Edison, His Life and Inventions

Edison, His Life and Inventions,
by

Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin This eBook is for
the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
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Title: Edison, His Life and Inventions
Author: Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
Release Date: January 21, 2006 [EBook #820]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDISON,
HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS ***

Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger

EDISON HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS
By Frank Lewis Dyer
General Counsel For The Edison Laboratory And Allied Interests

And
Thomas Commerford Martin
Ex-President Of The American Institute Of Electrical Engineers

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION I. THE AGE OF ELECTRICITY II. EDISON'S
PEDIGREE III. BOYHOOD AT PORT HURON, MICHIGAN IV.
THE YOUNG TELEGRAPH OPERATOR V. ARDUOUS YEARS IN
THE CENTRAL WEST VI. WORK AND INVENTION IN BOSTON
VII. THE STOCK TICKER VIII. AUTOMATIC, DUPLEX, AND
QUADRUPLEX TELEGRAPHY IX. THE TELEPHONE,
MOTOGRAPH, AND MICROPHONE X. THE PHONOGRAPH XI.
THE INVENTION OF THE INCANDESCENT LAMP XII.
MEMORIES OF MENLO PARK XIII. A WORLD-HUNT FOR
FILAMENT MATERIAL XIV. INVENTING A COMPLETE
SYSTEM OF LIGHTING XV. INTRODUCTION OF THE EDISON
ELECTRIC LIGHT XVI. THE FIRST EDISON CENTRAL STATION
XVII. OTHER EARLY STATIONS--THE METER XVIII. THE
ELECTRIC RAILWAY XIX. MAGNETIC ORE MILLING WORK
XX. EDISON PORTLAND CEMENT XXI. MOTION PICTURES
XXII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EDISON STORAGE
BATTERY XXIII. MISCELLANEOUS INVENTIONS XXIV.
EDISON'S METHOD IN INVENTING XXV. THE LABORATORY
AT ORANGE AND THE STAFF XXVI. EDISON IN COMMERCE
AND MANUFACTURE XXVII. THE VALUE OF EDISON'S
INVENTIONS TO THE WORLD XXVIII. THE BLACK FLAG
XXIX. THE SOCIAL SIDE OF EDISON APPENDIX LIST OF
UNITED STATES PATENTS FOREIGN PATENTS INDEX

INTRODUCTION
PRIOR to this, no complete, authentic, and authorized record of the

work of Mr. Edison, during an active life, has been given to the world.
That life, if there is anything in heredity, is very far from finished; and
while it continues there will be new achievement.
An insistently expressed desire on the part of the public for a definitive
biography of Edison was the reason for the following pages. The
present authors deem themselves happy in the confidence reposed in
them, and in the constant assistance they have enjoyed from Mr. Edison
while preparing these pages, a great many of which are altogether his
own. This co-operation in no sense relieves the authors of
responsibility as to any of the views or statements of their own that the
book contains. They have realized the extreme reluctance of Mr.
Edison to be made the subject of any biography at all; while he has felt
that, if it must be written, it were best done by the hands of friends and
associates of long standing, whose judgment and discretion he could
trust, and whose intimate knowledge of the facts would save him from
misrepresentation.
The authors of the book are profoundly conscious of the fact that the
extraordinary period of electrical development embraced in it has been
prolific of great men. They have named some of them; but there has
been no idea of setting forth various achievements or of ascribing
distinctive merits. This treatment is devoted to one man whom his
fellow-citizens have chosen to regard as in many ways representative of
the American at his finest flowering in the field of invention during the
nineteenth century.
It is designed in these pages to bring the reader face to face with Edison;
to glance at an interesting childhood and a youthful period marked by a
capacity for doing things, and by an insatiable thirst for knowledge;
then to accompany him into the great creative stretch of forty years,
during which he has done so much. This book shows him plunged
deeply into work for which he has always had an incredible capacity,
reveals the exercise of his unsurpassed inventive ability, his keen
reasoning powers, his tenacious memory, his fertility of resource;
follows him through a series of innumerable experiments, conducted
methodically, reaching out like rays of search-light into all the regions

of science and nature, and finally exhibits him emerging triumphantly
from countless difficulties bearing with him in new arts the fruits of
victorious struggle.
These volumes aim to be a biography rather than a history of electricity,
but they have had to cover so much general ground in defining the
relations and contributions of Edison to the electrical arts, that they
serve to present a picture of the whole development effected in the last
fifty years, the most fruitful that electricity has known. The effort has
been made to avoid technique and abstruse phrases, but some degree of
explanation has been absolutely