Everyone crowded together and looked at the paper, which now held marks on it. Batchelor grinned and placed the paper at the beginning of the wheel, carefully positioning it beneath the stylus. With Batchelor pulling at a steady pace, the needle ran along the marks on the paper.
“Ary ad eh il am.”
The place came unglued. Hands were shaken. Backs were clapped and patted. Cheers and shouts sprinkled the room.
“It was not fine talking,” Batchelor would later recall, “but the shape of it was there.”
A day later—after an all-night, nonstop session that included multiple tweaks and adjustments—the Menlo Park boys celebrated at the next midnight supper after they succeeded in producing a clearly spoken recording.
Although the first public announcement of the invention, which still didn’t have an official name, wouldn’t happen until a month later, Edward Johnson—Menlo Park’s PR man—told the Philadelphia Record that the brilliant inventor Thomas Edison had created a device “by which a speech can be recorded while it is being delivered on prepared paper” and then “redeliver[ed]” using the same paper at any time later on.
It would take some time for Edison to present his “baby” to the public in an official manner. In November 1877, Johnson wrote to the editor of Scientific American about the invention. Johnson included an engraved illustration to go along with his detailed letter, both showing and telling the general public about the workings of “the apparatus.”
Soon after, on December 7, Edison himself brought a newly named phonograph into the offices of Scientific American and mystified the editors with a demonstration. Edison later explained: “I … set up the machine and recited, ‘Mary had a little lamb,’ etc. Then I reproduced it so that it could be heard all over the room. They kept me at it until the crowd got so great Mr. Beach [the editor] was afraid the floor would collapse.” In the next issue, Scientific American recounted for its readers: “The machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night.”
If the term “went viral” had existed in Edison’s time, it would have been an apt description for the manner in which news of the phonograph spread across the world. In both Europe and the US, people dreamed about and marveled at the many possible uses of Edison’s latest invention. Perhaps remembering the manner in which his automatic vote counter had been slapped down so viciously by the congressmen who had seen it in action, Edison took great care in deciding how best to market and sell this new invention. In late November, the Old Man and his team settled on the idea that the phonograph’s greatest commercial potential was as a device for entertainment.
Edison’s phonograph launched him into the stratosphere, so much so that he became a household name, synonymous with the idea of science and invention. The man whose formal education had been limited to a measly three months became a renowned scientist. His opinion was sought-after by businessmen, scientists, and writers.
It wasn’t just Edison’s phonograph that had been born; his reputation and status as a bona fide celebrity had taken form as well. And, having risen so quickly and so monumentally, Thomas Edison had no desire to be pushed down from his comfortable perch atop the mountain. Staying there, he knew, would be a battle.
Journalists came to Menlo Park in droves following the reveal of the phonograph, and Edison welcomed them with open arms. Reporters wanted to know about the amazing phonograph, of course, but they also wanted to know about the intriguing inventor, this Wizard of Menlo Park, as he was later called by reporter William Croffut of the New York Daily Graphic.
Amos Cummings, a reporter for the New York Sun, visited Menlo Park and chronicled his experience for readers, giving an intimate glimpse of Edison, rounding out edges and defining his image for the many people who were curious. Cummings claimed, “A man of common sense would feel at home with him in a minute.” Edison opened up to Cummings and was not shy about his ideas and the grand schemes he had in store. He detailed the many ways the phonograph and related devices he was working on could be used by the public, highlighted by books being recorded and played back, and also how people—parents and politicians, for example—could hide recording devices in critical areas to gain information. Edison seemed to speak on passing ideas that came to mind and mentioned the most incredulous devices and uses, like how he believed an aerophone, a device akin to a megaphone or foghorn on steroids, should be placed inside “the Goddess of Liberty that the Frenchmen are going to put upon Bedloe’s Island that would make her talk so loud that she could be heard by every soul on Manhattan Island.” Imagine how different a tour of the then-soon-to-be-named Statue of Liberty would be if Edison’s idea had come to fruition.
Edison and his team continued to work on a large-scale version of the phonograph and a smaller, more commercial version that would be sold to the public. All the while, everyone wanted a piece of this new celebrity. The New York Sun best captured Edison’s life: “The people have come to regard him as public property … Little knots of people came and went all day long and took possession of him and his office and shop as if they had been personal property.”
Thomas Edison needed a break, and his friend George Barker, a professor, talked him into a one-month trip out west. The original intent was to view a solar eclipse from a spot in Wyoming, but the two ended up spending more than the month’s time exploring the world they’d only heard of.
* * *
The tail end of 1878 found Edison investing most of his time in his Menlo Park laboratory, along with his staff, focusing on the development of an incandescent light bulb.
Artificial light itself wasn’t a foreign concept, as arc lights—two carbon rods set a distance apart and aligned vertically to create a blinding arc of light that bridged the gap between the rods—had been used in variation since 1855. But this form of light was so bright and unattractive that it didn’t appeal to most people. The author Robert Louis Stevenson, in fact, described it as “a lamp for a nightmare.”
Birds, too, must not have cared for the bright arc light, as it confused them about what time of day it was. They were often heard tweeting and chirping at night when the lights were in use.
The key was harnessing incandescent light—dimmable, controllable lighting—that could be used indoors and for various purposes. No one had done this yet, though many were desperately trying at the time, and Thomas Edison was determined to be the first.
* * *
September 8, 1878
Workshop of William Wallace, Ansonia, Connecticut
Edison’s notion—or better put, his obsession—to develop electric light came about on another journey with Barker. While on the trip out west, Barker had asked Edison to visit the workshop of William Wallace and Moses Farmer, who claimed they had designed a machine that powered an arc light system that was called a dynamo, a generator that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. Edison had shown some interest in electric lighting and agreed. Two weeks after they had returned from their westward trip, Barker and Edison traveled to Wallace’s shop in Ansonia, Connecticut, also accompanied by Charles Batchelor and an academic friend of Barker’s by the name of Charles Chandler.
A reporter from the New York Sun came along to witness the activity. From Edison’s first glimpse of the spectacle, the reporter noticed that Edison grew quiet and distanced himself from his companions. As his friends attempted to converse with him, Edison would laugh or nod but then go back deep inside his head. And when he saw the Wallace-Farmer dynamo in use, the reporter wrote, “Mr. Edison was enraptured.… Then power was applied … and eight electric lights were kept ablaze at one time, each being equal to 4,000 candles … This filled up Mr. Edison’s cup of joy. He ran from the instrument to the lights, and from the lights back to the instrument. He sprawled over a table with the simplicity of a child, and made all kinds of calculations.”
Later, while talking to a reporter from The Sun about the trip, Edison decla
red that he would solve the problem of creating a reliable bulb that was “so simple that a bootblack [a shoe-shiner] might understand it.” This off-the-cuff statement was merely Edison making a claim in the moment, but it had turned into a guarantee by the “Wizard” himself once it hit print form and was read by the public.
Subdividing the electric light and designing a light bulb wasn’t a novel idea. On the contrary, every inventor and scientist, it seemed, was trying to create the perfect incandescent bulb. The host of Edison’s visit, William Wallace—along with the absent but equal partner, Moses Farmer—were themselves attempting to make the great discovery. To Edison, this was a chance to one-up every brilliant mind in the world. All these academics and scholars. All these scientists. None of them had been able to invent a practical electric light.
Upon exiting Wallace’s workshop, Edison was so confident—so competitive—that he decided to directly address his host. With conviction, Edison said, “Wallace, I believe I can beat you making electric lights. I don’t think you are working in the right direction.” This wasn’t about money. As Edison himself explained in an interview, “I don’t care so much about making my fortune, as I do for getting ahead of the other fellows.” Thomas Edison had taken on his most significant competition to date. One he was determined to win, at any cost.
* * *
Less than a week after the trip to Wallace’s workshop, Edison committed to his promise to deliver by stating he actually had the solution right then and there and only needed “a few days” to put it in practical usage. Perhaps feeling doubters’ eyes looking at him from beyond the newspaper, Edison further claimed the “scientific men” were off in their theories, and he predicted that “everybody will wonder why they have never thought of it, it is so simple.”
Edison explained his idea of installing small power stations in Lower Manhattan, connecting stations with businesses and houses with insulated wire that would be run underground. These same wires, he theorized, could power any electrical apparatus. When would this happen? “Soon,” said Edison.
Having thrown down the gauntlet in the form of a guarantee to have the electric light and its effective system in use “soon,” Edison changed his priorities. No longer was the phonograph his focus.
* * *
The first issue was designing a bulb, but not just any bulb. One that was functional, and moreover, one that was cheap and able to be manufactured for the masses with profit in mind.
Edison’s team began by experimenting with platinum as the filament. Platinum, a silvery-white metal, seemed like a good choice because it had a high melting point and was malleable enough to be bent and coiled easily. The problem with platinum filaments was twofold. First, each platinum filament the team tried only stayed intact for a few minutes because it weakened and broke apart with sustained exposure to heat and oxygen. Even worse, the second problem was that platinum was expensive. Far too expensive to mass-produce for the public, even if it did work for more than five minutes.
Edison had made promises, though, and he had a reputation to live up to. So while he and the others worked on finding a functional and inexpensive filament behind the scenes, in public Edison offered demonstrations to prove he was oh-so-close to producing the genuine article.
One after another after another after another, Edison entertained reporters from four different publications. Each demonstration utilized platinum filaments, and each time Edison kept the bulb lit for less than four minutes, not risking being exposed as a fraud. When asked if he’d encountered any problems, Edison denied complications, even suggesting that the unusual ease with how it was initially progressing was the only unnerving thing. After his final demonstration, Edison played the reporter for the press’s full worth, asking the public to remain patient and maintaining that his invention would be available “in good time.”
The positive press resulted in skyrocketing interest and financial backing, and Edison Electric Light Company was formed in November 1878.
While Edison continued to entertain the press with stories of how well things were going—never divulging specifics—his “few days” turned into a few weeks, which extended into almost a year. Edison even told the New York Times on October 21, 1879, that the “electric light is perfected.” It wasn’t, of course. Far from it. But an experiment on that day with carbonized sewing thread had resulted in forty hours of illumination without burning out. In truth, Edison’s words to the Times were more a celebration of some progress, when in reality Edison Electric had not gained any ground on finding the answer to the practical incandescent light bulb.
The “success” of the forty-hour burn of cotton thread was something to be excited about. Soon after, though, the cotton filament experienced the same problems. It was not the answer. These many failures, these trials and errors, were not a waste of time to Edison, who would later explain that “many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Edison was close.
In the middle of November, the team tried carbonized paper that was bent in the shape of a horseshoe. It lit up the glass globe in a soft shimmer of light as the filament burned.
The team waited.
It still burned.
They waited deep into the night.
It continued to burn.
For over a day the bulb burned. Edison knew he had found the answer. Carbon. “If it will burn for that number of hours now, I know I can make it burn a hundred.”
Unlike the bulb experiment, finding the ultimate answer did not happen overnight. Not much ever did in the world of invention. Instead, Edison led his team on a carbonization quest of every substance they could think of—including fishing line, cardboard, all kinds of paper, and a host of other materials—until, after exhausting over six thousand different options, they determined that carbonized bamboo was the best filament for their incandescent bulb.
Thomas Edison posing with his first incandescent bulbs
It had taken many months of playing the press. Making guarantees and smiling for the cameras. It had been a long journey full of posturing and putting himself in the public spotlight, but maybe now he could get back to what he was born to do: invent. He certainly hoped so. For now, Edison had done it. He’d found success: a simple, inexpensive way to harness light and hold it for a sustained period—safely.
5 AC/DC, A CURRENT CRAZE
It was a man named Edwin Fox, a reporter for the New York Herald, who broke the news that Edison had successfully invented and perfected the incandescent light bulb.
Fox, not only a reporter but also Edison’s friend, was given access to Edison’s lab in the middle of November 1879. For two weeks the reporter had this exclusive access, recording the manner in which Menlo Park was being equipped with some forty bulbs and fixtures. It was a lofty prize Edison had granted to Fox, to be privy to the installation of this new invention, shown multiple demonstrations time after time without any competition from any other reporters, and even walked through in elementary fashion the complicated workings and technical details of the bulb.
The prize had one major condition, though, and that was for Fox to hold off publishing his article until Edison had given him the go-ahead. Edison and his team wanted to go through significant tests, run-throughs, and preparations before Fox let the world know, and Fox, being grateful to have the exclusive dish, obliged and claimed he’d hold off until he’d heard from Edison.
But like the young Thomas Edison, who couldn’t wait for those goose eggs to hatch, Edwin Fox simply couldn’t put it off any longer. He gave in to his impatience when he published “Edison’s Light” in the December 21, 1879, edition of the New York Herald.
Fox spared no superlatives in his article, praising the master inventor’s “little globe of sunshine” as a perfect device. No gas or smoke or nasty odor. No blinding light to distract the birds. Nor did Fox spare any opportunity to divulge Edison’s detailed explanation of the technical workings o
f the bulb. In the mode of a how-to manual, Fox laid out the manner in which Edison had figured out the elusive mystery many had attempted to solve, spelling out the secrets the Wizard of Menlo Park had shared with him.
Understandably, Edison was at first offended by Fox’s betrayal and irritated that his friend had brought the article to press before Edison had given it his blessing. After reading the article again and realizing it was flattering in the extreme as to the inventor’s genius, Edison took it in stride and chalked it up as an inevitable occurrence. He knew drive. Competition. Pride. Edwin Fox was much like him, he decided, and Edison followed up the published article with his own version of drive, competition, and pride.
Instead of backing off and slowing things down, Thomas Edison decided it was time to go all in. He’d already made promises and guarantees. He’d claimed he had a bulb that could burn for over one hundred hours and further boasted he could supply a family with light for twenty-four days straight without issues.
How was he to follow up now that Fox had published the details and praised him with such hyperbole? In typical Thomas Edison fashion, with an even stronger and bolder statement: within ten days, he promised, he would light up ten houses in Menlo Park. But that wasn’t all. He would also—Edison pledged—set up ten electric streetlamps.
His promises and the tight time constraints he’d leveled on his Menlo Park team were not readily appreciated by his colleagues. But the Old Man was like this, they knew. Sure, they could try to talk some sense into their boss, as one of the company’s main investors, Egisto Fabbri, tried to do by asking Edison to first give the lights a test run of a full week before entertaining the ten-houses-of-Menlo experiment. Fabbri’s words did very little, though Edison did agree to a four-hour test run on December 27, 1879, which went off without a hitch.
The Electric War Page 4