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Edison delivered. That was his reputation at the end of the nineteenth century. His light system, phonograph business, and new movie industry had changed the lives of every American. But even more importantly, Edison embodied an attitude that Americans liked to think best described themselves. There was nothing The Wizard of Menlo Park couldn’t do once he set his mind to it. Sometimes he succeeded immediately (as in his story of the phonograph) and sometimes it took a decade (50,000 experiments to develop the alkaline storage battery), but eventually he got it right. His quotations helped define what made America unique: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” He was living proof. America’s self-image and self-confidence grew as Edison’s reputation grew. No wonder a later historian claimed that he invented the twentieth century. Of course, the reality was more complex. In the 1890s, Edison dropped out of the electric business and lost a fortune experimenting with low-grade iron ore deposits in the east. His efforts to make a quality hearing aid failed and his experiments with x-rays proved that new technology can be dangerous. Still, the spirit of the times was optimistic. In 1900, you could enter a building and see a film of outdoor events, called “actualities,” a travelogue, and/or the recreation of contemporary news projected onto a screen. Or if you would prefer to stay at home, the low-cost improved phonograph brought a concert into the own living room. To top it off, America had recently stretched its muscle and won a “just” little war down in Cuba, with an Edison cameraman filming it! Even Edison’s failures bore the tint of success. When discussing the four million dollar iron-ore mining fiasco, Edison told a friend, “It’s gone, but we had a hell of a time spending it.” Thomas Alva Edison was born the seventh child of Nancy and Sam Edison, Jr. on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. Chemical deposits on the basement floor of his Port Huron, Michigan home confirm Edison’s own story that he began his experiments around the age of ten. However, the details of his early life survive more as folklore than history. Homer Page, the husband of older sister Miriam, told the story of young Al – as he was called then – trying to hatch an egg the same as a goose. Sam described a time when it became necessary to spank Al publicly because his uncontrolled enthusiasm burned down a barn. And as an adult, Tom shared the story of trying to convince a young friend to drink some bubbly substance to see if he would fly. These anecdotes have two things in common. Each reveals a lesson about a curious boy of good intentions in need of friendly guidance, and each depends on a knowledge shared by teller and listener: the boy will be a huge success. In other words, later greatness determines the selection of events and inferred motivation. Young Al, it must be revealed, has all the tools to succeed even if those around him do not see it. He was thrown out of two schools, but his curiosity and tenacity will be rewarded, because in America, ingenuity, as opposed to genius, and self-confidence lead to success. These stories may not tell us much about the “real” Thomas Edison, but they tell us a lot about our values in 1900 and perhaps even now. The system is fair. Quality effort, raw talent, and proper motivation matter. In 1844, telegraphy promised a new world of better communication. Suddenly, time and space seemed mild inconveniences because for the first time in history, a message could travel faster than a man could ride a horse. Ohio could follow events occurring in Washington, New York, and California. This invention marked the end of our rural isolationism and the beginning of our mass culture. Edison did not begin the telegraph industry, but he made it better and more profitable. Because there was a civil war going on and young men with telegraph skills were in short supply, his youthful idiosyncrasies got him fired repeatedly but never hurt his prospects for employment. He became the cutting edge of a cutting-edge industry. His first patent in 1869 was for a vote recorder – a variation on the telegraph – and his improvements on the stock ticker in 1869 and 1871 earned him his first big paycheck. When Edison began his telegraph experiments, only one message could travel down the wire at a time. When he finished, his “quadruplex” allowed four messages, two in each direction, to travel down that same wire simultaneously. Every important telegraph company bid for his services, and Edison signed so many competing contracts that it took thirty years for the courts to disentangle them. The telegraph gave Edison the reputation as the country’s greatest inventor, and he took full advantage of it. His best advertising gimmick was himself. One reporter said, “Edison is the Aladdin’s lamp of the newspaper man.” Some historians criticize him for his flair for self-promotion. I say he was the first to realize that publicity influences market share and image determines perceptions of quality. Later, Edison copyrighted his signature because the public believed his name scrawled on an appliance or phonograph meant “the latest and best.” Of course, Edison was not the first to try to invent the light bulb. Inventors attempted to patent incandescent devices as early as the 1840s and Humphrey Davy experimented with carbonized paper in 1808. Edison’s contribution was to make light affordable and the system that powered it an industry. He researched, developed, and then manufactured all the components, including the meter, the socket, the switch, the safety catch (fuse), and a generator that created twice the power at half the cost. His system was dependable and safe, providing heat, power, and of course, light. Lay historians, often with political agendas, put too much emphasis on the bulb and filament. It is the system that recreated the American home. Edison once said, “I will make the electric light so cheap that only the rich will be able to afford candles.” It took until after World War I, but Edison made even rural America glow. While working on the light system, Edison learned the importance of delegating responsibility. The technical problems involved in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century technology were too complex and too expensive for one man to handle alone. Edison determined which problems to address and then assigned teams of inventors with appropriate mechanical and engineering skills to tackle them. One team worked on the filament, another on the vacuum, and a third on the generator. Edison demanded that his men keep accurate notes to avoid redundancy, to determine possible new directions, and to avoid patent battles. Another late nineteenth century discovery, because of patent disputes, was to document everything! Edison saw himself as overseer, guide, and inspirational leader. If two heads are sometimes better than one, Edison took thirteen to Menlo Park in 1876, several dozen to his biggest invention factory, West Orange, in 1887 and directed 250 in 1911. Edison was not just a man. He had become an industry. Contemporary critics blame Edison for not sharing more of the glory with those teams. Because America in 2008 is only now coming to terms with the injustices inflicted on minorities and women for centuries, Edison’s self-promotion and iconic status are seen as a root cause of this problem. For me, this is an example of a discriminatory interpretation of facts to fit a current social or political need. One hundred years ago, his marketing skills and reputation made him the perfect individualist. He had overcome tremendous odds and defied authority. The greatest inventor of all times was not afraid to dirty his hands. That same man and that same behavior are interpreted differently today, judging Edison by a criteria that he would never have understood. A hundred years from now, his achievements and attitude will be reevaluated according to a different measuring stick. Because Edison endured so many nay-sayers in his own time, I think he would not be surprised. Edison did demand deference, but he also provided economic incentives for those who solved assigned problems. Patents on minor improvements were sometimes granted to employees, and fruitful work resulted in raises and new responsibilities. When William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, the Scottish co-inventor of the kinetoscope, left Edison’s employment in 1895, he had enough money saved to vacation for a year. When Lewis Lattimer (African American inventor who patented two improvements on the light filament) left the employment of Hiram Maxim, Edison hired him--not because he supported diversity, but because the man had talent and the right work ethic. Another unfair criticism is that Edison contributed to and had no concern about pollution. Because today our planet seems frail and Edison’s factories did pollute, Edison seems ecologically insensitive and greedy. The danger here is that the partial truth is seen as the whole truth. Edison defined pollution differently. When he designed the cement house, he hoped these inexpensive constructions would end homelessness and protect dissipating forests. In 1907, he said, “I have not gone into this with the idea of making money …” and he gave away the patterns to his molds. In a similar way, he hoped his electric cars would eliminate horse manure and the stench of the combustion engine – his generation’s definition of pollution. In other words, Edison was doing his best to solve the problem as he understood it, just as we must do the same now. Condemning him for not having our insight in his own time serves neither the past, the present, nor the future. Edison admitted he was sometimes lucky. His brilliance was in making both luck and failure work for him. In 1877, experiments with the automatic telegraph and the nearly useless Bell telephone led to the phonograph, a machine that Edison believed the business community would embrace in order to store speeches, letters, and historical documents. Potential customers preferred music. Edison adjusted and by the 1890s had created a new entertainment industry that capitalized on the public’s insatiable appetite for tunes. In a 1888 caveat to the patent office, Edison said he would “devise an Instrument that should do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear.” Historians today debate whether or not this announcement entitles him to say he invented the first motion picture camera. Preference often depends on national pride, selective memory, and trust or distrust of popular history. The truth is, several inventors were working on the project at the same time. While one was more advanced in one area, another excelled in a different area. All contributed and all tried to learn – or steal if you like – from the others. Such debate says more about our twenty-first century value to be “number one” than it does about the inventing process. Who was the true inventor may be a different version of the question, “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” It also avoids the question, “When is an idea an invention and when is a gadget just an idea with potential?” The inventors of the motion picture camera also underestimated the machine’s potential. The first kinetoscopes showed films of boxing, dance, and magic, but initial enthusiasm waned within two years. Even when projected onto a screen in 1896, film quickly lost its luster. Edison concluded film was a fad and considered selling the company in 1900. No one had yet thought of telling a story. However, the seed of film’s coming importance was in the first commercial twenty-second film of 1893. Looking into a kinetoscope, individuals watched three blacksmiths hammer a horseshoe and then pass around a beer. This attempt at humor captures the dilemma film faces even to this day. Should film edify or entertain its audience? What we want to see may not always be what we ought to see. In 1910, Edison decided film should emphasize education. He vowed he would produce “cleaner and more wholesome films, which could be exhibited with safety before any member of the family.” In 1914 he declared film would soon replace text books, and he pushed all education institutions to buy Edison educational films. It was a noble sentiment but few were interested. When, in 1916, he began a new line of morally uplifting films called “Conquest Pictures,” he lost his shirt. The American people had spoken. Despite a national outcry by the morally sensitive, naughty had trumped good intentions. By 1918 Edison was out of the business. In 1929 Henry Ford held a party called Light’s Golden Jubilee, the fiftieth anniversary of the invention of the incandescent lamp. During the celebration, President Hoover claimed Edison’s greatest achievement was the invention factory. I disagree. I believe it was the modern notion that the invention process is never over. Improve your product and lower the price today and then again tomorrow, or your competition will. History indiscriminately discards those who make the original invention dependable and affordable, but the businessman knows that the improvements make continuous sales possible. Edison recognized this concept and constantly worked to improve his products. For example, in 1900 his Gold Molded cylinders made each recording as true as the original. In 1912, the Blue Amberol records captured an acoustic sound never again equaled. The phonograph took a day to invent and a lifetime to perfect. History has a life all its own. Every biography reveals as much about the author and his/her times as it does about its subject. Edison both defines his time and transcends it. He was a rebel innovator who said,“When the reasonable thing don’t [sic] work, try the unreasonable,” and “There ain’t [sic] no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something.” And he was a conservative businessman. For example, he thwarted a company strike by moving his lamp factory to Schenectady. If that seems paradoxical, so does his concept of the “invention factory.” A successful factory depends on conformity, producing the exact same product over and over. An invention, by definition, breaks the mold and begins something entirely new. When Edison died on October 18, 1931, he held 1,093 patents. If he didn’t exactly invent the twentieth century, there is something about his uniquely American personality that makes us wish he did.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
** Baldwin, Neil. Edison: Inventing the Century. New York: Hyperion Press, 1995. This book is extremely strong when talking about Edison the man and his family. Conot. Robert. Thomas Edison: A Streak of Luck. A Da Capo Paperback; originally published by Seaview books, New York, 1979. This book is good first book on Edison and perhaps the best until the most recent books. ** Friedel, Robert and Israel, Paul. Edison’s Electric Light. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1987. This is a month by month report, the highs and lows, that resulted in the invention of the incandescent lamp. ** Israel, Paul. Edison: A Life of Invention. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998. If you want to know how the inventions worked, get this book. Nobody has studied the invention notebooks with such care. Josephson, Mathew. Edison: A Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1959. This is the first serious scholarly attempt to look back at Edison and measure his influence on our lives today. After forty years, the book still holds up, giving lots of insights into the man and his life of invention. Millard, Andre. Edison and the Business of Innovation. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1990. This book captures the second half of Edison’s career, when the shop culture becomes the research and development laboratory. This detailed volume proves that Edison was as much a businessman as an inventor and did some of his best work after Menlo Park ** Parker, Steven. Thomas Edison and Electricity. Chelsea House Publications, 1995. A book in the “Science Discoveries” series for young readers. The danger of most children’s books about all great men and women is that they simplify the past for an inspiring message. They trust the myths and unverifiable anecdotes. This book is better than most. Wachhorst, Wyn. Thomas Alva Edison: An American Myth. The MIT Press, 1982. This book discusses how the man becomes a symbol and the role of that symbol in our society. Also, this author is the consummate prose writer. I reread it just to enjoy his use of language. WEBSITES: EDISON/FORD ESTATES: http://www.edison-ford-estate.com/ EDISON NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE: http://www.nps.gov/edis/hime.html THOMAS A. EDISON PAPERS: http://edison.rutgers.edu THOMAS EDISON’S INVENTION WEB: http://homestead.juno.com/pdeisch/files/edison.htm For over 20 years, Hank Fincken has toured the U.S. performing his six original one-man plays in schools, parks, libraries, festivals, and universities. Ten years ago, he modified some of his presentations to work in summer Chautauquas. His characters include Johnny Appleseed, Christopher Columbus, Henry Ford, an 1849 Argonaut named J.P. Bruff, and Thomas Edison. Hank finished college and began a life of adventure, first serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru and Costa Rica and then doing original research in Europe, the Dominican Republic, and Peru. His most recent trip in July of 2007 was to Quito, Ecuador, where he worked as a translator in rural clinics with a team of American doctors and wrote an original play for the professional theatre group Quito Eterno. Hank has published some twenty plays and stories, a dozen essays and one book, Three Midwest History Plays and Then Some. SIGNIFICANT POINTS ABOUT THOMAS ALVA EDISON Edison believed if you think positively, you will succeed. The light system redefined the invention process from being an individual endeavor to a team sport. The complexity of the historical person makes him more interesting than his achievements, but the achievements are what make us look back. All deeds can be spun into a positive or a negative. In other words, politics influence everything. Every generation rewrites the world’s history according to the values it holds at that time. The lay reader tends to be more forgiving than the historian. THOMAS ALVA EDISON QUOTES “From the neck down, a man is worth a couple of dollars a day. From his neck up, he is worth anything that his brain can produce.” “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” “Everything comes to he who hustles while he waits.” “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” “Someday man will harness the rise and fall of the tides, imprison the power of the sun, and release atomic power.” THOMAS ALVA EDISON TIMELINE 1847: Thomas Edison is born in Milan Ohio 1849: Gold Rush in California 1861: Civil War begins 1862: Emancipation Proclamation 1869: Edison receives his first patent for vote recorder. First Transcontinental Railroad completed 1876: Edison moves his laboratory to Menlo Park, NJ. Bell invents the telephone 1877: Edison invents the phonograph 1879: Edison invents the incandescent lamp and the system that makes it glow 1882: First Edison central electric-power plant in US 1887: Edison moves his laboratory to West Orange, NJ 1894: Edison unveils the kinetoscope to public 1903: Edison releases movie: The Great Train Robbery. Wright brothers take the first powered flight 1909: Edison produces a workable alkaline storage battery 1914: World War I (The Great War) begins. Edison works for Naval Consulting Board 1929: Light’s Golden Jubilee in Dearborn, Michigan celebrates the invention of the light system. Stock Market Crash – Great Depression 1931: Thomas Edison dies in West Orange, NJ
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