The Thomas Edison – Abraham Lincoln Connection

Thomas Edison was 14 years old when the Civil War broke out, but already learning how to send and received telegraph messages. Which is how he began his Abraham Lincoln connection. During the Civil War, the telegraph had become a critical means of communication, both to get news from the front and to relay strategies and orders from President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton. A popular song of the era captured the essence of the power of the telegraph:

For our mountains, lakes and rivers, are all a blaze of fire
And we send our news by lightning, on the telegraphic wire.

Edison spent the rest of the war working the telegraph lines safely ensconced in northeastern Michigan. After the war, Edison built his own business modifying telegraphs to send and receive on multiple channels, as well as print out the messages and automatically convert the dots and dashes into text. Much of his early work was sold to Western Union, that is until its Superintendent Thomas T. Eckert – who had been in charge of Lincoln’s telegraph office during the war – jumped ship to the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company and convinced Edison to sell his new quadruplex telegraph rights to them.

About ten years later Edison had moved on to invention of the tinfoil phonograph. In April 1878 he took it to Washington, D.C. for a demonstration of the National Academy of Sciences, created in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. There he met Joseph Henry, then doing double duty as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and President of the National Academy. Henry had been Lincoln’s unofficial science adviser during the Civil War. The demonstration went so well that Edison was asked to bring the phonograph up the road to the White House, where he demonstrated it in a personal audience with President Rutherford B. Hayes and guests into the wee hours of the morning. Lincoln friend and now Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz played a lively tune on the piano. Ironically, Edison was so deaf by this point that his colleague Charles Batchelor had done most of the presentation at the National Academy. At the White House, Edison chimed in with his off-yelled rendition of “Mary had a little lamb” and other ditties.

Still later, Edison invented what became the film projector. One of his most famous early films was The Life of Abraham Lincoln. A silent film (with musical soundtrack) presenting highlights from Lincoln’s life, The Life expanded the length of motion pictures and now took up two reels. The Life was a “two-part drama” that ran “from the scene in front of the log cabin to the assassination at Ford’s Theater in Washington.” The sales catalog claimed, “Nothing has been left undone to make this a consummate review of Lincoln’s life.” For the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth in 1909, Wanamaker’s huge department store in lower Manhattan hosted a screening of Edison’s ten-minute film The Blue and the Grey, or the Boys of ’61, accompanied by “favorite war songs” of the era.

Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln

Edison was so enamored of Lincoln “that he placed Lincoln’s profile on his own letterhead, and wrote out this testimonial in 1880:

” … the life and character of Abraham Lincoln and his great services to this country during the war of the rebellion will stand as a monument long after the granite monuments erected to his memory have crumbled in the dust.”

The photo shown is in the collection of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, IL.

As I think back on my own admiration of Lincoln it strikes me that there are a number of connections between the three topics of my published books – Tesla, Edison, and Lincoln. Perhaps I was destined to write about all three.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Thomas Edison Builds a Better Telegraph

Thomas EdisonDisheveled as he was when he showed up on the doorstep of the venerable Western Union Company, Edison was confident that management would see through the rough exterior into his insightful mind. The company had made a name for itself even before the Civil War, but the rampant use of telegraphy during the conflict enabled Western Union to grow immensely, swallowing up its nearest competitors and becoming a force in the industry. This was just the opportunity Edison was looking for. During his initial interview, office manager George Milliken was so impressed with the 21-year-old that he hired him immediately. Milliken asked how soon Edison would be ready to work, to which Edison replied “Now.” He was put to work on the shift that day at 5:30 p.m.

The more professionally attired and traditionally educated eastern men thought the ill-dressed “westerner” was somewhat of a rube, so they devised a way to put him to the test. Edison recalls:

I was given a pen and assigned to the New York No. 1 wire. After waiting an hour, I was told to come over to a special table and take a special report for the Boston Herald, the conspirators having arranged to have one of the faster senders in New York send the despatch and “salt” the new man. I sat down unsuspiciously at the table, and the New York man started slowly. Soon he increased his speed, to which I easily adapted my pace. This put my rival on his mettle, and he put on his best powers, which, however, were soon reached. At this point I happened to look up, and saw the operators all looking over my shoulder, with their faces shining with fun and excitement. I knew then that they were trying to put up a job on me, but I kept my own counsel. The New York man commenced to slur over his words, running them together and sticking the signals; but I had been used to this style of telegraphy in taking report, and was not in the least discomfited. Finally, when I thought the fun had gone far enough, and having about completed the special, I quietly opened the key and remarked, telegraphically, to my New York friend: “Say, young man, change off and send with your other foot.” This broke the New York man all up and he turned the job over to another man to finish.

And just like that, he had won over the new office.

Edison earned $125 per month at Western Union, but more important, the job gave him considerable flexibility and many opportunities to access equipment to continue his independent research. While in Boston he bought copies of the works of Michael Faraday, then considered one of the foremost experimenters in electricity and the father of electromagnetic induction. At the time, “the only people who did anything with electricity were the telegraphers and the opticians making simple school apparatus to demonstrate the principles.” Edison experimented with telegraphy equipment and electricity and “had an unflagging desire and belief in his own ability to improve the apparatus he handled daily.” He worked all day long in his own makeshift laboratory before heading into Western Union for his night shift duties.

After a year on the job, Edison found it increasingly difficult to juggle his telegraph operator responsibilities with his more interesting extracurricular activities. On January 30, 1869, he published a notice in The Telegrapher: Mr. T.A. Edison has resigned his situation at the Western Union office, Boston, Mass., and will devote his time to bringing out his inventions. He was only 22 years old.

[Adapted from my book, Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World. I thought of this incident while working on an upcoming presentation in which the telegraph becomes an important communication – and military strategy – tool during the Civil War.]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Thomas Edison Invents the Movies

Edison KinetoscopeOn August 31, 1897, Thomas Edison invented the movies. Or at least that was the day he patented the kinetoscope, an early motion picture projector. But as with all inventions, the story is much more complicated than just one man.

In fact, others had already started the process that Edison’s team would move forward. In June 1889, William Friese-Greene had patented a motion picture camera in England. Two months later, Englishman Wordsworth Donisthorpe patented his own version of a motion picture camera. Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, a Frenchman working in England, developed a multiple-lens camera in 1888. Le Prince also filmed two motion picture sequences using a single-lens camera and paper film; the twelve-frame-per-second Roundhay Garden Scene runs for a grand total of 2.11 seconds. In a bizarre twist reminiscent of future action movies, Le Prince and his luggage mysteriously vanished from a moving train just prior to making a trip to the United States to present his invention.

These early inventors did not have the finances to continue development, but Edison did. The first version out of the Edison laboratory was “rather too ambitious,” as it attempted to synchronize the sound of the phonograph with the movement of images. “Thousands of tiny images” were taken with a conventional camera, and one by one they were mounted on a modified phonograph cylinder. A second cylinder played back the sound, ideally in sync with the images. But the machine did not work. The curvature of the cylinder distorted the small images, so it was nearly impossible to view them with any resolution. Increasing the size of the images to 1/4 inch and applying a photographic emulsion to the cylinder failed to resolve the problem, although Edison did produce a series of short films (of a few seconds each) collectively called Monkeyshines. Overall, however, the idea of using cylinders was abandoned.

Another Englishman, Eadweard Muybridge, came to the rescue. Muybridge was a photographer who as far back as the 1870s was producing images in series, which he used mainly to study the motion of animals. In one sequence, Muybridge had taken twelve rapid photos of a horse in full gallop in order to determine if all four legs were off the ground at the same time (they were). He accomplished this by using multiple cameras to record images in rapid succession.

Muybridge had also invented a zoopraxiscope, a rotating glass wheel and a slotted disk that projected a series of pictures in sequence, each slightly ahead of the other. Turning the wheel made the pictures appear to be in motion. With these devices in hand, the now-famous Muybridge paid a visit to Edison during a tour of the United States in February 1888. As with his earlier visit with Wallace, Edison gained considerable insights into his next steps after this meeting. Edison barely acknowledged the visit for months, but in October suddenly submitted his caveat to the patent office for “a system of motion pictures: a device to record the images, a device for viewing them, and an instrument that merged viewing pictures and listening to sound in the same experience.”

Étienne-Jules Marey was another influence on Edison’s thinking about motion pictures. After growing up in the Côte-d’Or region of France, Marey studied medicine and became interested in the science of laboratory photography; he is widely credited with being the Father of Chronophotography, or photographing motion. In 1882 he invented the chronophotographic gun, a menacing-looking instrument capable of capturing images at a rate of twelve frames per second. All twelve sequential still images were recorded on the same strip of film, a disk that rotated as the rapid-fire photos were taken. Marey also designed a camera that captured “sixty images a second on a long continuous strip of film, which was pulled by a cam in a deliberately jerky fashion to stop the film momentarily, so that the light could saturate the film and capture motion.” Edison sought out Marey when he attended the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris.

The World’s Fair’s biggest attraction was the huge iron-latticed tower named after its designer, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, on whose edifice Edison wined and dined with the rich and famous during the exposition. But what really caught Edison’s interest was Marey’s photographic gun. Marey was more focused on the technical developments of his invention and less about the market value, and he gladly showed Edison the mechanics and examples of his work. He also gave Edison a copy of his book providing all the technical details. Armed with new ideas, but still lacking in substantive time to develop them, Edison passed the information to Dickson and left him to make something of it.

The Kinetoscope Emerges

Edison’s patent caveat was filed with Dickson working anonymously in the background. The device they had in mind would not only show pictures in motion, it would do so “in such a form as to be both Cheap[,] practical and convenient. This apparatus I call a Kinetoscope ‘Moving View.’”(The name is derived from the Greek kinesis, meaning motion.) They described it as a silver emulsion-coated phonograph cylinder with 42,000 “pin-point” photographic images each 1/32 inch wide mounted spirally upon it, to be viewed through a binocular eyepiece salvaged from a microscope; the visual cylinder spun to the simultaneous accompaniment of a contiguous phonograph sharing the same shaft and playing the “sound track.” The idea of synchronized cylinders was completely unworkable, but it epitomizes how Edison worked—he built on something he already did, and he hesitated to move away from it.

But move away he did. Dickson searched for a way to take and display the thousands of pictures that would need to be strung together for any length of viewing time. The usual way of making photographs was to produce them on glass negatives, which clearly was not an option for moving pictures. One option that seemed viable was celluloid, a plastic material made out of cellulose nitrate that English photographer John Carbutt successfully used. Another promising option was rolls of paper that George Eastman had managed to coat with photographic film and fused into a cheap Kodak camera.

Dickson experimented with celluloid and paper, and after Edison’s visit with Marey filed a new patent caveat, this one describing a “sensitive film” that would “pass from one reel to another.” Then, like the phonograph before it, the kinetoscope project was dropped—this time for only a year—while Edison kept Dickson busy with his ore milling business. When Dickson was finally allowed to return to the kinetoscope, Edison assigned William Heise to give him a hand.

Heise had expertise stemming from his prior work with printing telegraphs, which he now used to design the mechanical movement of film through the camera. Dickson focused on the optical components of the camera itself, along with the chemical and physical characteristics of the film. Together they developed the two parts that would make it possible to film, and then display, motion pictures.

By the spring of 1891, the two men had designed a camera, which they called a kinetograph, to film moving pictures. The kinetograph’s horizontal-feed exposed images on strips of perforated film 3/4 inch wide. A “shutter and escapement mechanism” allowed the camera to stop the film “for a fraction of a second,” just long enough to expose the film before advancing to the next exposure. Dickson and Heise advanced the technology with amazing rapidity: “forty-six impressions are taken each second, which is 2,760 a minute and 165,600 an hour.” Several short experimental films were produced, “including a lab worker smoking a pipe and another swinging a set of Indian clubs.”

After developing a suitable camera to create motion pictures, they needed to develop a way to watch them. The answer was a wooden box, much like those housing phonographs, which they called a kinetoscope. The box stood about four feet high and was twenty inches square. Inside the box was “an electric lamp, a battery-powered motor, and a fifty-foot ribbon of positive celluloid film arranged on a series of rollers and pulleys.” The film viewer would bend over the box, stare through an eyepiece, and watch as the film whizzed through view at forty-six frames per second.

And whiz it did. The first films were over in twenty seconds or less; basic scenes such as Dickson tipping his hat or a blacksmith banging his hammer. Still, it was a start, and Dickson continued to work on perfecting both the kinetograph camera and the kinetoscope player. Edison, on the other hand, was not sure there was much of a market: “This invention will not have any particular commercial value. It will be rather of a sentimental worth,” something of a novelty. At the same time he seemed to recognize the future attraction to the new medium, which could reproduce on the walls of their homes actors and scenes they currently had to go out to the theater to experience. Despite his hesitations, Edison arranged for a kinetoscope exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair. It was a couple of years in the future, so he had plenty of time to perfect the device. Or so he thought. He assigned James Egan, one of his machinists, to build twenty-five kinetoscopes.

Enter the Black Maria. Edison became a movie mogul.

[Adapted from Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Tesla and Edison: From Paris to America

tesla vs edisonIn 1882, Nikola Tesla’s time in Budapest was coming to an end. His close relationship with the Puskas brothers led him to Charles Batchelor, who was Thomas Edison’s man in Paris. Batchelor was an Englishman and mechanic supreme, having learned his trade in the textile mills of Manchester. But Batchelor was more than just a good technician; he was a natural salesman and organizer. Nearly single-handedly he had overseen the spread of Edison’s direct current system across Europe, mostly as isolated power plants for individual factories, hotels, shipyards, and railroad stations. This highlighted the big problem with direct current—it was limited to low voltages and could not be transmitted more than a short distance. Direct current power plants had to be installed every mile or so to light up a city, a logistical problem that meant despite his sales skills Batchelor was only able to install three central power stations, one each in the cities of Milan, Rotterdam, and St. Petersburg.

Tesla knew he had the answer to this problem—the alternating current induction motor. But newly arrived in Paris and taking a job as a junior engineer at Société Industrielle, part of the Compagnie Continental Edison, Tesla was hardly yet in a position to change the world. While he pitched his alternating current system to Batchelor and others in Paris, Edison’s people simply did not want to listen. After all, Edison had invested himself completely in making and selling direct current throughout Europe, the United States, and the world. No, Edison thought, Tesla’s alternating current system simply would not do.

Tesla’s time at Continental Edison was initially spent as a kind of traveling repairman sent to fix some of the tougher problems with the direct current system. Moving about mainly in France and Germany, he would “cure the ills” and return to Paris. This experience led him to propose improvements to the dynamos, which he implemented. “My success was complete,” Tesla would write, “and the delighted directors accorded me the privilege of developing automatic regulators which were much desired.” Having quickly built a reputation as someone who could save the day, not to mention his proficiency in the German language, Tesla was the obvious choice to send to Strasbourg, Alsace (part of Germany at the time, now Strasbourg, France). A catastrophic event had occurred during the opening ceremony of the new lighting plant at the railroad station, and help was needed fast.

The Strasbourg rail station, originally built in 1846, had just been remodeled in the current year of 1883. Dignitaries, including the aging Emperor William I of Germany, were gathered to watch the newly installed direct current electric lighting system showcase the station. The flip of the switch turned out to be more dramatic than expected, however, and a large part of a wall collapsed by a huge explosion, nearly taking William with it. Following this major malfunction and a series of other quality-control issues—lightbulbs were burning out as fast as they could be replaced—the talented Tesla was dispatched to see what he could do to repair the damage, both to the direct current system and the sensitivities of the Alsace people.

Upon arrival he realized that this was not merely a case of crossed wires; there were fundamental flaws in the direct current system design. Batchelor had been warning Edison that generators coming to Europe from America were defective—“fires from faulty armatures and poor insulation were becoming all too common.” According to Tesla, the wiring was defective and the explosion that took down the wall resulted from a massive short circuit. Tesla took on the task of correcting the problem and spent nearly a year redesigning the generators and reinstalling the lighting system. His work was a stunning success.

With the Strasbourg rail station now fully lit and accepted by the Alsace government, Tesla “returned to Paris with pleasing anticipations.” Administrators at Edison’s European works had promised Tesla “a liberal compensation” should he succeed in fixing the Strasbourg problem, “as well as fair consideration of the improvements [Tesla] had made in their dynamos.” He, perhaps naively, hoped to “realize a substantial sum.” That sum was never to be realized.

The Edison men passed around non-decisions until Tesla finally recognized that his promised compensation was more rhetorical than realistic. While hugely disillusioned by how he had been treated, Tesla was simultaneously being pressed by Charles Batchelor to move to America, ostensibly to redesign and improve on the Edison dynamos and motors. Seeing an opportunity to present his alternating current designs directly to the great Thomas Edison himself, Tesla put aside his disappointment and agreed to make the cross-Atlantic voyage to the “land of the golden promise.”

Though its actual existence is disputed, O’Neill states that Batchelor penned a letter of introduction to Thomas Edison in which he stated simply: “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.”

Tesla was off to America. But things were not to go exactly as planned.

In 1884 Edison had installed a complete direct current system on the S.S. Oregon, one of the most modern ships of the time. On the Oregon Edison would first put new employee Nikola Tesla to the test. Both of the twin dynamos had failed, so the ship was sitting in port with no way to run. Edison had sent several men to try to fix it, but with no luck. He was desperate, so when Tesla walked into his office Edison sent him straight to the docks. Tesla was eager to please Edison, so he packed up the necessary tools and arrived on board that evening. “The dynamos were in bad condition,” Tesla later wrote, “with several short circuits and breaks.” Seizing the initiative, Tesla put the ship’s crew to work helping him, and by daybreak he had “succeeded in putting them in good shape.” Another major success.

This incident raised Tesla’s stock in Edison’s eyes and henceforth Tesla “had full freedom in directing the work.” The work was interesting and Tesla was happy. Always the hard worker, for nearly a year Tesla regularly worked from 10:30 a.m. to five o’clock the next morning, seven days a week. Edison was duly impressed, saying, “I have had many hard-working assistants but you take the cake.” Tesla occasionally dined with Edison and other key leaders in Edison’s various companies. Sometimes they would shoot billiards, where Tesla “would impress the fellows with his bank shots and vision of the future.”

Seeing opportunities to improve Edison’s dynamos, Tesla outlined a plan, stressing the output and cost efficiency of his intended changes. Edison, perhaps in a temporarily charitable moment, promised Tesla $50,000 if he could accomplish the task. Tesla immediately set to work and over the next year he designed twenty-four different types of dynamos, “eliminating the long-core field magnets then in use and substituting the more efficient short cores” as well as introducing some automatic controls. The financial benefits to the Edison operations were enormous, but when Tesla demanded payment, Edison’s response was to laugh and say, “You are still a Parisian. When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.”

Tesla, feeling “a painful shock” at what he felt was being cheated once again by Edison, immediately resigned. Tesla would set out on his own, and in the end, have the last laugh on Edison.

[Adapted from my two books, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World, both available at Barnes and Noble stores nationwide.]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

It’s Thomas Edison’s Birthday!

Young Thomas EdisonAlthough he was the last of seven children, Thomas Alva Edison was born into a largely empty household. February 11, 1847, was a cold, snowy night in the tiny village of Milan, Ohio, not far from the shores of Lake Erie. Edison’s mother, Nancy, who seemed always to be wrapped in black mourning garb, was eager to have more children to replace those who had not survived. One son, Carlile, died in 1842, when he was only 6 years old. A second son, 3-year-old Samuel Ogden, perished a year later while Nancy was pregnant with daughter Eliza. Eliza also lived only three years, passing away in late 1847, when Thomas was still an infant.

The arrival of “Little Al,” as he was known in his youth, was a welcome sight. Frail and burdened with an unusually large (though “well-shaped”) head, Edison struggled to survive a sickly childhood. The doctors feared he had something they called “brain fever.” Mostly he struggled alone; his eldest sister, Marion, often his only real companion, was already an adult when he was born. In 1849, when she was 20 and he just 2 years old, she married and moved away. Edison never forgave her new husband for taking Marion from him. His older brother William Pitt (named for the English statesman) and sister Harriet Ann moved out of the house not long after. Little Al was essentially raised as an only child.

His older siblings were born in Vienna, Ontario, a mirror of Milan on the northern shore of Lake Erie. Edison’s great-grandfather John, who lived to be a feisty 102 years old, was a Tory fighting on the British side in the American Revolution before barely escaping into Canada ahead of the noose. Edison’s father, Samuel, continued the family tradition of rebellion, this time against the Canadian government. Many years later, Edison remarked that his father had “always been a rebel, a regular red-hot copperhead Democrat, and [had] General Jackson as his hero.” Samuel Edison’s actions once again made emigration a necessary, and rather sudden, option for survival. He had joined with the losing side of the short-lived Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837 and escaped Canada on the run, stopping off briefly in Michigan before settling in Milan. John’s family soon joined him. With new children on the way, Samuel began the next phase of his life. Little Al—named Alva in honor of Captain Alva Bradley, a family friend and ship owner on the Great Lakes who had helped the family escape Canada—was the only one of the Milan-born children to survive.

[Adapted from my book, Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World.]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Thomas Alva Edison Died Today

Edison: The Inventor of the Modern WorldIn the early morning hours of October 18, 1931, Thomas Alva Edison passed away peacefully in his Glenmont mansion in West Orange, New Jersey, not far from the laboratory where he had toiled many long days for many long years. He was 84 years old and had been inventing for seven decades. His health had been failing for months and by this time he had struggled with the cumulative effects of diabetes, Bright’s disease, stomach ulcers, and uremic poisoning, the final stages of kidney failure. His family was by his side, though he seemed only to recognize Mina, his wife of the last 42 years.

His legacy was immediately obvious to everyone. The sculptor James Earle Fraser, as was the fashion for famous people of the day, prepared a death mask and cast of Edison’s hands. His body lie in state in the library of the laboratory, and over 50,000 mourners passed by to pay their respects. After two days the casket was moved back to Glenmont for a private funeral. Besides Mina and the family, nearly 400 friends attended the service, including camping buddies Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, First Lady Lou Henry Hoover (representing the U.S. President), and many other friends. Sympathy letters were received from world dignitaries such as Pope Pius XI and German President Paul von Hindenburg, as well as from more notorious personages as fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and Gus Winkler, an Al Capone hit man. Science magazine published a glowing obituary of the famed inventor, declaring him a “benefactor of humanity.”

Thomas A. Edison is buried behind the family home at Glenmont, a half mile from his West Orange Laboratory. The great inventor had died, but his inventive legacy would live on to this day.

[Adapted from my book, Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World.]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Was Thomas Edison Dim-Witted?

Young Thomas EdisonIt was not easy for the young Thomas Edison to get an education. In the fall of 1854, Little Al (as he was then known) was enrolled in the school of Reverend G. B. Engle, a strict disciplinarian who taught by rote. The easily distracted Al didn’t do well under such conditions, and ran away. The reverend’s wife called Edison “addled” and “dreamy,” neither of which was intended as a compliment. Furious, Edison’s strong-willed mother pulled him from the school and home-schooled him with a rigorous regimen studying a variety of subjects, reading literature, and memorizing. Above all else, Edison was a voracious reader. With his mother’s guidance, he read Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hume’s History of England, Sears’ History of the World, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, and the Dictionary of Sciences.

Later, during a brief attendance at the Union School in Port Huron, Richard Green Parker’s A School Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philosophy fed his growing interest in science. Another favorite book was Carl Fresenius’ System of Instruction in Chemical Analyses. He tried to read Newton’s Principia, but later admitted he was stymied by the math, which was beyond his capability. With that exception, his excellent memory allowed him to retain virtually everything he read.

If ever there was a man who tore the heart out of books it is Edison, and what has been read by him is never forgotten if useful or worthy of submission to the test of experiment.

Early on Edison displayed a trait that would bode well for his chosen avocation: He questioned everything. Ironically, this led his father to wonder if he was a bit dim-witted. Little Al had to know everything, and he nearly drove his father to exhaustion with his incessant inquiries. One early biographer described young Edison as having “the inquisitiveness of a red squirrel.” He hung around shipbuilders and asked them question after question about building ships, steam power, sailing, and whatever else he could think of. To say he was a curious child would be an understatement.

Young Edison developed a profound interest in chemistry, building up a collection of some 200 bottles of chemicals in the family basement, duly labeled “Poison” to keep away prying eyes. Visits to local drug store proprietors, and his incessant inquisitiveness, made him knowledgeable about most chemicals. He began doing experiments from chemistry and physics books he got from the local library, and had “tested to his satisfaction many of the statements encountered in his scientific reading.” His experiments made him familiar with the workings of early electrical batteries and the production of current, knowledge that would come in handy in his life as an electrical wizard.

[Adapted from my book, Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World]

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Science Traveler

Merry Christmas Happy Holidays

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Updates on Tesla, Edison, Lincoln

It’s been a busy year for Tesla, Edison, and Lincoln. Based on the Barnes and Noble website, I’m expecting new printings for all three books. Plus, foreign translations!

The 8th printing of my Tesla book should be available any day now given the information I had received from the publisher. The book is sold out in my local store and temporarily unavailable on the B&N site as they get more books in the warehouse. Buyers at the local B&N tell me they still have brisk sales four years after the original publication. The situation is similar for my Edison book released in 2016, with the local store selling out and more books needed in the warehouse. And my newest book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, is selling well according the manager of my local store. They’ve just restocked the shelves and a new printing is definitely due.

In addition, Edison has joined Tesla in a Dutch language edition. The European publisher had previously done Dutch, German, and Spanish editions of Tesla so I expect to see the same for Edison. Tesla also is now in a Czech language edition. Hopefully the publisher will pick up the Lincoln book for translation some time next year.

Meanwhile, my recently released Lincoln book is doing well. I recently presented at the DC Historical Society conference in Washington, DC and I’m shortly heading up to Gettysburg for the annual Lincoln Forum. Then on December 12th I’ll present my book to the Lincoln Group of DC (click here to join us).

If that wasn’t enough, I am working on a new Lincoln book, and will be proposing a second Lincoln book in January. Stay tuned for more.

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. Share with your friends using the buttons below.

 

Reflections of a Science Traveler

Kotor, MontenegroToday marks the fourth anniversary of resigning my consulting job to pursue a career science traveling. Recently I caught up with a former colleague who still works at the old firm. We hadn’t spoken in a long time so she asked me whether I had any regrets about my decision. Without a moment’s hesitation, I replied: “No regrets whatsoever.” I left with my eyes facing forward and have never once looked back on that former life.

My new life has given me plenty to behold, including more time to travel and write.

I generally add a few new countries to my list each year. This year had fewer trips but farther destinations. I was in Seoul, South Korea during the election of a new president (to replace the one impeached and indicted), all while North Korea was haphazardly tossing around missiles. Then on to Beijing, China, which was hosting over 30 world leaders (including Vladimir Putin) for the One Belt One Road Summit. Soon I’ll be in roaming around Australia and New Zealand. The 12-hour drive to and from New England squeezed in between these two exotic locations seems tame in comparison. Another New England trip and Gettysburg are likely in the fall.

Writing has included the release of my newest book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. This is my third book with Fall River Press, all now in Barnes and Noble stores. I also have two e-books available on Amazon.com (see links at end). My first book, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity, is going into its 8th printing this fall and has been translated into several foreign languages. Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World is still in stores and may also get a new printing soon.

Meanwhile, I’m working on two new books – one on a specific area of Abraham Lincoln’s interests, and the other a travel memoir (like Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson). By January I might have a third book in progress.

My former colleague also asked a second question: do I get to read a lot? In fact, that has been one of the unanticipated benefits. I’ve increased the number of books read from maybe 50 to over 100 books per year, and broadened my reading interests considerably. Traveling helps. While I don’t read much while I’m on the ground (where my time is spent exploring), the long flights and airport time are ideal for finishing off the latest novel or taking notes on various science, Lincoln, or biography books.

I also have time to do research. I spend some time at the Library of Congress and National Archives, plus make ample use of their online collections and other electronic resources. With nearly 1200 Lincoln books in my own home library, there is no shortage of background material. The travel itself is also research. I regularly incorporate in my books the knowledge gained while traveling, and future books will involve more travel-related topics.

This past several years I’ve been actively involved with the Lincoln Group of DC. As the Vice President of Programs I schedule speakers for our monthly dinner meetings and join the Board in planning – and participating in – a wide variety of other events. Next year I’ll, well, it’s still to be determined what I’ll be doing next year, but likely I’ll still be deeply involved in Abraham Lincoln.

So what will happen in 2018? My tentative plans include considerably more travel to places I’ve never been, including (I hope) to my 6th continent and beyond my 50th country. My writing goal is to finish the Lincoln science book so that it will be in stores no later than early 2019. I’m also piecing together a travel memoir tentatively titled Patagonia Summer that will combine travel, history, and science. The third possible book will likely be a compendium with my Lincoln colleagues. There is still some uncertainty in these plans as experience has taught me that “the best laid plans” often change dramatically.

One thing is for sure. No regrets whatsoever.

See my previous “Reflections” for 2014, 2015, 2016. I’ll likely do a final “reflections” next year on my fifth anniversary, after which I’ll skip to five or ten year reports. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be too famous to write by then. 🙂

[Photo is at Kotor, Montenegro]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. Share with your friends using the buttons below.