Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-18

in Louisville and Memphis. He was
then II and a living refutation of the
old saying, 1.-The clothes make the man."
for he had put all his money into his
experiments.
Repeater Is Perfected.
While working at Memphis he per-
fected his repeater and by its use was
the first operator to bring New Orleans
into direct communication with New
York But he lost his job because OF
jealousy on the part of the Office man.
ager. He walked back to Louisville and
got his old job, which he retained for
two years. Then he lost that when he
tipped over bottle of chemical in the
course of an experiment. The fluid
trickled through the floor and ruined
the carpet on the floor of the managers
Office.
~Working as an operator in several
other cities, Edison finally landed in the
Western Union Office at Boston. BY
that time he had established himself
as clever operator and had won a
reputation for one of the cleanest
hands" in the business. In Boston he
set up a small workshop, where he con-
tinued experimenting on a duplex sys-
tenn of telegraphy. After the rejection
of his vote-recording machine, on which
he took out his first patent, he went
to New York in 1869. Shortly after
ward he was in the operating room of
seeking employment when the cir
cult, over which fluctuations in gold
prices were sent to several hundred
brokers' offices. broke down. Edison
volunteered to chase" the trouble, rec
titled it and Immediately was hired as
superintendent at $500 month.
He set about to improve the tickers
then in use and brought out new inven-
tions, among which was the Universal
stock ticker In less than year he re-
ceived $4,000. the first money from his
plant at Newark, N. j., to fulfill con-
tract with the Western Union, which
had taken an option on his patents.
Established Laboratory.
For six years the factory continued
! to turn out tickers while Edison applied
himself to the perfection of many tele-
graphic inventions, including the auto
matte, duplex, quadruplex, sextuplex
and multipleX systems, the development
of which saved the investment of mil
lions of dollars in wires. Concluding
| that the manufacturing business was
| interfering with his inventing, he gave
| up the factory and established his first
! laboratory at Menlo Park in 1876.
| The year before Edison had discov-
cred the previously unknown and
unique electric phenomena which he
= called "etheric force" later recognized
as due to electric waves in free space
and which became the foundation OF
wireless biography.
| When he was able to work on his IN
ventions unhampered. Edison produced
them rapidly. In his first two years at
Menlo Park he brought out the carbon
| telephone transmitter, which made
telephony a commercial art and in
cluded the microphone, which makes
radio possible.
The favorite OF Edisons early inven-
lions was the photograph, which he
produced in 1877. When he heard his
| first crude contrivance repeat after him
the verse about "Mary's Little Lamb, "
he remarked that it seemed even to
I him almost supernatural" 1t was not
many years after that the inventor saw
| his prediction come true, that the talk
| ing machine would be as familiar in as
many thousand Of homes as was the
piano at that time.
In the Summer of 1873, Edison &C
companied an astronomical party to
| Rawlins, Wyo., to test his microtasi-
upon his return began working on the
electric light problem. Up to that time
the electric light was known only in
the form of the powerful arc light to
illuminate streets. His problem was to
make it a practical illumination for the
home.
He worked steadily until October,
1879, when by carboniZing an ordinary
piece of thread for filament he pro-
;,,o
which, when put into a circuit. main
tanned its incandescence for more than
40 hours In two months the thing
was so perfected that the first public
demonstration of the lamps. 700 in
number. was given at Menlo Park on
the night of December 81. 1879. and
attracted hundreds of people. In less
than two years the first factory for
manufacturing the lamps was estab-
lished. The popularity Of the new form
of illumination was instantaneous and
millions Of incandescent lamps the
! world over.
Improved on Dynamos.
With that success, Edison continued
his work in the electrical field and in
vented radical Improvements in the
construction OF dynamoS, making them
suitable for generators for systems OF
distribution, regulation and measure
ment Of electric current. He also pro-
duced sockets, switches and various
other Appliances and improvements in
systems that enabled the Introduction
commercially of electric light, heat and
power.
Between 1880 and 1887, in the
development, improvement and exploit
tation of these systems, Edison TOOK out
upwards of 300 patents. many of which
became of fundamental Importance In
other branches of the electrical in
dustry, including the electric railway.
In the same years he worked on
system of wireless telegraphy (by in
or between moving trains and railway
stations, which was installed In 1887
on the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
In the latter year, Edison moved his
laboratory to West Orange, N. j., where
he began new era of invention and
in four years took out more than 30
patents. Some of these were improve
ments on things he had previously
evolved, while others were new machines
and devices. including the motion pic
ture camera. Meanwhile, he embarked
on an extensive scale in the manufac-
ture and sale of monographs and
records and debating machines.
For the first decade of the twentieth
century Edison worked on the produce
ton of the Edison Alkaline storage bat
terry. made numerous inventions relating
to the methods and process of produc-
ing Portland cement, improved his
photograph and introduced his Univer-
sal motor for operating debating ma
chimes. In 1912 he brought out the
kinetophcne. or talking motion picture,
and by 1914 had perfected after four
years work his disk phonograph, which
commenced a new era in talking ma
chimes.
1t was in that year that Edison turned
his attention to synthetic chemistry,
first to overcome the handicap caused