starving to death." At this precipitous juncture, one of
the most amazing coincidences in the annals of technological history
now began to unfold. Immediately after having begged a cup of tea
from a street vendor, Tom began to meander through some of the
offices in New |York's financial district. Observing that the
manager of one of the a local brokerage firms was in a panic, he
eventually determined that a critically important stock-ticker in
his office had just broken down....
Noting that no one in the crowd
that had gathered around the defective machine seemed to have a clue
on how to fix it, he elbowed his way into the scene and grasped a
momentary opportunity to have a go at addressing what was wrong
himself.... Luckily, since he had been sleeping in the
basement of the building for a few days - and doing quite a bit of
snooping around - he already had a pretty good idea of what the
device was supposed to do.
After spending a few
seconds confirming exactly how the stock ticker was intended to work
in the first place, Tom reached down and manipulated a loose spring
back to where it belonged. To everyone's amazement, except Tom's,
the device began to run perfectly.
The office manager was so
ecstatic, he made an on-the-spot decision to hire Edison to make all
such repairs for the busy company for a salary of $300.00 per
month.... This was not only more than what his pal Benjamin Bredding
was making back in Boston but twice the going rate for a top
electrician in New York City. Later in life, Edison recalled that
the incident was more euphoric than anything he ever experienced in
his life because it made him feel as though he had been "suddenly
delivered out of abject poverty and into prosperity."
Success at last!
It should come as no surprise
that, during his free time, Edison soon resumed his habit of
"moonlighting" with the telegraph, the quadruplex transmitter, the
stock-ticker, etc. Shortly thereafter, he was absolutely astonished
- in fact he nearly fainted - when a corporation paid him $40,000
for all of his rights to the latter device.
Convinced that no bank would
honor the large check he was given for it, which was the first
"real" money he had ever received for an invention, young Edison
walked around for hours in a stupor, staring at it in amazement.
Fearful that someone would steal it, he laid the cash out on
his bed and stayed up all night, counting it over and over in
disbelief. The next day a wise friend told him to deposit it in a
bank forthwith and to just forget about it for a while.
A few weeks later, Edison
wrote a series of poignant letters back home to his father: "How is
mother getting along?... I am now in a position to give you some
cash... Write and say how much....Give mother anything she
wants...." Interestingly, It was at this time that he also repaid
Bredding the $35.00 he had borrowed earlier.
Over the next three years,
Edison's progress in creating successful inventions for industry
really took off.... For example, in 1874 - with the money he
received from the sale of an electrical engineering firm that held
several of his patents - he opened his first complete testing and
development laboratory in Newark, New Jersey.
At age 29, he commenced work
on the carbon transmitter, which ultimately made Alexander Graham
Bell's amazing new "articulating" telephone (which by today's
standards sounded more like someone trying to talk through a kazoo
than a telephone) audible enough for practical use. Interestingly, at one
point during this intense period, Edison was as close to inventing
the telephone as Bell was to inventing the phonograph. Nevertheless,
shortly after Edison moved his laboratory to Menlo Park, N.J. in
1876, he invented - in 1877 - the first phonograph.
In 1879, extremely disappointed
by the fact that Bell had beaten him in the race to patent the first
authentic transmission of the human voice, Edison now "one upped"
all of his competition by inventing the first commercially practical
incandescent electric light bulb...
And if that wasn't enough to
forever seal his unequaled importance in technological history, he
came up with an invention that - in terms of its collective affect
upon mankind - has had more impact than any other. In 1883 and 1884,
while beating a path from his research lab to the patent office, he
introduced the world's first economically viable system of centrally
generating and distributing electric light, heat, and power. (See
"Greatest
Achievement?") Powerfully, instrumental in shapng the world
we know today, even his harshest critics grant that it was a
Herculean achievement that only he was capable of bringing about at
this specific point in history.
By 1887, Edison was recognized
for having set up the world's first full fledged
research and development center in West Orange, New Jersey. An
amazing enterprise, its significance is as much misunderstood as his
work in developing the first practical centralized power system.
Regardless, within a year, this fantastic operation was the largest
scientific testing laboratory in the world.
In 1890, Edison immersed himself
in developing the first Vitascope, which would lead to the first
silent motion pictures.
And, by 1892, his Edison
General Electric Co. had fully merged with another firm to
become the great General Electric Corporation, in which he was a
major stockholder.
At the turn-of-the-century,
Edison invented the first practical dictaphone, mimeograph, and
storage battery. After creating the "kinetiscope" and the first
silent film in 1904, he went on to introduce The Great Train
Robbery in 1903, which was a ten minute clip that was his first
attempt to blend audio with silent moving images to produce
"talking pictures."
By now, Edison was being hailed
world-wide as The wizard of Menlo Park, The father of the
electrical age," and The greatest inventor who ever lived."
Naturally, when World War I began, he was asked by the U. S.
Government to focus his genius upon creating defensive
devices for submarines and ships. During this time, he also
perfected a number of important inventions relating to the enhanced
use of rubber, concrete, and ethanol.
By the 1920s Edison was
internationally revered. However, even though he was
personally acquainted with scores of very important people of his
era, he cultivated very few close friendships. And due to the
continuing demands of his career, there were still relatively long
periods when he spent a shockingly small amount of time with his
family.
It wasn't until his health began
to fail, in the late 1920s, that Edison finally began to slow down
and, so to speak, "smell the flowers." Up until obtaining his last
(1,093rd) patent at age 83, he worked mostly at home where, though
increasingly frail, he enjoyed greeting former associates and famous
people such as Charles Lindberg, Marie Curie, Henry Ford, and
President Herbert Hoover etc. He also enjoyed reading the mail of
admirers and puttering around when he was able in his office and
home laboratory.
Thomas Edison died At 9 P.M.
On Oct. 18th, 1931 in New Jersey. He was 84 years of age. Shortly
before passing away, he awoke from a coma and quietly whispered to
his wife, Mina, who had been keeping a vigil all night by his side :
"It is very beautiful over there..."
Recognizing that his death
marked the end of an era in the progress of civilization, countless
individuals, communities, and corporations throughout the world
dimmed their lights and, or, briefly turned off their electric power
in his honor on he evening of the day he was laid to rest at his
beautiful estate at Glenmont, New Jersey. Most realized that even
though he was far from being a a flawless human being, and may not
have really had the avuncular personality that was so often
proscribed to him by myth makers, he was an essentially good man
with a powerful mission.... Utterly driven by a superhuman desire to
fulfill the promise of research and invent things to serve mankind,
no one did more to help realize our Puritan founders dream of
creating a country that - at its best - was viewed by the rest of
the world as "a shining city upon a hill."
ADDENDUM
Because of the many peculiar
voids that Edison evinced in the area of cognition, speech, grammar,
etc., a number of medical authorities have argued over the years
that he may have been plagued by a fundamental learning disability
that went beyond mere deafness.... A few of have conjectured
that this mysterious ailment - along with his lack of a formal
education - may account for why he always seemed to "think so
differently" compared to others of his time, "always tenaciously
clinging to those unique methods of analysis and experimentation
with which he alone seemed to feel so comfortable...."
Whatever the impetus for his
unique personality and traits, his incredible ability to come up
with a meaningful new patent every two weeks throughout his working
career "added more to the collective wealth of the world - and had
more impact upon shaping modern civilization - than the
accomplishments of any figure since Gutenberg...." Accordingly,
many serious science and technology historians grant that he was
indeed "The most influential figure of our millennium."
Notes: In 1929,
Edison's close friend, Henry Ford, completed the task of moving
Edison's original Menlo Park laboratory to the Greenfield Village
museum in Dearborn, Mich. In 1962 his existing laboratory
and home in West Orange, N.J. were designated
as National Historic Sites.
Copyright ©
Gerald Beals June, 1999. All rights registered and reserved. Please Note: Absolutely no part of this
publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form - or stored
by any means in a database or retrieval system - without the prior
written and express permission of the author. Infringements
will be (and one currently is being) prosecuted to the full extent
of the law. |
