From Newspaper Boy to America's Greatest Inventor

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 16, 30 October 1931, Page 2

From Newspaper Boy to America's Greatest Inventor

The Extraordinary Biography of Thomas Edison

by

Ivan M.

Levy

The great inventor is one who has walked forth upon the industrial world, noé from universities, but from hovels; not as clad in silks and decked with honours, but as clad in fustian and grimed with soot and oil. -Isaac Taylor.

‘"wPKHOMAS ALVA EDISON: & commenced life as a news--‘paper boy. Although he became ithe world’s greatest inventor he had neither a university nor even a secondary school education. He was born in a humble little ccttage. Edison may well be regarded as the "wonder man" of the present age, possessing as he did a rare inventive genius which he turned to such good service that it has been said of him he added more to the material elements of civilisation, by his own inventions and by what they have suggested to others, than any other man in the history of the world. Edison’s name is assured of immortality if it were due only to the fact that the world is indebted to him for ‘the gramophone, the motion pic- ‘ ture and the electric light of the bulb type. But the number of his inventions runs into many hundreds including those in connection with ‘the telephone, electric dynamos, electric motograph, electric meter and electric traction. Edison was not a scientist within the commonly accepted

scope of the term-he held no university science degrees (excepting honorary), but he had a natural bent for inventive work and properly followed it, and his efforts were always directed to achieving something that the world greatly needed. He himself admitted that "pure science" never occupied his attention -very deeply, and when he had established his fame he employed a staff of scientists and highly-skilled technicians to execute his ideas. This fact gave rise to the suggestion which occasionally cropped up that ‘Edison owed much to the ideas of his assistants, and that the fact was never properly acknowledged. —

' Theodore Waters, writing of Edison in s Magazine" quoted W. S. Mallory, who was connected with Edison’s ore-milling ‘venture, as having stated: "I want to say, and I know whereof I speak, for I have been with him night and day for several years, that 99 per cent. of the credit of all the invention and new work of this establishment is due personally to Mr. Edison. I have heard it, stated that Mr. Edison is an organiser who uses the brain of other men. Nothing could be further ftom the truth than this." Several others who were associated -with Edison have testified similarly. . It has been established that the paternal ancestors of Edison arrived in the United States direct from Holland. They landed about 1730 at Elizabethport, New Jersey. They went inland a few miles, and settled in the village of Caldwell, where they prospered. Longevity appears to have been a characteristic of the early American Edisons, for a former ‘Thomas Edison attained the age of 104 years. ‘After the American Revolution, John Edison, who was a Loyalist, emigrated to Nova Scotia where his son Samuel (the inventor’s father) was born. In 1811 the family went to Bayfield in Upper Canada (now Ontario). Later John Edison moved to Vienna (Canada) — where he died at the age of 102 years. The invéntor’s father Samuel married in 1828 a Miss Nancy Elliott, an 18-year-old teacher’ in

the Vienna High School. sien \ father was the Rev. John Elliott, a Baptist clergyman. of Scottish descent. Edison’s father, six feet in height and of powerful physique, joined an attempt to seize the lieutenant-governor and set up a provisional government. The movement was a _ complete failure, and, with others, Samuel Edison fled across the border to the United States and ultimately, settled in Milan, Ohio, in 1842. Here he established a workshop, and made roofing shingles, employing several men. On February 11, 1847, Thomas Alva Edison was born in this busy little Ohio town. The Edison home, a sub-stantial-looking brick cottage, zis still there, and is venerated by’ the inhabitants. In his early childhood, the great inventor was very small and somewhat frail for his years, and was hardly strong enough to attend school. He was described as a rather grave, old-fashioned child, always engaged in making something or other, or asking questions with a solemn persistency. The little chap had his share of

escapades and narrow escapes during childhood. He was nearly drowned in the local canal, and also fell into a great pile of wheat in a warehouse. "Al," as he was called, was almost suffocated before he could be pulled out of the grain Again, he was holding a skate-strap for another boy to shorten by ‘means of an axe which, however, accounted for the top of one of Edison’s fingers. In 1854 the Edison family moved to Port Huron, in Saint Clair County, Michigan, where the inventor’s father set up in business as’ ° a dealer in horse-feed, grain and timber. And now young Edison went

to school at Port Huron for three months. PFAHAT was the only 4 school he ever attended, but his mother, who it will be remembered was formerly a school teacher, took up the task of educating "Al." Edison, strangely enough, was always a dunce at mathematics. and many years later, when in the height of his success, his researches often called for intricate mathematical calculations, and these he passed along to his associates. . Young Edison’s experimental "bias" developed at an early age, and his parents toldjot a curious test of a theory he applied to’ a Dutch boy, Michael Oates, employed for small jobs by Edison’s parents. To test a theory that gases so generated might enable a person to fly, young Edison induced the boy Oates to swallow a large quantity of Seidlitz powders. The ensuing results were painful not only tu the victim but also to young Thomas, for he suffered an application of a switch reserved for emergency purposes behind the family clock. The future inventor when a mere child . obtained a copy of Parker’s "School Philo sophy" then much in use as a text-book ‘in elementary physics, and many were the experiments outlined ih it which he tried out. | The cellar of their cottage was utilised by young Edison as his first laboratory, and he had a veritable lethal collection of 200 bottles care-

ully arranged on shelves, and duly labelled "Poison." The chemical. knowledge Edison began to acquire in those early days subse"quently proved invaluable to him in problems encountered in his invention of the incandescent — electric lamp’ and his famous storage battery now so much in use. e , . AS young Edison «needed : more money to augment his stock of chemicals he persuaded his parents to allow him to apply for the concession to act as a newsboy on trains of the Grand Trunk railway line between Port Huron and Detroit, a round distance of 126 miles. He obtained the © concession and commenced selling newspapers on the train which left Port Huron at 7 o’clock in the morning and arrived back at 9.30 in the evening-a long day for a kiddie. Actually this was not Edison’s first business enterprise, for, prior to that, he and the Ditch boy Oates hawked vegetables grown by his father, with a horse and small wagon, and in one year handed over to his mother £120. _ After selling newspapers on the train for several months Edison started two little shops in Huron, one for periodicals and the other for vegetables, butter and berries in the season. He shared" the profits with two boys who ran the shops for him, but the lad who attended the periodical shop could not be trusted, and Edison soon closed that enterprise. He kept the vegetable shop going for nearly a year. Edison’s

Dusiness acumen was again shown when he obtained the newspaperselling concession on an express {train leaving Detroit in the morning and returning in the night. Then when the daily immigrant trains commenced running he employed a boy to sell bread, tobacco and stick-lolly. The Civil War added a great stimulus to the sale of newspapers, and Edison prospered. Of his daily takings he gave four shillings a day to his mother, but most of his profits he laid out in chemicals and chemical _ ‘apparatus. So enthralled was the youngster with experimentation that Edison. carried his laboratory on the train with him! The luggage van was divided into three compartments, one for express packages anf luggage, one for the mails and thé third was originally intended as a smokers’ compartment, but was unused. The train conductor permitted young Edison to use the spare compartment as his laboratory, which he soon established with an imposing array of jars, bottles, test-tubes, batteries and other miscellaneous equipment. Edison had a copy of a translation of a work on qualitative analysis by .. Karl Fresenius; a German pro"fessor, and this was used as a basis for the lad’s experiments. Edison found time to study on the train, and also print a little newspaper, "The Weekly Herald." He bought a tiny printing press and taught _himself to set up the type and print

— the miriiature paper. He procured his news from the various railway telegraph offices. Edison sold his "Weekly Herald" at 14d a copy or 4d. for a month’s subscription. Edison produced the journal without aid, acting as advertising manager, circulation manager and newsagent. The paper immediately reached a circulation of 400 copies. Through visiting the telegraph offices at the various railway stations Edison became interested in electricity. Then he had a ‘boy chum erected a telegraph line between their homes, and by dint of practice late at night they soon became quite proficient. Things ran smoothly ‘on the railway train until.one day the luggage van gave a severe lurch, and one of Edison’s phosphorus. sticks was thrown from a shelf to the floor. The phosphorus became ignited, and the van took fire. Edison attempted to extinguish the blaze but failed. The timely arrival of the conductor, however, with some water saved the situation. Then the conductor lost his temper, and boxed Edison’s ears. These blows ultimately caused the deafness that developed and remained till his death, At the Mount Clemens station the conductor evicted Edison with his complete outfit, and left him on the station, his equipment ruined, and the boy in

tears. Edison re-established his laboratory in the family cellar. He continued to run his paper, "The Weekly Herald," until at the suggestion of a young friend he enlarged the paper, which he renamed "Paul Pry." Under this new title Edison’s journal indulged in small talk and pointed personalities. One resident of Edison’s home town became so peeved over a personal allusion in the said journal that he pitched the youthful editor into the Saint Clair River. The paper did not long survive this episode. DISON continued on the trains with the newspaper concession, but contrived to do endless reading at the Detroit Public Library. His hunger for learning was insatiable. One morning in August, 1862, when Edison was only 15 years of age, an incident occurred which had a direct effect on his career. The child of a stationmaster at Mount Clemens was playing in the gravel on the railway line when a loaded box car was shunted along the line. Edison threw his cap off, flung his newspapers aside and dashed out on the line. He jerked the child clear of the box car just in the nick of time, for a wheel struck Edison’s heel, but fortunately without inflicting any injury. The stationmaster showed his gratitude by undertaking to instruct (Concluded on page 30k),

America’s Greatest Inventor

(Continued from Page 3.)

Hdison in train telegraphy, an offer which was gleefully accepted. Edison had now developed a sturdy physique and uncommon powers of endurance which characterised his life in after years. He abandoned newspaper selling, and devoted as much as 18 hours a day te telegraphy. In four months the stationmaster found that his young pupil was a most efficient telegraphist, and had also become skilled in the electric science of telegraphy. Then for six years Hdison followed the calling of a telegraphist. His first important position was that of a night operator on the Grand Trunk railway at Stratford Junction, Ontario, Canada. Edison was then only 16 years of age. His first invention was to cover up the fact that he had snatched sleep during the long still hours of. the night, for he spent the greater part of the day in research work. He was required to send a telegraph signal to the train dispatcher’s office each hour as proof that he was awake. Edison fastened a notched wheel to a clock, which at each hour automatically sent the necessary signal The trick was eventually unmasked, and Hdison was severely reprimanded. As an operator Edison was described as having no superiors and very few equals. Robert Underwood Johnson, afterwards Ambassador to Italy, states that when a youthful telegraph operator. he used to listen-in to lightning-like rapidity of the telegraphy of a certain operator at Indianapolis named Edison. Edison was also a lightning reader, and possessed the’ faculty of absorbing everything he read. He was always experimenting with batteries and inventing devices for making the work of telegraphy less arduous. One night he aceidentally upset a jar of sulphuric acid which leaked into the manager’s office below and ruined the desk and carpet. Next day he was dismissed. Hdison soon got, another position, and continued experimenting, so that with. his work as a telegraph operator and experimenting, his activity totalled 18 to 20 hours a day He would use all his spare money in books, apparatus, and chemicals, Edison eventually invented and patented a vote-recorder, which he took to a committee at Washington, but, although the thing worked admirably, it did not suit the House of Representatives. Next, he invented a stock exchange ticker, and ‘instituted a stock-ticker service with 40 subscribers. It must be explained that the stock-ticker system comprises a central sending apparatus to which the receiving apparatus in each subscriber’s office is connected by telegraph wires. The quotations of stocks and shares are sent from the central apparatus simultaneously to all subscribers. The system was in operation when the writer was in New York about 30 years ago. A paper tape runs out of the receiving apparatus, on which is automaticaly typewritten the stock quotations. The

writer saw the system applied to a ringside description of a boxing contest in New York at night-time, long before broadcasting was thought of. Edison endeavoured to sell his ticker in New York, but he was unsuccessful. He followed this with an alphabet dial for direct telegraphy from one business house to another. It was a complete success, and he decided to make his living by inventing. Edison went to New York and landed there without sufficient cash to buy his breakfast. He met an out-of-work friend who gave him a dollar, and young Edison had a hearty meal. He managed to obtain permission to sleep that night in the battery room of the Gold-Indicator. The gold indicator was a kind of electrical "indicator eonveying the news to several stockbrokers’ offices containing the transactions in gold in the Wall Street Gold Ex change, ‘There were some three hun dred subscribers. On the third da) the mechanism of the machinery went wrong. The manager was feverishly excited, and the superintendent of the appartus also got "rattled." BWdison quietly stepped up ito the instrument and saw _ that a contact spring had snapped and fallen between two gear wheels. He undertook to put the machine right, and in a few minutes it was ready to continue operation. Edison was then offered the job of manager of the whole plant, which he promptly accepted. He introduced several improvements into the system, The young inventor was then only 22 years of age. Wdison next -went into partnership with Franklin L. Pope, a young telegraph engineer, and they were subsequently joined by J. N. Ashley, pub--lisher of "The Telegrapher," as electrical engineers. A "gold printer’ for recording stock exchange quotations was invented by Pope and Edison. They also installed, private telegraph lines for brokers and merchants. They sold their business, and Edison applied himself successfully to developing several inventions for stock tickers for which patents were granted. These resulted in the perfection of the Edison Universal printer which created a good demand. He sold this invention for what to him was a staggering sum40 thousand dollars (£8000). His energies were rext directed toward starting a factory in Newark, New Jersey, for making stock exchange tickers and parts. He employed 50 men, and soon added a night shift. Edison was his own foreman and was practically on duty the whole 24 hours, This amazing man would snateh only half an hour’s sleep upon a work-bench three or four. times during the twenty-four hours. Up to 1902, Hdison stated, his average day's work had been 194 hours, but after that, he confessed, he had slackened down to only 18 hours a day!

During 1870-71 Edison opened a couple of more workshops in Newark, N.J. Once, Edison had no fewer than 45 of his inventions being developed in his workshops. He improved the Automatic Telegraph Co.’s system between New York and Washington, and made that system a commercial possibility, the instruments transmitting and recording 1000 words a minute. On a line connecting New York and Philadelphia he made it possible to run 3500 words a minute. Next he made it practicable to send, and print at the receiving end 3000 words a minute in Roman letters, instead of Morse code. Then he invent-

ed duplex telegraphy, sending two messages simultaneously in the same direction. Then came his quadruplex telegraphy. Edison next patented a new system of call-boxes for district-mes-senger service and organising a company to exploit it he sold out to the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Co. Striking out in a new direction, Edison invented the apparatus for preparing a stencil for writing duplicates, called a mimeograph, now much used for typewriting stencil work. He assisted Christopher L. Sholes in perfecting a typewriter which was subsequently purchased and issued by the Remington Co. The telephone, in a crude, unsatisfactory form, was invented and patented in 1876. Edison took it in hand and perfected it. He followed this by inventing the electro-motograph for telegraphy, which he adapted afterwards to his "loudspeaking telephone." A wonderfully sensitive detector of minute changes in temperature, called the tasimeter, was invented, but not patented, by Hdison. In 1877 Edison invented what he regarded to the last as his best invention-the phonograph. Primitive though it was, with its many defects, the first phonograph created a wonderful stir. It was exhibited far

— and wide, and brought in large sums for Edison, in royalties. A small book could be written about Hdison’s invention and work on the phonograph. After several months the craze about the phonograph subsided,.and Edison put the invention aside for’later consideration. In 1887. he hauled it out of the cupboard, and set about remedying its defects. Up to 1893 he had taken out 65 patents for the phonograph, and up to 1910 his phonograph patents totalled over a hundred. ‘The phonograph now took a new lease of life, and success crowned the inventor’s efforts. So deaf was Edison that he could not hear a sound from a phonograph three feet’ away from the machine. But he merely placed his head against the machine and the sound vibrations immediately became audible. If some very faint sound was to be detected Edison would grip the wood of the machine with his teeth. This wonderful man, handicapped almost hopelessly by deafness, produced an epoch-marking musical and speech-reproducing machine. What a living paradox! The story of Edison's invention of the familiar household electric globe is a veritable epic. This was achieved in 1879, after over 138 months passed in experiments at a cost of about £9000. Yo afford some idea of the colossal amount of experimentation carried out ay Edison, scores of various materials were tested with a view to obtaining x suitable element for the illuminating filament; then he thought of bamboo or other plant fibre as the most suitable substance for carbonisation into a filament. About 6000 distinct species of plaints, mainly bamboo, the search for which cost about £20,000, were tested. Men were sent far abroad, and ultimately, a certain species of bam-; boo was discovered in Japan which when tested came up to requirements, and for upwards of 15 years carbonised bamboo was in general use as the filament for electric lights. Eventually bamboo was supplanted by metal tantalum, and then tungsten-for universal use. Iidison’s next success was an improved electric dynamo which was 0 per cent. efficient. In addition to various patents in connection with the eleetric lighting system, Edison devised the feeder-and-main method. : In 1880, Sarah Bernhardt, the worldfamed actress, visited Edison’s private workshop, laboratory, and_ electric lighting plant at Menlo. The "Divine Sarah" said of Edison: "I looked at this man of medium size, with rather a large head, and I thought of Napoleon I. There is certainly a great physical resemblance between these two men, and IT am sure that one compartment of their brain would be found identical. Of course I do not compare their genius. The one was ‘destructive’ and the other ‘creative.’ " In 1881 Edison sent an exhibit of his lighting inventions to the international exposition at Paris. For this display he was awarded a diploma and received the decoration of an officer of -the Legion of Honour. Edison’s difficulty in establishing the general popularity of electric lighting is epitomised in a remark he passed in a newspaper interview in 1923, when he said: "You know it takes from seven to 40 years to put an idea over en the public. Even a self-evident proposition requires about ten’ years." In 1884 Hdison’s first wife died. and in 1886 he married Miss Mina Miller, daughter of Lewis Miller, one of the

originators of the Chautauqua movement, _ The motion picture which now entertains countless thousands daily owes its origin to Edison’s genius. In 1889 he invented the: first motion-picture, and called it the kinetograph. The Story of this invention would fill a volume, Other of Edison’s inventions include ® concentrating plant for separating iron concentrate from black sand, machinery specially adapted to the production of cement, a nickel-iron storage battery, the kinetophone (talking | motion-picture), telescribe (by which — telephone talk could be recorded), the ‘transophone (device to be used by a typiste for spacing back a dictaphone , in order to repeat certain words), Sims- | Edison torpedo, and many others. In January, 1917, at the request of the United States Secretary of Navy Datiels, Hdison applied himself to tikyntions designed to be of service to theX United States during the Great War. Edison invented the following: Listening device for detecting submarines, method for quick turning of ships, strategic maps for saving cargo boats from submarines, collision mats, plan for taking merchant ships out of mined harbours, scheme for camoufiaging cargo boats and burning anthracite coal, plan for coast patrol by submar- ine buoys, small depth bombs for taking soundings, sailing lights for convoys, plan for smudging sky-line, plan for obstructing torpedoes by nets, undérwater searchlight, oleum "cloud" shell, high-speed signalling shutter for use with searchlight, water-penetrating projectile, method of observing periscopes in silhouette, steamship decoy, device for reducing rolling of warships, method of obtaining nitrogen from air, method of stabilising submerged submarines, induction balance for submarine detection, device for protecting observers from smokestack gas, hydrogen detector for submarines, turbine head for projectiles, scheme for mining Zeeprugge harbour, mirror-reflection signal system, device for look-out men, oleum shell for "blinding" submarines, method of extinguishing fires in coalbunkers, deviee for -"‘finding" enemy aeroplanes, apparatus for sound-rang-ing, telephone system for ships, extension ladder for "spotting" top, reacting shell, night glass, oil for smudging periscopes, attachment for keeping range finders free from spray, means for preserving submarine and other guns from rust. Most of these were used by the United States Navy. _Hrom 1869 to 1910, Bdison applied for no fewer than 1328 distinct patents. One of his most notable achievements was the electric locomotive in 1880 which laid the foundation for present day electric street traction. ‘ Edison had a rooted objectiou iv making speeches, but he was induced to deliver his first broadcast on May 19, 1926, during a convention at Atlantic City, New Jersey. AJl he said was, "Why, I don’t know what to say. This is the first time I ever spoke into one of these things. Good-night." Yet he always chatted affably with reporters. Edison, acquired wealth,. but not a fraction of what others with his gifts would have gained. He possessed an

inventive genius, and that was his driving force-not the desire for riches. Money was an incidental with him, not an objective. A wondrous intellect has ' passed; all the world is poorer by the death of THOMAS ALVA EDISON.