My Science School

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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From mines to movies – that is the story of William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. He was among Edison’s crew at the West Orange Laboratory, and mainly worked on the iron ore mine in western New Jersey which later failed. Dickson was highly skilled as a photographer, and this led him to work with Edison on motion pictures. His contribution was so great that historians sometimes wonder who played a more important role in the development of cinema, Dickson or Edison.

Dickson’s relationship with Edison had a sad ending, though. The fast pace of work at the laboratory affected Dickson and he had a nervous breakdown in 1893. By the next year, he started to work for a rival company, while remaining on Edison’s staff. After a year, Dickson had to leave Edison on bitter terms.

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Everybody knows Henry Ford as the person who revolutionized the automobile industry. It was when he introduced the inexpensive Model T that cars first became affordable to most people.

This legendary car-maker had a close association with Edison. The Edison Illuminating Company hired Henry Ford in 1891 to work as an engineer, and that is how he began his career. Edison was quick to see the young engineer’s brilliance, and Ford quickly rose through the ranks. In just two years, he became a chief engineer. While working with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, Ford built his first oil-driven vehicle in the shed behind his home. Edison was happy to encourage such efforts, and said, “Keep at it!” Edison and Henry Ford became quite close, and their friendship lasted the rest of their lives.

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Jonas Walter Aylsworth was a brilliant chemist, and a pioneer in the field of plastics. He joined the West Orange Laboratory when it was opened in 1887. He was mostly involved in testing materials for making phonograph records.

Aylsworth made a material called ‘condensite’, mixing phenol and formaldehyde for use in disc records. It was a plastic on which recordings could be made. This led the way to the vinyl records.

Jonas left West Orange four years after joining, but returned ten years later to work for Edison, at the same time working in his own laboratory, too.

John Ott was another brilliant worker of Edison, who also became a close friend. John and his younger brother Fred started to work with Edison in Newark in the 1870’s, and moved to Menlo Park with Edison in 1876. At Menlo Park, John was the main maker of models and instruments.

When the West Orange Laboratory was started, John served as the superintendent of the machine shop. But in 1895, he was severely injured in a terrible fall. He had acquired 22 patents, some of them shared with Edison.

John Ott died just a day after Edison. He was so valued by the family that Mrs. Edison made a special request to place his crutches and wheelchair by Edison’s coffin.

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The Edison Portland Cement Company was started by Edison in 1899. It was established to make use of Edison’s process and patents for manufacturing cement in the U.S. and Canada. The manufacturing was done at the mill at Stewartsville, New Jersey, and the company had sales offices at several places.

The Edison Portland Cement Company stopped functioning in December 1931, and the Edison Cement Corporation took its place.

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Edison had an unusual knack to identify talent in others. When he moved to Menlo Park in 1876, he had recruited some highly talented people to work with him. Many of them remained with him for the rest of their lives. Those hardworking youngsters were often fresh out of studies. Edison called them ‘muckers’, as none of them would hesitate to get their hands dirty with hard work. Working with Edison was a great learning experience for them, as Edison involved them in building prototypes and testing out his ideas.

By the time the laboratory complex at West Orange was built, Edison had become very famous; technical people from different places in the U.S. and Europe came, hoping to work with the legendary inventor. If Edison had a bright idea, work at the laboratory would extend late into the night. The muckers sometimes had to face their boss’s sarcasm and ridicule.

However, they did not mind. Most of them felt as electrician Arthur Kennelly said, “The privilege which I had being with this great man for six years was the greatest inspiration of my life.”

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