Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1915-11-15
STORY OF HOW EDISON INVENTED
THE FIRST ELECTRIC LAMP
Thirty-Six Years Ago, October 21st Edison An
nounced the First Successful 1ncandescent
Lamp.

the way with Edison. when he starts
anything he stays with it, night and
day, until the thing is accomplished.
AT this time Edison maintained
small laboratory at Menlo Park, N. j.,
not far from New York City. This
laboratory was we'll equipped for those
days. Everything within Edison's
means was provided for his expert
ments and research. A trained staff OF
able assistants helped with the vari-
Gus experimental tasks and problems.
1t was always busy place, more OF
community school than a Workshop.
where hours and wages were forgot
ten in the great joy of accomplishing
great things. When Edison and his
assistants took up the problem of the
new lamp, work went on necessarily.
Edison's wonderful enthusiasm seemed
to be contagious and the work went on
night and day. To go to sleep was
nothing less than treason. to eat was a
concession to mere human weakness.
A thousand experiments proved that
a certain material was necessary for
the lamp filaments. a material which
could be readily carbonized, which
would last reasonable length of time
in service. and which offered enough
resistance to the current to be heated
to incandescence by the passage of the
current. These experiments consisted
of placing bits of carboniZed material
in a glass bulb, then exhausting the
air from the bulb so the filament would
not be consumed by the air inside.
Thon no electric cnFrpnf semi
through the carbon. Sometimes the
material merely flashed into light for a
second or two. Sometimes they lasted
longer. but always they fell apart be-
fore the test was finished. Edison
CarboniZed bits of paper, linen and
cotton threads, fibers, and a thousand
and one other things. He tried hairs
of various kinds. including the red
whiskers of one of his assistants. At
last, by chance. so the story goes, he
picked up a palm leaf fan and stripped
off bit of the fiber. This he carbon
lied and placed in the bulb. When the
current was turned on the lamp gloweo
with strong light. Exhaustive tests
prived that the incandescent lamp was
discovered.
There are in this world many differ
ent varieties of bamboo. Edison did
not know how many, nor did he care.
He had discovered that bamboo was
what he wanted for the filaments of his
new lamps so he dispatched trusted
men to all parts of the tropical world
to collect specimens of bamboo ana
forward them to his laboratory. At
I,c ,f, no 10 iSIa nIs
of the South Seas, the right kind Of
bamboo was located and Edison began
the manufacture Of electric lamps.
Edison's famous exhibition Of his
complete electric lighting system, when
the laboratory grounds were illumi-
mated by seven hundred lamps, took:
place late in December. 1879. and at
tracted prominent visitors from all
over the country. The lamp itself
was but small part of the inventive
work necessary to develop the new
electric lighting systems. 1t was also
necessary to devise and develop wiring
systems, insulation materials, sockets,
fixtures, measuring instruments and a
host of things necessary for the new
work. More than all this, it was quite
necessary to devise the special ma
chinery required to insulate the wires,
to make the porcelain parts of the wir-
ing devices, to stamp out and make the
sockets, fixtures and everything else.
The growth of electric lighting after
1880 was very rapid. Lamp costs We're
materially reduced. In 1891 the Gel
lulose or squirt process of making
lamp filaments was introduced and af-
ter 1893 electric lamp filaments o.
bamboo were no longer made. Expert
ments with filaments of rare metals
began in 1898 but it was not until the
metal tantalum was tried out in a
German laboratory in 1901 that the
possibilities of the unknown metals be-
came apparent. A few years later the
first tantalum lamps were made and
were almost as quickly superseded by
the tungsten. lamp which proved even
more economical. The first pressed
filament tungsten lamp was announced
in 1907. Since then the greatest i'm
provements and discoveries in in
candescent lighting have been pro-
duced in the laboratories Of the Cen
eral Electric Company at Schenectady,
n. Y, where ductile tungsten was first
produced and where the gas -filled
tungsten Mazda lamps were given to
the world.