The Wizard of Menlo Park (42 page)

Johnson also protested:
PTAE,
4:408n12.

“Investigators have rights”:
“The Rights of Investigators,”
Scientific American,
31 August 1878,
PTAED,
SB032035a.

obtaining permission to ride:
TAE reminiscence, “First Batch,” n.d.,
PTAE,
4:858.

After the eclipse:
Ibid.

When the two men:
TAE reminiscence, “Book No. 1,”
PTAE,
4:857.

Edison did not fully appreciate:
Ibid., 4:856.

he and his wife did not correspond:
I am mindful of the old adage “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” and know that, theoretically, the two could have corresponded and the letters subsequently lost or destroyed. Based on the documentary record, this seems most unlikely.

Mrs. E’s health is not:
Stockton Griffin to TAE, 5 August 1878,
PTAED,
D7802ZUQ.

Barker formally presented Edison:
“Science at St. Louis,”
New York Daily Herald,
24 August 1878,
PTAED,
SB032055c.

“The people”:
“Edison’s Trip and Inventions.”

His trip had been “bang-up”:
“Tom Edison Back Again,”
NYW,
27 August 1878,
PTAED,
SB032075a.

read a letter from an inventor:
“Tom Edison Back Again.”

He returned with lots of dazzling ideas:
“Four Hours with Edison,”
NYS,
29 August 1878.

“Did you get”:
“Tom Edison Back Again.”

It was also the very day:
Laboratory notebook, 27 August 1878,
PTAED,
NV16006.

CHAPTER 4. GETTING AHEAD

In 1808, Humphry Davy:
Friedel and Israel,
Edison’s Electric Light,
7.

An experimental installation:
Wolfgang Schivelbusch,
Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 55.

Robert Louis Stevenson:
Quoted in Al Parsons,
Lightning in the Sun: A History of Florida Power Corporation, 1899–1974
(St. Petersburg, Fla.: Florida Power Corporation, 1974), 33.

When an inventor:
Mel Gorman, “Charles F. Brush and the First Public Electric Street Lighting System in America,”
Ohio Historical Quarterly,
April 1961, 133–134.

The
New York Times
described:
“The Electric Light,”
NYT,
22 April 1878.

J. W. Starr:
Friedel and Israel,
Edison’s Electric Light,
8. Friedel and Israel point out that Starr’s inventions simply were not practical. Then again, I would add, neither were Edison’s first attempts at designing a practical bulb.

on his trip out west:
Ibid., 4.

a curiously ghoulish thought:
“A Great Triumph,”
New York Mall,
10 September 1878,
PTAED,
SB032119a. The original article appeared in the
New York Sun.
The
Mall
reprinted it the same day, and it was the clipping from the
Mall
that Batchelor preserved in his scrapbook.

Mr. Edison was enraptured:
Ibid. The excitement of the visitor brings to mind Apple’s Steve Jobs’s storied visit to Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center in 1979, when he glimpsed the first personal computers with software featuring Windows and guided by mice. Five years later, Apple introduced the Macintosh. In the view of Xerox PARC’s later regretful director, George Pake, the significance of the visit was that it convinced Jobs that such a computer was “doable.” Pake likened it to the Soviets’ building of their first atomic bomb: “They developed it very quickly once they knew it was doable.” See Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander,
Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer
(New York: William Morrow, 1988), 242.

“so simple”:
“Edison’s Electric Light,”
NYS,
20 October 1878,
PTAED,
MBSB20963.

he recorded his excitement:
Laboratory pocket notebook, 1 January 1871,
PTAED,
NP002A1.

set a far more ambitious goal:
William H. Bishop, “A Night with Edison,”
Scribner’s,
November 1878, 99.

“I don’t care”:
“Mr. Edison’s Use of Electricity,”
New York Tribune,
28 September 1878,
PTAED,
SB032142a.

On the following Saturday:
“Edison’s Newest Marvel,”
NYS,
16 September 1878,
PTAED,
SB032123a.

He wrote Theodore Puskas:
TAE to Theodore Puskas, 22 September 1878,
PTAED,
D7802ZZBL.

When Edison missed a meeting:
Stockton Griffin to Grosvenor Lowrey, 24 September 1878,
PTAED,
D7820K.

When Lowrey tried again:
TAE to Grosvenor Lowrey, 26 September 1878,
PTAED,
D7820N.

Drawing on his experience:
Friedel and Israel,
Edison’s Electric Light,
23.

He had not yet succeeded:
Charles Bazerman,
The Languages of Edison’s Light
(Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1999), 161.

He cabled George Gouraud:
TAE to George Gouraud, draft of cable, 8 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7821G.

“panic in gas shares”:
George Gouraud to TAE, cable, 7 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7821F.

Gouraud wished:
George Gouraud to TAE, 16 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7802ZZFC.

The British equivalent:
George Gouraud to TAE, 24 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7821U.

When the
New York Herald
arrived:
“Edison’s Electric Light,”
NYH,
12 October 1878,
PTAED,
MBSB20949.

Running the sham demonstration:
“Edison’s New Light,”
NYDG,
21 October 1878,
PTAED,
MBSB20960.

reporter from a third newspaper:
“Edison’s Electric Light,”
NYH,
12 October 1878,
PTAED,
MBSB20949.

For another newspaper:
“Edison’s Electric Light,”
NYS.

The time sheets from his laboratory:
PTAE,
4:567n1.

The exhibition model’s best month:
PTAE,
4:572n1.

netting Edison a commission:
Charles Bailey to TAE, 8 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7831C.

The treasurer:
Charles Bailey to TAE, 8 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7831C.

A couple of months later:
“Two Hours at Menlo Park,”
NYDG,
28 December 1878,
PTAED,
MBSB21091.

William Vanderbilt and his friends:
TAE to Theodore Puskas, 5 October 1878,
PTAE,
4:562.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century:
Schivelbusch,
Disenchanted Night,
51.

It was also expensive:
Thomas J. Schlereth,
Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life
(New York: HarperPerennial, 1992), 114.

The
New York Times:
“Gas Stocks and Light,”
NYT,
27 October 1878.

Edison credited the gas monopoly:
“Edison’s Electric Light,”
NYS.

The
Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Revenge Is Sweet,”
Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
1 December 1878,
PTAED,
MBSB21072X.

An “enormous abandonment”:
“Gas Stocks and Light,”
NYT,
27 October 1878.

The previous month:
Gorman, “Charles F. Brush,” 135–136.

William Sharon:
Charles M. Coleman,
P.G. & E. of California: The Centennial Story of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, 1852–1952
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952), 55.

The gas-industry conventioneers:
“Gas Men in Council,”
NYT,
19 October 1878.

Speakers at the gas-industry convention:
Ibid.

Edison had sent Charles Batchelor:
“Edison’s New Light,”
NYDG.

One independent observer:
[Albert Salomon von Rothschild] to August Belmont, 25 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7821ZAW.

He blamed his reticence:
Lemuel Serrell to TAE, 16 December 1878,
PTAED,
D7828ZFB. The phrase “than they are worth” was crossed out in the letter, but is restored here, as Serrell left it in perfectly legible form.

Not so easily put off:
George Barker to TAE, 23 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7819ZAT.

had not yet signed:
Barker wrote Edison on 23 October 1878, but Edison did not sign his agreement with the company until 15 November.

“Positively No Admittance”:
“Edison’s New Light,”
NYDG.

Professor Barker would not be denied:
George Barker to TAE, 23 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7819ZAT.

In the event:
George Barker to TAE, 22 November 1878,
PTAED,
D7819ZCJ.

publicly covered for him:
PTAED,
4:726n5.

privately indulged with Edison:
George Barker to TAE, 22 November 1878,
PTAED,
D7819ZCJ.

The press was fascinated:
“Edison’s Electric Light,”
NYS.

Talking at such length:
Edwin Fox to TAE, 20 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7805ZDW.

write two volumes of bestselling memoirs:
Ulysses S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
(New York: C. J. Webster, 1885–1886).

Days after he wrote this:
Edwin Fox to TAE, 5 November 1878,
PTAED,
D7805ZEG.

A speed record in sycophancy:
“Edison’s Baby,”
NYT,
27 October 1878. The story suggested that the two hours of struggle over being dressed may have been masculine reaction to effeminate attire—“the daintiest muslin, with ruffles and furbelows, such as only a mother’s fancy can imagine.”

Without being privy:
George Barker to TAE, 3 November 1878,
PTAED,
D7802ZZJD.

Edison had a different theory:
“Two Hours at Menlo Park.” The article does not mention that he was hurt by arc lights, but only arc lights could produce the intense light described here, and it is known from other sources that Edison rigged up arc lights for experimental purposes in the laboratory at this time. See Friedel and Israel,
Edison’s Electric Light,
48–49.

Now claims to have solved:
R. G. Dun & Co. Credit Report, 10 December 1878,
PTAE,
4:773.

When R. G. Dun wrote him:
R. G. Dun & Co. to TAE, 4 February 1881,
PTAED,
D8123E.

He left negotiations:
TAE to Grosvenor P. Lowrey, 3 October 1878,
PTAED,
LB003390.

Lowrey, in turn:
Grosvenor P. Lowrey to Hamilton Twombly, 1 October 1878,
PTAED,
D7820ZAC. The lead investors in the Edison Electric Light Company included Twombly (whose father-in-law was William Vanderbilt), Tracy Edson, Norvin Green, and James Banker, associated with Western Union; Robert Cutting Jr., a law partner of Lowrey’s; and Egisto Fabbri, representing the interests of Drexel, Morgan. The incorporation papers were filed on 16 October 1878 and are found in
PTAED,
QD012B0208.

On 15 November:
Edison Electric Light Company and TAE, Agreement, 15 November 1878,
PTAED,
HM780053.

A few days later:
Grosvenor Lowrey to TAE, 25 November 1878,
PTAED,
D7820ZCA.

Lowrey again labored:
Grosvenor Lowrey to TAE, 10 December 1878,
PTAED,
D7821ZBR.

In a matter of just a few weeks:
Grosvenor Lowrey to TAE, 23 December 1878,
PTAED,
D7820ZDI.

In his telling:
“Invention by Accident,”
NYW,
17 November 1878,
PTAED,
MBSB21019X.

“I have begun”:
“Two Hours at Menlo Park.”

In January 1879:
Calvin Goddard to TAE, 22 January 1879,
PTAED,
D7920M.

Not having heard:
William Croffut to TAE, 3 February 1879,
PTAED,
D7920W.

note that Fox sent to Edison:
Edwin Fox to TAE, 26 January 1879,
PTAED,
D7920R.

Francis Upton, a twenty-six-year-old physicist:
PTAE,
5:141n1.

at Princeton:
Upton studied at Princeton’s Green School of Science from 1875 to 1877, becoming the first student to receive an M.S. from Princeton. The university archives do not have information about his thesis, or whether one was submitted.

in the Astor Library:
Francis Upton to Charles Farley, 29 December 1878,
PTAED,
MU005.

In November 1878:
Francis Upton to Charles Farley, 22 November 1878,
PTAED,
MU002. Accepting the offer to move to Menlo Park meant Upton could not return to Germany to resume his postgraduate studies. Life in Germany would have been “extremely pleasant,” he wrote his mother, but “there I would only learn how to spend money. Here I will learn how to earn it.” Francis Upton to Lucy Upton, 7 November 1878,
PTAED,
MU001.

Upon arrival in Menlo Park:
“Two Hours at Menlo Park.” Edison referred in a latter to working with “6 experimental assistants.” TAE to Theodore Puskas, 3 January 1879,
PTAED,
LB004079. Upton arrived on 13 or 14 December, and two weeks later was “learning how to sleep daytimes.” Francis Upton to Charles Farley, 29 December 1878,
PTAED,
MU005.

When a tornado:
“The Electric Light,”
NYH,
11 December 1878,
PTAED,
MBSB21048X.

when Edison was coming to the realization:
Friedel and Israel,
Edison’s Electric Light,
51.

Even when he decided:
Grosvenor Lowrey to TAE, 25 January 1879,
PTAED,
D7920Q.

The investors did stand by the inventor:
Francis Upton to Elijah Upton, 23 February 1879,
PTAED,
MU007.