Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/417

 EDISON

EDISON

thus lost the use of his improvised laboratory. He soon afterward obtained the monopoly of the news business on the Grand Trunk railway and employed several boys to act as assistants. Dur- ing this time he took every occasion to watch the operations of the telegraph at the various sta- tions and soon constructed a telegi'aph between his father's house in Port Huron and that of a neighbor. He was rewarded for his bravery in rescuing the child of a telegrai^h operator from the track in front of a moving train, by lessons on the keyboard, and he gave up the news busi- ness to become an itinerant telegrapher. He worked in the various larger cities of the United States and Canada, meanwhile devoting himself to the study of electrical science, then little un- derstood. At this time he invented, while work- ing in New Orleans, La., the automatic repeater, and in 1864 he conceived the idea which he afterward perfected of the system of dviplex and vibratory telegrapliy. While in Boston, Mass., operating the New York wire, he continued liis experiments, but not till 1872, after he had been in New York city for one year, did he put his duplex telegraph in practical operation. He was made superintendent of the Gold & Stock telegraph company through an incident demon- strating his skill. He wandei'ed, a stranger, into the operating room of the company and readily repaired the apparatvis with which they sent out stock quotations, thus securing his position. He afterward invented the printing telegraph for stock quotations and sold his patent to the com- pany for $40,000. He manufactured his instru- ments in Newark, N.J., till 1876, meanwhile making about fifty separate inventions and im- provements in telegraphic communication. He then removed his works and laboratory to Menlo Park, N.J., devoting his whole time to scientific research, especially to the perfection of his in- candescent light, to electric motors for street cars and to the construction of the telephone, experi- ments with which led to the invention of the phonograph. He exhibited his first phonograph

at the Paris exposition of 1878 and af- terward sold his patent for §1,000,000. At Paris in 1881 his electrical display included lighting by incandescent lamps, the disc dynamo-electric machine, the microtosi- meter, the oderscope and the electro- monograph. He made a similar display at the Crystal Palace, London, and in various exhibi- tions in America. Having outgrown the labora- tory at Menlo Park, he removed in 1885 to Llewellyn Park, N.J., where he erected an ex-

tensive private laboratory, the largest in the world. He organized manufacturing plants at Harrison, N.J., Schenectady, N.Y., Sherbrooke, Conn., and lesser ones at other points where he manufactured lamps, motors, dynamos, tele- phones, etc. In 1889 the Edison general electric company was formed with a capital stock of §12,000,000, controlling the Edison patents. In 1889 he expended over §100,000 in preparing his exhibit at the Paris ex- position and at its close he was created a com- mander of the Legion of honor. Union college conferred upon him the honorary degree of Ph.D. in 1887. His principal inventions include : The tf'so^snRSTLAMP.

duplex and quadruplex telegraph, sending various messages in opposite directions over the same wire, which he sold to the Western Union telegraph company for §30,- 000, and which the company reported had up to 1879 saved them over §14,000,000; the quadruple autographic, harmonic, multiplex, automatic and phonoplex telegraphs; telegraphing from moving trains without the use of a special wire; the carbon rheostat ; the pi'essure or carbon relay ; the Edison dynamo ; the pyro-magnetic motor ; the l^yro-magnetic generator; the simeter; the odo- roscope; the Edison microphone; the incan- descent lamp; the Edison meter; the -weight volt-meter ; the Edison electric pen ; the Edison mimeograph ; the Edison vote recorder ; the mag- netic ore- separator ; the magnetic bridge; the dead-beat galvanometer; the pho'nometer; the Edison-Sims torpedo boat; the phonograph; tele- phone transmitters ; the electro -motograph ; the motograph receiver; the telephnograph ; the magnaphone; the check battery; the kineto- scope; the vitoscope, and the fluorescope. On the lists in the patent office at Washington in 1895, 600 inventions were credited to his name. He had to defend his patents in innumerable law- suits and injunctions and only succeeded in sus- taining his patent for the incandescent light by the favorable decision of the U.S. supreme court handed down, Nov 11, 1895. In 1896 he publicly declared that he would have been at least §600,- 000 better off if he had never taken out a patent or defended one, and that all the money he ever made was made by manufacturing his inventions or in their practical use. In 1896 he established in the village of Edison, N.J., in the very centre of an iron deposit sufficient to supply the needs of the United States for half a century, a plant