The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-10-29
BY WILLIS ]. BALLINGER,
As Told by william Joseph Hammer Life
long Friend Of Edison.


BY WILLIS j. BALLINGER,
As Told by william Joseph Hammer, Life
long Friend Of Edison.
Copyright, 1881. EEA Service. Incl
One night at Menlo Park, light
was born into the world-real light.
Ended was the annoying tyranny Of
the fluttering wick and the danger
from fire Of the suffering gas lamp.
But the nativity of incandescence
as disable light was unattended by
any solemn wise men.
It was 1880. And on the memoir
able night the hands OF the clock
pointed somewhere between 10 and
IL. A worker mounted the steps of
the laboratory three at time.
His name was William Joseph
Hammer and in his hand he tightly
clutched a small lamp. Searching
out Edison on the floor he sped to
his side with the momentous news.
The word spread like wildfre~an
incandescent lamp actually had
burned 1889 hours undipinished!
Mechanics from the shops dropped
their tools and hurried to the lab
oratory. Then began triumphant
procession.
Sensed Drama Instinctively
At the, head walked Hammer,
holding aloft the mother of rays
that were to light globe. BY his
side marched Edison, his face ra-
diant.
In serpentine style, the marchers
swept around the laboratory tables,
started downstairs, wove in and out
of the buildings.
They sang. They cheered. They
yelled themselves hoarse. They
clapped one another on the back.
Instinctively they senSed drama. A
religion of incandescence had been
founded. Sleeping millions, count
less of the unborn, were to embrace
its rayful ritual.
The incandescent lamp undoubt-
edly was Edisons greatest BRAIN
child But he did not regard it so.
He always maintained that his pre-
mier accomplishment was his great
Jumbo dynamo. And his favorite
invention was the monograph.
Not Lamps Inventor
Now Edison was not the inventor
of the incandescent lamp. Many
people have claimed that he was
But Edison himself never acknowl-
edged it.
What he did was to make the first
incandescent lamp disable for COM
imercial purposes. He was the father
of the commercial incandescent
lamp.
Many people put the origin of the
Edison incandescent lamp on Oct.
81, 1879. But that was not the lamp
That lamp never could have been
us.d for commercial purposes. Edi-
son merely had made a few i'm
provements on early efforts in that
lamp.
1t was not until 1880 that the
real product was turned out. The
lamp of 1879 burned only forty
hours. 1t stood only a feeble can
dlepower charge. 1t contained plat
mum and that metal was more
costly than gold.
All HOpeIessIy Inefficient
Edison had to discover how to
extend the life of a bulb many
fold longer, how to substitute for
platinum in the conducting of the
current and how to increase the
candlepower so that more light
could be given off.
Up to the first commercial lamp
of Edison, the world had relied on
kerosene, candles, gas, whale oil and
arc lights. All were hopelessly in
efficient as compared with the in
candescent light.
electric lights in existence long be-
fore Edison began work on his in
candescent lamp, but incandescence
was nothing new.
Major Hammer spent thirty-four
years collecting the history of the
incandeScent lamp. He sold his col
lection for $4,000 to the General
Electric Company, which presented
it to the Edison Illuminating Asso-
citation. When Edison heard about
the terms of the sale he rernon-
Strated:
You can't sell that for $4,000.
Why it's worth a good deal more
than that"
Worth Over Million