My Science School

The Menlo Park area of Edison in Middlesex County, New Jersey proudly hosts the Thomas Edison Centre, which is also known as the Menlo Park Museum or the Edison Memorial Tower. The centre consists of the Art Deco Edison Memorial Tower and a small museum and education centre. The tower was dedicated on February 11, 1938, the day of Edison’s 91st birth anniversary. It stands right at the place where the Menlo Park laboratory had once stood. This place is included in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange is another monument kept to maintain Edison’s memory. It includes the West Orange Laboratory and Glenmont, the house where Edison lived.

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Like most persons of a legendary stature, Edison had his critics, too. There are some who say that his greatest invention was his own fame, which he built at the cost of his associates as well as rivals. Edison’s supporters defend him, however, saying that his brilliance really deserved whatever fame he earned.

It has to be remembered, anyway, that Edison’s idea of inventing something was not always to create something out of nothing. For instance, many other people had made incandescent lights before Edison, but none of them were practically successful. What Edison did was to find a perfect, practical version of the idea. In any case, nobody can deny the fact that it was he who set the stage for a modern electric world.

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As Edison crossed eighty, his health started to decline with a series of ailments. He fell into a coma on October 14, 1931 and died four days later. He was then 84.

Henry Ford had made a strange, yet touching request to Edison’s son Charles to seal a test tube of air in the great inventor’s room soon after his death. This test tube is put on display at the Henry Ford Museum near Detroit. Also made were plaster casts of Edison’s face and hands.

The whole of America mourned the passing of this legend. Electric lights in streets and buildings across the country were switched off or dimmed. Yes, it was as if the world had turned dark, as it was before Edison switched on the first ever light-switch.

Edison’s wife Mina passed away in 1947.

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The achievements of Edison were legendary. Starting as a tramp telegraphist, he had grown into a great inventor and businessman. This rags-to-riches success story has always caught the world’s imagination, and no wonder America looks at him as a folk hero.

It is not that all his inventions made a lot of money. Yet he built a huge business empire and employed thousands of assistants, engineers, machinists and researchers. He was not always an easy-going boss to his employees, and was ruthless to his rivals.

At the time of his death, his inventions were reported to have contributed about fifteen billion dollars to the national economy. He was a pioneer in the technological revolution of the modern a world.

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The 50th anniversary of Edison’s electric light was celebrated in 1929, and its highlight was a new museum at Greenfield Village, Michigan. It was a reconstruction of Edison’s invention factory! This was done by none other than Henry Ford, a great admirer and close friend of Edison.

No doubt, Edison was flattered to see a model of his workplace, and joked that the real place used to be much dirtier!

The electric light’s golden jubilee was celebrated in a grand manner, co-hosted by Ford and General Electric. It was attended by great persons like Marie Curie, Orville Wright, George Eastman, President Herbert Hoover and John Rockefeller Jr.

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Edison, the legendary inventor also had a highly practical business mind. His companies were reorganized in 1911, to form the ‘Thomas A. Edison Inc.’. Non-stop chasing of new ideas for inventions was by then over for Edison. The organization became more diversified and structured. The focus of the organization was now on selling their products, rather than coming up with new inventions.

Disaster struck when there was a huge fire at the West Orange Laboratory, in 1914. Thirteen buildings in the premises were destroyed, but this could not kill the spirit of Edison, and he was back at work the very next day.

Production of movies started again within 24 hours. Under the forceful leadership of Edison, the complex was rebuilt in six months.

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Francis Robbins Upton was a valuable part of Edison’s workforce, with his deep knowledge of physics and mathematics. He joined the Menlo Park laboratory in 1878, and his vast knowledge of physics was invaluable to Edison.

Mathematical problems often arose during the development of devices like the incandescent lamp, the watt-hour meter and large dynamos, and Upton was there to work them out.

When the Edison Lamp Works was established in 1880, Upton became its partner and general manager. He also wrote readable articles in magazines, to publicise Edison’s new inventions.

Edison affectionately called him ‘Culture’, because of his thoughtful manner, talent to play the piano and of course his impressive educational background.

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Here is a man who helped cities grow!

Urban development means two crucial things for a city: the city should grow and spread into a wider area; it should also make businesses grow in commercial centres. Frank Julian Sprague was a great inventor who helped to make both these possible. He had contributed greatly to the development of the electric motor and electric railways which improved transportation within cities and helped them to spread. Another device Sprague helped to develop was the electric elevator, which promoted the use of high-rise buildings leading to greater concentration of business in commercial sections.

An American naval officer turned inventor, Frank Sprague came to be known as the ‘Father of Electric Traction.’ His life took an important turn when he met Edward H. Johnson, who was a business associate of Edison. Johnson persuaded Sprague to leave the navy and work for Edison. Edison had employed a number of brilliant engineers to help with his experiments on electricity. At the request of Johnson, Edison hired Sprague. However, they worked together only for a year, after which Sprague formed a company of his own, named the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company.

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Now we are speaking of a strong supporter of Edison in the War of Currents, which we have already discussed. Arthur Edwin Kennelly joined the West Orange Laboratory in December, 1887 and remained there till 1894. He assisted Harold P. Brown who was a strong crusader against the alternating current. They conducted a demonstration to show that AC was more dangerous than DC, and also convinced officials that the first electric chair should use alternative current.

However, don’t be under the impression that Kennelly’s sole job was to fight for direct current. He was a brilliant electrical engineer who made innovations in the analytic methods in electronics. You might also be interested to know that Kennelly was actually born in Mumbai, India in 1861, and educated in London.

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It was Miller Hutchison who invented the first electrical hearing aid around 1895, which then had a name tough to pronounce – Akoulathon. People also called it the micro-telephone, as it was very similar to the early telephone made by Alexander Graham Bell. A large carbon microphone called the ‘transmitter’ caught the sound and delivered it to a small carbon ‘receiver’ which reached the sound to the ear though headphones.

Hutchison joined Edison’s group in 1909, and served as chief engineer at the West Orange Laboratory from 1912 to 1918. A brilliant electrical engineer, he was awarded an honorary Electrical Engineering degree from Auburn University, and an honorary Ph.D. from Spring Hill College. The Klaxon warning device invented by him was widely used on the ships of the U.S. Navy.

He later formed his own company named Miller Reese Hutchison Incorporated, which made and sold improved versions of batteries developed at Edison’s laboratory.

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Lewis Latimer’s story is truly heroic. Born to an escaped slave, he had to overcome poverty and racism to rise in his scientific career. In fact, he never worked directly for Edison at any of the laboratories, but he certainly deserves a special place in the story of Edison’s achievements.

Latimer worked for the Edison Electric Light Company in New York from 1884 to 1896, as an engineer, draftsman and legal expert, and did some valuable work for several inventions including the incandescent bulb. In fact, while working for a rival company, he had invented an improved method of his own to make carbon filaments.

At Edison’s company, he also translated data into German and French, and wrote his first book on electric lighting, Incandescent Electric Lighting. Also, the installation of public lights in New York, and London was done under his supervision. Later, he became the only African-American member of the Edison Pioneers, an association of old Edison employees.

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Walter Miller started to work at the West Orange Laboratory as an apprentice when he was seventeen. It was soon after the laboratory was opened. Many of his colleagues later moved on, leaving the work at West Orange, but Miller stayed on throughout his career.

Miller proved his merit at many different jobs, but his reputation was as an expert in sound recording. He served as manager of the Recording Department, and was in charge of the New York City studio where recordings were made. At the same time he did further experiments on recording, and acquired several patents on duplicating records, with Jonas Aylsworth. He retired from Edison’s company in 1937, a lively mucker to the end.

 

Charles Batchelor was a master mechanic and draftsman who associated closely with Edison on many crucial projects, like the phonograph, telephone, electric lighting etc. Also, it was he who made the precise drawings which Kruesi turned into models.

Manchester-born Batchelor became one of Edison’s most valued colleagues during the 1870’s and 1880’s. In 1873, Edison designated him as the ‘chief experimental assistant’.

John Kruesi was one of the key persons to work behind Edison’s successful inventions. He was a machinist - a man who handled machines that made machines! Kruesi was adept at using the ‘machine tools’ that could shape metal by carving or grinding it into very precise shapes. He had worked on some of Edison’s greatest inventions.

Born in Switzerland, John Kruesi later came to live in Newark where he met Edison and secured a job with the famous inventor, in 1872. Edison was quick to see his talent, and made him the manager of the machine section.

The quadruplex telegraph, the carbon microphone, phonograph, incandescent light bulb and the electric lighting system are some of the key inventions in which Kruesi was involved. Edison gave him full charge of the Edison Electric Tube Company in 1881, which was installing underground power distribution cables from the central generating station.

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Canadian-born Reginald Fessenden was basically an electrician. Edison wanted him to work as a chemist, and Fessenden protested, “But l’m not a chemist!” Edison’s response was: “I have had a lot of chemists... but none of them can get results.”

Edison’s knack to identify talent was once again proved right; Fessenden went on to excel as a chemist, working on insulation materials for electrical wires.

Anyway, Fessenden left the West Orange Laboratory later, and made several inventions of his own. They included a few related to telephony and telegraphy. He did some pioneering work in radio technology too which led to the amplitude modulation (AM) radio.

The first transmission of speech by radio, and the first two-way radio-telegraphic communication across the Atlantic were among his many achievements.

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