Tho ma s Ed iso n a nd the a utho rity o f inve ntio ns
reported that Edison was working on his newest marvel , electric lighting, and predicting that electricity would provide for 12 to 15 cents, the same amount of light as gas did for $2.50
The day after Thomas Edison died in 1931, the New York Times devoted a third of its front page and three of its inner pages to him in articles under headlines such as Prospero is Dead , describing him no only as a wizard but as the wonder‐smith of the age and likening him to Leonardo da Vinci as a symbol of American culture (New York Times 1931b, 1931c). Thousands filed past his coffin and President Hoover asked Americans to extinguish their electric lights as a monument to Edison (New York Times 1931a, 1931d).
attention 80 years after his death. Figure 1 plots the number of New York Times articles
1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Figure 1 Number of articles in the New York Times mentioning
Thomas Edison, by year. (Derived from data in New York Times article archive (2011)).
Ethe ric fo rc e
Figure 2 (notation added) The electrical vibrator on which Edison
first noticed Etheric force sparks (TAED NE1691:15).1 When the contact C closes completing the circuit, the iron rod, R, is pulled embarrassment and public scepticism.2 On the night of 22 November 1875, while experimenting on an electrical vibrator for use in telegraphy, Edison and his associate, Charles Batchelor3, noticed sparks at S in Figure 2, a point at which no current should have been flowing (TAEB D665).4 Further investigation revealed sparks could also be drawn by touching metal objects to the vibrating bar R and that, when a wire was connected at X, meticulous approach to inventing complimented Edison s fountain of ideas and together they made an effective team. Edison recognised Batchelor s contribution by allocating him a significant proportion of the royalties from patents they worked on together.
4 TAEB citations refer to documents in the Edison Papers book edition. Documents in the book edition are
numbered consecutively across the volumes and it is the document number, rather than page number, that is used in these citations. For example, in the citation, (TAEB D678n3), TAEB indicates the Edison Papers book edition and D678n3 document number 679, note 5. Documents cited using this notation can be located from the following key:
sparks could be produced by touching it to other metal objects. In each instance sparks were observed in places where there should have been no electrical current flowing. Next they connected the wire to a gas pipe and found they could draw sparks throughout the room by touching metal objects to the gas jets. Most surprising, was that they could produce sparks by bending the wire into a loop and touching it back onto itself, a phenomenon that was impossible within the direct current and static electric theories of the period.
Although they had seen similar sparks often before and had previously attributed them to electrical induction, Batchelor commented that these sparks, seemed so strong that it struck us forcibly there might be something more than induction (TAED MBN002:4). Edison went further and declared on this surprising but limited evidence that, This is simply
wonderful & a good proof that the cause of the spark is a true unknown force (TAEB D665).
Encouraged by these surprising results and the belief that he had discovered a new force of nature, Edison immediately embarked on a comprehensive course of experiments. Some experiments focused on the apparatus itself, Edison altering the circuit and adding
components to it while observing the effect on the Etheric force sparks (TAEB D666‐D669). A second line of experiment sought to eliminate alternative explanations for the phenomenon. Edison noted that he could detect no current using his most sensitive galvanometer nor did it have any effect on an electroscope. In an attempt to eliminate electrical induction as an explanation, he removed the iron cores from the coils and found no difference. He even went to the extent of repeating Galvani s experiment, testing the spark s effect on the legs of recently killed frogs, again with no detectable effect (Beard 1876). Edison concluded that
these sparks or force . . . do not follow the laws of either voltaic or Static electricity (TAED NE1691:15).
Edison s largest group of tests were directed towards determining the effects of Etheric force sparks on a wide variety of metals, liquid solutions and powders (TAEB D666, D669, D673, D680). Edison had patented a number of inventions that exploited electrically initiated chemical reactions including a recording telegraph (Edison 1872). This group of experiments appears to have been directed to identifying effects that could be exploited in similar
Other experiments revealed more surprising properties of Etheric force sparks. On 30 November Edison found that by holding the gas pipe in one hand he could draw sparks from metal objects using a metal rod held in the other and concluded that Etheric force passed through his body (TAEB D673). In a similar test the same result was achieved with three people holding hands in a chain (TAED MBN002:6).
On 24 November, Edison connected the Etheric force apparatus to a telegraph line
running from his Newark, New Jersey, laboratory to New York, and back. When he found he could draw sparks from the return end of this line Edison concluded that, This force can be transmitted over long telegraph wires [and] may be transmitted over uninsulated iron wires buried in the earth for instance the sheathing of the Atlantic Cable (TAED NE1691:17). While it was possible that the Etheric force travelled from Newark to New York and back, Batchelor observed in his private notebook that, it might be that the force travels across the table instead of going out on the line (TAED MBN002:4). If Batchelor was correct and the signal crossed the table without a conducting medium, they had observed wireless communication.
A week after Edison first noticed the anomalous sparks, reports began appearing in the press, describing Etheric force as a, Wonderful Invention and, Startling Discovery , and repeating Edison s claim that it would lead to a new era in communication (TAEB D678n3, n5). The New York Herald quoted Edison s view that it would put an end to, The
cumbersome appliances of transmitting ordinary electricity, such as telegraph poles, insulating knobs, cable sheathings and repeating his claim that Etheric force was an entirely unknown force, subject to laws different from those of heat, light, electricity or
magnetism (TAEB D678).
While Edison s claims may have created a sensation in the popular press, the scientific community for the most part dismissed Etheric force as an induction effect and not a new force of nature.5 In contrast to the enthusiastic reaction Edison received in other newspapers,
5 For example, Edison wrote to George Barker, professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania who
New York Times reports of Etheric force were not just sceptical, they were derisive. The Times
parodied Edison s gas pipe demonstrations and drew unfavourable associations between Etheric force and Reichenbach s Odic force which the New York Times claimed was associated with such supernatural wonders such as clairvoyance. The article concluded with the ironic observation that Edison was wasting his time with gas pipes and should instead, begin the manufacture of ghosts and establish direct communication with the other world (New York Times 1875).
The views of those sceptical of Edison s Etheric force theory came to the notice of his principal client, The Western Union Telegraph Company (Western Union), with which Edison was negotiating finance for his plans for a new laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey. On 10 December Edison s agent, Norman Miller, wrote inviting him to a meeting with
Western Union s president, William Orton, and warning that The papers are so full of, new
force that I want you to show that it has not taken up too much of your time (TAEB D687). Edison appears to have succeeded in allaying these fears, and the contract was signed several days later (TAEB D891).
Edison heeded the warning and ceased Etheric force experiments for many months except for one on 26 December, 1875 the record of which began, an experiment tried tonight gives a curious result (TAED NE1691:29). Figure 3 is the sketch that accompanied the entry.
Figure 3 Sketch from Edison s laboratory notebook of the 26
December 1875 wireless transmission experiment (TAED NE1691:29).
separated by a small gap, used to observe Etheric force sparks. One side of the Etheriscope is earthed to a gas pipe, the other connected to a tinfoil sheet, E. Although B and E were 100 inches (2.5 m) apart and there was no wire or other conductor between them, Edison observed sparks at intervals although insulated by such space (TAED NE1691:29). What Edison observed was wireless transmission between B and E, confirming Batchelor s speculation of 24 November that Etheric force could travel through space without a conductor.
There are many examples of Edison developing such curious results into successful inventions and, in other circumstances, Edison might have developed the 26 December result into a patentable invention. This time however, the opposition of Western Union, meant that this experiment signalled the end of Edison s research rather than the beginning and
although he returned to Etheric force several times over the next few years, it was never with the enthusiasm he showed at the end of 1875.6
The Pho no g ra p h
Edison, like most others working on the telephone (but not Alexander Graham Bell), conceived it as an alternative to Morse Code for sending telegraph messages. On 17 July 1877, Edison noted that a transmission rate of 100 words per minute was possible with the telephone compared to only 25 words per minute by Morse code, concluding that there would be a bottleneck in the process caused by the slow speed at which the spoken message was transcribed (TAED NV12:8). What was needed was a means for recording the messages so they could be transcribed at a slower rate. The following day he made a brief laboratory notebook entry:
6 I do not suggest that opposition of Western Union and other experts was the only reasons for Edison not
pursuing Etheric force. Another significant impediment was his theoretical perspective of Etheric force which he repeatedly discusses as a form of conduction. Put simply, although Batchelor could conceive wireless
communication, Edison, as an expert on wired telegraphy, seems not to have given it credence, despite the existence of claims by others, including several patents (e.g. Loomis (1872)), to have achieved wireless
Just tried experiment with a diaphragm having an embossing point & held against parafin paper moving rapidly the new spkg7 vibrations are indented nicely & theres no doubt that I shall be able to store up & reproduce
automatically at any future time the human voice perfectly (TAEB D972).
Batchelor related the details of this initial experiment in testimony he gave in 1896. He said that Edison had been speaking into a telephone mouthpiece and feeling the vibrations of the diaphragm with his finger. (Since Edison was partially deaf, he sometimes resorted to feeling when he could not hear sounds.) After a while, Edison turned to Batchelor and said,
Batch, if we had a point on this we could make a record on some material which we could afterwards pull under the point, and it would give us the speech back (TAEB D972n4). Batchelor fitted a sharp point to the diaphragm of the telephone mouthpiece and mounted it on a grooved piece of wood such that a strip of paper coated in wax could be pulled under it.
Inte rlud e : Re p lic a ting Ed iso n's first Pho no g ra p h e xp e rime nt
While the Phonograph was being developed in the later part of 1877 it was no more than a peripheral activity for Edison, whose principal interest was in the telephone. As a result we have few contemporary records of his experimental work but in 1895‐96 Edison and
Batchelor gave detailed testimony in connection with patent infringement litigation8 (TAED QP001:5‐11, 47‐72). In this they recalled details of the first Phonograph experiment and, although no drawing has survived it has been possible to reconstruct it from Edison s and Batchelor s testimony (Figure 4).
7 spkg = speaking
Figure 4 Reconstruction of Edison s first Phonograph experiment (TAED QP001:63). The strips of waxed paper were cut from sheets
about 18 by 36 inches (about 0.45 by 0.9 m).
This is a remarkably crude instrument but with the results he achieved with it, Edison was able to assert that he would be able to store up & reproduce automatically at any future time the human voice perfectly . Using Edison s laboratory notebooks of the period and Edison s and Batchelor s testimony, I set out to replicate Edison s first experiment to assess what evidence it provided him.
Figure 5 Replication model of Edison s telephone mouthpiece with point attached to diaphragm.
Encouraged by this result which was achieved after about an hour of experimenting I then set out to build something like the device illustrated in Figure 4. Since Batchelor
Figure 6 Replication model of Edison s first paper tape Phonograph.
Figure 6 shows the device built. It consists of the diaphragm‐mouthpiece assembly in Figure 5 mounted above guides for the paper tape. The recording point presses into the waxed tape over a small platen. Whereas the hand held device produced results quickly, it took over 70 hours to produce a meaningful recording with this device. I will omit details of the variations tried but these included paraffin and beeswax, each in a range of thicknesses, several different shapes of recording points and a large number of drive arrangements. The biggest problems were finding the most appropriate combination of wax and recording point shape, a problem faced by Edison and discussed in detail in Edison s and Batchelor s
testimony. It was a process of building a considerable amount of know‐how relating to the device and specific knowledge like how to achieve the most appropriate thickness of wax on the tape. Eventually a poor quality recording was produced with a thick coating of beeswax, trimmed to a uniform thickness and pulled through the machine by hand (considerable effort is needed to cut the wax). The recorded sound can be heard at Wills (2011)9. This
9 The words recorded (Wills 2011) are barely intelligible. It may be helpful to know that the words recorded
recording is only marginally intelligible but knowing that the recorded words are on two three four helps. (As a point of comparison, what is claimed to be the oldest surviving cylinder recording (from 1878) can be heard at tinfoil.com (2011).)
Two points emerge from the replication of Edison s first experiment. The first is that the quality of the sound recorded by Edison was probably very poor and of marginal
intelligibility. The second point is that to produce this recording took me over 70 hours despite starting with details of what Edison and Batchelor built. Edison and Batchelor produced recorded sound at least as intelligible as this, in less than one night and with no precedent to work from. For me, it is a convincing demonstration of Edison s expertise as an inventor.
De ve lo p ing the Pho no g ra p h
Edison and Batchelor s testimony and contemporary laboratory notebooks reveal two interrelated strands in the development process that followed the first meagre recordings. Firstly, Edison sought a more effective recording medium, experimenting with a variations on his original waxed tape and other materials, notably metal foil. He also investigated alternative methods of making recordings including drawing with a thick ink, inscribing in soft metal, embossing thin metal foil and knocking down prepared ridges on paper tape (Figure 13) (TAED QP001:56 57). Edison and Batchelor recalled testing a wide range of waxes and recording point shapes, the problem being that the original wax tape recordings made by cutting the wax were plagued by the long wax shavings produced. By November 1877 Edison had settled on tinfoil as recording medium (Figure 11).
Figure 7 Edison s sketch of 12 August 1877 (TAEB D1004)10
Figure 8 Edison s first sketch of a cylinder Phonograph (TAEB D1062).
Figure 9 Edison s 1 November Phonograph sketch using wax coated paper tape (TAEB D1099).
10 This device is based on Edison s automatic telegraph. It may be this connection that led Batchelor to later
Figure 10 Edison s Phonograph sketch of 10 November 1878 (TAED TI2:366).
Figure 12 Edison sketch of 2 December showing cylinder, disk and paper Phonographs (TAEB D1137) (TAED NV17:21).
Figure 13 Detail from Edison s first Phonograph patent showing alternative recording mechanisms (Edison 1877). In Fig 4 the recording is made using a special high build ink and in Fig 3 by
pressing a thread into the surface.
At the beginning of December 1877, Edison had a demonstration model built of the Phonograph which used tinfoil wrapped around a grooved cylinder as recording medium, the recording being made by embossing the foil rather than cutting it as had been the case with his experiment. Edison s reaction to the first recording made with this device was one of surprise, and he later recalled, I didn t have much faith that it would work, expecting that I might possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea [but] . . . the machine reproduced perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my life (Edison quoted in Dyer and Martin 1910b, 208). A few days later, Edison and Batchelor took it to the offices of
editors office to hear it. In its next issue, Scientific American described how the machine had, 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 , the article s author adding that, No matter how familiar a person may be with modern machinery and its wonderful performances, or how clear in his mind the principle underlying this strange device may be, it is impossible to listen to the mechanical speech without his experiencing the idea that his senses are deceiving him (Scientific American 1877).
The Phonograph made Edison a national and international celebrity.11 Joseph Henry, who had described Edison as the most ingenious inventor (Israel 141), invited him to Washington to address National Academy of Sciences in April 1878. While in the capital, Edison also demonstrated the Phonograph to members of congress and diplomats, and to US President Hayes (Baldwin 2001, 96‐97). The Washington Post headed its report Genius before
science and described his presentation to the National Academy of Sciences as, a scene . . . that will live in history (Washington Post 1878). In London, the Evening Star, reported Edison s demonstration, referring to him as the modern magician (TAED MBSB1:171). The effect of the Phonograph on Edison s authority was substantial. Not only did it lead to him being described as a wizard and magician , but went some way to restoring his scientific credibility, damaged by his Etheric force claims. An outcome of the Washington visit was that Edison was invited to join a major scientific expedition to Wyoming in July 1878 to observe a solar eclipse.
Autho rity a nd inve ntio ns
Edison began work on both Etheric force and the Phonograph following the observation of a novel phenomenon. In each case he accompanied his laboratory records with claims about their significance that seem, in retrospect, rather optimistic, given the meagre evidence. Motivated by these claims, he followed the initial discoveries with a period of experimentation but it was these experimental phases that the two episodes diverged
11 The influence of Edison s inventions was pervasive, even to the classic gothic novel. Part of Bram Stoker s
because, while both involved experimental exploration of the phenomenon and development of artefacts, the mix of these experimental streams differed greatly.
Edison s Etheric force research in November and December 1875 concentrated on exploration of the phenomenon, that is, in acquiring the kind of knowledge that is often referred to as know‐how or a feel . One of Edison s early associates, Francis Jehl12
discussed Edison s acquisition of such knowledge in recounting the development of Edison s first electrical generators. Such knowledge enabled Edison to develop the electric generator in the absence of relevant theory, Jehl commenting that Edison knew then the modern principles of magnetism, long before they were formulated into the rules we use today (Jehl 1937, 141). Prior to the Etheric force episode, the approach had served Edison well, for example in 1873‐74, when he largely abandoned inventing to explore electrical induction phenomena. In so doing he acquired a deep understanding of the subject that he exploited in inventions such as the quadruplex telegraph (Edison 1874).
A consequence of Edison s emphasis on acquiring an understanding of the Etheric force phenomenon at the expense of developing an invention, was that the instrument he used on 26 December to generate Etheric force sparks was the one used in his first Etheric force experiment. Had he investigated the phenomenon in private as he did with induction in 1873‐74, this concentration on exploring phenomenon would have had little effect on his authority, but in 1875 Edison had made an ambitious public claim about a new scientific theory and the decision not to concentrate on an invention seriously impaired his ability to deal with attacks on his credibility and authority.
In contrast to his concentration on experiments exploring Etheric force, when Edison began work on the Phonograph two years later he concentrated on developing the artefact, spending little time on exploring the phenomenon. Instead Edison s experimental effort was directed to finding better combinations of materials and an effective mechanical
configuration. The result of this emphasis on the artefact was that when he announced the
12 Francis Jehl studied at Cooper Union and worked for Western Union before joining Edison. He played a
Phonograph to the press in December 1877, Edison had both a novel phenomenon and an artefact to demonstrate it with. While it was to be another decade before the Phonograph became a mass market device, the instrument that Edison demonstrated in 1877 and 1878, despite its technical limitations, could do what nothing had done before: it could record and reproduce sound.
When Edison made his Etheric force claim to the press, he had a novel, even astonishing, phenomenon to demonstrate, but no invention. This absence meant that it was possible to dispute Edison s Etheric force explanation in a way that was impossible with the
Phonograph. (The best that Phonograph doubters could do was to claim that Edison
produced the sounds by ventriloquism (Conot 1979, 109‐110).) Edison may have acquired a substantial knowledge of the Etheric force phenomenon through his experiments, but the lack of an invention meant he had nothing embodying this knowledge. For the hard financial heads at Western Union, the absence of an invention, especially an invention relevant to their telegraph business, meant that the publicity over Etheric force was, as the New York Times suggested, associated with such dubious concepts as clairvoyance, astral light and the Philosopher s stone (New York Times 1875).
Western Union did however, have good reason to acknowledge Edison s authority as the inventor of important improvements to telegraphy, inventions that increased the profitability of their business. On the basis of these inventions they were prepared, in December 1875, to finance Edison s Menlo Park laboratory in exchange for exclusive access to telegraph
We can only speculate in how different Western Union s view of Etheric force might have been had Edison developed the 26 December 1875 experiment a little13 and demonstrated that he could transmit signals without wires, but Western Union s opposition, in part, meant the invention, as a novel artefact, is evidence that its inventor possesses novel knowledge.14 In the case of a professional inventor like Edison who produced many inventions, the
Daily Graphicʹs William Croffut and Heraldʹs Edwin Fox. There they witnessed Edison s latest
13 In December 1875, Edison s most effective critics in the American scientific community, Edwin Houston
creations and were told of his plans for future inventions, the journalists duly reporting what they heard and saw to an eager audience. It was after one such visit that Croffut (1878) named Edison the Wizard of Menlo Park, a title that stayed with him long after Menlo Park was abandoned. In hindsight, many of the planned inventions he described to these visitors appear quite fanciful15, but Edison had only to produce the occasional successful remarkable invention, like the Phonograph and electric lighting, to maintain his credibility.
1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Articles (% maximum) Patents (% maximum)
prolific as an inventor (106 patents) yet the New York Times largely ignored him, his name
15 In 1878, for example, it was reported that Edison had invented a machine that would manufacture biscuit,
appearing in only 14 articles. In 1915, by contrast, Edison applied for only two patents but the New York Times mentioned him in 206 articles. By 1875 Western Union was convinced of Edison s authority as an inventor (and their ability to curb his excursions into supernatural wonders ), agreeing to finance Menlo Park on the expectation of valuable telegraph
inventions flowing from it. The New York Times was far from convinced in 1875, mentioning him in only three articles, two in connection with the quadruplex litigation, the third being its derisive article on Etheric force.
The New York Times however, remained unconvinced and continued to publish articles treating Edison as a figure of fun rather than authority. When rumours began to appear of Edison s work on the Phonograph, but before he had demonstrated it, the New York Times lampooned the idea, suggesting that its owners would bore their acquaintances by playing vintage recordings and predicted that both book‐making and reading will fall into disuse (New York Times 1877). In 1878 it continued to scoff, beginning an article on several of Edison s inventions, Something ought to be done to Mr Edison, and there is a growing conviction that it had better be done with a hemp rope (New York Times 1878). Even when he had inventions to demonstrate, Times journalists remained negative but shifted tack. In 1880, a few days after Edison s demonstration of Menlo Park lit by electricity, an event that other newspapers hailed as a remarkable achievement, a New York Times article cast doubts on his ability to do the same on a commercial scale (New York Times 1880). But by 1882, the
New York Times was also persuaded to the point that the Times building being in the first
group connected to first generating station on 4 September 1882, the newspaper conceded that the Edison electric light has proved in every way satisfactory (New York Times 1882).
Once established, Edison s authority did not decline, even though his inventive ability did. Edison s inventive peak occurred in the 1880s and after 1910 diminished to near zero, although he continued to work at inventing until the year of his death. Despite this, Edison s authority was such that in 1915, as America approached World War I, US Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels chose him to head the Naval Consulting Board, charged with
men like himself. Although Edison made some inventive contributions personally, the
Board was essentially a failure. Edison s authority had surpassed his ability.
This highlights an aspect of authority that is perhaps more generally applicable: once established, authority tends to become frozen in the sense that critical assessment is inhibited, so that when Edison was at his inventive peak they New York Times was most sceptical but not in 1915, when he was well past his prime and scepticism would have been who had contact with them. The Phonograph, at least to the New York Times, was a thing of jest before Edison demonstrated it, but those to who experienced it later, it was a something to be marvelled at. While these were significant inventions, few people had contact with them, other than through newspaper reports. In contrast, the inventions that emerged from Edison s laboratory in the 1880s, notably electric lighting, the Phonograph and motion pictures, touched the lives of many. As the New York Times observed on Edison s death, He did more than any one man to put luxury into the lives of the masses (New York Times 1931c). This contact with inventions suggests that the paradox in New York Times reporting of Edison (that it did not begin to rise until after 1890) reflects the rise in Edison s authority among New York Times readers and journalists through their personal contact with his inventions, rather than a change in attitude by the Times itself.
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BeesWaxthickUniform0401‐2‐3‐4.mp3.
