Surprisingly, little "Al"
Edison, who was the last of seven children in his family, did not learn
to talk until he was almost four years of age. Immediately
thereafter, he began pleading with every adult he met to explain the
workings of just about everything he encountered. If they said they
didn't know, he would look them straight in the eye with his deeply set
and vibrant blue-green eyes and ask them "Why?"
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Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Edison was not born into
poverty in a backwater mid-western town. Actually, he was born -on Feb.
11, 1847 - to middle-class parents in the bustling port of Milan,
Ohio, a community that - next to Odessa, Russia - was the largest
wheat shipping center in the world. In 1854, his family moved to the
vibrant city of Port Huron, Michigan, which ultimately surpassed the
commercial preeminence of both Milan and Odessa....
At
age seven - after spending 12 weeks in a noisy one-room schoolhouse
with 38 other students of ll ages - Tom's overworked and short tempered
teacher finally lost his patience with the child's persistent
questioning and seemingly self centered behavior. Noting that Tom's
forehead was unusually broad and his head was considerably larger than
average, he made no secret of his belief that the hyperactive
youngster's brains were "addled" or scrambled.
If modern psychology had existed back then, Tom would
have probably been deemed a victim of ADHD (attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder) and proscribed a hefty dose of the "miracle
drug" Ritalin. Instead, when his beloved mother - whom he recalled "was
the making of me... [because] she was always so true and so sure of
me... And always made me feel I had someone to live for and must not
disappoint." - became aware of the situation, she promptly withdrew him
from school and began to "home-teach" him. Not surprisingly, she was
convinced her son's slightly unusual demeanor and physical appearance
were merely outward signs of his remarkable intelligence.
A descendant of the distinguished Elliot family of New
England, New York born Nancy Edison was the devout and attractive
daughter of a highly respected Presbyterian minister and an
accomplished educator in her own right. After the above incident, she
commenced teaching her favorite son the "Three Rs" and the Bible.
Meanwhile, his rather "worldly" and roguish father, Samuel, encouraged
him to read the great classics, giving him a ten cents reward for each
one he completed.
It wasn't long thereafter that the serious minded youngster
developed a deep interest in world history and English literature.
Interestingly, many years later, Tom's abiding fondness for
Shakespeare's plays lead him to briefly consider becoming an actor.
However, because of his high-pitched voice and his extreme shyness
before every audience - except those he was trying to influence into
helping him finance an invention - he soon gave up the idea.
Tom especially enjoyed reading and reciting poetry. His
life-long favorite was Gray's Elegy In A Country Churchyard. Indeed, his
favorite lines - which he endlessly chanted to himself and any within
hearing distance - came from its 9th stanza: “The
boast of heraldry of pomp and power, All that beauty all that wealth
ere gave, Alike await the inevitable hour. The path to glory leads but
to the grave.”
At age 11, Tom's parents tried to
appease his ever more voracious appetite for knowledge by teaching him
how to use the resources of the local library. This skill became the
foundation of many factors that gradually caused him to prefer
learning via independent self instruction.
Starting with the last book on the bottom shelf, Tom set out to
systematically read every book in the stacks. Wisely, however, his
parents promptly guided him into towards being more selective in what
he read.... By age 12, Tom had not only completed Gibbon's Rise And
Fall Of The Roman Empire, Sears' History Of The World, and Burton's
Anatomy Of Melancholy, he had devoured The World Dictionary of Science
and a number of works on Practical Chemistry.
Unfortunately, in spite of their noble efforts, Tom's dedicated
parents eventually found themselves incapable of addressing his ever
increasing interest in the Sciences. For example, when he began to
question them about concepts dealing with Physics - such as those
contained in Isaac Newton's great "Principia" - they were utterly
stymied. Accordingly, they scraped enough money together to hire a
clever tutor to help their precocious son in trying to understand
Newton's complex mathematical principles and unique style....
Unfortunately, this experience had some negative affects on
the highly impressionable boy. He was so disillusioned by how Newton's
sensational theories were written in classical aristocratic terms
-which he felt were unnecessarily confusing to the average person -he
overreacted and developed a hearty dislike for all such "high-tone"
language and mathematics....
On the other hand, the simple beauty of Newton's physical laws did not escape him. In fact, they very much helped him sharpen his own free wheeling style of clear thinking, proving all things to himself through his own method of objective examination and experimentation." Tom's response to the Principia also
enhanced his propensity towards gleaning insights from the writings
and activities of other great men and women of wisdom, never
forgetting that even they might be entrenched in preconceived dogma and
mired down in associated error....
All the while he was cultivated a strong sense of
perseverance, readily expending whatever amount of perspiration needed
to overcome challenges. This was a characteristic that he later noted
was contrary to the way most people respond to stress and strain on
their body.... The key upshot of this attribute was that his unique
mental, and physical, stamina stood him in good stead when he took on
the incredible rigors of a being a successful inventor in the late 19th
Century....
Oddly, a factor that shaped Tom's personality in both a
negative and a positive way was his poor hearing.... Even though
this condition -and the fact that he had only three months of formal
schooling - prevented him from taking advantage of the benefits of a
secondary education in contemporary mathematics, physics, and
engineering, he never let it interfere with finding ways of
compensating.... More precisely, it was this his highly
individualistic style of acquiring knowledge that eventually led him
to question scores of the prevailing theories on the workings of
electricity..... Approaching this complex field like a "lone eagle,"
he used his kaleidoscopic mind and his legendary memory, dexterity,
and patience to perform whatever experiments were necessary to
come up with his own related theories... As many of his
contemporaries continued to indulge the popular electrical
pontifications of the day, he was ever sharpening his now ingrained
style of dispassionate and bold analysis.... "I accept almost nothing
dealing with electricity without thoroughly testing it first." he
often declared. Not surprisingly, by arming his brains with
this perspective, he soon established a firm foothold in the world
of practical electrical science And of course, at the dawn of the
"Age Of Electric Light And Power," nothing could have better served
his ultimate destiny in the field of invention...
Returning to the story of his
youth, by age 12, Tom had already become an "adult." He had not
only talked his parents into letting him go to work selling newspapers,
snacks, and candy on the local railroad, he had started an entirely
separate business selling fruits and vegetables.....
And at age 14 -during the time of the famous pre-Civil War debates
between Lincoln and Douglas -he exploited his access to the associated
news releases that were being teletyped into the station each day and
published them in his own little newspaper. Focusing upon such
newsworthy "scoops," he quickly enticed over 300 commuters to
subscribe to his splendid little paper: the Weekly Herald....
Interestingly, because this was the first such publication ever to be
type-set, printed, and sold on a train, an English journal now gave
him his first exposure to international notoriety when it related this
story in 1860.
After his hero, Abraham Lincoln, was nominated for president, Tom
not only distributed campaign literature on his behalf, he peddled
flattering photographs of "the great emancipator." (Interestingly, some 25 years later, Tom's associated feelings about abolition caused him to select Brockton, Massachusetts as the first place to model the first standardized central power system, described elsewhere on the Brockton web site.)
At its peak, Tom's mini-publishing venture netted him more than ten
dollars per day. Because this was considerably more than enough to
provide for his own support, he had a good deal of extra income, most
of which went towards outfitting the chemical laboratory he had set up
in the basement of his home. But hen his usually patient and tolerant
mother finally complained about the odors and danger of all the
"poisons" he was amassing, he transferred most of them to a locked room
in the basement and put the remainder in his locker room on the train.
One day, while
traversing a bumpy section of track, the train lurched, causing a stick
of phosphorous to roll onto the floor and ignite. Within moments, the
baggage car caught fire. The conductor was so angry, he severely
chastised the boy and struck him with a powerful blow on the side of
his head. Purportedly, this may have aggravated some of the loss of
hearing he may have inherited and from a later bout he had with
scarlet fever. In any case, the station master penalized him by
restricting him to peddling his newspaper to venues in railroad
stations along the track ....
Remarkably, years later and not long after he had acquired the
means to have an operation that "would have likely restored his
hearing," he flatly refused to act upon the option.... His rationale was
that he was afraid he "would have difficulty re-learning how to
channel his thinking in an ever more noisy world." Whatever the
cause for this defect, by the time Tom was 14 years of age, it was
virtually impossible for him to acquire knowledge in a typical
educational setting. Amazingly, however, he never seemed to fret a
whole lot over the matter. Naturally inclined towards accepting his
fate in life - and promptly adapting to whatever he was convinced was
out of his control -he always reacted by committing himself to
compensating via alternative methods....
Ultimately, Tom became totally deaf in his left ear, and
approximately 80% deaf in his right ear. Poignantly, he once stated
that the worst thing about this condition was that he was unable to
enjoy the beautiful sounds of singing birds. Indeed, he loved the
creatures so much, he later amassed an aviary containing over 5,000
of them. One day while he was on the train, the stationmaster's very
young son happened to wander onto the tracks in front of an oncoming
boxcar. Tom leaped to action. Luckily - as they tumbled away from its
oncoming wheels - they ended up being only slightly injured.
Now, one of the most significant events in Tom's life occurred
when - as a reward for his heroism - the child's grateful father taught
him how to master the use of Morse code and the telegraph. In the "age
of telegraphy," this was akin to being introduced to learning how to
use a state-of-the-art computer.
By age 15, Tom had pretty much mastered the basics of this
fascinating new career and obtained a job as a replacement for one of
the thousands of "brass pounders" (telegraph operators) who had gone
off to serve in the Civil War. He now had a golden opportunity to
enhance his speed and efficiency in sending and receiving code and
performing experiments designed to improve this device....
Once the Civil War ended, to his mother's great dismay, Tom
decided that it was time to "seek his fortune." So, over the next few
years, he meandered throughout the Central States, supporting himself
as a "tramp operator".
At age 16, after working in a
variety of telegraph offices, where he performed numerous "moonlight"
experiments, he finally came up with his first authentic
invention. Called an "automatic repeater," it transmitted telegraph
signals between unmanned stations, allowing virtually anyone to easily
and accurately translate code at their own speed and convenience.
Curiously, he never patented the initial version of this idea.
In 1868 - after making a name for himself amongst fellow
telegraphers for being a rather flamboyant and quick witted character
who enjoyed playing "mostly harmless" practical jokes - he returned
home one day ragged and penniless. Sadly, he found his parents in an
even worse predicament.... First, his beloved mother was beginning to
show signs of insanity "which was probably aggravated by the strains
of an often difficult life." Making matters worse, his rather impulsive
father had just quit his job and the local bank was about to foreclose
on the family homestead.
Tom promptly came to grips with the pathos of this situation
and - perhaps for the first time in his life - also resolved to come
to grips with a number of his own immature shortcomings. After a good
deal of soul searching, he finally decided that the best thing he
could do would be to get right back out on his own and try to make some
serious money....
Shortly
thereafter, Tom accepted the suggestion of a fellow "lightening
slinger" named Billy Adams to come East and apply for a permanent job
as a telegrapher with the relatively prestigious Western Union Company
in Boston. His willingness to travel over a thousand miles from home
was at least partly influenced by the fact that he had been given a
free rail ticket by the local street railway company for some repairs
he had done for them. The most important factor, however, was the fact
that Boston was considered to be "the hub of the scientific,
educational, and cultural universe at this time...."
Throughout the mid-19th century, New England had many
features that were analogous to today's Silicon Valley in California.
However, instead of being a haven for the thousands of young "tekkies" -
who communicate with each other in computerese and internet code of
today - it was the home of scores of young telegraphers who anxiously
stayed abreast of the emerging age of electricity and the telephone
etc. by conversing with via Morse code.
During these latter days of the "age of the telegraph," Tom
toiled 12 hours a day and six days a week for Western Union. Meanwhile,
he continued "moonlighting" on his own projects and, within six
months, had applied for and received his very first patent. A
beautifully constructed electric vote-recording machine, this first
"legitimate" invention he was to come up with turned out to be a
disaster.
When he tried to market it to members of the Massachusetts
Legislature, they thoroughly denigrated it, claiming "its speed in
tallying votes would disrupt the delicate political status-quo." The
specific issue was that - during times of stress - political groups
regularly relied upon the brief delays that were provided by the
process of manually counting votes to influence and hopefully change the opinions of their colleagues.... "This is exactly what we do not
want" a seasoned politician scolded him, adding that "Your invention
would not only destroy the only hope the minority would have in
influencing legislation, it would deliver them over - bound hand and
foot - to the majority."
Although Tom was very much disappointed by this turn of
events, he immediately grasped the implications. Even though his
remarkable invention allowed each voter to instantly cast his vote from
his seat - exactly as it was supposed to do - he realized his idea was
so far ahead of its time it was completely devoid of any immediate sales appeal.
Because of his continuing desperate need for money, Tom now
made a critically significant adjustment in his, heretofore, relatively
naive outlook on the world of business and marketing.... From now on,
he vowed, he would "never waste time inventing things that people would
not want to buy."
It is important to add here that it was during Tom's 17 month
stint in Boston that he was first exposed to lectures at Boston Tech
(which was founded in 1861 and became the Mass. Institute of Technology
in 1916) and the ideas of several associates on the state-of-the-art
of "multiplexing" telegraph signals. This theory and related
experimental quests involved the transmission of electrical impulses at
different frequencies over telegraph wires, producing horn-like
simulations of the human voice and even crude images (the first
internet?) via an instrument called the harmonic telegraph.
Not surprisingly, Alexander Graham Bell, who was also living
in Boston at the time, was equally fascinated by this exciting new
aspect of communication science. And no wonder. The principles
surrounding it ultimately led to the invention of the first articulating telephone, the first fax machine, the first microphone, etc.
During this
epiphany, Edison also became very well acquainted with Benjamin
Bredding. Bredding's family obligations combined with his business
naivte prevented him from persuing his dreams. The same age as Bell and
Edison, this 21 year old genius would soon provide critically important
assistance to Bell in perfecting long distance telephony, the first
reciprocating telephone, and the magneto phone. A crack electrician,
Bredding, with Watson's assistance, later set up the world's first
two-way long distance telephone apparatus for his close friend
Alexander Graham Bell, who at the time "knew almost nothing about electricity."
Copyrighted - never before published
- tintype of Bredding and Bell in October of 1876 on the day they
successfully communicated across Boston's Charles River in the world's
first long distance two-way telephone conversation. i.e., "The world's
first practical telephone conversation."
Bredding had originally worked for the well known promoter,
George B. Stearns, who - with Bredding's help - had beaten everyone to the punch when he obtained the first patent for a duplex
telegraph line. A device that exploits the fact that electromagnetism
and the number and direction of wire windings associated with a
connection between telegraph keys can influence the current that flows
between them, and greatly facilitate two-way telegraphic communication,
it powerfully intrigued Edison....
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