January–February 1878
As the new year began, Edison was busy exhibiting and experimenting with the two inventions that had emerged from the Menlo Park laboratory at the end of 1877—the phonograph and the carbon telephone transmitter. The effort to develop these inventions into commercial products would remain the focus of Edison’s attention during the first half of 1878.
During the first few days of the year, Edison exhibited a new phonograph (his second cylinder design) at Western Union headquarters in New York City. With the appearance of the first newspaper reports about the machine and its inventor, this marvel also began to excite public interest. Edison had begun making commercial arrangements even before the wider public knew of the phonograph. At the end of December, Hungarian entrepreneur Theodore Puskas acquired European rights, and Uriah Painter and Edward Johnson began to negotiate for American rights on behalf of Gardiner Hubbard and the Bell telephone interests.1 These latter negotiations produced an agreement at the end of January that led to the creation of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. Among those connected with the new company was Hilborne Roosevelt, a noted organ manufacturer, who provided one of his instruments for Edison to use in his acoustic experiments at the Menlo Park laboratory.
While Edison negotiated with Hubbard (through Painter) regarding American rights to the phonograph, James James, whom Edison had first met a year earlier, negotiated two other agreements for the use of the phonograph (in toys and in speaking clocks) which were completed on 7 January. The speaking clocks were to be made by the Ansonia Clock Company, Page 4 and on 29 January, Edison and Charles Batchelor visited the company’s works in Ansonia, Connecticut, where they conducted the first experiments on clock phonographs.
As the Western Union phonograph exhibition came to an end, Edison decided to add a flywheel so that the cylinder would rotate more uniformly. He set Batchelor to work on the new design. By the end of January, Theodore Puskas had taken one of the new flywheel phonographs to exhibit in London and Paris, and Edison had agreed to give another to the Stevens Institute in Hoboken, New Jersey, so that Professor Alfred Mayer could conduct experiments with it. Edison and Batchelor meanwhile experimented with a third instrument at the Menlo Park laboratory.
Even with a flywheel, uniform rotation of the cylinder remained a problem. To overcome it, Edison experimented with both clockwork and steam-driven cylinder phonographs. However, regardless of the power supply, it was almost impossible to put a tinfoil recording back in the proper position for replaying once it was removed from the cylinder. He therefore planned that his standard, commercial machine would record in a spiral on a disk of tin foil, much like later phonograph disks. The foil was to be held in a frame like the one in his telegraph recorder/repeater (Doc. 857). Edison and Batchelor also experimented with various diaphragms, styluses, and other elements of the phonograph, and at the end of February, Edison summarized much of his phonograph research in a patent caveat.
While Edison was working to develop a commercial machine, he also designed a small instrument (Doc. 1195) for illustrating the principle of the phonograph. Theodore Puskas planned to offer several hundred for sale in connection with the Paris Universal Exposition, scheduled to open on 1 May, and the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company also expressed interest in this instrument. During the first two months of 1878, Edward Johnson was busy promoting the new invention through a series of lectures that included his demonstration of Edison’s carbon transmitter and musical telephone.
Competition for a practical telephone was heating up in early 1878. The Bell instruments were already being used on hundreds of private lines, and the company was establishing central exchanges in several cities. Although the Bell telephone transmitted a clearly intelligible voice, the sound was quite weak. In cities, where as many as two hundred wires might be strung on a single pole, inductive interference Page 5 (“cross-talk”) overwhelmed the signal, and it was too weak for the important Philadelphia-New York line. Edison’s carbon transmitter produced a much louder signal, and his addition of an induction coil to the circuit boosted it further.
Edison’s carbon transmitter was one of several telephone designs being considered for use by Western Union as it sought to compete with Bell. During the tests of his telephone transmitter in early January, Edison became concerned by the company electricians’ prejudice against him. Johnson and Painter hoped that Edison’s dissatisfaction would enable them to pry him loose from his association with Western Union in order to bring him into the Bell company. To address Edison’s concerns, Western Union president William Orton asked Henry Bentley of the Philadelphia Local Telegraph Company to conduct independent tests of Edison’s telephone. Edison agreed to this and sent James Adams, who along with Batchelor was his principal experimenter on telephones, to assist Bentley. These tests, which began in early February, proved crucial to the development of Edison’s commercial design, which emerged during the first two weeks of March.
While Edison’s primary contribution to telephone technology was his carbon transmitter, he continued to work on receivers, and the laboratory conducted several tests to determine the best design for the telephonic induction coil. Edison and Batchelor also designed several complete telephone sets—transmitter, receiver, and bell or other signaling apparatus—and at the end of February, Edison executed two patent applications for such designs. When Puskas, who owned the rights to Edison’s telephone patents for Europe,2 sailed from New York in late January, he took two full sets of telephone instruments with him.
George Bliss, who had a small interest in Edison’s European telephone and phonograph patents, hoped to receive an interest in American phonograph rights as well, but was left out of the arrangement Edison made with the Bell interests. Edison did, however, have Bliss arrange his Paris exhibit at the Universal Exposition. Bliss also continued to manage Edison’s electric pen and autographic press business, which he had taken charge of in 1877. Bliss directed the American business from Chicago while conducting European affairs through George Beetle, his agent in Paris. To secure what was apparently his principal income, Bliss urged Edison to develop a rotary autograph press in order to compete with rival designs then being put on the market. Though Batchelor periodically Page 6 returned to the instrument that he and Edison had designed a year earlier,3 Bliss continued to be frustrated by Edison’s lack of attention to the problem.
British rights to another old Edison invention—the quadruplex telegraph—became a point of contention in early January when the London firm of Smith, Fleming & Company asserted their claim under an 1873 agreement with Edison, Josiah Reiff, and George Harrington.4 This nearly caused a rift between Edison and Reiff, who attempted to negotiate a settlement with Smith, Fleming. To protect his interest, Edison named William Orton trustee in connection with the May 1877 agreement he had signed with Western Union electricians George Prescott and Gerritt Smith regarding the disposition of their respective British quadruplex patent rights.
As the pace of work increased at Menlo Park, new members joined the staff. In early January, Martin Force, a young experimental assistant, began to work with Edison, Batchelor, and Adams in the laboratory, and John Sigel, a toolmaker from the Newark shop of Alex Pool & Company who had responded to Edison’s advertisements for an experienced telegraph instrument maker, joined John Kruesi in the machine shop.5 By early February, bookkeeper (and acting secretary) William Carman had joined the staff, which also included handymen George Carman and Alfred Swanson.6 Even with his busy schedule, Edison found some time for relaxation. He and his wife, Mary, accompanied Batchelor and his wife, Rosa, into New York to see the magician and musician Robert Heller. And in late February, Thomas and Mary conceived their third child.
Charles Batchelor to the Editor of the English Mechanic 1
[Menlo Park,] New Jersey, Jan. 3, 1878.a
edison’s phonograph.
SiNCEb my letter of December 7th,2 Mr. Edison has improved this instrument greatly. The sounds are reproduced by the same diaphragm as you speak against, and are very much Page 7 reinforced by the application of a large funnel shaped tube to the mouthpiece.3 By means of this tube the reproduction of ordinary conversation can be heard distinctly 100 ft. away. The machine, as exhibited last Monday,4 was a perfect success, whistling, singing, whispering, &c., being reproduced accurately, and the more difficult sounds, such as the “S’s,” the “sh” in “shall,” the “ve” in “valve,” and all those we found difficulty in overcoming on the telephone came clear and distinct. 5 President Orton 6 and others tested the instrument’s powers of repeating spoken words.7 On one occasion three gentlemen spoke in succession—the first in English, the second in Spanish, and the third in Hungarian8 —and the machine repeated the words so as to be heard distinctly by a dozen persons standing around the apparatus. “Old Uncle Ned” and a verse of a Spanish love song were next sung, and reproduced by the instrument to the satisfaction of all. Mr. Edison says the machine is designed for practical use by business men and lawyers, &c. He is now making a new machine which will have a plate sufficiently large to receive 500 spoken words. Thus a man may dictate half a dozen letters before leaving his office, and his clerks may write them out in his absence. If he should wish to say more, he can remove the first plate and put in a second, and so on up to any number he may require.9
William Orton, President of the Western Union Telegraph Co.
So accurately are the words repeated by the machine that a gentleman who was present at the exhibition would not believe that the sounds were made by it. He insisted that it was a ventriloquial performance, and would not be convinced that it was not until Mr. Edison retired into another room while the instrument was worked by some one else.
PL and PD, English Mechanic 26 (25 Jan. 1878): 481. In Cat. 1240, item 349, Batchelor ( TAEM 94:105). aPlace and date not that of publication. b“13897.” printed at beginning of paragraph as journal item number.
1. This printed letter comprises Batchelor’s original letter to the English Mechanic and part of a 2 January New York Sun article he enclosed describing a phonograph exhibition at Western Union’s New York headquarters. Cat. 1238:251 and “A Marvelous Invention,” Cat. 1240, item 310, both Batchelor (TAEM 93:182; 94:95).
2. Doc. 1144, which appeared in the 4 January 1878 issue.
3. Edison had this machine by 22 December. It had a longer cylinder and employed a single diaphragm and point for both recording and replaying the sound (see Doc. 1154). Batchelor’s letter is the earliest evidence of a large funnel or conical tube being used to concentrate and Page 8 project the sound. According to the Operator (15 Jan. 1878, 6), “Edison used one made of a plain piece of writing paper.”
4. 31 December 1877; the phonograph was exhibited at Western Union’s New York headquarters through at least 3 January. Docs. 1158 n. 4 and 1165.
5. Batchelor’s handwritten letter ends here; the remainder is taken from the New York Sun article (see note 1). Edison later recalled that they continued to have trouble reproducing the hissing sounds and tried “a number of devices to try to re-enforce them.” Edison’s testimony, p. 652, American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph (TAEM 116: 400).
6. William Orton was president of Western Union. See TAEB 1:237 n. 1.
Theodore Puskas in 1878.
7. In addition to several people connected with Western Union, Henry Morton, president of Stevens Institute of Technology, is also known to have seen the phonograph at one of these demonstrations (TAEB 3:682 n. 1). The Operator (15 Jan. 1878, 6) described an exhibition “before a number of newspaper and telegraph men” that may have, been one of the demonstrations at Western Union.
8. Probably Hungarian promoter and inventor Theodore Puskas (Tivadar Puskás), who had just become Edison’s agent for his telephone and phonograph patent rights in Europe. Doc. 1153 nn. 4–5; Gábor 1993.
9. Edison had built an experimental plate or disk phonograph by the end of December 1877 and produced various designs through January. Docs. 1161, 1174, and 1203.
10. Charles Batchelor was Edison’s chief experimental assistant (see TAEB 1:495 n. 9, 2:72). “Asor,” formed by reversing his wife’s first name (Rosa), was his pen name for several letters to the English Mechanic.
Edward Johnson to Uriah Painter
NYorka 1/3/77[78].1
Dr U.H.2
I did not get here till late last night—
Saw Edison short time today— He has been showing the Phonograph up at the Western Unionb for past 4 Days— Says has done nothing in the Telephone or Phonograph matter as yet,—indicates that our best chance is to sell his Telephone for England I asked him for a price & he gives $25,000 = as his figure3 I don’t see that any thing can be done by me. I am too far removed from the Principals for him to see any “business” in it— All I can do is to stand at his elbow & see that our price is not ignored when the W.U. ask his figures He will do nothing till they go back on him— The present indications are that they mean to treat him well till they get him committed in some way
As for the Phonograph he seems to be in no hurry as it is just now the sensation There are indications however that Page 9 it is not going to prove such an easy task to perfect it as at first thought & it may happen that when the first blush wears off, he will be more ready to dicker
I have not been able to see Puskas today he is absent. I hope to see him tomorrow. I think it more than likely we will be able to do something through him or some other third party more readily than with Edison direct—as he always will trade quicker with a stranger than with his friends If I see P. tomorrow and my propositions strike him favorably I will telegraph you to come on— I know him to be a quick action negotiator, & just now he has influence enough with Edison to get him to close a bargain even in which Spencer 4 should be a chief figure— What do you think?— Is not this plan the best?.
What do you think of the 25,000 for England Can’t we sell it for 50,000 easy enough? Demme me if I dont think I can do it myself— Its Dog cheap at that figure as it will as surely supplant the Bell as steam will horse power wherever competing England is a big country you know— Lets organize a Co. buy this thing & I’ll go over & work it— It will bring us a big Revenue— If we do anything on this now we can no doubt get a long refusal on phonograph too—
I think Orton is going down to Menlo Park tomorrow but am not sure—
Edison has recd at the hands of a Lawyer a blank assignment calling upon him to assign his Quadruplex Patents in England to Smith Fleming & Co. of London—5 Says he believes Reiff6 has put them up to it— (I think so too) If so— thats the End of Reiff’s hold on E—& you can do as you will with E’s am[erica]n Interest Yours
ALS, PHi, UHP. aPreceded by “Pen Ofs.” bObscured overwritten letters.
1. The contents of this letter indicate its proper date.
2. Uriah H. Painter was the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Washington correspondent and was associated with anti-Western Union forces in the telegraph industry. See TAEB 2:661 n. 2.
3. On 7 January, Edison gave Painter a ten-day option on his British telephone patent, excluding the phonograph, for $25,000 (memorandum, UHP). Painter had indicated an interest in the British telephone rights at the end of December and also had had Johnson talk to Theodore Puskas about an interest in the rest of Europe (TAEB 3:678 n. 5). On 30 December 1877, Painter had written Gardiner Hubbard:
I believe a monopoly of Edison & Bell here, & in Europe would easily nett million dollars in next 5 years— It is the big thing to do, competition & legal contests may eat it all up for both, & I think I Page 10 made very strong impression on him [Edison], to that effect. We will have time to trade on US, but must move promptly on Europe— [UHP]
4. Unidentified.
5. The London firm of Smith, Fleming & Co. claimed British rights to the quadruplex under their 1873 agreeement with Edison, Josiah Reiff, and George Harrington (Doc. 350). Reiff had first brought this problem to Edison’s attention the previous September (Doc. 1038) but nothing more appears to have happened before January, when Smith, Fleming & Co.’s New York attorneys (Foster & Thomson) contacted Edison and Reiff, and Reiff received a letter from Smith, Fleming & Co. Edison refused to execute the assignment. On 18 January, Foster & Thompson requested an interview with him. No meeting took place, and at the end of the month John Fleming and John Puleston used the power of attorney granted in the 1873 agreement to assign Edison’s British quadruplex patent (384 [1875]) to themselves as trustees. Foster & Thomson transmitted this assignment to Edison on 28 February. Reiff to TAE, 4 Jan. 1878, and Foster & Thomson to TAE, 18 Jan., 12 and 28 Feb. 1878, all DF (TAEM 19:451, 455,463, 476); patent assignment, 29 Jan. 1878, Miller (TAEM 28:1056).
6. Josiah Reiff was a railroad investor associated with William Palmer in the Kansas Pacific Railroad and the Automatic Telegraph Co. He had provided most of the funds for Edison’s automatic telegraph experiments. See TAEB 1:243 n. 7.
7. Edward Johnson was a former telegraph operator whom William Palmer and Reiff had hired in 1871 as general superintendent of the Automatic Telegraph Co. He and Edison became personal friends and Johnson associated with Edison for many years. In 1876 they formed the short-lived American Novelty Co., and during 1877 Johnson exhibited Edison’s telephone inventions. See TAEB 1–3, passim.
FIRST FLYWHEEL PHONOGRAPH Doc. 1166
In mid-December 1877 Edison had modified his initial tinfoil phonograph (Doc. 1134) in several respects. He demonstrated that altered machine at Western Union’s headquarters over the turn of the year.1 In early January he modified it further by placing a substantial flywheel on the end of the shaft carrying the cylinder, thereby making a considerable improvement in the quality of sound reproduction. During the winter of 1878 he produced several phonographs of this type and used them for both exhibition and experiments. He continued to modify the phonograph in minor ways, but this constituted the basic design for the first half of the year.
In his second December phonograph Edison lengthened the cylinder so that it was twice as long as it was thick.2 He Page 11 developed a single unit (mouthpiece, diaphragm, spring, and point), rather than separate units, for both recording and playback, and he attached it to a pivoted arm that could swing away from the cylinder instead of only sliding back with the turn of an adjusting screw.3 He mounted the mouthpiece over the curve of the cylinder instead of vertically at its side. Finally, he added a funnel to amplify the sound when it was reproduced.
Early in January, Edison decided to add a flywheel to the shaft. Simply cranking the cylinder by hand produced an uneven speed and flawed reproduction, and Edison had known from the time he built the first tinfoil machine that a steady power source (such as clockwork) would improve its performance.4 He had, however, neither acquired nor developed one. A flywheel steadied the rotation.5 The Western Union exhibition probably made the need for some improvement evident, because by the time it ended, on 3 January, Batchelor was working on three new phonographs that had “heavy fly wheels.”6
When Edward Johnson departed on his telephone and phonograph exhibition tour on 20 or 21 January, Edison gave him an old phonograph—probably the one that had been exhibited at Western Union—rather than one of the new ones.7 But when Theodore Puskas sailed for Europe on 24 January he took at least one of the flywheel machines with him. 8 The earliest surviving drawings of the new phonograph were made on 26 January, when Prof. Alfred Mayer of Stevens Institute brought an artist to Menlo Park for that purpose.9 A week later Edison gave a machine to Mayer, who published an illustrated account of it in the April issue of Popular Science Monthly. 10 The design was widely publicized in American and European periodicals during the winter and spring of 1878, and it appears in the famous Mathew Brady photograph of Edison taken in April.11
Edison and his staff made nine of these phonographs.12 They were all essentially the same, although contemporary engravings show slight variations.13 Edison and Batchelor continued to experiment with every aspect of the phonograph, including attempts to power it with clockwork or steam. According to Batchelor,
there was hardly a part anywhere about the machine that was not experimented on. I made an enormous lot of diaphragms of different kinds, of all kinds of cutting and Page 12 indenting points, funnels of every shape to reinforce the sound on the reproducing, and also methods of regulating so that the turning of the cylinder would be more even, and many more things ... we had different kinds of cylinders made for that style of machine, some of them with grooves cut in them of different shapes, and some of them, at least one, that was solid, had no groove at all.14
1. See Docs. 1154, 1158 n. 4, 1164 n. 3, and 1165. In testimony Charles Batchelor referred to this as the “second cylinder machine” and “Cylinder Machine No. 2.” Batchelor’s testimony, pp. 591, 596–97, American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph (TAEM 116:369, 372).
2. An undated measured drawing exists with the note “Cylinder 4 in Diam. 8 in long,” which matches another measured drawing of 15 December 1877 (Vol. 17:5, 26, Lab. [TAEM 4: 877, 895]). The cylinder, as in the first phonograph, was hollow with inserted circular endplates. Charles Batchelor remembered it to be smaller in diameter and greater in length, although the diameter of the first phonograph’s cylinder was also about four inches (Batchelor’s testimony, p. 590, American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph [TAEM 116:369]). There exist two probably later machines resembling Doc. 1166, one at the Edison National Historic Site (Cat. 1400) and one at the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich. (Cat. 00.1382.611); their ages and origins are unknown.
3. The earliest indication of the swing-arm design is the 15 December drawing (Vol. 17:26, Lab. [ TAEM 4:895]). However, the arm shown there is about 4 inches long, while those for the first flywheel phonographs are approximately as long as the cylinder (the undated note in Vol. 17:5 specifies a length of 83/4 inches [TAEM 4:877]).
4. Docs. 1147, 1150, 1153, and 1154; the applications for U.S. Patent 200, 521 and British Patent 2, 909 (1877), prepared in December 1877, contain the same assumption.
5. “The Phonograph,” Engineering, 8 Mar. 1878, Cat. 1240, item 449, Batchelor (TAEM 94:139). Edison explicated the virtues of the flywheel in his specification for U.S. Patent 227, 679.
6. As Batchelor later recalled, “the fly-wheel was an afterthought for giving exhibitions.” Batchelor’s testimony, p. 628, American Graphophone v. U.S. Phonograph (TAEM 116:388); Cat. 1233:3, Batchelor (TAEM 90:54); Doc. 1175.
7. Doc. 1184.
8. Doc. 1182; “The Phonograph,” Engineering, 8 Mar. 1878, p. 187, Cat. 1240, item 449, Batchelor (TAEM 94:139); Alfred Niaudet, “Le Page 13 Phonographe d’Edison,” La Nature, 23 Mar. 1878, p. 257. Note that the threads are on the flywheel end of the shaft and the swing arm is centered on the base.
A flywheel phonograph brought to Europe by Theodore Puskas.
Illustrations from the jo March 1878 issue of Harper’s Weekly showing the tinfoil phonograph with flywheel, the underside of phonograph mouthpiece with the spring and point pressed against vibrating disk, the funnel for concentrating reproduced sound, and a sheet of tinfoil before and after recording.
9. Mayer wrote Edison on 16 January to say he would come to Edison’s laboratory on the 26th with a draftsman to prepare an illustration of the phonograph for publication; Batchelor recorded in his journal that two students from Stevens Institute were at the laboratory on that day, and Mayer soon had engravings in preparation. Mayer to TAE, 16 Jan. and 14 Feb. 1878, DF (TAEM 18:910, 918); Cat. 1233:26, Batchelor (TAEM 90:66).
10. A messenger picked up the machine at Menlo Park on 4 or 5 February (Cat. 1233:35, Batchelor [TAEM 90:70]; Henry Morton to TAE, 5 Feb. 1878, DF [TAEM 15:223]). The article (Mayer 1878a) was widely reprinted in the United States and abroad; see document below.
11. An extensive collection of these articles can be found in Cats. 1029 and 1032, Scraps (TAEM 25:161, 27:802); and Cat. 1240, Batchelor (TAEM 94:4).
12. Doc. 1199 n. 3. On 23 January the New York coppersmiths Donegan & Reilly delivered brass cylinders that were probably for phonographs on which Batchelor was working, although he already had completed at least one that Theodore Puskas took to Europe. Donegan & Reilly to TAE, 23 Jan. 1878, DF (TAEM 18:910); Doc. 1182.
13. See note 8.
14. In order to facilitate these experiments, they made the cylinder easily removable by means of “a cap on the bearing, so that if you unscrewed the cap you could lift the shaft right out.” Batchelor’s testi Page 14 mony, pp. 591–92, American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph (TAEM 116:369–70).
Experimental Model: Phonograph 1
[Menlo Park, c. January 3, 1878]2
[Fig. 1]
[Fig. 2]
M (historic drawing) (est. 79 cm × 26 cm × 20 cm), Mayer 1878a, 720–21.
1. See headnote above.
2. Mayer described the phonograph in Mayer 1878a:
A cylinder, [C], turns on an axle which passes through the two standards, A and B. On one end of this axle is the crank, D; on the other, the fly-wheel, E. The portion of this axle to the right of the cylinder has a screw-thread cut on it which, working in a nut, A, causes the cylinder to move laterally when the crank is turned. On the surface of the cylinder is scored the same thread as on its axle. At F (shown in one-half scale in Fig. 2) is a plate of iron, A, about 1/100 of an inch thick. This plate can be moved toward and from the Page 15 cylinder by pushing in or pulling out the lever HG, which turns in an horizontal plane around the pin I.
The under side of this thin iron plate, A (Fig. 2), presses against short pieces of rubber tubing, X and X, which lie between the plate and a spring attached to E. The end of this spring carries a rounded steel point, P, which enters slightly between the threads scored on the cylinder C. The distance of this point, P, from the cylinder is regulated by a set-screw, S, against which abuts the lever, HG. Over the iron plate, A, is a disk of vulcanite, BB, with a hole in its centre. The under side of this disk nearly touches the plate A. Its upper surface is cut into a shallow, funnel-shaped cavity, leading to the opening in its centre.
To operate this machine, we first neatly coat the cylinder with a sheet of foil, made to adhere by gumming the corners; then we bring the point, P, to bear against this foil, so that, on turning the cylinder, it makes a depressed line, or furrow. The mouth is now placed close to the opening in the vulcanite disk BB, and the metal plate is talked to while the cylinder is revolved with a uniform motion.
To play back the recording, Mayer indicated that
The plate A, with its point, P, is moved away from the cylinder by pulling toward you the lever HG. Then the motion of the cylinder is reversed til you have brought opposite to the point P the beginning of the series of impressions which it has made on the foil. Now bring the point up to the cylinder; place against the vulcanite plate, BB, a large cone of paper or tin to reinforce the sounds, and then steadily turn the crank D.
Edward Johnson to Uriah Painter
New York City, 1/4 1877[1878]1a
My Dr U.H.
Whats matter with the mails I put my letter2 in main P.O. here last Evening at 5 oclock addressed plainly U. H. Painter 900 14th St Washn D.C. I saw Walters3 today—Says has seen parties & they are willing to sell, thinks for about 25,000— if your parties are solid—that means 15 or 20, if you act at once—is it too much? He said would write you tonight— wanted to know who your parties were. told him I only knew you in the matter—that I had simply agreed to help you by giving you information concerning it—
I told you in last nights Letter E. was willing to sell Englandb for $25,000 cash, & that he appeared to be sleeping in sameb bed with WU folks just now—that I could do but little with him alone—am too far removed from the principals to impress him with the Idea that we mean business & can do what we agree—I can however keep under his wing & see that Page 16 our proffers are respected when the W.U. come to fix a price on his telephone—& thus secure our pro-rata of the Increase The Phonograph is creating an immense stir, but I think it impresses people more as a toy than as a practical machine—& is apt to appear in its true valueb only to us who know Edisons wonderful capacity for developing such a crude conception into a practical shape hence I believe we can afford to go Easy on it. Barton 4—Secy of Western Electric is here & has been with Edison at Menlo Park all day His business is I doubt not in connection with this thing.5
I saw Puskas today. He seems to think there is more money in competition with Bell in Europe than in Coalition—says Germans—Siemens & Halske6 are going to Contest his patent & will break it—& I’m inclined to think he is right—Bell has no new principle toc form a bulwark of & its more than likely many incipient Experimenters have done enough to warrant the Patent offices in giving them a patent on what they can by modification convert into a Telephone Puskas says he dont want to sell his Option Either—says he is thinking of buying the Patents himself for all European Countries. Dam the man He’s got too much money— Can’t you put up a scheme for you & I to get some of it?
When can you come on? we seem to make Headway when you are here & not otherwise—
The London parties have put the Lawyers on Edison for Quad in England & he blames Reiff & is wrothy— Would no doubt sell out auto Interest cheap if convinced of Reiffs hand in the London matter as he might easily be Yours
ALS, PHi, UHP. Letterhead of Western Electric Manufacturing Co., New York Branch, Electro-Medical Department; letterhead and dateline are electric pen copy. a“New York City,” and “187” preprinted. bObscured overwritten letters. cRepeated at end of one page and beginning of next.
1. The contents of this letter indicate its proper date.
2. Doc. 1165.
3. Walters and the subject of this paragraph are unidentified.
4. Enos Barton was secretary of the Western Electric Manufacturing Co. in Chicago, which manufactured Edison’s electric pen (see TAEB 3:181 n. 14). Charles Batchelor noted Barton’s visit in his diary (Cat. 1233:5, Batchelor [TAEM 90:55]).
5. See Doc. 1163.
6. Werner von Siemens, Johann von Siemens, and Johann Halske formed Siemens & Halske in Berlin in 1847 to manufacture telegraphs, electromedical devices, electrical meters, and railway signaling equipment. Page 17 The company later moved into electric power generation and distribution. Feldenkirchen 1994, 37, 49.
To Uriah Painter
M. Park Jany. 7. 1878.
U.H.P.
Much obliged for seeing McCormick.1 I will call on him about it. I enclose you letter2 from Prof Jenkins a chemist of Louisville who called at my laboratory some days ago with letter of introduction from Norvin Green =3 he is nice man all science. He went to Washington & wrote back askinga whether I would not like to be appointed Honorary Comr from N.J. said there was I paid & 2 hons from N.J. I said yes= he writes this letter = Lord If I have got to get all these letters to do it, I dont want to be an honorary Comr or any kind of Comr— What you think= 4
Havnt seen Reiff minute I get a chance going for him= That foreign party that JCR got 50 000, presented to me through Counsel here claim for my English Quadruplex patent— hows that & I never got a cent .5 I refused 1st because: I never recd any consideration second ‘twasn’t covered by contract & second I did not own it= I gave EHJ a 10 days’ option at his earnest solicitation on England6 its low, as Mr James7 here can get it taken for that but I have asked more= Will treat s the m Sun man well=8 Yours
Edison
ALS, PHi, UHP. aObscured overwritten letters.
1. Richard McCormick, former territorial governor and representative from Arizona, was Commissioner General for the United States at the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition. NCAB 24:338.
2. Thomas Jenkins to TAE, 4 Jan. 1878, UHP.
3. At this time Norvin Green (1818–1893) was vice president of Western Union. He had begun his career as a physician and served two terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives before becoming involved in the telegraph industry in 1853. He subsequently served as president of the Southwestern Telegraph Co. and became Western Union vice president in 1866 [DAB, s.v. “Green, Norvin”). Green’s letter of introduction was dated 26 December 1877 and Jenkins came to the laboratory on either 27 or 28 December (DF [TAEM 14:220]; Doc. 1162).
4. Jenkins had written to Edison on 29 December 1877 (Doc. 1162) regarding an appointment as an honorary U.S. Commissioner to the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition. In the enclosed letter Jenkins suggested that Edison get letters of recommendation from many prominent scientists and political figures. Page 18
5. This refers to Smith, Fleming and Co.’s claim to his quadruplex patent for Great Britain under the contract of 25 September 1873 (Doc. 350). See Docs. 365 and 1165 n. 5.
6. This refers to rights to Edison’s British telephone patents. See Docs. 1165 and 1167.
7. On the day of this letter, Edison signed two agreements negotiated by James James for the use of his phonograph in toys and clocks. The toy contract was with Oliver D. Russell and the clock contract with Daniel Somers and Henry Davies, both of the Ansonia Clock Co. James signed separate agreements compensating himself for his role in the negotiations, and Edison also agreed to give Charles Batchelor ten percent of his interest for “experimenting for me in perfecting such apparatus.” Drafts of the toy and clock agreements and a proposed list of toys prepared by Russell are in DF (TAEM 18:898; 19:31, 33, 35, 146); copies of the actual contracts and drafts of the two James contracts are in Miller ( TAEM 28:1064, 1068, 1072, 1074, 1078); the Batchelor agreements are in Batchelor ( TAEM 92:255, 259). James had been introduced to Edison by Amasa Mason, a London-based business acquaintance of ‘Marshall Lefferts’s who had been involved in negotiations for foreign rights to the electric pen in 1876 (Docs. 741 and 859). He may have been the James James listed as a lawyer in Wilson 1877, 677. He may also have been related to Daniel James of Phelps, Dodge & Co., which controlled the Ansonia Clock Co. (see Doc. 1191 n. 3).
8. Amos Cummings, managing editor of the New York Sun, came to the laboratory on 9 January with a letter of introduction from Painter. Painter to TAE, 3 Jan. 1878; Cummings to TAE, 8 Jan. 1878, both DF (TAEM 17:5–6); Cat. 1233:9, Batchelor (TAEM 90:57).
From George Bliss
Chicago, Jan. 8 1878a
Dear Sir:
The London Co.1 are making inquiry in regard to the Spanish patent2 and profess to have a party in interest who desires to buy it. Beetle3 has a good party on the string who wants to work Spain and with the ultimate view of buying the patent. Butler4 has been attempting to work Spain and promised to go there long since. When in N. York a letter was rec’d from him saying he would be there immediately. Unless he turns up in N.Y. immediately I shall write Beetle to go ahead. It is evident that owing to the number of Spanish speaking people a patent in Spain is of much more value than has been supposed. You ought to be able to get a patent there as good as the one in Germany and which will cover all the essential features of the latest outfits. With this the trade can be controlled and you be correspondingly benefitted. If you will have the papers prepared and sent over ready to file I will try to have Beetle negotiate an agency on the basis of the party paying Page 19 for the patent as a bonus. Instruct me so that he may know where to pay the money.5 This is of course providing that you dont feel disposed to pay for it yourself and I suggest that Russia be placed on the same basis Please advise me promptly about this as Beetle is holding parties in waiting Respectfully
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 18:259). Letterhead of Electric Pen and Duplicating Press, George Bliss, General Manager; letterhead and dateline are electric pen copy. a“Chicago,” and “187” preprinted.
1. In 1876 John Breckon and Thomas Clare bought the rights to Edison’s British patent for the electric pen and organized the Electric Writing Co. Their agent, Frederic Ireland, established a London office to sell the pen. TAEB 3, chap. 2 introduction.
2. Edison’s patent attorney Lemuel Serrell wrote to him on 16 March 1878 that “the Spanish papers on the Electric pen are all ready,” and his invoice to Edison for that month includes charges for those papers. DF (TAEM 18:637, 649); on Serrell, see TAEB 1:196 n. 2.
3. George L. Beetle. Nothing is known of George Beetle apart from his involvement in promoting Edison’s electric pen in Europe. See TAEM-Gi, s.v. “Beetle, George S.”; TAEM-G2, s.v. “Beetle, George L.”
4. Vesey Butler was a friend of Edison’s and the agent for his electric pen in Cuba. See TAEB 3:194 n. 1.
5. In a 15 March 1878 letter to Theodore Puskas, Serrell listed the costs of patent procedures in 15 countries, not including Spain. The average cost was over $200. DF (TAEM 18:635).
6. George Bliss was general manager of the Electric Pen and Duplicating Press Co. and controlled the foreign rights outside Canada and Great Britain. Docs. 861 and 892.
From Josiak Reiff
New York, Jany 8th 1878a
Edison.
When you desire anything done, you expect everyone to run & jump & nothing scarcely can satisfy your impatience, but my dear fellow you forget that when any part is due from you & it is at all unpleasant, you delay without knowing it—
If you dont desire to bust the suit against A&P Co & Domestic, 1 either Norris2 or I should know it— He cannot push them when heb is compelled to ask favors of them as to delay—on your a/c—
He has been writing & telgraphing you—3 You have been in town,4 I hear & yet you have neither called upon him or me.
Sometimes there are joint duties andb responsibilities— Yours
Page 20
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 19:451). Letterhead of J. C. Reiff. a“New York,” and “187” preprinted. bObscured overwritten letters.
1. Edison and his former manufacturing partner, Joseph Murray, had sued the Domestic Telegraph Co., which operated Edison’s system of district and alarm telegraphy, for money owed them by the company. Domestic Telegraph was controlled by the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Co. On the suit see TAEM 3:604 n. 1; regarding the Domestic Telegraph Co. see TAEM 2, passim.
2. George Norris was the New York attorney hired by Edison and Murray for their suit against Domestic Telegraph. See TAEM 3:604 n. 1.
3. See Norris to TAE, 4, 12, and 27 Dec. 1877, DF (TAEM 14:734, 737).
4. Besides attending the phonograph exhibitions at Western Union, Edison was in New York on 8 and possibly 7 January to set up a telephone line for the company. Cat. 1233:7–8, Batchelor (TAEM 90: 56–57).
Technical Note: Telephony 1
[Menlo Park,] Jany 8 1878.2
Spkg Telephone
I apprehend much trouble when telephone wires become multiplied = and I think that einduction currents in many cases will have to be abandoned3 on account of their tension4 & consequent liability to jump to other wires, therefore my carbon telephone5 using 2 or 3a cells of battery will & placed directly in the line to vary its resistance will be the best. the receiving magnets which would set up high tension induction currents which would jump to other wires must be shunted to prevent this thisb of course would lower them but by using very short spoolsb & cores slotted6 or of fine iron wire insulated th it would scarcely lower them appreciable = again the Em’graph7 which of its self sets up no return high tension current might be used hence on short lines I believe my telephone will be the only one for the future when the wires are greatly multiplied—
X, NjWOE, Lab., Vol. 14:12 (TEAM 4:159). Written by Charles Batchelor. a“or 3” interlined above. bObscured overwritten letters.
1. For an overview of Edison’s previous work on telephones see TAEM 3:63–64.
2. There are five pages of telephone sketches from this day, including one showing a combined transmitter-receiver. Vol. 14:7, 10–11, 13, 8, Lab. (TEAM 4:156–58, 160; 162:238).
3. That is, the use of induction coils to step up the transmission voltage (see Docs. 1112, 1121, and 1139). However, Edison did not abandon Page 21 induction coils in telephony. In December 1877 he had proposed several arrangements using them on telephone lines and in mid-February he executed a patent application based on those designs (Doc. 1146; Vol. 14:20, Lab. [TAEM 4:167]; U.S. Pat. 203, 019). Induction coils also remained a crucial component of the transmitting and receiving stations in his commercial telephone designs.
Edison’s combined transmitter-receiver design of 8 January.
In a paper that William Preece delivered to the Physical Society on 19 January, “On Some Physical Points Connected with the Telephone,” he discussed methods of preventing the problem of induction between wires and noted that “Mr. Edison in America has partially succeeded in effecting the first cure; but his results, though promising, have not yet reached a practical point.” Preece described this “cure” as “increasing the intensity of the transmitted currents so as to overpower the currents of induction, and by reducing the sensitiveness of the receiving apparatus so as to make the instrument insensible to currents of induction though responsive to telephonic currents.” He also quoted from Doc. 1123. Preece 1878a, 229–30, 35.
4. That is, high voltage.
5. In the second half of 1877 Edison had developed a telephone transmitter in which the vibrating diaphragm produced a varying resistance by pressing on a disc containing carbon (see, for example, Docs. 1081 and 1087). By this time lampblack was the preferred form of carbon. A mold for the carbons was drawn by Batchelor on 8 January and completed by John Kruesi on 13 February (NS-78–011, Lab. [TAEM 7:914–15]; see also Cat. 1307:70, Batchelor [TAEM 90:656]). What appears to be an undated description of this mold is in NS-Undated-006, Lab. (TAEM 8:506).
6. Electromagnets with short cores lose and regain a magnetic field more quickly than those with long ones. Edison had experimented to the same end since 1870 with slotted electromagnet cores (see, for example, Docs. 120, 453, and 457).
7. In the spring of 1877 Edison had devised a telephone receiver employing his electromotograph principle—a change in kinetic friction caused by electrochemical decomposition. In his standard electromotograph design, Edison moved chemically saturated paper under a metal stylus. The electromotograph could respond to signals that were too weak or rapid for a standard telegraph relay. See TAEB 2:252 n. 2; and Docs. 873, 888–89, 908, 932, and 962.
Charles Batchelor’s 9 January drawings of a mold for making telephone carbons; the lower drawing was labeled “made this way.”
From George Bliss
Chicago, Jan’y 9 1878a
Dear Sir:
Yours of 7th at hand—1 Glad to hear you have improved the Phonograph and that the Rotary press2 is progressing. Barton has written out something about telephones &c but have not seen the letters. The W[estern]. E[lectric]. of late carefully keep matters from me. I had quite a hot time with the gGeneral3 in regard to this freezing out business and he repudiated the soft impeachment!4 It makes no difference, they have all got to cave in the telephone matter, it seems to me, if merit of apparatus has any weight. Glad Barton owned the corn5 & I hope you will give him an order for telephones as it will secure the settlement of your account. 6 Puskas is doing the right thing in hurrying off to Europe— Has that money been paid? I believe you are right in regard to Hubbard7 and that he is not a safe man to trust. Hope Puskas can work Europe successfully but one thing is certain, if Beetle had the telephone there now he could strike heavy blows They are red hot on the subject and a man cannot get on the ground too soon. Gray8 would take $10,000.00 cash for his half interest in their foreign patents.! He has sounded me some on pooling the Phonograph into the Telephone Co.— thought it would be a good thing &c. Now about the company and money for the Phonograph— If you will give me a good square letter agreeing to make a contract for the Phonograph providing $30,000.00 is raised in 30 days I think it can be done.9 It is very hard to work on an uncertainty. I think you ought to do this because you need a good company to run your specialties and if I get the Phonograph shall certainly put it in good shape before the public. I have got Holland10 warmed up again and think he will come down to put the thing through in case you give ground to stand on. I am glad you have made the contracts withb the clock & toy people but of course every one of these curtails the sphere of the main interest.11 Please leave the contractsb with Mac12 so that he can make & send me a copy at once. Hope Leslie will do you up in the shape you deserve=13 You are on the track now to be appreciated by the public & not by a click = Dont failb to seec McCormick & get that space fixed—14 Have written Beetle all about it. I shall be delighted if you get the appointment of honorary Cmr.b to the Exposition15 [-]d Have good news from Beetle which will write in day or two— Herz is the worst kind of a fraud & is busted for funds16 Respfly
Page 23Have been pressing the Pen Company17 and it looks well now but the Phonograph will make it a certainty
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEB 15:182). Letterhead of Electric Pen and Duplicating Press Co., George Bliss, General Manager; letterhead and dateline are electric pen copy. a“Chicago,” and “187” preprinted. b‘Obscured overwritten letters. cInterlined above.d Canceled.
1. Not found.
2. Edison and Charles Batchelor had worked intermittently though 1877 to develop a rapid, rotary press to print copies of electric-pen stencils. See Docs. 843, 852, 854, 965, 1037, 1089, 1124, and 1143.
3. Anson Stager, president of the Western Electric Manufacturing Co. See TAEB 3:181 n. 13.
4. That is, he denied the accusation. OED, s.v. “Impeachment,” 4.
5. To “acknowledge [or ‘own’] the corn” is to confess to a failure or to a charge or imputation. Bliss is probably referring to the cancellation of Western Union’s order for 100 of Elisha Gray’s battery telephones. Farmer and Henley 1970, s.v. “Acknowledge the corn”; see Docs. 1124 and 1180.
6. This refers to Edison’s electric pen royalty account with Western Electric. On 26 January, Bliss sent Edison a $200 royalty payment from Western Electric as well as $100 from himself for foreign pen royalties. Bliss to TAE, 5 and 26 Jan. 1878, DF (TAEM 15:174, 18: 260).
7. Gardiner Hubbard, Alexander Graham Bell’s father-in-law and organizer of the Bell Telephone Co., was attempting to acquire control of Edison’s phonograph. See TAEB 3:678 n. 5; Doc. 1158.
8. Elisha Gray was a noted electrical inventor connected with Western Electric. His claim to the invention of the telephone provided one basis for Western Union’s entry into the telephone business. See TAEB 1:402 and Hounshell 1975.
9. For Bliss’s negotiations with Edison regarding the phonograph see Doc. 1158.
10. Charles Holland was Bliss’s associate in marketing Edison’s electric pen copying system and duplicating ink. Nothing is known of Holland apart from this association. See TAEB 3:288–89 and Doc. 892.
11. See Docs. 1168 n. 7 and 1190.
12. James MacKenzie. In 1862 Edison had snatched three-year-old Jimmy MacKenzie from the path of a freight car; in gratitude, his father, James, had taught Edison railroad telegraphy. MacKenzie was now manager of the American District Telegraph Co. of Detroit and seeking to become involved with Edison’s telephone or phonograph inventions. TAEB 1:8; Docs. 1111 and 1149; MacKenzie to TAE, 15 Jan. 1878, DF (TAEM 15:186).
13. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper of 30 March contained an illustrated article, “The Latest Scientific Wonder—Edison’s Speaking Phonograph.” Cat. 1240, item 428, Batchelor (TAEM 94:129–30).
14. See Doc. 1183.
15. See Doc. 1168.
16. Cornelius Herz and inventor and manufacturer Stephen Field Page 24 had acquired rights to Edison’s quadruplex for Austria, Spain, France, and Belgium when they visited Menlo Park in September 1877 (TAEB 3:549 n. 1; on Field see TAEB 2:418 n. 2). The promoter and confidence man Herz, identified as a doctor and member of the San Francisco Board of Health, had been presented to Edison by George Prescott (Docs. 1043 and 1049; for more on Herz see Simon 1971, 26, 114, 179-229).
17. Bliss had been trying to organize a foreign company for a year (see Docs. 861 and 1124), but it is unclear whether that is the company mentioned here.
Edward Johnson to Uriah Painter
NYork Jan 10/77[78]1
Dr UH.
Letter reed at 9 this am.—2 Edison in town today. Left clock contracts at home—will bring them to me tomorrow — Had you not better come on & stay till we get this matter closed up. I tell you the time to do anything is now a 10 days hence E. will be either in direct antagonism to the W.U. or in their breeches pocket, the latter most likely—then you & I may as well give it up. Listen now & you’ll agree with me—
Day before yesterday (Tuesday)—there was a grand test of Edison & Phelps Telephone3 in W.U. between Room 38 & Prescotts ofs4 across the way Phelps Inst being constructed with articulation alone in view was pronounced by all to be superior in that respect— Edisons being constructed with view of practical workb on lines—some articulating effects being sacrificed for sake of getting plenty of sound from low talking—did not perform so satisfactorily and his & my explanations as to the objects sought in his Telephone were met in silence no one assenting or dissenting — this sort of thing with many aggravating incidents of commendatory of Phelps with not a single remark, from Prescott,5 Phelps,6 Barton, Walker, 7 (V.P. Gold & Stock) or any of the lesser lights present, to show that Edisons aim to produce a practical Instrument was appreciated—during the entire day—sent him home at night aggravated beyond anything I have yet seen. He told me this am the whole movement was one of Blackmail— He said he’d see him Damned first—that he would not bring a Telephone over again till they had changed base entirely— today hise is in town & upon going into 38 with me—found Page 25 McTighe8 and Gray9 with two more Telephones (both Bells)—& the whole P. Party testing them, getting of course the same results as with the Edison Phelps— Barton tackled him for a pair of his (E’s) Telefones.b I gave him the wink & he said he hadn’t any ready— &c&c— Barton was evidently set back tried to coax E— when I took a hand & gave him a few reasons why E-should not submit to that sort of competitive test— Prescott came up took same line of confab—& E went for him told him didn’t see that they needed his—as they had so many around there which were superior to his &c— Prescott got nervous at once called Edison to one side & pursued him privately— I trod on his toes as he passed me—& [he]c answered O.K.—
I since learn from E——that Prescott has been after him E—— to sign an assignment of Quad. in England (which I tho’t was done long ago—)—but E——said he was afraid toof P. & hesitated to do so & it was this thatd was making P. nervous— It looks to me nowd as though its this assignment that P. was trying to force out of E——by looking black at the Telephone —Orton coming along, P. called him aside & said he wanted to speak to him about a matter in relation to Edison— the 3 went into P’s room & it was arranged that E——would submit to Mr.b Ortons decision as to the signing of the English paper10 —Now—Edison went into O’s private ofs & gave P. Hell told O. P. was trying to Black mail him— O——said listened quietly then said I have not been a passive observer—& if you will pursue this matter & bring me some evidence I’ll take account of it—or words to that effect— E——now asks me to help him collect it—& I’m going to do so —You do the same— My object is to test O.—not P.— O gives E. the only encouragementb he gets— But is it a blind? Will he pull with E. when the crisis comes?— I’ve sent him (O.) a private message—by Conft’l man—to call upon his entire Telephone outfit for a thorough Competitive test on a wire 3 miles long through NY City— If he don’t—its a straw in favor of the cahoots theory— If he does Edison will come off with colors flying & will have the bone to ask his price.c
Cheever11 sent for me today— He wants to go down to Menlo tomorrow—very anxious to go tomorrow— I got E to stay at home with difficulty—but he will & C. goes down with me— I’ll guard against any finance talk—& write you result of visit— I learn from him Hub is in Boston (Joke)12—& is Page 26 expected in N.Y. Saty or Monday— Thus I see you are moving— I told E. so—& that he would be 10,000 richer in a week—& not to knuckle on the Telephone till then
You see today I havent had a minute to go see—Walters13b yesty he wasnt in. I learn Nelson14 is trying to buy it— Kum on
ALS, PHi, UHP. aMultiply underlined. bObscured overwritten letters. cDocument damaged. dInterlined above. eFollowed by horizontal line.
1. The contents of this letter indicate its proper date.
2. Not found.
3. George Phelps’s “duplex” magneto-telephone transmitter had a single mouthpiece with two diaphragms and two electromagnets located at opposite poles of a permanent magnet. (For patent purposes, Western Union claimed it was a modification of Amos Dolbear’s telephone [see Doc. 1043, esp. n. 5].) Although it produced a louder signal than magneto transmitters with a single diaphragm and magnet, the second electromagnet produced inductive effects that interfered with the signal. Phelps later added condensers to overcome the induction. See Doc. 1278 for Charles Batchelor’s drawing of the design. Prescott 1878c, 21–23; “Telephonic Rivalry,” Operator, 15 Feb. 1878, 6.
(In a magneto transmitter, the speaker’s voice produced vibrations in a metal diaphragm that was almost touching the core of a magnet. The diaphragm’s motion created induced currents in the line wire, which was coiled around the magnet, and those currents recreated the vibrations of the voice at the telephone receiver.)
In a 10 January letter to George Ladd of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co. of California, William Orton wrote: “I devoted an hour yesterday afternoon to experimenting with the latest improvements of Phelps and Edison. The result was more satisfactory than anything in my previous experience. The work of Phelps latest improvement is simply perfect. The articulation was distinct and you get all the modulations of the human voice even when whispering.” LBO 20:407–13.
4. According to his diary, Charles Batchelor had set up a telephone circuit in the Western Union building between George Walker’s room and room 39 on 7 January, and Edison and Adams had spent the following day setting up the telephone. Cat 1233:7–8, Batchelor (TAEM 90:56–7).
5. George Prescott was chief electrician of Western Union (see TAEB 1:258 n. 4). Edison’s relationship with Prescott and his assistant Gerritt Smith was strained by continuing controversy over their respective roles in developing the quadruplex (see TAEB 2, passim). This seems to have affected Edison’s relationship with other technical personnel at Western Union as well (see Doc. 1185).
6. Electrical inventor George Phelps was superintendent of Western Union’s New York factory. See TAEB 1:135 n. 2.
7. George Walker, vice president of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Page 27 Co. and president of the American Speaking Telephone Co., had been connected with Western Union for many years, including terms as a director and vice president. He had previously been a lawyer and politician in Massachusetts. Reid 1879, 533, 539, 626, 632.
8. Unidentified.
9. Elisha Gray.
10. Under the terms of his May 1877 agreement with Prescott and Gerritt Smith, Edison had assigned his British quadruplex patent to them and they in turn had assigned it to British patent solicitor Edward Brewer. They were to divide any profits from these patents, with 35% going to Edison, 45% to Prescott, and 20% to Smith. On 12 January they signed a supplemental agreement making William Orton trustee of the patents and of their interests under the earlier contract. Agreements, 31 May 1877 and 12 Jan. 1878, DF ( TAEM 14:683, 19: 452).
11. Charles Cheever had organized the Telephone Company of New York with Hilborne Roosevelt the previous August. He was listed as “treasurer” at 154 Nassau in Wilson 1878, 230. A member of a prominent New York family, Cheever had been crippled from birth. Tosiello 1979, 215–16.
12. This is a play on Gardiner Hubbard’s name and the common nickname for Boston (the “Hub”).
13. Unidentified; see the first paragraph of Doc. 1167.
14. Possibly Alfred Nelson, who had been vice president of the Domestic Telegraph Co. and treasurer of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Co. See TAEB 3:9 n. 3.
Technical Note: Phonograph
[Menlo Park,] Jan 12 1878
Phonograph
Design the plate1 〈ok〉
Design the lever 〈ok〉
Design the swing post 〈ok〉
Design the clockwork
Design the winding arrangement 〈ok〉
Design the stopping mechanism
Design the throwing out mechanism
Design the Regulator2 Page 28
two 2a[—]b spring fastened to inside of Drum and the other end fastened to shaft
Plate and arm (swivel) with cam to clamp arm down3 Page 29
A catches when down & is held rigid
B swivels and lifts withc arm and catches & is held in position when working
C handle4
X, NjWOE, Lab., Vol. 17:35, 33–34 (TAEM 4:903, 901–2). Written by Batchelor; document multiply signed and dated. aCircled. bIllegible. cInterlined above.
1. Edison had built his first plate (disk) phonograph by the end of December (Doc. n61; Vol. 17:27, Lab. [ TAEM4:897]). Drawings of 23 January show clockwork mechanisms for a plate phonograph that may be related to this new design, which was probably the one being built in early February (Vol. 17:37–42, Lab. [TAEM 4:905–11]; see Docs. 1196 and 1203). Page 30
Edison’s first plate phonograph design from December 1877.
A 23 January drawing showing the clockwork mechanism for a plate phonograph.
2. The following drawing shows gear ratios and the corresponding speed reductions: The driving shaft at top, with a worm gear, turns at a relative speed of 4800. The top gear wheel, with 20 teeth on its rim, turns at 240. Its shaft has 20 teeth (as do the other two shafts below it). The second wheel’s rim has 80 teeth, and turns at 60. The third wheel has 120 teeth and turns at 10. The large wheel at left has 200 teeth on its rim and turns at 1. The fan (lower left and lower right) is a governor.
3. Text is “adjustable sleeve.”
4. Text is “mouthpiece adjustable,” “point adjustable,” and “plate.”
5. John Kruesi was Edison’s principal machinist. See TAEB 2:633 n. 6.
6. According to Jehl (1937–41, 318), George Carman did odd jobs around the laboratory. His name appears in the accounts by the end of April 1877. Cat. 1185:141–42, 247, Accts. (TAEM 22:617–18, 66).
7. Martin Force became a general handyman around the laboratory sometime in late 1877 or early 1878. See TAEB 3:534 n. 3.
From Alfred Mayer
South Orange N. Jersey January 15th 1878.
My dear Mr Edison;
Ever since my return home1 your marvellous invention has so occupied my brain that I can hardly collect my thoughts to carry on my work. Its results are far reaching (in science), its capabilities are immense. I cannot express my admiration of your genius better than by frankly saying that I would rather be the discoverer of your talking machine than to have made the first besta discovery of any one who has worked in Acoustics.
Professor Wright of Yale College and I are engaged on a work on Physics. 2I am senior in the work. It is our desire and ambition to introduce into it all really worthy American work. Hertetofore we have depended in our college instruction entirely on foreign works such as Ganot, Dechenel, &c— 3 In Ganot, the work most used in this country the only mention of American work is ab short account of one of my discoveries—4 which I sincerely think is far inferior to many—very manyb—researches and discoveries of my countrymen.
I am now writing the part of the work on sound and nothing could give me greater pleasure—if it meets with your approbation—than to give a thorough account of your invention in our work on Physics.5
I wish to photograph of the instrmnt for our engraver, and I also wish several of the records engraved to accompany it.
Ib have devised a method which will, I think, give the elevations and depressions of the traces to 1/10 000 in.
To give a thor[ou]gh account of the invention I must experiment with it for, as no one knows better than you, one cannot really understand or appreciate nea new experiment or apparatus uti una until he has drilled his hands & head to perform the experiments. Under the circumstances may I not ask the favor that you will receive from me an order for one of the new cylinder machines now making with the heavy fly wheels. 6 Surely, there is no one in the country who can appreciate your great invention more than I.
I would like the instrmt at as earlyb a day as possible because I want a month or so of experiments before I write about the instrmt in our book. If I can possess one of the instrmts then I can work at it whenever I wish.
I need not say that I shall be happy to see you whenever you will give us the pleasure of seeing you at the Stevens Institute With the highest esteem Yours very respectfullyb
Page 32
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 18:906). aInterlined above. bObscured overwritten letters.
1. On 29 December, Edison had invited Mayer and Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. (where Mayer was professor of physics), to visit Menlo Park; they most likely visited on 13 or 14 January. Doc. 1156 n. 1; Brown Ayres to TAE, 20 Jan. 1878, DF (TAEM 15:187).
2. Mayer had begun the “Experimental Science Series for Beginners” (published by D. Appleton of New York) with a volume on light coauthored with journalist Charles Barnard, but Barnard was unable to continue the partnership. Mayer then joined with Arthur Wright, professor of physics and chemistry at Yale and later director of its Sloane Physical Laboratory, to continue the series. However, Mayer published the second and last volume of the series (on sound) by himself. Mayer 1878a, 5–8; NCAB 13:348; NUCPre-1956, s.vv. “Mayer, Alfred Marshall,” and “Wright, Arthur Williams.”
3. Freely edited and adapted translations of various French introductory texts and popular expositions of physics—particularly those of Adolphe Ganot, Augustin Privat-DescRanel, and to a lesser extent, Amédée Guillemin—were widely used in both the United States and the United Kingdom from the 1860s into the twentieth century. See, e.g., Atkinson 1890 and Peck 1866.
4. Ganot described Mayer’s method for illustrating the reciprocal action of magnetic poles by the use of floating magnets. Atkinson 1890, 687.
5. Mayer 1878b; this included an illustrated section on the phonograph in its penultimate chapter, pp. 170–74. Beyond a basic description and explanation of the working of a cylinder tinfoil phonograph, the book contains only a very brief account of Mayer’s examination of the traces recorded on the foil.
6. Doc. 1166.
7. Alfred Mayer (1836–1897) had worked as a machinist, studied chemistry, physics, physiology, and mathematics, and taught at various colleges before organizing the physics program at Stevens Institute in 1871. Mayer was noted for research in several areas of physical science, including photographs of the August 1869 solar eclipse.’An essay on his career had recently been included in a Popular Science Monthly series featuring the most eminent contemporary European and American scientists. “Sketch of Professor Mayer,” Pop. Sci. Mo. 10 (1876–77): 23033; DAB and DSB, both s.v. “Mayer, Alfred Marshall.”
Charles Batchelor Diary Entry
[Menlo Park,] Tuesday Jan [15]1 1878
Jim1 showed telephone & phonograph at Metuchen2 to a church
Edison, I, Johnson gave Ortonb a test of all the telephones from 16899 Bdway3 Jims music came in on us Ortonb said that Edison’s instrument was the best articulation & loudest. Page 33
AD, NjWOE, Batchelor, Cat. 1233:15 (TAEM 90:60). aFrom preprinted diary page. bObscured overwritten letters.
1. With Batchelor, James Adams was Edison’s other primary experimental assistant. See TAEM 2:250 n. 4.
2. Metuchen is located about 4 miles south of Menlo Park on the rail line. Nothing further is known about this demonstration.
3. The official address of Western Union’s headquarters building in New York City was 197 Broadway. The tests probably compared Edison’s and Bell’s telephones, although they may also have included Gray’s and Phelps’s. James MacKenzie had joined Edison and Batchelor in testing Bell’s at Menlo Park two days earlier. Cat. 1233:15, Batchelor (TAEM 90:59).
Charles Batchelor to Sigmund Bergmann
Menlo Park, N.J. Jan 19th 1878
Friend Bergmann1
We tested some of your receivers2 and they had no strength at all now the faults are these:—
1 Surface of cup is not straight it is more like dotted line in this sketch they must be absolutely flat to be any good
2 Cap is not straight where it binds the diaphragm it is more like this dotted line
this must also be absolutely flat
3 Diaphragms do not all bind tight
4 Core must be made small like sketch sent
5 Bradley spools3 must be used
6 Your spools some of them touch the diaphragm.
7 The cores must stand perfectly straight and must be flat on the shoulder that goes next to the permanent magnet some of yours are hollow and some are round
8 Bindposts must have 10/32 thread in rubber
9 Spools must be 60 to 70 ohms
10 Your threads are slack so that when screwed down you can push the cap about 1/32 of an inch across
11 The cut out button4 must only stand out ⅙ of an inch
12 Diaphragm must stand 1/100 of an inch away from core
13 Tin type plates must be straight. Page 34
14 The connections I gave you for receiver were wrong5 connect all like this and mark 1. 2. 3.a
15 You must nickel plate the bindposts on receivera
The coils on the polarized relays must be Bradley’s and (25) twenty five ohms each these are only 11½b each. mark the coil this way in every case
This must be stamped on the wood in every case without fail on top of the Box should be stamped ‘Edison’s Speaking Telegraph’ No 130 6
All these improvements you must make on the ones you have in your place as we shall have trouble if you do not7
If you were to get stamps cut it would pay you as no doubt you will make all coils
The gong on bell ought to be nickel plated for the price
ALS (letterpress copy), NjWOE, Lbk. 1:321 (TAEM 28:194). aFollwed by centered horizontal line. bCircled.
1. Sigmund Bergmann had worked as a machinist in Edison’s Ward St. shop in the early 1870s. In 1876 he opened his own shop on Wooster St. in New York City. See TAEB 1:579 n. 1.
2. Little is known of the receivers beyond this letter and the correspondence cited in note 7 below. However, they were probably a modification of the designs drawn by Batchelor on 17 and 20 December 1877. Edison’s Exhibit 179–13, TI2 (TAEM 11:611); Vol. 13:183, Lab. (TAEM 4:128). Bergmann had brought coils and bells to Menlo Park the previous day. He was then making fifty receivers; Murray was making twelve transmitters. Henry Thau was also apparently making both transmitters and receivers (Cat. 1233:18, Batchelor [TAEM 90:62]; Doc. 1125; Batchelor to Bergmann, 11 Jan. 1878, and Batchelor to Thau, 19 Jan. 1878, Lbk. 1:319, 325 [TAEM 28:192, 198]; Vol. 14:33, Lab. [TAEM 4:174]). Page 35
Charles Batchelor’s 5 January 1878 telephone receiver circuit drawing.
3. These spools, the patented design of the late Leverett Bradley (see TAEB 1:141 n. 1), were being manufactured by Fitch & Meserole of New York, who also made induction coils for Edison’s telephones. TAEM-Gi, s.v. “Fitch & Meserole”; Batchelor to Bergmann & Co., 7 Feb. 1878, Lbk. 1:337 (TAEM 28:210).
4. This switch, which cut out the resistance of the induction coil when the user was listening, was the reason for having three wires to the receiver. It is shown in the sketch following item 14 in this document and in Edison’s Exhibit 179–13, TI2 (TAEM 11:611). A drawing of 12 January shows a circuit that would include such a switch (Vol. 14:14, Lab. [TAEM 4:161]).
5. Batchelor had sent Bergmann a drawing on 5 January. Lbk. 1:318 (TAEM 28:191).
6. Case 130 was Edison’s first carbon-telephone patent application. It was one of several telephone applications that became part of the Telephone Interferences (Doc. 1270), and did not issue as U.S. Patent 474, 230 until 3 May 1892.
7. For other alterations made to these instruments see Vol. 4:34 (TAEM 4:175) and Batchelor to Bergmann or Bergmann & Co., 11, 20, 22, 23, 26, 31 Jan. and 7, 27 Feb. 1878, Lbk. 1:319, 326–30, 333, 337, 379 (TAEM 28:192, 199–203, 206, 210, 243).
Charles Batchelor Diary Entry
[Menlo Park,] Saturday Jan 19th 18778
Edison, wife,1 I and Rosa2 went to see Heller.3 Worked on Phonograph & telephone all day.
AD, NjWOE, Batchelor, Cat. 1233:19 (TAEM 90:62).
1. Mary Stilwell Edison, who had married Edison on 25 December 1871. See TAEB 1:385 n. 5.
2. Batchelor’s wife.
3. “Heller’s Wonders,” featuring the “brilliant and astounding specimens of necromancy and diablerie” of the eminent magician and musician Robert Heller (the stage name of William Henry Palmer, an Englishman billed as American) and the “gift of second sight” of Haidee Heller (billed as his sister), was running on Broadway at the Fifth Avenue Hall (next to the Fifth Avenue Hotel) (advertisement, New York Herald, 18 Jan. 1878, p. 1). Edison commented a few weeks later that “his tricks are very good and very smart, but I figured out all of them excepting one. The ‘second-sight’ is the thinnest of all” (“That Wonderful Edison,” New York World, 29 Mar. 1878, Cat. 1240, item 463, Batchelor [ TAEM 94:147]). See also “The Mystery of Second Sight,” New York Sun, 9 Feb. 1878, Cat. 1240, item 354, Batchelor (TAEM 94:108); Christopher 1973, 211–12; Doerflinger 1977, 15; and Mulholland 1935, 34–38.
From Edward Johnson
NYork Jan 20/78
Dr E
In looking over my Pocket Contents b4 leaving I find enclosed note from Painter on Telescopes— You can undoubtedly get a better one in this way for the amount you want to pay than by having it made
U.H. tells me to remind you of our Telephone bargain Please dont settle upon your terms with W.U. till you have given us a chance to do our part. The Bell Co clearly think if they had yours they would have a monopoly & would quickly suppress the shysters Think twice about this & write me to Dunkirk1 that you will at least keep me so advised that I can get you a clean Bonafide offer for it before you give your final consent to the W.U.’s terms— Lets see if they will pay you once at least a reasonable price for your product.
See notice of Feby Phrenological Journal in last nights Graphic “Benefactor of your race”—2 See also in same paper Communication from “Perhaps” on Quadruplex.3 Also in Fridays Graphic Editorial on Phonograph4a
Get Feby Phrenological— Yours
ENCLOSUREb
Washington, D.C. Jan 16 1878c
My Dr J
I enclose the address of the man5 who has a big 4 inch Tel-scope Equatorialy mounted6 he will sell for 260 to $300 (worth 6 to 700) & he knows of a man who has a six inch one that he will sell for $400 or possibly little less—both are cheap if in good order— Tell Edison I think Phngph Patd will be put thro next week if he comes over— It is being pushed OK7
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:189). aFollowed by centered horizontal line. bEnclosure is an ALS. cPlace and date from Philadelphia Inquirer handstamp. d“Interlined above.
1. See Doc. 1184.
2. The 19 January issue of the New York Daily Graphic printed an endorsement for the February Phrenological Journal, which contained a biographical sketch, “Thomas A. Edison, The Electrician and Inventor.” Cat. 1240, items 329, 352, Batchelor (TAEM 94:100, 105).
3. “The Quadruplex Tangle,” questioning the delayed verdict in Atlantic & Pacific v. Prescott & others, appeared in the 19 January issue of the New York Daily Graphic. Cat. 1240, item 333, Batchelor (TAEM 94:100); on the trial, see TAEB 3, chap. 5 passim.
4. An editorial in the New York Daily Graphic of 18 January (p. 514) discussed an exhibition of the phonograph at the Cooper Union in New York. Page 37
Several snatches of songs were committed to the machine in a high key, and afterwards repeated to the bystanders with much fidelity. The inventor believes that the phonograph will yet be so matured and developed that it can receive and record the songs of popular opera-singers and then reproduce, ad libitum, their very voices and words with all their emotional power.
Johnson directed the exhibition before some three hundred people attending a meeting of the Polytechnic Institute. Edison helped operate the instruments, which included his musical and speaking telephones, and Batchelor was also present. “Transmitting Speech and Song,” New York Tribune, and “Preserving Sound,” New York Herald, both 18 Jan. 1878, Cat. 1240, items 330, 334; Cat. 1233:17; all Batchelor (TAEM 94:100; 90:61).
5. Unidentified; the enclosure has not been found.
6. That is, mounted on an axis that can be set perpendicular to the equatorial plane. This allows a simple clockwork drive to supply the motion necessary to counter the Earth’s rotation.
7. See Doc. 1183 n. 4.
From George Bliss
Chicago Jany 21 18778a
Dear Sir:
I am sorry the Painter crowd has cleaned me out on the Phonograph. That is what a man gets when he does not stay and attend to business. I want it understood that they could not have done this if you had given me a Phonograph to work with. It is such an incredulous thing that people wont believe it except on sight. If the dicker with me has got you a good bargain I am satisfied. I knew nothing about the Painter option till today. This thing places me in rather a bad fix with parties to whom pledges have been made in my new company.1 I feel like giving up ambition and settling down to a quiet Electric Pen life. There is enough in that if economically managed to satisfied an ordinary man. Shall be glad to get a Phonograph to show up to the curiosity seekers. Since the Western Electric received such large orders for Gray telephones2 I began to think Wm Orton did not know a good thing when he heard it. It seems he does after all. Barton has written quite favorably of the sending part of your telephone but he is rather sour since the order for battery telephones 3 was countermanded. He ought to be satisfied for there is an abundance of work on the magneto telephones4 ordered. Three letters in from Beetle today. I find it hard work to convince him that Herz is [—]b a fraud. Herz still claims you have treated him shamefully—Says he is willing to pay the money when perfect telephones arrive.5 Beetle claims Herz stands well with Preece Page 38 (whoc agrees that your conduct is shameful) also with many French officials high in authority. Beetle says Herz threatens an injunction &c. Field came back because he found that Herz was paying his bills with drafts on banks where he had no money. That man will hang himself in time. I wrote Beetle a few days since to get entirely clear from him. Beetle’s Frenchmanc has not come to [terms?]c yet & paid the money for the first 150 outfits & the French Gen’l agency. He expects to focuss the matter very soon. Parties are troubling Beetle with pneumatic, clock-work & other pens. What is the state of your foreign patents on these outside methods? 6 Beetle is closing contract for 50 pens for Portugal. He has had a tremendous row with the London Co. over Spain. They were about taking out a patent. Beetle has a party who will probably take Spain buying 300 outfits at once, 175 of which are for the government providing you will protect with a patent. Let me know what my recognition in the Phonograph is? Please see letter written to Mr. Serrell about Spanish patent within a day or two. 7 Respectfully
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:194). Letterhead of Electric Pen and Duplicating Press; letterhead and dateline are electric pen copy. a“Chicago” and “1877” preprinted. bCanceled. ‘Obscured overwritten letter.
1. One of the persons who may have been involved in this proposed new company was Bernard Bigsby, apparently an agent for the electric pen (see Charles Batchelor to Bigsby, 22 Mar. 1876, Lbk. 2:67 [TAEM 28:402]). Soon after this letter from Bliss, Bigsby wrote to Edison:
Bliss drops a tear over the loss of the Phonograph and I believe in his heart of hearts thinks that I am at the bottom of it all—if I could have raised stock in time for you— if—but you know what if means. If I had only had the brains to invent the Phonograph no fifteen per cent would ever have tempted me to sell my birth-right. You have out Esaued Esau. You have killed a goose that would lay a dozen golden eggs every day of your life. I should have wanted at least a hundred thousand down and twenty per cent as long as the patent lasted and I should have got it. [Undated, DF (TAEM 16:570)]
Bigsby hoped to get a phonograph for exhibition purposes and also to write a biography of Edison. Although Bigsby offered him half the receipts after expenses from any exhibitions, Edison provided neither phonograph nor biographical material. Upon learning that Edward Johnson had been put in charge of the exhibition business, Bigsby wrote Edison that he was “very much disappointed at your treatment of me which is not generous. I suppose however your mind is too occupied to Page 39 give heed to the ordinary courtesies of common life” (19 Mar. 1878, DF [TAEM 18:950]).
2. Doc. 1124.
3. In Elisha Gray’s battery telephone the current varied as the diaphragm vibrated next to a polarized magnet charged by a local battery. Prescott 1878c, 31–33.
4. Gray’s magneto telephone, which worked on the same principle as Alexander Graham Bell’s, had two diaphragms placed at opposite poles of a U-shaped permanent magnet. Prescott 1878c, 33.
5. Cornelius Herz and Stephen Field had arranged in September 1877 to acquire one-ninth of Bliss’s one-fifth rights to Edison’s telephone patents for Russia, Spain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, and Belgium, and to pay the costs of those patents. They did not pay, however, and in December Edison signed a new contract with Bliss and Theodore Puskas that replaced his original agreement with Bliss. Docs. 1056, 1204, 1212; TAEB 3:678 n. 5.
6. Besides a variety of alternative electric motors, Edison had included foot-treadle, pulley, and water-power designs in the basic foreign patent he took out for his electric-pen copying system in Great Britain, France, and Belgium (Brit. Pat. 3, 762 [1875], French Pat. 112, 719, and Belgian Pat. 39, 502). Although he included a pneumatic drive in his U.S. Patent 205, 370, Edison did not patent this in Europe.
7. The letter has not been found; see Doc. 1169 n. 2.
To Uriah Painter
[Menlo Park,] Jany 23/78
U.H.P=
To poor to buy a luxurious Telescope just at present but may soon do so if phono turns out well= Articulation on phono very much improved for music of every kind it is now perfect= for Dictating there is only the defect of being compelled to talk a little loud = this can be got over. You ought to have a Contract with me in regard to that 5 per cent=1 We must take care of Bliss. Yrs
ALS, PHi, UHP.
1. Painter’s percentage for negotiating the phonograph contract. Doc. 1190.
Charles Batchelor Memorandum: Apparatus for Theodore Puskas
[Menlo Park,] Jan 23 1878
Speaking telephone
The coils taken by T. Puskus Esq to Paris1 were connected up so:— Page 40
Outfit Sent: =
One. 1a Phonograph. He took another Phonograph from his house2b
4 four Watson Batteries3
200 two hundred feet twisted kerite wire.4
50 fifty feet of Kerite wire
2 two transmitters (Batchelor’s make)5
2 two receivers (1½ in diameter) no cut out.
-
one Batchelor make new pattern
-
one Bergman altered over6c
2 two Bergman Bells
2 two Bergman coils altered to above sketch7
4 four Double conductor cords
〈Sailed on ‘Cimbria’ Hamburgh Line forb Cherbourg, France〉 8d
ADS, NjWOE, Lab., Vol. 14:17 (TAEM 4:164). Written by Batchelor. aAll initial numerals are circled. bFollowed by centered horizontal line. cThis and preceding line spanned by brace at left. dMarginalia written by Batchelor; preceded and followed by centered horizontal line.
1. The previous day Puskas had visited Menlo Park “to try his telephones.” Cat. 1233:22, Batchelor ( TAEM 90:64).
2. At least one of these was one of the first flywheel phonographs (Doc. 1166); the details of the other are unknown.
3. This copper sulphate battery, patented by J. E. Watson in June 1876 (U.S. Pat. 178, 215), was sold by L. G. Tillotson & Co. Operator, 1 Nov. 1876, 12.
4. Kerite-insulated wire was widely used in telegraphy. Kerite, invented by Austin Day, was a rubber-like substance formed from a combination Page 41 of tar and vegetable oil vulcanized by sulphur. Knight 1877, s.vv. “Kerite,” “Kerite Wire.”
5. These transmitters may be like those in Doc. 1125.
6. See Doc. 1177.
7. The previous day Batchelor had written, “We find we cannot work the polarized relay in that position” (that is, with the tongue vertical). He sent a sketch of the new arrangment (with the tongue horizontal), similar to the one in this memorandum, and indicated that he had changed six of them. Batchelor to Bergmann, 22 Jan. 1878, Lbk. 1:328 (TAEM 28:201).
8. Puskas sailed the following day. Cat. 1233:24, Batchelor (TAEM 90:65).
From Uriah Painter
Washington, D.C. Jan 26 1878a
My Dr E—
Yours of 1–23 to hand—
Mc’Cormick says he has assigned you the 25 × 25 asked for—1
If I had known you cared for a Telescope I would have given you one I had. I got tired of it—had no use for it & asked Johnson one day if you ever had any use for one & he said not, you were on the practical lay, so when I went to work to raise the 10,000 for you2 & found I must start it with my own money13, I set to work to selling my loose things & let the telescope go for $200.# but I find I can get a much superior one in Jersey City for $300, & will see that you get one that dont cost you a cent—only give me a little time on it—3
I would have your Phono. Pat out last week if Serrell had replied promptly to Dep’t & fixed his papers OK—4 Now if you will drive him up I can get it out so it will date Feby 5— It is now too late for Jany 29—
Whenc will you be ready to come over here with your Phonoc—? The ten is ready to be paid over Id dont know why there is so much delay on papers—
The WU folks here are blowing big now on Grays Telephone— I thought it had fizzled out long ago— The Phelps bastard, at the Pat ofs works at first but soon grows faint so it cant be heard—5
Pope6 is red hot after some patents he is trying to get out for Smith on Duplex!7
We will do the right thing on Blissc & decide on it when you come over— I see by his letter he has not got any party yet! Wants 30 days & 2 machines to show to start on!8 several of my men put up before they saw it, twoc here not even seen Page 42 it yet! I see byf papers that Johnson made hit with Phono at Elmira—9
Have you tried to buy out JCR yet?10 Yrs
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:197). aPlace and date from Philadelphia Inquirer handstamp. b”with ... money” interlined above. Obscured overwritten letter. dOverwritten dash. cAlso interlined above in another hand, possibly by Edison. fInterlined above.
1. That is, a 25-foot-square exhibition space at the upcoming Universal Exposition in Paris.
2. See Doc. 1158.
3. In May 1878, Edison borrowed a telescope from Prof. Asahel Eaton, a Brooklyn chemist and manufacturer of optical instruments (see Doc. 1312 n. 1). He and Eaton had discussed the possibility of Eaton’s making a telescope for Edison in 1877, and they continued to correspond about this matter through the summer of 1879. TAEM-GI-2, s.v. “Eaton, Asahel K.”
4. The Patent Office did not notify Lemuel Serrell concerning problems with Edison’s application until 26 January. Serrell responded on 4 February, Painter paid the final fee on 15 February, and U.S. Patent 200, 521 issued on 19 February. Because he had not handled the final payment, Serrell was surprised when the patent issued and wrote Edison, “I presume the faries must have paid it in, so as to have the privilege of recording their communications!!” H. C. Townsend to TAE, 26 Jan. 1878, and TAE to Commissioner of Patents, 4 Feb. 1878, both Pat. App. 200, 251; receipt to Uriah Painter, 15 Feb. 1878, and Serrell to TAE, 6 Mar. 1878, both DF (TAEM 18:629, 634).
5. It is not clear whether Painter is referring to a patent application or an exhibition of George Phelps’s telephone at the Patent Office in Washington, D.C.
6. Franklin Pope, Edison’s former business partner and a prominent electrical engineer and inventor, was at this time in charge of Western Union’s patent department. See TAEB 1:115 n. 1.
7. Gerritt Smith was the assistant electrician at Western Union who helped install the quadruplex on Western Union lines. He received several quadruplex patents, including some that Edison believed were his designs. See TAEB 2:353 n. 3, 359 “. 4.
8. See Docs. 1172 and 1180.
9. See Doc. 1184. The 22 January issue of the Elmira Advertiser ran a story on the “Telephone Entertainment Last Evening” which described Johnson’s lecture and demonstration of the Edison Musical Telephone. Cat. 1031:2, Scraps. (TAEM 27:733).
10. See Docs. 1168 and 1191.
Edward Johnson to Uriah Painter
Jamestown NYork Jany 27th 1878
My Dr. U. H.
I have given a concert every night the past week1 Each time in a different town sometimes many miles apart
| Monday | Elmira | NY |
| Tuesday | Courtland | NY |
| Wednesday | Homer | NY |
| Thursday | Dunkirk | NY |
| Friday | Fredonia | NY |
| Saturday | Jamestown | NYa |
| Monday next. | Warren | Pa |
| Tuesday & Wednesday | Blank | |
| Thursday | Lockport | N.Y. |
From Warren Pa to Lockport N.Y. (between Buffalo & Niagara falls) is a long jump— Else we could give us one at Titusville Pa—
Utica N.Y. is after me too but I am so anxious about the Phonograph & Telephone matters in NY that I shall postpone everything till I pay a visit to NYork—
I have been paid for all my concerts promptly though they have not been pecuniarily successful to the managers— At Elmira & Courtland it was a decided success at the other places a trifling loss was effected. At Warren Monday it is expected it will be a great success. At all places great enthusiasm is shown over both the Telephone and the Phonograph, but the great applause—the climax—is always reached when the Phonograph first speaks I find the general impression is the same hereabouts as elsewhere that a Telephone concert cannot be heard. Bells man2 has been through here, & is pronounced a humbug They say he occupies some 45 minutes in explaining the Instrument (which I do in 5) & then no one knows what it is after wards I am receiving my usual compliments in respect to lucidness of my explanations No dailyb papers published in Courtland Homer Dunkirk or Fredonia Hence no report as yet from there. I will have a Jamestown paper tomorrow & a Warren paper Tuesday—will send you copy of both.3 Everybody talks Phonograph the day after the concert and all agree that a 2nd concert would be more successful than the first.
If you get this before Thursday wish you would Telegraph me briefly whether things are O.K. If the money has been paid to Edison say—All O.K. If not, but everything all going on Page 44 smoothly and no hitches say simply O.K. If any hitch which indicates a possible rupture say delayed If busted say Dam—no—Donea
I have not heard a word from NYork since I left. I am using Bells speaker instead of the Morse for directing my singers— last night used it 26 miles—Jamestown to Warren—very successfully It attracts a great deal of attention—and I foster it— I treat it with fairness, & jshall justify myself to the WU & Edison on the ground that my entertainment is a scientific one & not an advertisement and that I have suffered great inconvenience & loss by Edisons failure to supply me with a set of speakers which he might easily have done this time—but he has never yet shown a proper appreciation of the worka goodc I am doing him. He promised me the 3rd Phonograph of those 3 he was making4 & at the last moment went back on me & sent me off with the old one—
You should hear me bring down the House by my singing in the Phonograph when I fail to get a Volunteer— I tell them I cannot sing but if they will promise not to communicate the fact to my wife rather than have them disappointed I will myself sing a song in it. The effect when they hear me is stupendous, but when they hear the Phonograph reproducing my song with all its imp erfections they endanger the walls with the clamor I then tell them they have negative proof that it will reproduce song—the whole thing proving the happiest possible exhibition of the work of the Instrument.
The By word we invariably leave behind us is “Hello! Hello!5 How do you get it“ It is fortunate I brought ad man 6 with me else I never could have got along. The extra expense however will reduce my profits very considerably I expect however to get home with about $250. clear Shall reach NYork Feby 2nd7 Yours
ALS, PHi, UHP. aFollowed by centered horizontal line. bInterlined above. cInterlined below. dObscured overwritten letters.
1. Johnson wrote this on a Sunday.
2. Unidentified.
3. Not found.
4. See headnote p. 10.
5. In his autobiographical reminiscences Edison claimed that he invented the use of “Hello” for the telephone (see TAEB 3, App. 1 .D304). Allen Koenigsberg (1987, 3–9) concludes that Edison was indeed the first to use “Hello” (Alexander Graham Bell preferred “Ahoy”).
6. Unidentified.
7. See Doc. 1193. Page 45
Towns where Edward Johnson exhibited telephones and the phonograph in late January and early February 1878; Buffalo and New York City also shown for reference.
From Joseph Murray
Newark, N.J.Jan 28 1878a
Sir
I will go with you to Mr Orton tell him same as I told you and Mr Miller 1 it will do no good to state it on paper and have it going round the building for each one will be very likely to deny it— but you must know how Ashley 2 and Pope feel to you also Scott 3 Phelps Smith and Prescott Each one are no friend to you and I told you except Mr Orton you have not one friend in the W.U Co and when Eckert 4 is added the ring will be complete and you cannot expect Justice from them I am Truly yours
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:201). Letterhead of J. T. Murray. a“Newark, N.J.,” and “187” preprinted.
1. Nothing else is known of this conversation. Norman Miller, long associated with Edison through the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co., had overseen the operations of the electric pen business from early October 1875 to mid-January 1876 (see TAEB 1:513 and Doc. 639). Josiah Reiff also wrote Edison on 28 January to warn him about the machinations of Western Union officials:
Even if O[rton] feels kindly personally, he will gladly avail of every assault made by Phelps, Prescott, Ashley, Pope, Smith & Co to belittle your claims— Recollect you make a fatal mistake in bringing over any partially completed things—they simply tear it to pieces & experiment upon you. You simply furnish brains for them & they are your inveterate foes, unless you fill their pockets without consideration. [DF (TAEM 19:461)] Page 46
2. James Ashley, editor of the Journal of the Telegraph, and Franklin Pope had been Edison’s business partners from the fall of 1869 through the spring of 1870. After their falling out they attacked Edison’s professional reputation and personal integrity. See TAEB 1:137 n. 2; 2:305–7.
3. George Scott was general superintendent of Gold and Stock. See TAEB 1:297 n. 7.
4. Thomas Eckert was president of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Co. Western Union and Atlantic and Pacific had merged the previous summer, and it was generally expected that Eckert would be made Western Union’s general manager. When Jay Gould later formed a competing company, the American Union Telegraph Co., he placed Eckert in charge. See TAEB 2:120 n. 6; 3:472 n. 1; Gould’s testimony, U.S. Senate 1885, 1069.
5. Joseph Murray had been Edison’s manufacturing partner between 1872 and 1875, after which he established his own firm and continued to make instruments for Edison. At this time Murray was manufacturing Edison’s telephone transmitters. See TAEB 1:282 n. 1, 3:642 n. 1.
6. Unidentified; probably one of Murray’s workmen.
7. Probably James Bradley, who had worked as a machinist for Edison and Murray and was still working for Murray in the manufacture of Edison’s telephone transmitters. See TAEB 3:589 n. 4.
Technical Note: Telephony
[Menlo Park,] Jany 28th 18781
Speaking telephone
String or Iron strip2 Page 47
Polarized relay strip of tin between the magnet fastened at both ends Mica diaphraem
Mica diaphragm next the core and Iron one over it gives the best talking yet
Copper core & copper diaphragm
X, NjWOE, Lab., Vol. 14:31 (TAEM 4:172). Written by Adams; document multiply signed and dated.
Technical Note: Phonograph
[Menlo Park,] Jany 29 1878
Phono—1
I propose as an alarm for various uses to have bands, cylinders or discs drilled stamped cast etc with fine holes eq around them very close together having the appearance of a musical note on the phono— The holes however deeper— a spring with point follows in & out of these holes= Spring is connected to a diaphragm or Sounding board drum etc. The quick rotation of the plate etc causes the spring to seta the diaphragm in motion producing a powerful, high, and piercing scream or note. to trill it I propose to skipa every 3 4 or 5 dot & can also have several springs & several Rowsa of holes like an index plate2 Springs working separate diaphragms or one diaphragm This will give a composite tone=
// Batch just tried it its ok, loud
T A Edison
J Kruesi
Chas Batchelor
G E Carman
M. N. Force
X, NjWOE, Lab., Vol. 17:45 (TAEM 4:914). aObscured overwritten letter.
1. In addition to developing exhibition and dictating phonographs, Edison also contemplated other possible applications. For instance, he considered developing a children’s piano with prerecorded notes, and he envisioned an instrument with individual keys to play each letter of the alphabet. Vol. 17:43, Lab. ( TAEM 4:912); Doc. 1277.
2. A circular plate used to guide a machine tool in the making of gears, graduated circles, etc.
Edison’s phonographic “children’s piano.”
Notebook Entry: Phonograph
[Menlo Park,] Jan 29 1878
Phonograph.
Whilst Edison and I were experimenting at Ansonia, Conn.1 with the Phonograph in order to apply it to speaking clocks we found out that soft rolled copper answered excellently for recording in place of tinfoil and although the indents Page 49 could hardly be seen in some cases, it came out clear and louder than ever before;2 of course with copper we could use a stiffer spring3 and have it more rigid on the diaphragm than when we used tinfoil.
I designed three different ways of applying it in place of the striking attachment for clocks4
X, NjWOE, Batchelor, Cat. 1317:53 (TAEM 90:683). Written by Batchelor.
1. Batchelor and Edison traveled to Ansonia on the 29th with James James and Henry Davies to see the Ansonia Clock Co. and Ansonia Brass & Copper Co. factories. They worked on the phonograph until 4 a.m . the next morning and Batchelor noted in his diary that they “got best talking on copper instead of tinfoil.” They continued their experiments on the 30th and returned home that night. Cat. 1233:29-30, Batchelor (TAEM 90:67–68).
2. Sometime that spring Batchelor showed a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Times “a piece of sheet copper, fully one-thirtieth of an inch thick which had been wrapped around the cylinder.” After recording the sound of a music box, “a microscope of four hundred diameters, failed to detect the slightest marks; and yet the phonograph gave back that music so clearly that it was heard distinctly at a distance of three hundred feet.” In court testimony Batchelor indicated that they used the music-box to get “a vibration that was purely a vibration” without the “wind rushes from the mouth .... If we wanted to know whether we were reproducing the very smallest vibration, we would always try it with the music-box, after having experimented with speech.” “Two Hours With Edison,” Cat. 1029:73, Scraps. (TAEM 25:197); Batchelor’s testimony, p. 594, American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph (TAEM 116:371).
3. In the recording/playback assembly. See Doc. 1166.
4. For further work on clock phonographs see Doc. 1216.
From George Bliss
CHICAGO Jan’y 30 18778a
Dear Sir:
Yours of 27th at hand.1 Am delighted to hear that the Rotary is so near out. Engelman writes me that his steam press is about finished and he is immensely pleased. 2 I want to knock the wind out of him with the Rotary. Please advise me how it performs when set up. Glad you are not forgetting me altogether on the Phonograph and shall be pleased to hear particulars when you can send them. Gray & Barton have both just returned. You can depend on a good lift inon royalty account in Feb’y. 3 I will, however, bring up the subject within a few days and bring things to time— You don’t want to be hasty in this matter. It will be hard to find a channel where your royalty will be more safe & certain. I am confident my Pen Company will go through and if it does shall be in shape to discount your orders on the W.E— I have put in a years hard work on the Pen business & dont propose to lose it and the considerable amount of money expected. The business looks very promising to me— I coincide entirely in your judgment about Puskas. He is bound to turn out well. Herz is cutting a great swell on the other side. He was nearly busted for funds but made a scoop in some way & is living in style at Paris. He claims to have secured the Jablokoff light & Gramme Machine for the U.S.—4 I am disgusted with Beetle who seems to be infatuated with Herz— Gen’l Stager says Herz swindled everybody at San Francisco and that he dont dare to return there. I have written Beetle if he wants to keep out of prison to cut Herz. The telephones on which the West’n Union suspended the order are the Gray Battery double coil inst’s—those to be made are the Edison, Bell, Gray, Phelps’ magneto telephones—made after some kinks which Gray considers good. He claims to have the foundation for all telephones &c. You have got more space than I expected at the Exposition. What shape is it in? Please send me diagram. If I am to run it let me know just what you intend to exhibit so I can be thinking up a plan to be agreed upon when wel come down.5 Will have Beetle get copy of French patent. Respfly
Dont fret about royalty and you will be surprised by handsome remittance shortly! When will my Phonograph arrive?6
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:203). Letterhead of Electric Pen and Duplicating Press; letterhead and dateline are electric pen copy. a“Chicago” and “1877” preprinted. Page 51
1. Not found.
2. Nothing is known of Engelman. On 20 February, Bliss wrote to Edison, “Engelmann writes that he has his press in operation and that it is doing satisfactory work. Meanwhile I am without a fast press and no information at hand when I shall be in shape to offer one. How does the rotary press come on and what can I expect or promise.” The next month, Bliss reported to Edison “I saw Engelmann’s press in Phila. He has a level bed and the frame which holds the stencil moves back & forth under three rollers arranged with springs to vary pressure.” The press worked by steam or foot power and could produce about 1, 200 copies an hour. “I hope you will crowd that rotary press along. There is money in it for you and it will be the making of the Pen business.” Bliss to TAE, 20 Feb. and 30 Mar. 1878, DF (TAEM 18:275, 15:427).
3. Ten days later Western Electric sent Edison a check for $200. Barton to TAE, 9 Feb. 1878, DF ( TAEM 18:267).
4. Cornelius Herz and Stephen Field traveled to Paris the previous fall to acquire the Jablochkoff carbon arc light, which was usually powered by a Gramme dynamo. Doc. 970; TAEB 2:13 n. 2; and see Doc. 1595.
5. On 10 February, Edison wrote Bliss about taking charge of Edison’s exhibit at the Exposition. Bliss to TAE, 14 Feb. 1878, DF (TAEM 15:237).
6. Two months later, Edison wrote to Francis Jones, secretary of the American Electrical Society, “Bliss has been after me for a phonograph for some time but I had to stop making them the demand became so great I have placed the whole thing in the hands of the Phonograph Co Room 28 Tribune bldg NYork. They will not permit me to send any more out Bliss will explain why I cannot send any.” Marginalia on Jones to TAE, 26 Mar. 1878, DF (TAEM 15:407).
Agreement with Gardiner Hubbard, George Bradley, Charles Cheever, Hilborne Roosevelt, and Uriah Painter
[New York?,] January 30, 18781a
This memorandum of agreement entered into this Thirtieth day of January, Eighteen Hundred and Seventy Eight by andb between Thomas A Edison, of Menlo Park Middlesex County State of New Jersey, party of the first part and Gardiner G. Hubbard of Boston, State of Massachusetts, G. L Bradley2 of Providence, State of Rhode Island, Chas A Cheever of the City County and State of New York, Hilbourne L Rosevelt3 of the City County and State of New York, and U H Painter of Washington, District of Columbia,4 parties of the second part.
Witnesseth:—
whereas the said party of the secfirst part is the inventor of a new method for recording and reproducing therefrom the human voice and other sounds by causing such sounds to vibrate a mobile body the movements of which are recorded by indentation, displacement, subtraction from, a orc deposit Page 52 upon any material5 and the reproduction6 of the movements of such mobile body by causing its record or a copy thereof to give motion to another or the same body and which is more particularly set forth in the specifications of his patent for which he did apply for in the United States Patent Office December 15th 18777 and— whereas the said parties of the second part are desirious of engaging in the business of manufacturing or having manufactured and selling within the United States of America the Phonographic apparatus and method invented by the party of the first part for every purpose to which it can or may be applied except to Watches Clocks, Toys of every description8
Therefore be it agreed that for and in consideration of the sum of Ten Thousand Dollars in hand paid to the said party of the first part the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged and for other and further valuable considerations stipulations and agreements hereinafter set forth: The said Edison grants to the said parties of the second part collectively but not individually the sole and exclusive license and right to manufacture or cause to be manufactured and sell within the United States of America only and for consumption and use in the United States of America only and not for export, consumption or use in any foreign Country. The phonetic apparatus covered by the application dated December 15, 1877 as herein set forth, for every purpose to which it may be applied except Clocks and Watches and Toys, certain rights and licenses to manufacture and sell within the United States the said invention of the said party, of the first part when applied to Clocks and watches having previous to this contract been granted by the said Edison jointly to Daniel N Somers9 of the City County and State of New York and H J Davies 10 of Brooklyn, Kings County State of New York a copy of which contract is hereto annexed and certain rights and liceneses to manufacture and sell within the United States the Phonetic apparatus of the said Edison when applied to Toys for the use of Children granted by the said Edison to Oliver D Russell11 of the City County and State of New York previous to this contract a copy of which is also hereto annexed, which contracts rights and licenses the said parties of the second part hereby agree to except 12 from and recognise as not herein granted to them the said right and licenses hereby granted to the said parties of the second part and this contract is to continue during the existence of the patent providing however that the said parties of the second part do separately or collectively within one year Page 53 from the date hereof furnish for the purpose of the said business a capital of not less than Fifty Thousand Dollars to be used for the sole object of manufacturing and selling the Phonographic apparatus of the said Edison within the United States and to build up a permanent business in the manufacture and sale of such apparatus and the parties of the second part shall will13 and truly pay to the said Edison twenty per cent on the actual selling price of all apparatus or articles made sold or delivered and shall make true and correct returns under oath on or before the fifteenth day of each and every month of all sales of such apparatus made and sold or delivered during the previous month and allow the said Edison to have access to the Books and accounts at all reasonable times. It is expressly agreed and understood by the said parties of the second part that the main consideration to the said Edison in this contract is the twenty per cent royalty on the actual selling price of all apparatus containing the phonetic invention14 of the said Edison to be paid by them the said parties of the second part to the said party of the first part promptly and at the time herein mentioned and that the sum of Ten Thousand Dollars paid to the said Edison is the consideration to the said Edison to enter into this contract and grant the exclusive privileges herein set forth to the said parties of the second part
It is known15 understood and agreed that the said sum of Ten Thousand Dollars is to be used by the said Edison to perfect the said Phonographic invention so as to render it of great practical value for many uses such as the reproduction of speeches and musical compositions. If the said Edison shall not within one year from the date hereof succeed in so developing and perfecting a satisfactory apparatus for dictating letters or reproducing musical compositions then and in that case the parties of the second part shall have the privilege of terminating this agreement upon written notice to the party of the first part to that effect and this agreement shall then cease and become null and void providing the said Edison shall at the time of receiving said notice or within fifteen days thereafter pay to the party of the second part the sum of Eight Thousand Dollars ($8000) In the event of the said Edison upon such notice failing to pay the Eight Thousand Dollars as herein above stated then and in that case this agreement shall continue in force the same as if said notice had not been given by the party of the second part. And it is further agreed that if the said Edison shall not return to the party of the second Page 54 part Eight Thousand Dollars ($8000) as herein before provided for the said party of the second part shall still have the right to terminate this agreement16 It is further agreed that they the said parties of the second part will use reasonable diligence in prosecuting and establishing a permanent business for the sale of such apparatus in the United States as herein provided. It is further agreed that if the said parties of the second part fail to render a true and correct monthly statement of all sales for each and every month during the continuance of this contract as herein provided after the manufacture and sale of the article has commenced or fails to pay the royalty of twenty per cent on the selling price of all articles or apparatus containing the invention of the said Edison as aforesaid at the periods herein mentioned or do not use reasonable diligence in establishing and prosecuting the business of making and selling such apparatus within the United States then the said Edison shall have the right to terminate this agreement and it shall be null and void and all rights and licenses, and the said parties of the second part shall have no claims upon the said Edison for any money that may have been paid to him. It is further agreed, that if at the expiration of one year from the date hereof the said parties of the second part shall have failed to furnish Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50 000) for the purpose aforesaid, then the said Edison shall have the right to terminate this agreement but shall have no further claim upon the said parties of the second part17
It is further agreed that the said Edison will at his own expense protect as far as lays within his power the said invention from piracy or infringement and all improvements upon apparatus for the recording and reproducing of the human voice or other sounds except when such improvements relate to and are for specific use in telegraphy and solely adapted thereto and Clocks Watches and Toys aforesaid which may be made by the said Edison within seventeen years from the date hereof are to come within the provisions of this contract and the said Edison is to receive the percentage before mentioned upon all articles containing said improvements. To enable the said Edison to receive a just and equitable consideration through the medium of the twenty per cent royalty to be paid him, It is hereby expressly agreed that the minimum selling. price for each and every apparatus for the recording and reproduction of the Human voice or musical sounds shall not be less than Eighty Dollars, but if at any future time it can be shown to the satisfaction of the said Edison that it would-be advantageous to both parties to this contract to sell at a lesser Page 55 sum or should any other person at any future time device18 and apparatus for a similar purpose not an infringement of the invention of the said Edison and render it necessary by its competition in the Market to sell at at a lesser sum then the said Edison shall name a lesser sum to enable the said parties of the second part to compete with the said other apparatus with profit but no discrimination in the matter of price shall be made between any corporation or individual where such corporation desire to buy and use in their business and not for resale to others
In witness whereofc we have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Thirtieth day of January 1878
ADDENDUMf
Menlo Park N.J. February 20 1878.21
In consideration of services performed and to be performed by Chas Batchelor of Menlo Park N.J. in perfecting the Phonographic apparatus above mentioned, I hereby agree to pay to the said Batchelor his heirs or legal representatives ten 10g per cent, of all monies which I may receive from royalties from the sale of machines under the above contract. It being understood that under the above recited contract, the said Edison receives but fifteen per cent of the twenty per cent therein mentioned, he the said Edison being under contract to pay U H Painter of Washington D.C. five per cent of the said twenty per cent for services performed in obtaining such contract. It is understood that the said Batchelor is not to receive any part of the ten thousand dollars paid to the said Edison to aid him in experimenting= This contract shall be binding upon the heirs or legal representatives of the said Edison
D (copy), NjWOE, Batchelor, Unbound Documents 1878 (TAEM 92:260). Another copy of this agreement is in DF (TAEM 19:16) and a printed version is in DF (TAEM 51:762). aDate from text, form altered; “Copy” in top left corner. b”by and” interlined above. cInterlined above. d”d” was erased. eObscured erased word. fAddendum is ADS. gCircled. hSignature enclosed in left brace. Page 56
1. Although dated 30 January, this contract was not completed until the beginning of February. DOC 1191; Hubbard to Painter, 31 Jan. 1878, UHP; a draft is in DF (TAEM 19:2).
2. George Bradley, a metallurgist and financier, was then organizing the New England Telephone Co. to market the Bell telephone in those states. NCAB 14:440; Tosiello 1979, 194–206.
3. Hilborne Roosevelt (1849–1886) was a first cousin of Theodore Roosevelt and a pioneer in the development of the electric organ. He had several electrical patents to his credit, including electrical devices for organs and telephone improvements. Along with Charles Cheever he organized the Telephone Company of New York. DAB, s.v. “Roosevelt, Hilborne”; Tosiello 1979, 215–16.
Roosevelt had first met Edison on 22 December. On 22 January he sent Edison an organ for use in his phonograph experiments, and three days later Edison recorded a notebook entry related to it:
I notice in organ pipes that the slot through which the wind passes is provided with teeth I proppse to try this on the edges of the hole in the Telephone= Mr Roosevelt says it makes the tone purer gets rid of the hissing sounds= This may be good for phonograph also= [Vol. 14:22, Lab. (TAEM 4:169)]
Cat. 1233:22, 356, Batchelor (TAEM90:64, 231); “That Wonderful Edison,” New York World, 29 Mar. 1878, Cat. 1240, item 463, Batchelor (TAEM 94:147).
4. This is “West Chester, State of Pennsylvania” in the printed version. DF (TAEM 51:762).
5. Edison’s phonograph patent (U.S. Pat. 200, 521) contained no explicit reference to any method that would remove material from the recording medium. His failure to include this point became the basis for an important legal contest. See American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph Co., (TAEM 116:316).
6. This is “production” in the printed version. DF (TAEM 51:762).
7. U.S. Pat. 200, 521 issued on 19 February.
8. Regarding Edison’s contracts for the use of phonographs with clocks and toys see Doc. 1168 n. 7.
9. Daniel McLean Somers (1841–1912) was a former Park Commissioner of Brooklyn and a director of the Brooklyn Public Library. He was a member of the firm of Somers Brothers, tin manufacturers with a large factory in Brooklyn. The plant was absorbed by Steel Trust in which Mr. Somers was a large shareholder. Obituary, New York Times, 30 Aug. 1912, p. 9.
10. Henry J. Davies, a New York clockmaker who had been one of the incorporators of the Ansonia Clock Co. on 21 December 1877 in New York City, was general superintendent of the company in 1878. Letterhead of Ansonia Clock Co., 5 Feb. 1878, DF (TAEM 18:913); Bailey n.d., 13.
11. Nothing is known of Russell apart from his contract with Edison.
12. This is “accept” in the printed version. DF (TAEM 51:259).
13. This is “well” in the printed version. DF (TAEM 51:259).
14. This meant the selling price of the phonograph only and did not include supplies such as foil, recording points, etc. Page 57
15. This is “however” in the printed version. DF (TAEM 51:259).
16. This sentence is one of two clauses that George Bradley wanted added to the contract. Doc. 1191; Bradley to Hubbard, 25 Jan. 1878, Box 1205, NjWAT
17. This sentence is one of two clauses that George Bradley wanted added to the contract. Doc. 1191; Bradley to Hubbard, 25 Jan. 1878, Box 1205, NjWAT.
18. This is “devise” in the draft. DF (TAEM 19:11).
19. William K. Applebaugh had been an assistant superintendent of Gold and Stock Telegraph Co., in charge of private lines and the bank department, and later took an active interest in the Manhattan Quotation Telegraph Co. and the Domestic Telegraph Co. At this time he was apparently connected with the Telephone Company of New York. Applebaugh was one of the incorporators of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co. and was placed in charge of demonstrating machines at its offices in March. “Private Telegraphy,” Telegr. 9 (1873): 19; Reid 1879, 622, 633; “The Phonograph,” Set. Am. 38 (1878): 193; Articles of Incorporation, DF (TAEM 51:771).
20. Devonshire worked in the offices of the Bell Telephone Co. in Boston. Thomas Watson to Hubbard, 3 Sept. 1877, General Manager’s Letterbook; Watson to Hubbard, 12 Apr. 1878, Box 1205; both NjWAT.
21. On the same day, a similar addendum was added to another copy of this contract providing James Adams with five percent of Edison’s royalties. DF (TAEM 19:24).
22. William Carman began working in the Menlo Park laboratory office as a bookkeeper and sometime secretary in early February. See TAEB 3:6 n. 5; Cat. 1185, Accts. (TAEM 22:549).
To Uriah Painter
[Menlo Park,] Jany 31/78=
U.H.P.
Just returned from Ansonia went out to see Ansonia Clock Co works= 1 Big Concern= Davies is Supt= man who has clock contract= Have finished drawings of Dictating phonograph2 & shall be greatly assisted by the clock people= who are very liberal= give me anything I ask for without charge= Phelps Dodge & Co are the main owners=3 Bradley stuck on contract, one or two clauses didnt suit expect its over at office now, am going over tomorrow= 4 Asked J.C.R about selling Auto—said 100,000. I said wouldnt you take 70,000 he said he might thats all I could do with him= Those Patent office men owe me that Phono patent they are issuing patents that were filed long after some of my Cases=5 Yours
ALS, PHi, UHP. Page 58
1. Ansonia Clock Co., founded in 1850, had offices at Nos. 19 & 21 Cliff St. in New York. It was a branch of Ansonia Brass Co. (est. 1844) and had begun making clocks in 1849. In December 1877 Ansonia Clock was incorporated as a separate company. The company continued to manufacture clocks in Ansonia but also had a factory in Brooklyn. Dreppard 1958, Supp. 3; Bailey n.d., 13.
2. Edison planned on using his disk phonograph for dictating letters (see Docs. 1174 and 1227, figs. 16–21).
3. Phelps, Dodge & Co. began in 1833 as a metal business partnership between William Earl Dodge, his father-in-law Anson Greene Phelps, and Daniel James, who conducted a branch of the business in Liverpool, England. The Ansonia Brass & Copper Co. and the Ansonia Clock Co. were subsidiaries. Dodge, who served as president of these companies, was also on the board of directors of Western Union. NCAB 3:174; Bailey n.d., 13; Wilson 1879, 272.
4. The clauses in question were included in the signed contract (Doc. 1190 nn. 16 and 17). George Bradley had indicated in a 25 January letter to Gardiner Hubbard that he wished these two clauses added and on 27 January Charles Cheever wrote Hubbard that Hilborne Roosevelt had shown Bradley’s letter to Edison who “said he had just as [lief?] have those clauses [p]ut in.” Cheever also suggested that Bradley “come on to New York and settle the thing” (Box 1205, NjWAT).
5. Edison had submitted twenty-five patent applications since 31 August 1876. Only one of them had issued at the time he wrote this letter. See TAEB 3, App. 3.
From George Bliss
Chicago. Feb. 4, 1878a
Dear Sir:
Your esteemed favor of Jan. 31st is at hand.1
I do hope that you will not neglect that rotary press.
There is the most urgent need for it in the business and the call is so loud that half a dozen men are at work to get out an article.2
I should feel it very much if you allowed any one to get the start for it is simply a question of putting your attention in that direction to scoop them all high and dry.
I shall feel uneasy until you write me that the press is doing perfect work.
I am heartily glad that you have made the strike with the Painter crowd on the phonograph and only regret they got the start of me by having the resources at command which could not have been done had the instrument been sent here for me to work with.
If you send me out a phonograph I will get some notices in the leading western papers more favorable to your inventions Page 59 than any which have heretofore appeared in this section.
You ought to do this on general principles for it will all help in future matters and do the phonograph people good.
Of course I want you to get me as much of a slice as possible in the phonograph but if it is small I cant complain of what is purely a gift.
If I did not know you had many good things in store I should go into permanent mourning on account of the turn affairs have taken in the phonograph matter.
I hope you will not do anything to prejudice your interests with the Western Union people for pleasant relations there ought to be your cardinal principle.
Now about the the pen business I dont want you to forget that when I took it money was being spent instead of having revenue coming in.
If matters have not gone altogether satisfactory you have still received a considerableb sum of money and more has been earned which will shortly be paid.
The future prospects are excellent and the revenue which will be enjoyed would satisfy an ordinary man but you are not of that kind.
I have spent $10,000.00 besides all the profits in the last year in advertising the business and in European expenses and have just made a single advertiseing contract amounting to over $1,300.00.
Fortunately I have now reached a point where the business will begin to yield net results and from this time finances will gradually ease up all round in this venture.
My company is certain to go through and I shall soon have an abundance of funds to organize the business on a scale it deserves and which it’s best interestsc .demand.
Don’t forget that I assumed a guarantee against the advice of my business associates and took the European venture when the old heads rejected the project.
I have pioneered the royalty plan for you and have demonstrated that it is the best way to put your inventions adapted for the general public on the market.
This secures for you a revenue after the invention is made without farther bother and with very little annoyance of any kind.
More than this I have removed the bugbear of fear about trying to introduce goods abroad so that the world is opened up as a market hereafter. Page 60
What is better than all I am going to make a permanent success of the pen which will be the best basis of inducement forb parties disposed to take hold of your future inventions.
I believe the policy of scattering your inventions into the hands of a number of good parties is the best method to work but at the same time I am going to have a system of agencies at work which cannot be ignored in negotiations for the future good things which you produce.
I had your statement to Jan. 1st made out and it has been sent to you. 3
Please advise if not received.
You will get some money shortly. Respectfully,
TLS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:221). Typed in upper case. Letterhead of Electric Pen and Duplicating Press, George Bliss, General Manager; letterhead and dateline are electric pen copy. a“Chicago” and “187” preprinted. bMistyped. cFinal “s” is added by hand.
1. Not found.
2. Bliss had already warned Edison about Engelmann’s steam press (Doc. 1189). He subsequently wrote Edison about rotary presses being developed by Charles Puckette, who had a “fast press” that was “complete and works well” and could reputedly produce 600 impressions an hour, and by the Griest Manufacturing Co. which was planning to bring out a press that “those who have seen it say ... is to be very fast.” The only evidence of rotary press work at the laboratory are drawings by Charles Batchelor of 28 February and 3 May, a mid-May reference to work on the press in Batchelor’s memo book, and an account book with several entries for May. This limited effort was explained by Batchelor in his 16 April letter to Bliss: “I think it is impossible at present to do anything on Rotary press we have got too many things of so much more importance on hand.” Edison apparently turned the development of the press over to Bliss, who was still attempting to perfect it in mid-August. Bliss to TAE, 28 Jan., 12 Mar., and 15 Apr. 1878, all DF ( TAEM 18:261, 278, 283); Batchelor to Bliss, 16 Apr. 1878, Cat. 1238:263, Batchelor ( TAEM 93:189); TAE to George Beetle, 10 Aug. 1878, Lbk. 3:335 (TAEM 28:776); NS-78–001, Lab. (TAEM 7:716; 162:554); Cat. 1308:71, Batchelor (TAEM 90:702); Cat. 1185:182, Scraps. (TAEM 22:638).
3. Not found.
From Edward Johnson
Jamestown N.Y. 2/4/78.
My Dr Edison
I send you today papers bills etc that I had been preserving to hand you on my return;1 but as I am Compelled to repeat here and give one at Meadville Pa on Wednesday I shall not Page 61 reach NYork until Friday morning, when I hope to see you. Having to take a man with me has increased my expenses so that I am not Netting as much as I had hoped to do. still I am doing fvery fair and have created such a stir that I could keep going straight along. But I want to return to NYork get a better Phonograph— increase my terms to cover expense of an assistant— Get one of your speakers 2 and start right. I then want no better business. I have been compelled to use a speaker to conduct my entertainments owing to impracticability of getting Telegraph Operators everywhere—when I had used it once then I had to do it all the time. But just as I imagined it attracts but little attention compared to the singer 3 You will notice this in the newspaper reports. I explain both Telephones & then tell the audience the practical difference, and as I have been working circuits averaging about 15 miles I have been compelled to yell pretty loud. The fact pointing my subsequent explanation of your Instrument very nicely when I tell them that in yours it would be only neccessary to whisper. I have been pressed to say privately 1 which is the most practical Instrument and of course I tell them yours, and why. And now a strong demand has been made on me to exhibit yours & In order to meet this I have teleghd Orton (to save money) to have you send me a set here. I want to use them between here & Jamestow Meadville Pa 70 miles good wire & If I could get them & do so I would see that the fact was heralded abroad everywhere as I have tried Bells & can only work them by yelling frightfully and repeating frequently. It is just the limit of Bells & I am well satisfied yours would work beautifully. And as my showing Bells has removed from me the flavor of a mere advertising exhibitor My substitution of yours, & its victory over the other would fit in well with what I have said in Lectures ever since last summer— I therefore trust you have sent it & It will reach me today
Don’t let my showing Bells affect you. I will take care that their respective merits are just as apparent as when I simply talked of them
I hope the Phonograph progresses to your entire satisfaction My Exhibitions are growing in interest as I learn more & more of that Wonderful Instrument. The old thing has held on well & instead of playing out, Improves on use Yours As Ever
Thats a good little special to the Buffalo Express!4b Page 62
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:217). aObscured overwritten letters. bSentence enclosed by right parenthesis.
1. For copies of the newspaper clippings reporting these concerts see Cat. 1031:2, 20–23, Scraps. ( TAEM 27:733, 742–44). For the itinerary of Johnson’s phonograph exhibition tour see Doc. 1184.
2. That is, one of Edison’s carbon telephone transmitters.
3. That is, Edison’s electromotograph telephone receivers.
4. This may be a brief undated article describing Edison’s habits from his days as a telegraph operator in Memphis, Tenn., and the idiosyncracies of his handwriting. Cat. 1029:56, Scraps. (TAEM 25:190).
Memorandum: Telephone Test
Menlo Park NT.a Feb 4 1878
Speaking telegraph test Menlo Park NJ. to Philadelphia1
Bently2 says
I am very much disturbedb
I am very much astounded and so must any one be who reflects a minute. I recognized your voice instantlyc
Bentley got all we said and repeated it back Morsec
This opportunity to this afternoon and shall be glad to test them with you any time
A drawing of Edison’s telephone transmitter from Scribner’s Monthly
AD, NjWOE, Lab., Vol. 14:37 (TAEM 4:178). Written by Charles Batchelor. aPlace from text. bFollowed by blank space sufficient for several lines. cFollowed by horizontal line across page.
1. In his diary entry for this day, Charles Batchelor wrote “All day on Telephone tried experiment with Bentley of Philadelphia we talked to him and he got it all right we also talked to Washington” (Cat. 1233:35, Batchelor [TAEM90:70]). For further information about these tests see Henry Bentley’s 5 February letter to Edison enclosed with Doc. 1204. During his testimony in the Telephone Interferences, Bentley noted that, prior to 4 February, he and Philadelphia Local Telegraph Co. superintendent Samuel Plush had experimented with “the Edison carbon transmitter from one part to another of the building, at southeast corner Third and Chestnut street, and 107 South 3d street, an adjoining building.” They conducted the 4 February tests to Menlo Park on Western Union’s No. 7 wire (TI 1:318 [ TAEM 11:136]).
The transmitters used in this test were like those made about 26 November (Doc. 1125). A drawing made 12 February by an artist from Scribner’s shows the telephone transmitter being used at this time (see Doc. 1206 nn. 4 and 5; Prescott 1878a).
2. Henry Bentley was founder and president of the Philadelphia Local Telegraph Co (see TAEB 2:433 n. 4). William Orton had asked him to test Edison’s telephone because of Edison’s doubts about George Prescott (see Docs. 1173, 1204, and 1223; Bentley’s testimony, TI 1:317 [MEM 11:135]).
Page 63SMALL DEMONSTRATION PHONOGRAPH Doc. 1195
In early January, Edison had conceived a small, inexpensive phonograph that would illustrate the principle of recording sound. This machine, which would record only about fifty words, was intended to pique public interest without compromising the sales of the proposed commercial product.1 Edison initially hoped that Theodore Puskas would be able to sell hundreds of such small phonographs during the impending Universal Exposition in Paris.2
Although Edison sketched the basic design for this phonograph in January, the earliest measured drawings for the machine date from 4 February.3 By 6 February, Edison and Batchelor had devised a cylinder with a relatively massive rim that served as its own flywheel, which made it possible to maintain a fairly even rotation.4 They began building two machines, the first of which they sent to Puskas on 24 February. The next month Puskas arranged for the Parisian manufacturer Edme Hardy to produce the instruments for sale at the Exposition.5
The threads on the shaft of this phonograph were cut sixteen to the inch to correspond to the grooves cut into the cylinder. The standard holding the diaphragm was “so arranged that it can be swung to or from [the cylinder] at pleasure, or the stylus adjusted to any required delicacy” by means of an adjustable stop.6
A small phonograph manufactured by Edme Hardy in Paris in 1878.
Page 64Edison built a few more of these machines at Menlo Park and loaned them to various friends and associates who exhibited them publicly and in their homes.7 Shortly after beginning to build the prototypes, Edison had suggested to the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company that they sell such machines in North America, which they quickly agreed to do. Edward Johnson, the company’s general agent, arranged for Sigmund Bergmann to make twenty-five. 8
Batchelor suggested several changes to Johnson, in a letter of 11 March, all of which Bergmann made in the machines he manufactured.9 To ease the adjustment of the swing-arm stop, Batchelor moved it to the front of the arm; he had Bergmann cast the diaphragm standard as a separate piece with adjusting screws that changed the depth to which the stylus fit into the cylinder grooves; and he made the arm thicker to provide a larger bearing surface for the pivot screw. Bergmann also used four screws instead of two to mount the mouthpiece to the standard. 10 However, the machines were not well made and failed commercially.11
1. Doc. 1198. In a 19 February 1878 letter to Frank Scott, Edison suggested the capacity would be about 60 words (private collection of Craig A. Fouts, Encinitas, Cal.).
2. Batchelor wrote in his diary entry for 6 February 1878: “Designed model phonograph for Puskas to sell at Paris exhibition.” Cat. 1233:37, Batchelor (TAEM 90:71); see also Docs. 1196, 1198, and Puskas’s telegram to Edison of 14 February (“Waiting for promised small Phonograph cable cost if thousand ordered”), DF (TAEM 97:622).
3. Vol. 17:32, 47–49, 58, Lab. (TAEM 4:916, 925; 97:613, 615). An undated technical note, labeled “Model,” was incorrectly identified in Supp. I as 1877, but clearly dates from 1878 (TAEM 97:605).
4. Cat. 1233:37, Batchelor (TAEM 90:71); Vol. 17:50 (TAEM 4:917). In practice, however, it was found that “the small machine holds so little that it cannot be run long enough to get up an even speed” (Edward Johnson to Uriah Painter, 28 Mar. 1878, Box 1205, NjWAT.
5. TAE to Baldwin Bros. & Co., 24 Feb. 1878; TAE to Puskas, 27 Feb. 1878, both Lbk. 1:349, 369 ( TAEM 28:221, 233); Docs. 1248 and 1259. One of Hardy’s instruments, which were sold for 200 francs ($40), is now in the Musée National des Techniques, CNAM, Paris (Inv. 89200000); another is in the Deutsches Museum, Munich. Hardy fitted a small ebonite cone to the mouthpiece to aid in recording. Charbon 1981:51–53; Du Moncel 1974, 246–47; Puskas to A. L. Fleury, 17 July 1878, OF (TAEM 15:968).
Sketches from 8 January for the small demonstration phonograph.
6. Plush 1878, 270. The stop screw is visible behind the right end of the swing arm; see also the illustration of the Hardy instrument in Charbon 1981, 53.
7. Doc. 1195 represents a phonograph sent to Henry Bentley in early March (“The Speaking Phonograph,” New York Daily Graphic, 12 Mar. Page 65 1878, Cat. 1031:82, Scraps. [TAEM 27:781]; Doc. 1247; Plush 1878). See also, e.g., Charles Batchelor to William Hollingshead, 25 Feb. 1878, Lbk. 1:352 (TAEM 28:223); “The Phonograph, A Machine that Talks and Sings,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 Feb. 1878, and “The Phonograph,” New York Tribune, 25 Mar. 1878, both Cat. 1240, items 385, 455, Batchelor (TAEM 94:117, 143); and Docs. 1263 and 1304.
8. Docs. 1198, 1238, and 1246.
9. Lbk. 1:426 (Z/í£Áf 28:285).
10. The experimental machine that survives at the Edison National Historic Site (Cat. 311) has a different adjustment for the standard and incorporates a method of securing the tinfoil that was not developed until the end of June. See Doc. 1397 n. 3.
11. See Docs. 1302 n. 4 and 1276 n. 4. Du Moncel indicates that the version produced by Hardy in Paris may have been more successful (Du Moncel 1974, 246). The known surviving Bergmann phonographs of this type include two that were modified by Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Samuel Tainter during their phonograph experiments in the early 1880s. One of these is in the Smithsonian Institution (Cat. 312, 123) and the other is owned by Charles Hummel.
Expenmental Model: Phonograph 1
[Menlo Park, c. February 6, 1878]2
M (historic drawing) (28 cm × 19 cm × 21 cm), Plush 1878, 270.
1. See headnote above.
2. These illustrations appeared in the April 1878 issue of the Journal of the Franklin Institute; the drawings were made on 9 March (see Doc. 1247). This machine was not subjected to the various modifications subsequently developed at Menlo Park and by Edward Johnson and thus represents the initial design from early February, as do the models made in France somewhat later. The illustrations accompanied a report by Samuel Plush (filling in for Henry Bentley, who was ill) to the 20 March 1878 meeting of the Franklin Institute, dealing with Edison’s latest telephone as well as the phonograph. The faint dotted lines represent the movement of the mouthpiece-supporting swing-arm (and Page 66 latch) away from the recording and reproducing position. The drawing of the mouthpiece c shows a small “delicate spring” e with a “sharppointed stylus” f on its end. The spring and stylus rest against a small piece of rubber tubing (the oval to the right off) that was cemented onto the center of the diaphragm.
To Theodore Puskas
Menlo Park NJ Feby 8—1878a
Friend Puskas
I send you a copy of my contract with the Cheever Hubbard people, 1 they have all signed and paid the money I write this very quickly and you may have some trouble in deciphering it—You can probably get it copied The model of the small phonograph is nearly finished It will go soon with more telephones—next lot of telephones will give you less trouble than the ones taken as I expect you have had trouble with the Bell Call. 2 The plate phonograph is going to be a big success—we have completed drawings and have started making one—3 am receiving much assistance from the Clock people & have been up to Ansonia for 2 days they have ½ doz men experimenting on its application to clocks=4 Received your telegram today=5 I will tomorrow or Sunday make out the papers to meet the conditions of the English case= This paper you can alter erase & change to suit them and if satisfactory to me can return and deposit with Brewer & Jansen=6I can send a supplementary agreement between us=7 as the English case is peculiar how shall we devide — Yours
ALS, HuBPo, TP. aPlace and date cut off on photocopy; taken from typed transcription in HuBPo.
1. Doc. 1190.
2. The circuit arrangement for the call bell in the telephone sets taken by Puskas in January is shown in Doc. 1182. For Edison’s efforts to deal with the call bell problem see Doc. 1226.
3. See sketch of 15 February and measured drawings of 16 and 20 February. Vol. 17:54–56, Lab. (TAEM 4:921–24).
4. On 5 February, Henry Davies sent Edison a clock for a phonograph to be put in and told him that “We have been very busy experimenting at Ansonia and the latest advance made is to put the point directly on the diaphragm.—then by speaking lound you can indent the Brass roller itself— We hope in few days to be able to arrive at something defonate.” DF (TAEM 18:913).
5. That day Puskas cabled Edison “First class House agrees to advance 2000 pounds cash for English Phonograph and to give us half profits on whole sale and retail sales expenses all born by them reply immediately and press for 3000” (DF [TAEM 19:209]). Edison replied Page 67 as requested (see Doc. 1197). The “House” in question was the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Co., run by George Nottage; see Docs. 1237 and 1265. The exchange rate in this period was somewhat less than five U.S. dollars for one British pound sterling (Ency. Brit., s.v. “Money”).
6. Edward Brewer and Peter Jensen were London patent solicitors used by Lemuel Serrell in connection with Edison’s British patent applications. E.g., Brit. Pats. 4, 502 (1878) and 3, 880 (1880); TAEM-G1–2, s.v. “Brewer & Jensen”
7. Puskas’s agency under his 17 December 1877 agreements with Edison and George Bliss neither included nor excluded the United Kingdom. It covered seven European states and empires (Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia), excluded the United States and Canada, and allowed extension to other countries in which Puskas would pay for patents. Kellow (TAEM28:1195, 1204).
Charles Batchelor Diary Entry
[Menlo Park,] Friday Feb 8 18778
New York Called at Bergmans, Ecauberts,1 Fitch & Meserole,2 Thaus, 3 Patterson Brs—4
Made model drawing for Inst for show principle of Edison Speaking phonograph—5a
Edison got offer for speaking phonograph by Cable from Puskas £2000 & half profits he cabled back, would sell for ¿3000
AD, Nj WOE, Batchelor, Cat. 1233:39 (TAEM 90:72). aFollowed by centered horizontal line.
1. Frederick Ecaubert was a New York toolmaker located at 41 Green St. On 8 February he charged Edison $100 for a “Model of printing Press” that may have been a rotary press design for the electric pen. Folder 78–007, DF, NjWOE; Wilson 1878, 394.
2. Frederick Fitch and A. V. Meserole were partners in Fitch & Mes-erole, an electrical manufacturing firm located at 40 Courtland St. in New York City. According to their letterhead, they specialized in making the late Leverett Bradley’s patented “Naked Wire Helices for Electro-Magnets.” At this time they were making induction coils for Edison’s telephone receivers, and on the same day Batchelor visited their shop they wrote Edison that “the balance of the Experimental coils will be finished today and left at ‘Pen’ office Church St.” Doc. 1177 n. 3; Fitch & Meserole to TAE, 8 Feb. 1878, DF (TAEM 18:421).
3. Henry Thau had been one of Edison’s machinists in Newark before opening his own shop in New York in 1872 (see TAEB 1:622 n. 14). He was listed as a telegraph instrument maker located at 85 Nassau St. in Wilson 1878 (p. 1394). At this time he was making telephone transmitters for Edison (see Doc. 1177 n. 2).
4. Patterson Bros. was a New York hardware dealer located at 27 Park Row. Patterson Bros, bill to TAE, 26 Feb. 1878, 78–007, DF, NjWOE; Wilson 1878, 1102. Page 68
5. The instrument is Doc. 1195; three measured drawings from this date are in Vol. 17:47, 49, 58, Lab. ( TAEM 4:916, 925).
Charles Cheever to Gardiner Hubbard
New York, Feby 9th 18781
Dear Mr Hubbard
Edison has appeared here today with his Phonograph, also Johnson. I find that Roosevelt had suggested your idea of putting the money in the Trust company and paying him in installments, but he did not like it, he said it was a reflection upon his ability to take care of himself that he proposed to buy United States bonds with the money and sell one at a time as he needed the money. I therefore concluded that it was best to pay him. I have today given check for $6,000, $2,000 paid him Saturday last and $2,000 still due.1 While he was here a friend of mine brought in the Tenor2 of the opera company which is going to sing in the Academy next week, said Tenor interviewed the Phonograph which very much delighted himself and Edison as well. Edison suggests the following. That 500 small Phonographs be made similar to sketch enclosed,3 with the cylinder only large enough to hold about 50 words. He says these machines to be sold at a low price, say $25 or $30 merely as specimens of the Phonograph for the use of scientific individuals of various sorts, says he has a large number of applications from professors of various colleges and other people who wish to buy them just as a novelty and he thinks pending the time when he will have the perfect machine completed a good deal of money could be made in selling these small traps as a novelty, explaining to the customer that it was merely as an example of what the machine would do and not a finished working machine which was sold them. I told him that I did not think it was best to do that until after the patent was issued at any rate. He agreed with me in that, but said he expected to see the patent issued in a very little while.4 On first thought I think this would be a very good idea, it seems as if we might sell upwards of a thousand of them at net profit clear of the commissions &c of $15 to $20 each. Johnson says that he wishes to make an arrangement to have the use of a Phonograph for exhibition purposes at once, that he finds it attracts large numbers of people and will pay. I did not tell him what you said on the subject on Sunday last. I did say to him that I would write and consult with you on the subject. Please send me such a letter as I can show Johnson.5 Upon Page 69 consideration I do not fully agree with you as to the point of not showing the phonograph until we are ready to supply the demand. I think it would be better perhaps to let it be seen and talked about and get people anxious about it and at the same time by constantly showing and hearing the criticisms and suggestions thereon, we will get a great many ideas which we would not otherwise obtain. I think this point is also an argument in making the small show Phonographs spoken of as above by Edison.
Edison is making 2 of these small machines now, they will be done next week one of them is to be sent to Puskas and the other one Edison has promised to me. By the way Edison received a telegram yesterday fromb Puskas saying that he had been offered for the English patent on the Phonograph £ 2,000 and half the profits of the business. Edison is pleased to death with the offer but replied to Puskas that he would do it for £3,000 and half the profits Yours truly
PS. Nothing heard yet from the Western Union6 Orton will be back in about a weekc
LS, NjWAT, Box 1205. Letterhead of the Telephone Co. of New York. a“New York” and “187” preprinted. bRepeated at end of one page and beginning of next. c”Orton . . . week” in Cheever’s hand.
1. This refers to the $10,000 due Edison under terms of the 30 January agreement for his phonograph (Doc. 1190).
2. Operatic tenor Charles Adams made his New York debut at the Academy of Music on 11 February 1878 with the Pappenheim-Adams Opera Company, singing a lead role in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. A native of Massachussetts, Adams had only recently returned to the United States after eighteen years abroad, during which he had a long tenure as the Vienna Imperial Opera’s principal tenor. ‘“The Huguenots’—Debut of Charles R. Adams,” New York Daily Graphic, 12 Feb. 1878, 686; NGD, s.v. “Adams, Charles R.”
3. Not found; see Doc. 1195.
4. U.S. Patent 200, 521 issued on 19 February.
5. Not found.
6. On 4 February, Cheever had submitted a proposal to William Orton and Norvin Green on behalf of the Bell Telephone interests regarding a merger of the telephone business. On 9 February, Orton had not yet returned from a trip west and Green wrote Cheever rejecting the proposal but suggesting that they hold further meetings. Tosiello 1979, 239–43.
To Clarence Blake1
Page 70
Menlo Park N J. Feby [9, 1878?]2
Dear Sir.
I have made 9 phonographs to date and the savans have taken them all. 3 Prof Mayer and Schellen4 the last two. I am making a smodel of a smaller size that can be made very cheaply. These machines only illustrate the principle. The articulation is no better than the ordinary run of telephones, owing to the impossibility of rotating the cylinder evenly by hand. I am however making a complete machine for introduction to the public, with a clock work motor this apparatus will articulate I think better than a telephone. the volume of sound is about ½ that of the original. These machines will be out in about 2 months. The small hand ones will be out in two weeks. You can obtain these from Chas A Cheever, Tribune building New York= I suppose you would need an extra lever for indenting the movements of the lips.5 Prof Mayer has an apparatus whereby he measures the indentations to the 1/10, 000 of inch. he claims that it is an instrument of precision owing to the possibility of verifying the records. Yours Truly
ALS, MB, CJB.
1. Dr. Clarence Blake was an ear specialist and acoustic researcher in Boston who had worked with Alexander Graham Bell on phonautograph experiments. Doc. 1150; Bruce 1973, 112, 121, 128–29.
2. The content of this letter strongly suggests it was written soon after Edison’s 9 February meeting with Charles Cheever (reported in Doc. 1198). Blake responded to it on 11 February (OF[TAEM 18:916]).
3. The same number appears in a notebook entry that Charles Batchelor probably wrote in late April (PN-78–02-24, Lab. [TAEM 44:4]). It is unclear whether this count encompassed only flywheel phonographs like those sent to Mayer and Schellen or also included any earlier machines without flywheel (see headnote p. 10). Among the nine phonographs are one or both of those Theodore Puskas took to Europe in January and one sent to William Preece (Docs. 1182 and 1204). Another may have been the one Edward Johnson was using for exhibitions, and Edison retained at least one such machine for experimental use and demonstrations àt Menlo Park.
4. On 24 December, Henry Morton had sent Edison a letter from Heinrich Schellen, director of the Realschule in Cologne, Germany, and author of a standard reference on telegraphy, requesting one of Edison’s telephones (Doc. 1156). There is no correspondence regarding the phonograph Edison sent him.
5. See drawing of 8 February, NS-78–007 (TAEM 7:870).
To Theodore Puskas
Menlo Park NJ Feby 10 = 78
Friend Puskas
I have shipped Mr Preece his phonograph= If you are in London in 15 or 20 days you might call on him and shew him how to work it= I have sent him full instructions= Please ascertain if he is favorable to me in Telephone matters as I have heard some reports to the Contrary=1 It has been suggested that profit basis would be bad as one could never know how much was made so I telegraphed you to close the bargain on royalty basis of either 15 or 20 per cent on the selling price the same as they pay here2 I suppose everything is included in English offer iea clocks watches toys and dictating machines= I am writing a contract tonight to cover the English which you might submit to them3
The new wclockwork machine is going to be a big success; There is a great deal more excitement here now over phono than when you left. James thinks he ought to be paid something—
I suppose that you might be able to do something on P Telephone in England if Preece is going to do nothing I am going to send him a pair ofb machines soon and I shall watch and see what he does:=4 Yours
ALS, HuBPo, TP. aCircled. b“pair of” interlined above. cParagraphs of postscript separated by wavy, vertical line.
1. No such reports have been found.
2. Edison’s cable has not been found; apparently this was separate from the cable mentioned in Doc. 1197. Under the terms of his American phonograph agreement, Edison was to receive twenty percent on the actual selling price of the instruments but an addendum of 20 February gave five percent to Uriah Painter for his services in obtaining the agreement (Doc. 1190).
3. According to Doc. 1207, this and the two following letters (Docs. 1201 and 1202) were sent together with the draft agreement on 11 February.
4. See Docs. 1212 and 1348 regarding Edison’s belief that he had an arrangment with Preece regarding the promotion of his telephone and phonograph inventions in the United Kingdom. Page 72
5. See Doc. 1177.
6. Edison apparently meant “Preece”; see Doc 1204.
To Theodore Puskas
Menlo Park Feby 10/78
Friend Puskas
This is a rough copy of what I think1 could be fixed up by scratching2 you might get it copied in plain hand= I have no copy of it as I send it outff tomorrow & have no time to y It is on the basis of my US Contract but not so harsh please explain to your people about the patent covering telephone & Phonograph so there will be no misunderstanding3 notice clause about returning ½ of money. if of course theres no chance of failure but It I think it but right to put it it in I did it of my own accord in the US Contracta theya did not ask it.4 Yours
ALS, HuBPo, TP. aObscured overwritten letters.
1. Not found; for the settled terms see Doc. 1237 n. 1.
1. That is, Puskas could “alter erase and change” it (see Doc. 1196).
3. Edison’s British Patent 2, 909 (1877) was primarily a telephone patent (Doc. 973). The preliminary specification had included the phonograph as a telephone recorder; in the final specification, the phonograph was made an invention in its own right. This soon caused significant concern regarding the legal strength and commercial worth of the patent (see Doc. 1237).
4. Edison’s American phonograph contract (Doc. 1190) actually stipulated that in the event of his failure to produce a satisfactory product in a year he could be called uporl to return eighty percent of the initial $10,000 payment.
To Theodore Puskas
Menlo Park [February] 10= 1878
Friend Puskas
I see by the Scientific papers that Breguét1 a celebrated instrument maker of Paris has just discovered my carbon telephone he read a paper Jany 9 before the Academy2 describing the use of carbon in a telephone says great results is to be expected from it= The f French must be a very isolated people as Preece mentioned the fact before the British Association Oct 11 1877,3 that I had discovered that carbon varied its conductivity by pressure and had i employed it in a telephone= Besides there is their own French patent= 4 you Page 73 might look into the matter when you are in Paris, and notify Breguét of existence of French patent Yours
P.S. Obtain a copy of French aEnglish & other patents from Brewer & Jensen for your information.
ALS, HuBPo, TP.
1. Louis Breguet was a noted maker of scientific instruments and watches whose firm became the dominant French electrical manufacturer with the introduction of the telegraph in 1844. Although Breguet lost his monopoly on instruments manufactured for the French telegraph service in 1853, he remained a major figure in the industry. Burrica 1986, 158–72.
2. The 17 January issue of Nature (17:336) had published an account of the 7 January meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences at which Breguet had read a paper entitled “On some new modifications in the telephone” in which he discussed the use (by others) of a blacklead pencil to vary resistance in a telephone transmitter. A paragraph in the English Mechanic of 25 January also reported use of “the variable galvanic resistance of graphite” in telephones by MM. Gamier and Pollard of Cherbourg, mentioning Breguet merely as one who thought this “promising,” and Batchelor wrote under it in his scrapbook: “This is the principle of our telephone which we have worked since last March” (Cat. 1240, item 350, Batchelor [TAEM 94:105]). In mid-April, Batchelor and George Barker “tried the lead pencil experiment of those two Frenchmen about putting it against the diaphragm but could only get sounds no articulation” (Batchelor memorandum, c. 12 Apr. 1878, DF [TAEM 15:517]).
3. Actually in August 1877; see TAEB 3:640 n. 9.
4. Edison’s French Patent 121, 687, filed and dated 19 December 1877, was not officially granted until 19 February 1878. It had evidently been approved by the end of January, however, as George Bliss wrote to Edison on 12 February that he had received a letter from France containing that news. DF (TAEM 18:628).
To Alfred Mayer
Menlo Park Feby 11/78
Friend Mayer
Briefly I have found following points1
1st that Sheet copper same thickness of the tin foil will be indented and record, that the indentations are slight compared with the foil but that the reproduction is nearly as loud and in one instance louder than the voice of the original speaker; defects are rough surface of copper gives extra sounds and wearsa indenting point. The point when copper is to be indented is secured directly to diaphragm hence no loss motion as with the rubber tube and consequently great volume Page 74 of sound from light indentations. This proves that the foil should” have some antimony in it to harden it so that the employment of the rubber tube can be dispensed with or at least a stiffer one used2
2nd That the smaller the diaphragm the better the articulation; but a large diaphragm may give clear articulation if it is dampened on both sides. The reason why dampening of the diaphragm gives better articulation is that when the diaphragm is free its impact against the foil gives rebounds too small to be seen but enough to give harmonics and because it brings the diaphragm to its normal position quicker after each vibration than it would if not dampened.
3rd That the smaller the chamber in the speaking tube the sharper the articulation, if the chamber be increased the articulation is muffled (I mean when the speaking & reproduction takes place with chamber)
4th. That the size of the hole through whichb you speak has a great deal dto do with the articulation, when words are spoken against the whole diaphragm the hissing sounds as in sh all fleece last are lost whereas by the use of a small hole provided with sharp edges these sounds are reinforced and are recorded The hissing sounds give wind rushes which pass out of the mouth at is downward= That teeth around the edge of a slot instead of a round hole gives the hissing consonants clearer:3
5 That an extra lever placed in the mouth piece connected to the diaphragm may record the lip movements and in reproduction the same lever may possiblyb be used to open and close the aperture to the diaphragm (the lever I have tried, the last not)
6 That the best reading is obtained when the mouthpiece is covered with several thickness of cloth so that the scraping noise on the foil is rendered less audible.4
7th That with the hand machine,5 (well adjusted)—a sentence of 100 words may be read in the presence of a person and he will generally read every word in one case 8 hours after hearing it read, but that a person who has not heard it it cannot be read until it has been reproduced several times, (this is like shorthand reporters their notes are only aids to memory because generally one shorthand reporter cannot read the others notes. Yet if both were present and the subject had 10 000 words both would read the notes readily even days after= Page 75
8 Another phenomenon I have noticed is that If a p two simple butc different sentences are put on the machine, and a person who had never heard of such an apparatus be brought in and told to listen he will not even after a dozen repetitions be able to say what it is, but if the first sentence is told him & then reproduced he generally says why thats perfect the second sentence is now reproduced when he generally reads it or part of it the first time and the whole the second time if simple= The same thing has been noticed in the telephone, and I think it lack of confidence, or some obscure effect of the mind upon the hearing apparatus. They do not expect or imagine athat a machine can talk hence cannot understand it words
9th That it does not appear to make much difference in the articulation what shape the indenting point is made
10th That the scraping noise is less on composition foil than with pure tin foil although the latter appears to have a smoother surface
There are many other small things, but the above is what may be called results of experiments in the last few days= Below is rough sketch of the new machine we are making6 Will keep you posted on any new results, and send you sheet of copper upon which I made records in Ansonia, that could be heard Readb 275 feet in open air, and perhaps further if it had been tried.7
M Swivel lever & post8
C the revolving plate with volute spiral the inner half to guide arm outward the outer half to indent upon 1, 2, 3, &, 4 pins to pass in eyelets, holes in frame fit over them; eyeleting done in a guage. Page 76
Vulcanite wheel in worm to lessen noise.9 winds by lever like music box B.B. friction clutch for stopping & starting plate instantly allowing clockwork to go on G a friction-pendulus governor
prepared sheet X is paper f is foil stretched over it. n n eyelets for registration. Yours Truly
ALS, NjP, Hyatt & Mayer. aObscured overwritten letters. Interlined above, b“simple but” interlined above.
1. On 9 February, Mayer had written Edison about his experiments with the phonograph he had just received and indicated that he would “have an illustrated article on it, out in about 2 weeks, and I naturally wish all I can get from you to make the information it contains up to date Could you not favor me with a concise account of what you have done since I last saw you, & put it in such form that it could be published in my article? (DF [TAEM 97:620]).” In his 14 February reply to this letter, Mayer stated that he would “embody results in the article; which I think you will like. It will be illustrated with about 15 cuts. It is, of course, of a popular character,” and in a letter dated 6 March he told Edison the article was for Popular Science Monthly (DF [TAEM 18:918, 935]). The “popular character” of the journal in that era meant only that articles were not written for specialists and avoided most mathematics, but articles frequently provided lengthy and intricate discussions of difficult subjects by highly respected authors. Mayer eventually prepared eighteen illustrations but then had to severely reduce the article’s length and eliminate all but three of the figures (Mayer 1878a; Mayer to TAE, 7 Mar. 1878, DF [TAEM 18:939]).
2. Cf.Doc. 1188.
3. Mayer quoted this paragraph in his Popular Science Monthly article (Mayer 1878a, 724). This result drew upon Edison’s prolonged work on related problems with telephones.
4. Mayer quoted this paragraph in his article (Mayer 1878a, 724).
5. That is, a hand-powered phonograph. Edison had already experimented with a weight-drive clockwork powering a cylinder phonograph Page 77 (see Doc. 1204) and was working on at least one other clockwork design—the plate phonograph described below.
6. Calculations for the gear ratios and drawings of the new plate phonograph from mid-February are in Vol. 17:51–57, Lab. (TAEM 4: 918–24).
7. See Doc. 1188. Mayer quoted from this sentence in his article (Mayer 1878a, 724).
8. The funnel at the end of the “Reproducing” arm pivots on “M” to rest on the diaphragm and stylus for playback. Text on base is “Clockwork.”
9. Text is “worm shown vertical.”
To William Preece
Menlo Park N.J. Feby 1011/78
Friend Preece:1
I suppose you think by this time that I promise many things and send none= However I have this day sent you by Austin Baldwin’s Express2 an experimental phonograph suitable for lecture purposes. I do not know how your people will take it but where it has been exhibited here before an audience, it created an immense excitement which I cannot account for= I will send you a supply of tin foil, you can probably obtain what you require there—get it smooth and free from wrinkles= to smooth it for putting on the machine lay on a pane of glass and rub with a strip of the tin foil itself—for putting it on the machine push the foil forward so about [an?]a inch of the end comes off the glass and lays on the table, the brush a little thick shellac varnish on the edge say ¼ inch of edge thus— Then pass under cylinder and secure=
Be sure the lap is towards you as the machine turns from you—do not turn backwards when the diaphragm is set= Be sure and have the foil on tight there is a knack in putting it on thus which you will soon get
You will observe that the machine makes a continuous indentation this is to record the outward movement of the diaphragm and also ensure reproduction. You will also notice that the diaphragm is dampened by rubber tubes—this is to Page 78 make clearer articulation by preventing the rebound of the diaphragm against the foil; be sure that the indenting point is central over the groove and so the continuous indentation is central you can ascertain its central position by passing the pointed end of the small adjusting pin sent you over the foil the indentation made by this point shows if the other indentation is central. The loudest talking is obtained when the lips just touch the edge of the hole in the mouth piece. You can easily test this by saying “how do you th get this” about ½ inch from hole again ¼ inch again ⅛ then 1/16 and then with lips lightly in Contact. Speak in a deepb bass voice if the audience is large, use a funnel of paper—thus
that is about 1 foot 10 inchesc at the mouth—and slightly largeef1 than the hole in the mouthpiece at the bottom and about 1 foot long You might try several Sizes= The right speed I think is about 120 turns per minute. Music is best reproduced at high speed. It is impossible to turn the crank so even as to make any harmony in a song with notes long dwelt on like the Lastd Rose of Summer etc but any thing very quick comes out fairly= I had one of these Machines run by a clockwork controlled by a pendulum 3 the Last Rosed of summer was reproduced beautifully [-]c Whistling will come on your machine, in whistling put lips ½ inch from hole— After a while your point on diaphragm will wear I think though I have had none wear yet so you might observe its shape etc so that another one can be made= You notice I use strips narrower than the cylinder= I do this because they are more easily put on= In carrying the machine about beca be careful not to allow the fly wheel to hit anything as the shaft may be bent= Keep plenty of oil on the shaft as it soon drys and it becomes difficult to turn Steady= The practical machine for introduction to the public is most finished and it will be a great success and— Have you ever done anything with the Motograph Telephone— I have made one for Prof Schellen also a phono who is going to lecture through Germany= The Motorphone or Electromotographf that Johnson is exhibiting here is absolutely perfect all tones being pure and the Volume of Sound tremendous= About my speaking Telephone: I shall send you Page 79 a complete set soon and I think they will be satisfactory on your wires. The reason of my delay lies in the fact that I must get something to work on wires that Bells will not and you know how difficult that is. I have been working my telephone fromd Menlo Park to Washington and Philadelphia. Tohe Quadruplex and Phelps Printers4 bothered me to Washington (24 wires on the pole) but we carried on a long conversation beto Phila 70 miles 354 wires part distance & 24 wires same pole the balance it was a perfectly practical circuit he getting my whispering I send you his letter.5 You will probably remember him6 he has charge of all the G & Stock City wires and private lines in Phila under WU auspices. A Comparative test made between mine Bells, (Phelps Bell) & (Grays Bell) Telephone7 between Maind office in NYork and Mr Ortons house by Mr Orton him self on a regular city wire running on regular poles showed that mine was practical to whisper on while the others you had to shout and get scarcely anything at that I refer you to Mr Orton= Dont ask Prescott. He does not scruple to lie about me in the most outrageous manner, and is doing everything in his power to prevent my telephone from being used because I will not dod the same thing with him as on Quadruplex= They are telling all kinds of stories about you in relation to Quadruplex, what you said to Stearns8 etc which I am sure are fabrications. I received a letter from the Polytechnic Institution9 London for a phonograph bfor exhibition before that institution, but I was told by a gentleman from London10 that it was a money making concern so I refused to send them one at present= If you do not care to bring it before the public, or have no time please let me know. Get a copy of my British Telephone patent” theres lots in it I have made a new discovery12 which I will write you again soon It is as curious as the Phonograph— Yours
P.S. Some 6 weeks after Herz’sb leaving here I ascertained he was a huge humbug which was confirmed by his draft being returned protested never heard of such a man the bank said— E13
ENCLOSUREg
Philadelphia, 2d Mo. 5th 1878h
Friend Edison,
Yours relative to telephoning Wash’n rec’d.14 No doubt the Quad batteries would bother you on that distance. I expected fully they would do it on your trial with me and I so stated to Page 80 our sup’t Plush 15 before you began. Because the wire you worked to us on went in and out of the W.U. Cupola at ioth & Chest in the same cable with the Quad wire and also into our Cupola in the same cable with our Quad. I hardly thought it wouldb stand that racket but it did to our great surprise—and could not have been better as I can see16 We are soon to see great changes in the telephone I can easily see. Hurry mine up please and I will show them up
ENCLOSUREi
Phila Feby 10th 18781
Friend Edison
Sunday 2:30 p.m. 1st Test today. Loop to Harrisburg via Reading, 225 miles. Sup’t Clute17 of W.U. ofs there got us clear and distinct on a Phelps Magneto.18 We heard his voice in responses but could not get any distinct word from him.
2d test 3:30 pm We had a single straight wire to Hbg via Reading 125 miles, grounded at Hbg. Supt Clute still there and got us with great and “surprising distinctness.” I quote his words. He says “the result surprises me.” We heard him musical notes from his Magneto in response but no audible words. He wired us subsequently.
〈W.H.P. I send you this letter to show you how we are getting along with the Carbon telephone Mr. B. conducts the experiments by order of Mr Orton as Prescott isd down on me & Mr. O. is aware of it Yours Edison〉
ALS, UkLIEE, WHP. aCovered by ink blot. bInterlined above. c“10 inches” interlined above. dObscured overwritten letters. eCanceled. f“or Electromotograph” interlined above. gEnclosure is an ALS on letterhead of Philadelphia Local Telegraph Co. h“Philadelphia,” and “187” preprinted. iEnclosure is an AL on Philadelphia Local Telegraph Co. message form. j“187” preprinted.
1. This month brought William Preece’s promotion to Electrician and Assistant Engineer-in-Chief of the British telegraph system. Baker 1976, 176–77; see also TAEB 3:159 n. 7.
2. On this same day, Charles Batchelor wrote to Baldwin Bros. & Co. to tell them he was sending them the phonograph via Jersey Express. Baldwin Bros, and Austin Baldwin & Co. were transatlantic shipping agents located at 72 Broadway in New York City. Lbk. 1:338 (TAEM 28:211); letterhead, Baldwin Bros, to TAE, 23 Dec. 1878, DF (TAEM 17:1111); Wilson 1878, 60–61.
3. No details of this clockwork are certain, but a January drawing may show the type of arrangment Edison used (Vol. 17:31, Lab. [TAEM Page 81 4:900]). See also Docs. 1227 and 1310 for cylinder-phonograph clockworks and governors.
A clockwork cylinder design from January 1878.
4. George Phelps’s combination printing telegraph. See TAEB 1:62 n.i.
5. This refers to the first enclosure below.
6. Preece had spent more than two months in 1877 investigating telegraph facilities, equipment, and practices in the United States and Canada. Docs. 909 and 976.
7. That is, the Gray and Phelps magneto-transmitters using the principle patented by Bell.
8. Joseph Stearns invented the first commercially successful duplex telegraph (see TAEB 1:101 n. 3). Nothing is known of Preece’s reported comments to Stearns.
9. This was a formerly thriving large commercial establishment on Regent Street, offering combined entertainments, popular scientific lectures, and technological “wonders.” Both building and name would soon be sold, inaugurating London’s modern polytechnic educational institutions. Altick 1978, 382–89, 504–5; Curtis and Boultwood 1966, 284.
10. Unidentified.
11. No. 2, 909 (1877).
12. Unidentified.
13. See Docs. 1123, 1143, and 1172.
14. Not found.
15. Samuel Plush had been superintendent of the Philadelphia Local Telegraph Co. for about ten years. Plush’s testimony, TI 1:342 (TAEM 11:148).
16. The “racket” (or crosstalk) was inductive disturbance of one wire’s signal by signals on other wires. Telegraph lines arranged for quadruplex employed significantly greater battery power than simple circuits.
17. Probably H. A. Clute, telegraph superintendent for Lehigh Valley Rural Delivery, who had “in operation a telephonic line half a mile in length, with seven offices.” Operator, 15 Feb. 1878, 8.
18. That is, a Phelps magneto-receiver.
To Henry Edmunds, fr.
Menlo Park NJ Feby 12, 1878a
Dear Sir
Unfortunately you addressed you letters to W.U Office and the stupid boy in Prescotts office only handed them to me today. A few days after you left I made arrangements with Mr Theodore Puskas for Telephone andb phonograph on the continent, he paying for the patents=‘ Heis arrangement did not include England. However he arrived in England some six days ago and Telegraphs If he can sell phonograph patent, and I telegraphed yes if price is satisfactory to me, that was two days ago 2 I have heard nothing since; but may do so at any moment He is stopping at The Langham Hotel, and has pair Telephones and 2c Phonographs= I have shipped Mr Preece a Phonograph which left on City of Montreal I will send you one immediately it is done. I am sorry that I could not have done something through you as you have been so kind= However I will put you in the way of something good presently= and should Puskas fail in his negotiations you might then come in to it, but as it stands my telegram commits me;3 In this Country phono is booming and they are making applications on every side to different things= Await arrival of your machine and I will send you all the points for good Lecture with amplified tracings of the Lords prayer and other things= 475 feet is the distance attained now by using sheet copper & speaking loud= The most astonishing thing about the whole thing is the great difference it makes whether the machine is turned by hand or by’controlled mechanism, with the latter the thing is perfect. I have dictated more than a dozen letters and Mr Batchelor copied them correctly without knowing previously their nature, attempts to do this with the hand turned machine was comparatively a failure, although to persons who heard it dictated it was plain. The Times article is first class and I thank you very much4 please direct letters to Menlo Park N.J. Yours Truly
P.S. You might call on Puskas and you may do something with The Russian patent. Puskas is a good man & a gentleman.
ALS, Pritchard. Letterhead of Edison Electrical Pen and Duplicating Press, Charles Batchelor, General Agent for Foreign Countries. a“187” preprinted. bCircled. cInterlined above.
1. Edison signed his agreement with Puskas (and George Bliss) on 17 December 1877 (see Doc. 1153 n. 5). Edmunds had been at Menlo Park and had proposed that he become Edison’s agent for the phonograph Page 83 in Great Britain, but Edison had not agreed (see Doc. 1212). Edmunds had recently written renewing the request. Edison passed that letter on to Puskas; it has not been found (see Doc. 1208).
2. Puskas had cabled on 8 February and Edison replied the same day, but see Doc. 1200 n. 2 regarding another possible cable on this subject.
3. Henry Edmunds, Jr., son of an ironmonger/engineer, had met Edison while on a trip to the United States promoting Richard Werdermann’s arc light. As a result of that trip he instead began promoting the Wallace-Farmer arc lighting system in Great Britain. When Edmunds met Edison is uncertain; most probably it was at Menlo Park near the middle of December 1877, rather than late November or early December as Edmunds claimed four decades later in his reminiscences. Although Tritton (1993) claims that Edmunds met Edison in August 1877 at William Wallace’s shop in Ansonia, Conn., the description of that meeting is clearly derived from accounts of Edison’s October 1878 visit after Edmunds had returned to Britain. Tritton 1993, 10–33; Doc. 1212.
4. “The Phonograph,” in the 17 January 1878 issue of the London Times (p. 4), was subsequently reprinted in other British papers (one copy is in Cat. 1031:4 [TAEM 27:734]). According to Tritton 1993 (p. 36), the article was written by Perry Nursey, who acknowledged at the conclusion “that we are indebted for our information to Mr. Henry Edmunds, jun., of 57 Greenchurch-street, who has lately returned from a tour of scientific inspection in the United States and is interesting himself in Mr. Edison’s inventions.” In his answer of 26 February, Edmunds noted that the Times article “caused quite a sensation here in England” (DF [TAEM 15:288]).
To Alfred Mayer
Menlo Park N.J. Feby 12 [1878]
Friend Mayer
I have just got phonograph running by power from the Steam Engine and its astonishing the difference is vast, especially in the music. I had taken great pains to get the belting & pulleys true & even hoping to better the results, but was astonished what a difference it makes to turn even or nearly so=1 There is a slight chattering in the pulleys yet. You ought to come and see it= Have you an Engine at the Institute if so can give you the sizes of pulleys if you will give the speed of main shaft=
How would this do for amplifying the record2a Page 84
Either by photography running everything very slow,3 or d[itt]o and follow the spool spotb (small round spot) of light by hand with a pencil the cylinder X being rotated by hand about 1 turn a minute; I suppose the shaft could be 30 feet long= Yours
ALS, NjP, Hyatt & Mayer. aFirst sketch followed by “over” to indicate page turn. bInterlined above.
A phonograph connected to the steam-powered drive of the workshop at Menlo Park, with the belt coming up through the laboratory floor.
1. Edison had first publicly demonstrated the operation of a phonograph by steam power on 10 January. After telling a New York World reporter that “the irregular way in which the crank was turned by hand reproduced the sounds [of singing] in a jerky way, very much as a hand-organ,” he “placed a pulley upon the axle, and from a belt attached to a lathe ran the phonograph in that way” (“Mr. Edison’s Inventions,” Page 85 New York World, 12 Jan. 1878, Cat. 1240, item 327, Batchelor [TAEM 94:99]). An undated sketch shows a phonograph powered by the laboratory shafting (NS-Undated-004, Lab. [ TAEM 8:201]). A similar arrangement is depicted in Doc. 1277.
This drawing of Edison’s full telephone set appeared in the April issue of Scrib-ner’s Monthly.
2. That is, making the impressions of the recording stylus visible on an enlarged scale. Edison has drawn an electric light source and a roll of photographically sensitive paper, similar to the chemically sensitive paper he used for automatic telegraphy and the electromotograph. Mayer responded on 14 February, saying the “sketch of mirror &c is just what I am now constructing.” In that letter he proposed a visit to Menlo Park on 19 February. He did spend a day with Edison, but exactly when is not certain. Mayer to TAE, 14 Feb. and 6 Mar. 1878, DF (TAEM 18:918, 935).
3. A few days later Edison drew the attention of another interviewer to reports that “instantaneous” photographs had become possible, and he suggested combining a rapid series of such photographs with a phonographic reproduction of the accompanying vocal or other sounds. “A Marvelous Discovery,” New York Sun, 22 Feb. 1878, Cat. 1240, item 378, Batchelor (TAEM 94:115).
4. The Scribner’s Monthly artist, J. F. Runge, came with a letter of introduction from A. W. Drake, the magazine’s art editor, which indicated that he was to make drawings of Edison’s phonograph for George Prescott (DF [TAEM 17:11]). Prescott’s article on the phonograph and telephone, in which these drawings were used, appeared in the April issue (Prescott 1878a).
5. The sketch of the telephone is reproduced with Doc. 1194. Runge also drew a sketch of the complete Edison telephone set with transmitter, receiver, call bell, and battery box.
To Theodore Puskas
Park NJ Feby 12/78
Friend Puskas—
Just finished putting phonograph on power iea I connected with my steam engine, with a carefully arranged series of pulleys & belts= The results exceed my sanguine expectations.1 Letters can be dictated & copied with ease. The singing is beautiful in fact I am overjoyed and had no conception that there would be so marked a change The new plate machine I feel sure is going to be a perfect success= All the magazines have sent artists down here to make cuts for their papers=2 The Hubbard Cheever party have ordered 500 of the small hand phonographs like the one I am making you= the demand for these are great= more anon— I sent contract yesterday & 3 letters— Yours
ALS, HuBPo, TP. aCircled. Page 86
1. Edison apparently expressed similar sentiments in a letter to George Bliss who replied that he was delighted “to hear that the phonograph is such a success with the power attachment.” Bliss to TAE, 16 Feb. 1878, DF (TAEM 18:271).
2. To this date the preparation of illustrations only for Popular Science Monthly and Scribner’s Monthly can be documented, although efforts were being made to arrange illustrations for the publisher Frank Leslie as well. It is not clear when the illustrations for forthcoming features in publications such as Harpers Weekly were prepared. Headnote p. 10; Doc. 1206; Frank Leslie’s Publishing House to TAE, 7 and 12 Feb. 1878 and Alfred Mayer to TAE, 16 Jan. and 14 Feb. 1878, all DF (TAEM 17:9, 12; 18:910, 918); see also headnote p. 195, n. 1.
To Theodore Puskas
MPark Feby. [13]1 1878a
Friend Puskas;
Cheever at Telephone wants to take out Phonograph patents in South America=2 Did I promise South America to you I forget3 if so I think we had better secure them at once also, Sweden Norway, India, Portugal, and the three Australian Countries4 would you authorize Serriell5 to prepare the papers= 6 Since the power turned machine experiment last night I have a higher opinion of the phonograph than ever= the singing is beautiful = and no difficulty is experienced in copying anything dictated= please answer at once=7 I enclose letter sent me by H.E.8 the party who called on me at this place some time ago; I wrote him9 that his letter came too late that you who had the whole thing had telegraphed thabout England and that had probably closed matter up. Yours—
US Patent for phono allowed!!10
ALS, HuBPo, TP. Letterhead of Edison’s Electrical Pen and Duplicating Press, Charles Batchelor, General Agent for Foreign Countries. a“187” preprinted.
1. Edison apparently wrote this on 13 February since he refers to the trial of a power-driven phonograph on the 12th as having occurred “last night,” but the postscript may have been added on the 14th (see note 10).
2. No written record of this request has been found but some later materials connect Cheever with Frederick Jones and arrangements to exhibit the phonograph in Brazil. See Doc. 1317 n. 2; Charles Cheever to TAE, 13 May and 7 June 1878, DF (TAEM 19:237, 248).
3. The only arrangements that had been made thus far for marketing Edison’s inventions anywhere in Latin America concerned the electric Page 87 pen. Although this letter was concerned with the phonograph, Edison’s agreement with Puskas also involved the telephone. However, Vesey Butler (marketing the pen in Havana, Cuba) and James Partrick (partner with Franklin Carter in a Philadelphia firm of telegraph equipment makers) also each believed Edison had promised him the agency for Latin America. Partrick’s letter of 11 February may have helped spur Edison to ask Puskas to clarify their understanding (Partrick to TAE, 11 and 14 Feb.; Butler to TAE, 5 Mar., all DF [TAEM 19:836–37, 840]). Various other parties also sought to represent Edison in the region. Edison did not resolve these questions for months, nor settle on any single agent, partly because it was unclear how much patent protection could be obtained (Lemuel Serrell to Theodore Puskas, 15 Mar. 1878, DF [TAEM 18:635]; “The Man Who Invents: Tom Edison’s Talk with a Post Reporter,” Washington Post and Union, 19 Apr. 1878, Cat. 1240, item 532 [TAEM 94:169]). Also see Docs. 1317 n. 2, 1368, and 1394.
4. Although under British sovereignty, India and the three Australian colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria, like Canada, had separate patent arrangements.
5. Lemuel Serrell.
6. Puskas’s authorization was needed for Edison to apply for these patents since, under the terms of his 17 December 1877 agreements with Edison and George Bliss, Puskas was responsible for paying the considerable costs. Efforts were already underway to obtain patents for Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia, and Puskas had put $1,260 on account with Serrell primarily for this purpose, although Puskas ultimately decided not to order the Spanish and Russian phonograph patents which each would have cost $300. The cost for the patents mentioned in this letter was estimated at $1,500, plus $395 for Denmark and the Cape of Good Hope. Another $1, 300 to $1, 900 was estimated for Latin America. Agreements between TAE, Puskas, and Bliss, 17 Dec. 1877, Kellow (TAEM 28:1195, 1204); Serrell to Puskas, 15 Mar. 1878; Serrell’s “Memorandum of Charges for Foreign Patents,” May 1878; Serrell to TAE, 8 Nov. 1878; and Serrell’s bills to Puskas, 8 Nov. 1878, all DF (TAEM 18:635, 708, 795–98).
7. On 2 March, according to Charles Batchelor’s diary (Cat. 1233:61, Batchelor [TAEM 90:83]), Puskas cabled Edison to “instruct Serrell to secure remaining patents” (DF [TAEM 15:277]). This cable is indexed under “Unknown Correspondent” and dated 25 February (conjectured by an archivist) in TAEM-Gi.
8. Henry Edmunds, Jr., whose letter has not been found.
9. Doc. 1205.
10. Allowance meant that the application had passed technical and legal muster and that the patent would be issued if the necessary fee was paid. Edison was informed of the allowance in Uriah Painter’s letter of 13 February (DF [TAEM 15:236]); depending on when Painter mailed the letter, Edison would have received it on either the 13th or 14th. U.S. Patent 200, 521 was issued on 19 February 1878.
To Foster & Thomson
[Menlo Park, c. February 14, 1878]1
Copy
Gents.
There is no secret about it. Several months ago I transferred the patent to Geo B Prescott Gerritt Smith & William Orton lastly.2 I have a small interest in it but too small to worry over its loss; Considering that your friends have a valid contract (when I receive the Consideration) for the Auto & cable system system & option on Cables 2 systems that if introduced now would be in advance of their time I think it will not pay them to set up the claim3 they do & thus give rise to bad feeling & prevent the perfection of these systems. Yours Truly
ALS (copy), NjWOE, DF (TAEM 19:477). Letterhead of Edison Electrical Pen and Duplicating Press, Charles Batchelor, General Agent for Foreign Countries.
1. Edison was responding to Foster & Thomson’s letter of 12 February in which they indicated that they had received a note from him but not his promised visit and asked for information about the assignment of his quadruplex patent (DF [TAEM 19:463]). On the same day, Josiah Reiff sent Edison a copy of the 1873 contract with Smith, Fleming & Co. (Doc. 350) that was at the heart of this dispute and also sent that firm a long letter stating what he believed to be Edison’s case (DF [TAEM 19:462, 466]).
2. See Doc. 1173 n. 9.
3. See Doc. 1165 n. 5.
From Josiah Reiff
NY Febry 18/78
T.A.E.
Advise me how long it will3 probably take you to experiment on your scheme for utilizing engine whistles, Fog horns etc etc for speaking purposes—1
I have a plan in view if you are ready—
What claim has this man James upon you?
Did he ever put any money in your pocket? Yrs
P.S. When next in town I should like to shew you the letter I addressed to Smith, Fleming & Co. in reply to the one I shewed you from them.2 Page 89
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:245). aDocument damaged.
1. Edison had included this idea as part of his original patent application for the phonograph.
For increasing the volume of the sound and thus rendering it audible to a large audience I cause the diaphragm set in motion by the speaker to work a valve which controls a gaseous source of power such as compressed air or steam, which is caused to act powerfully upon a second and larger diaphragm which makes large or broad and deep indentations, which cause the reproducing spring to give great amplitude and thus the sound is reproduced more powerfully than that of the original speaker.
Edison’s sketch of a “steam telephone’’ based on his aerophone.
On 26 January, the patent office told him to separate this design from the phonograph patent, and Edison executed a new application for what he termed the “aerophone” on 28 February; the patent was filed on 4 March and issued twenty-two days later (U.S. Pat. 201, 760). The name “airophone” was first applied on 17 January in a drawing by Edison of a steam telephone for railroad signalling that used a similar valve and compressed air design (Vol. 14:15, Lab. [TAEM 4:162]). For earlier designs of telephones and phonographs using compressed air or gas see Docs. 948 and 1013.
A drawing from Edison’s U.S. Patent 201, 760 for the aerophone.
2. The letter from Smith, Fleming & Co. to Reiff has not been found. On 20 February, Reiff responded to a request from Edison by sending him a copy of his 12 February letter to the company concerning their claim on Edison’s quadruplex patent rights for Great Britain. Reiff to TAE, 20 Feb. 1878; Reiff to Smith, Fleming & Co., 12 Feb. 1878; both DF (TAEM 19:465–66).
Edward Johnson Exhibition Prospectus
New York, Feb’y 18th, 1878.1
Dear Sir:
Having secured the sole right to Exhibit the various Telephonic and Phonographic inventions of Mr. Thomas A. Edison and having arranged with him to receive simulataneous with its production any improvement incidental to their development, I am prepared to inaugurate a Series of Exhibitions, instructive and entertaining to a superlative degree. In point of fact rarely if ever equalled in its power to attract and interest all classes of an intelligent Community.
My present Outfit includes the following:
Edisons Speaking Phonograph.
Edisons Musical Telephone.
Edisons Speaking Telephone.2
Each of which are unequalled in. respect to their capacity to perform the work for which they are designed.
The Speaking Phonograph.
This invention, an absolutely new discovery, I place first in order, because it is unquestionably the most important in its beneficent effect upon the progress of Science and human industry, of any invention of late years. Such is the verdict of the many eminent Scientists who have examined it.
By it I will entertain an audience as follows:
Recitations, Conversational remarks, Songs (with words) Cornet Solos, Animal Mimicry, Laughter, Coughing etc, etc, will be delivered into the mouth of the machine, and subsequently reproduced by the machine with such fidelity of tone, Articulation, Emphasis, etc, as will kindle an enthusiasm as hearty as it will be spontanious, and by reason of the simplicity of the apparatus, a clear and concise explanation of which is given—carry conviction at once to all that the Apparatus is really a great discovery and not a mear trick or toy for producing deceptive effects— the known reputation of Mr. Edison as a producer of practical inventions is however the best guarantee I have to offer of the genuinness of this great discovery.
The Speaking Telephone.
This invention I rank next in order because of its relative commercial value and Scientific interest, though for purposes of public Exhibitions & entertainment it is not well adapted by reason of the fact that the volume of sound it gives is too limited for contributing enjoyment to a large Audience. In order however to illustrate the practical use of the Speaking Telephone in a striking manner I use this Instrument in the Page 91 presence of the Audience to direct my assistant at the farther end of the wire as to the order of the musical programme, for transmitting to him encores, and otherwise to keep him and the Musical Artists advised as to the pleasure of the Audience.
The Musical Telephone.
This invention is the most novel and has far greater capacity for interesting and entertaining an audience than all the Telephonic devices of other inventors combined. It is not operated by an Electro magnet as are all other Telephones, but upon an entirely new principle of Electro-Chemical action, pronounced by Eminent Scientists as an original discovery in the Electrical Science, the capacity to reproduce and make clearly audable Telephonic (Musical) sounds given to this Instrument by this new principle renders it absolutely the only apparatus in existence by which vocal and cornet solos can be transmitted from a distant point to an Audience Hall and there reproduced in a manner at once readily heard by all, however many there may be, and in an enjoyable manner.
The Explanatory Lecture.
This part of the Entertainment is made to suit the spirit and humor of the Audience, but it is mainly confined to clear, simple, explanations of the Modus Operandi of the several apparatus, and if apparently satisfactory, to a very brief sketch of the history of the development of the inventions. No scientific dissertation on the Laws and theories of Sound, or other prolix and tedious consumption of time by the Speaker— My object is simply “to show and make intelligible what I show.” As to the details for your guidance in the preparation and advertizement of my entertainment I submit the following general directions.
Order of Programme.
1st Part.a Musical Telephone, with Speaking Telephone as auxiliary
2nd Parta The Phonograph.b
Specific Directions=
Telegraph Line—
Length of Line which may be operated 1 to 100 miles.
Battery required for its operation 20 to 100 cells.
Conditions essential. A wire absolutely free from Telegraphic apparatus—a single wire connecting the Hall with the main wire—a Looped wire to connect the singing station with the Telegraph office—or Battery.
Permission for the free use of wire and battery can generally Page 92 be had by application to the W.U. Telegraph officials they having always exercised a commendable public spirit in this regard, especially in relation to Mr. Edisons improvements: Railway Companies may also be applied to effectively.
Musicians.
At the Singing Station.
1 Tenor, 1 Soprano, 1 Cornet Soloist, all of the best to be had as the apparatus shows the execution of the Artist. A greater number of artists are an impediment.
In selecting Artists regard should be had to their reputation in the City in which their voices are reproduced. Their style of execution is frequently recognized, which has a telling effect. The Soprano especially should be of a high order of merit. These Artists can usually be had as volunteers, they being attracted by the novelty.
The Phonograph.
This being a purely mechanical apparatus and hence operated locally does not require the use of wires etc. I therefore make it the second part of the entertainment, thus dismissing the singers, and yeilding up the wire at an early hour—usually about 9.15. p.m. I require for its proper exhibition no paraphenalia of any sort—and only a good singer and Cornet player to sing and play into the mouth of the Machine, upon the stage in presence of the Audience. These are not indispensable but they add to the attractiveness of the Exhibition.
Advertizing.
The large Posters should have prominently the general features hearin contained—but small hand bills should set forth in considerable detail the points made—and be well distributed. The Local papers should insert as squibs the various points and comments as to the fulfillment of these promises culled from papers where I have exhibited—such a course of advertizing invariably pays largely.
I usually reach the City several hours in advance of the opening of the entertainment and make a preliminary test or rehearsal as early as the wire can be obtained. It is well to have reporters present at this rehearsal.
My terms are $100 per night—and comprehend all the necessary apparatus, myself and one assistant.
I carry 1000 feet of Insulated office wire for connecting my instruments with the outside wire previously brought to the Hall window. Page 93
On selecting the Singing Station first ascertain if Battery is obtainable—
Any small room handy to the Battery or Telegraph Office suffices for the Singing Station Yours Very truly
this is written with one of mr. edison’s celebrated inventions, the electric pen.
ALS (electric-pen copy), NjWOE, DF (TAEM 97:623). aUnderlined twice. bFollowed by centered horizontal line.
1. Johnson apparently sent this circular letter with another one he wrote the following day:
Will you be good enough to put the enclosed in proper hands to accomplish the end sought, which you will observe, is to give you a Telephone and Phonograph Exhibition.
My tour commences at Syracuse, N.Y. Feb’y 28th hence prompt replies to my Circular are desirable. After that time I will be on the road, and can be reached only by Telegraph. [DF (TAEM 15:254)]
2. Batchelor may have made a special box for Johnson in which to carry the speaking telephone. See crossed out memo on “Defendant’s Exhibit Sketch Clock Phonograph Feb. 20/78,” American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph (TAEM 116:455).
To William Preece
Menlo Park N.J. Feby 19= 78
Friend Preece,
Yours reced dated Feby. 6=‘ Glad to hear you made phono go=2 ere this letter reaches you the improved phonograph will have reached you=3 Use thick foil very smooth= bass tone= lips close to hole = The articulation is dependent on how the diaphragm is dampened by the rubber tubes= when it dont speak plain look to these tubes= I forget if I sent you instructions or not= Toa day by using a very thick hard foil— very smooth a proper point agate= and a good governor on the clockwork, I finished the articulation. I can never hope to get it to speak plainer= its perfection and the voice is recognized, but the slightest difference in the speed you lose thise recognition but the talking still seemsb as plain=
Solid Cylinders of polished lead receiveb the indentations & reproduce beautifully= Iron not so clear owing to noise, due to imperfect surfacec a Bell telephone with a pointed pole held near indentations in iron cylinder gives talking but not good=4 I am making a glass cylinder over which thick foil is laid indenting without grooves=d Note= streatch foil on your Page 94 cylinder tightly ==e Phono talking is better through 5 a telephone line= This evening I found out something good= when the machine runs by regulated power the singing is sweet, by turning cylinder backwardsf the song is still melodious in many cases, and some of the strains are sweet and novel, but altogether different from the song reproduced in the right way Wagner hasnt the monopoly of the music of the future =6 Im going in to the machine composing business Just think of it “Faustus, backwards by Edison in 56 sheets= phonographically price 30 cents for sale by all dealers in phonograph materials=
A good thing to recite in the phono is A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers”7 etc= About my agents= Edmunds came down to my laboratory & saw phono wanted to take it to E[ngland]. wouldnt let him= I gave him some strips told him the first phono I could spare would go to you & told him call on you= Beetle is electric pen man on Continent hasnt anything to do with phono or telephone= P-uHerz was a fraud and failed to pay for the patents= Puskas stepped in paid for the patents & has the Continent for Phono & Telephone= Puskas has no contract with me in England I told him when he asked me if he could sell stop in London & sell phono that he might= As to telephone I have made no arrangement with any person except you and you shall have the say=8 If I hadnt thought the phono was outside of your line you could have had that too= Im going to ship you pair telephones monday next 9 but I reserve for your private experimental use= They are not as perfect as I am going to make them but for rough work I think you will find them OK= If you find anything wrong with them reserve your criticism & decision until I make them OK= Im going to have the best telephone or 111 eat all Ive got=
Prof Mayer of Hoboken one of the best of acousticians, I giving a thorough scientific investigation to the phono he will have an article in the March or April No of the popular Science Monthly and is going to send cuts (15 of them) to Nature=10 he has amplified the phono records, and has cuts of the sinnoids11—get it= He says Phono is an instrument of precision as you can now verify your records= That deep and sonorous Savan Mr Prescott, (inventor) is writing an article on telephones in the Scribner’s Monthly—that will be out in March or April=12 get it= Its fully illustrated and exparte— By Prescotts advice the W.U. have stolen the Bell Telephone Entire= 13 Yours
Page 95
ALS, UkLIEE, WHP. aPreceded by a right bracket in another hand, probably added later. bObscured overwritten letter. c”due .. . surface” interlined above. d”=“ overwritten by a left bracket in another hand, probably added later. eSecond “=“ overwritten by a right bracket in another hand, probably added later. fUnderlined twice.
1. Not found.
2. Preece had demonstrated the phonograph at one of the Royal Institution’s Friday night lectures on 1 February 1878. He had used an approximate replica of the first phonograph, constructed in London on the basis of descriptions provided by Henry Edmunds and found in publications such as the Scientific American and English Mechanic (Docs. 1144 and 1150). A published report of the session was illustrated by drawings of the phonograph being operated by Preece and John Tyn-dall, who was the Institution’s professor of natural philosophy (“The Phonograph at the Royal Institution,” London Weekly Graphic, 16 Mar. 1878, Cat. 1031:71, Scraps. [TAEM 27:774]).
John Tyndalland William Preece demonstrating the phonograph at the Royal Institution.
3. That is, the phonograph similar to Doc. 1166 sent to Preece a week earlier (Doc. 1204).
4. Two weeks earlier Edison had been considering the “queer idea” of playing back iron-foil recordings “by magnetic attraction without touching.” Vol. 17:46 and NS-78–007 (misidentified on TAEM as NS-78–001), both Lab. (TAEM 4:915, 168:552).
5. Edison probably inadvertently omitted “than” before “through.”
6. The composer Richard Wagner was widely known, and criticized, for his claims that his own work exemplified the appropriate future direction for music. See, e.g., the 19 May 1877 caricature of Wagner in the popular magazine Vanity Fair, titled “The Music of the Future.” NGD, s.v. “Wagner (1). .. (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner.”
7. The line quoted begins the poem “Bingen on the Rhine,” by Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan Norton.
8. They had apparently arranged the previous summer for Edison to provide examples of his telephone instruments to Preece, who would act as Edison’s agent to introduce them into Great Britain. See Docs. 987, 1077, 1123, and 1348. Page 96
9. This was written on a Tuesday. However, Edison did not send telephones to Preece until a month later when James Adams took some with him. Doc. 1258 n. 2.
10. See Doc. 1203 n. 1.
11. That is, engravings of enlarged tracings of the indentations of a tinfoil recording.
12. The article (Prescott 1878a) was in the issue for April, which appeared by 20 March (see ad for Scribner’s Monthly and notice of newly appearing magazines, Cat. 1031:43, 50, Scraps. [ TAEM 27:755, 758]). The article was essentially an extract from the book that George Prescott was then finishing (Prescott 1878c), although the text of the book was somewhat updated before publication.
13. In his book on the telephone, Prescott concluded that Alexander Graham Bell was not the first inventor of the telephone and that the best claim was that of Elisha Gray. He summed up his brief analysis (after presenting extensive documents provided by both men): “Whether or not Prof. Bell invented the apparatus independently of Mr. Gray, we have no means of judging; but that he was not the first inventor, we think the facts conclusively show” (Prescott 1878c, 217). Western Union had secured the rights to (jray’s patents and claims in telephone matters through the American Speaking Telephone Company (Doc. 1126 n. 1). When Prescott revised and updated his book after Western Union dropped its telephone claims in a general settlement with the Bell interests, he presented different evidence and arguments and no longer included his earlier conclusion favoring Gray’s claim (Prescott 1972).
From George Bliss
Chicago, Feb. 22nd, 1878.a
Dear Sir:
Your note of the 19th Inst at hand.
J. F. Bailey1 left here yesterday for the east and will start at once for Europe to represent the Gray telephone interests.
He is said to be a smart fellow who has had large experience in organizing companies.
The plan is to force the telephone situation abroad into about the same shape as in this country. The conversation with me has been however that they care little about the Bell interest but would like to secure a combination with you. I gave Bailey a letter to Puskas stating who he was &b saying you did not favor an alliance but if he could see a handsome amount of money in combination I thought it would in that case be desirable.
Whatever is done it will be better for Puskas to meet Bailey and know his man. I should like to have you send me Puskas address so that he can be written and be made acquainted with all the facts. Page 97
I gave Bailey a letter to Beetle to substantially the same effect.
You understand thoroughly that I have no desire in the matter except in accordance with what seems best to you. On general principals I believe in compromise rather thanc enter into an expensive contest which may ruin the chances of all.
The plan on which Puskas is working looks splendid and if the concessions are obtained with the best telephone it would look like a scoop.
Great Brittain was not included in the contract in which I am interested. Are you going to allow me any show there in the phonograph and telephone?
I am just now engaged in a squabble with the Western Electric people over my old Geo. H. Bliss & Co.2 matters. They are so fearfully hoggish I fear it will lead to a complete separation of my interests from them.
I am a great fellow for comprimise but I don’t like to havec all my pile schemed for and taken without even the show of protest.
I think this will lead to a settlement of your account in full or nearly so. They don’t want that pen contract cancelled. There is no great loss without some small gain and you will get the benefit in this case.
The reason the royalty was so small last month in reality was because my orders were not filled. In justice to the W.E. I will say they have a large lot of goods in the shop and they are trying to do good work and fill the orders with reasonable promptness.
How is the telephone union with Bell progressing? Do you think it will go through?
I showed up the pen to the Chicago Electrical Society3 last night. The evening was stormy and the attendance was small but I think the telegraphers will have a better idea of who and what T. A. Edison is than they ever had before.
The pen business is not coming up to my expectations and I don’t see why with the amount of hard work I am putting in to it that the results do not pan better.
I am putting out heavier advertisements and doing more general work than ever before.
Think the general quiet times has much to do with it.
It is possible I may come down to New York next week but do not want to go if can be helped. Wheeler4 is so dilatory about his reports that I can’t stand it much longer. Page 98
Beetle is getting very remiss and I shall have to devise some way to stir him up if he don’t reform.
Respectfully,
TLS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:263). Typed in uppercase. Letterhead of Electric Pen and Duplicating Press, George Bliss, General Manager; letterhead and dateline are electric pen copy. a“Chicago,” and “1878.” preprinted. bHandwritten. cInterlined above in handwritten uppercase.
1. Nothing is known about Joshua Franklin Bailey apart from his several years association with Edison in regard to the marketing of his inventions in Europe, which began at this time. Bailey had written Edison on 7 February to inform him that “by a recent arrangement I represent Mr. S[amuel] S. White and Mr. Elisha Gray in Telephone & other matters, outside the U. States. I would like to meet you when you are in town this week, on what may prove of mutual advantage.” Edison replied on 12 February inviting him to Menlo Park and Bailey wrote from New York on 18 February that he would come to Menlo at the end of that week or the beginning of the next (following his return from Chicago). Bailey to TAE, 7 and 18 Feb. 1878, DF (TAEM 19:836–37).
2. This was Bliss’s old telegraph manufacturing firm which he sold to Western Electric. See TAEB 3:255 n. 8.
3. On 18 February, Bliss sent Edison a copy of a program for the meeting (printed with an electric pen). Underneath the notice that Bliss was to exhibit the pen he typed “Will my phono, be here in time for this?” Edison apparently wrote Bliss that the phonograph would not arrive in time as on 20 February Bliss replied, “Shall get along without the phonograph and think will be able to say quite enough about Edison and the electric pen for one evening.” DF (TAEM 18:272–74).
The Chicago Electrical Society, founded in June 1876, was an auxiliary of the American Electrical Society, which had been established in Chicago in 1874. According to a report in the 16 March issue of the Journal of the Telegraph (11:82), Bliss presented “an explanation of the Electric Pen, prefacing his remarks with a brief synopsis of the life of its inventor. All present had a general knowledge of the working of the pen, but few, if any, were thoroughly acquainted with its mechanism. Mr. Bliss’s effort was well received.”
4. William Wheeler had been a general agent for Edison’s Electric Pen and Duplicating Press in Chicago and at this time was working as the General Eastern Agent at 20 Church St. in New York. TAEB 3:410 n. 2; Wheeler to TAE, 2 Mar. 1878, DF (TAEM 19:839).
From Gardiner Hubbard
Washington, D.C. Feby 22 1878a
Dear Sir
I have requested one or two parties to say to you that I thought Prof. Bell with his English Co1— could do better with your Phonograph than any one else, & if you think so I Page 99 should like to know on what terms he could have it & I would then communicate with him—
Prof Bell has a high regard for EMr Edison as a most accomplished Electrician, & wonderful genius—
I trust our Phonographs are coming on—& that soon we can introduce them to the world— I am yours truly
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 97:629). Letterhead of Bell Telephone Co. a“Washington, DC.” and “187” preprinted.
1. At this time, Alexander Graham Bell and William Reynolds, a Providence, R. I., cotton broker who had acquired an interest in Bell’s British patents, were negotiating with a group of capitalists who would soon form the Telephone Company, Ltd. in London. Bruce 1973, 231, 238, 243–45.
Technical Note: Telephony
Menlo Park NJ February 22 1878
Some directions for conducting empirical experiments in Telephony a voyage of discovery into the unknown.
Fig. 1.
Make cores to replace glass tubes of Copper Zinc Tin Brass Lead cast iron, Cadmium aluminium Black oxide manganese; battery carbon— Lamp black plumbago, Bismuth antimony, celluloid— Hard rubber; Fused chloride zinc d[itt]o Nitre— do. Sulphate Copper; do every salt that will fuse or mould— do every substance in Laboratory that will mould
Make a mould that
will mould this size2 Page 100
In glass tube pour every kind of Liquid in it in Laboratory and hold perpendicular; try and receive from a Bell telephone with common diaphragm then change all kinds of diaphragms below described3 if all a failure try and transmit to a Bell Telephone & make all the changes; Thus the ist experiment is to see if you can use it as a receiver from a Bell Telephone & the second experiment is to see if you can use it as a transmitter using the Bell telephone as a receiver= use diaphragms with points of various substances alsoa dipping in liquid also not dipping—
X, NjWOE, Vol. 14:44, Lab. (TAEM 4:185). a”with points .. . substances also” interlined above.
1. Text at each end of the drawing is’”ordinary Bell Telephone.”
2. The original drawing is roughly 8 mm × 32 mm.
3. This document may be incomplete, as no list of diaphragms has been found. A set of experiments, labeled “chemical cores,” in which nearly one hundred different substances were tried commenced on 2 June after Charles Edison arrived at the laboratory and became the principal telephone experimenter, replacing James Adams who was in Europe. Some of the notes indicate that various diaphragms were tried as well. These chemical experiments continued through the first three weeks of June (see Docs. 1352, 1357, and 1359). Vol. 14:103–4, 111–19, Lab. (TAEM 4:248–52, 259–70); for earlier experiments with Bell-style receivers with alternative diaphragms see Docs. 1114, 1123, and 1186.
Technical Note: Phonograph
[Menlo Park,] Feb 22nd 18781
Phonographa
Speaking tattachment for clocks2 Drum 4⅛diamb
Page 101
X, NjWOE, Lit., American Graphophone v. U.S. Phonograph, “Defendant’s Exhibit Sketch Clock Phonograph Feb. 22/78,” (TAEM 116: 456). Written by Batchelor. aFollowed by double horizontal line. bFol-lowed by horizontal line.
1. Batchelor later testified that he spent all day working on talking-clock and toy phonograph designs, but only this drawing survives. He also made a set of drawings on 20 February which represented “a general view of the cylinder with its accompanying screw-thread attachment for traversing, and the reproducing cup for giving out the sound.” In his testimony, Batchelor claimed that he and Edison made extensive experiments before turning the clock phonograph work over to the Ansonia Clock Co. Something of this work is described by Edison in a marginal note on Isaac Davis’s letter of 28 March: “The cylinder is merely the first experimental form 11 different kinds have since been made some with sheets some with continuous rolls. You must not infer from the first experimental machine that nothing has been done.” Batchelor’s testimony, pp. 597–99, 624–25; “Defendant’s Exhibit Sketch Clock Phonograph Feb. 20/78,” both American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph (TAEM 116:455, 372–73, 386); DF (TAEM 18:967).
2. Batchelor described the actual machines as “quite small, with the cylinder at one side of the clock-work, where the record could be put on to the cylinder and taken off and another record put there if required. The whole machine was to be made complete, and then the record, made on another machine, placed on the cylinder after the whole was assembled. These records were different, inasmuch as one would say one thing, and another another thing.” He noted that “the drum projected outside of the clock-work ... for the purpose of slipping on the recorded tablet and slipping it off if necessary without disarranging any other parts of the mechanism.” The recordings were made on sheet copper
originally in the form of a strip about twelve inches long and five-eighths of an inch wide. This was bent into the form of a circle of the size of the drum on the recording instrument. A short piece at each end was bent down to fit into a small groove running across the face of the recording drum. This was then put onto the drum and a rubber-covered rod pushed down into the groove securing the two ends against the side of the grooves similar to the method of fastening on the first and second cylinder instruments when they were used for tin or other foils. After this cylinder was engraved on the recording instrument the rubber-covered rod was pulled out, leaving the record-tablet so that it could be slipped off the end of the cylinder. This was now slipped onto the smooth cylinder projecting out of the clock-work, fastened in the same manner as when recording, and it was ready for use. [Batchelor’s testimony, pp. 597–99, American Graphophone v. U. S. Phonograph (TAEM 116:372–73)]
From Fifth Avenue Baptist Sunday School
New York, Febry 23′ 1878a
At the close of this mornings session of the 5′ Ave Baptist Sunday School 1 the following resolution was read and approved viz:—Resolved
“That the Secretary be requested to convey to Mr Thomas A. Edison and his assistant the cordial thanks of this School for their valuable assistance in the very interesting entertainment of Thursday evening last”2
L, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:265). Letterhead of Fifth Ave. Baptist Sunday School. a”New York,” and “187” preprinted.
1. This was an organization of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church (at 46th St.), which was described as “a handsome and imposing edifice, that is always well attended.” Browne 1869, 652.
2. Edison agreed to exhibit his phonograph and telephone at the behest of telegraph pioneer and author James Reid, secretary of both Gold and Stock Telegraph Co. and American Speaking Telephone Co., one of the most highly respected people in the telegraph industry (Reid to TAE, 7 and 19 Feb. 1878, DF [TAEM 15:230, 17:13]; on Reid see Reid 1879, passim). The exhibition took place on 21 February with Edison demonstrating his phonograph and telephone as part of a concert at the church. According to an account in the New York Herald, which failed to mention Edison by name,
The inventor put his mouth down to the barrel and turned a handle as he spoke into the instrument in a loud voice, “A soldier of the legion lay dying at Algiers.” In a moment after a click was heard; he applied a sort of funnel to the barrel and turned the handle. Immediately the machine recited the lines he had spoken, not very clearly, but like a person who had no pallet would speak. [“Phonograph and Telephone,” 22 Feb. 1878, Cat. 1240, item 375, Batchelor (TAEM 94:114)]
Other experiments, presumably the recitations and songs scheduled in the program, were deemed “more successful.”
The telephone exhibition included a transmission by Charles Batchelor from the Western Union headquarters (at Broadway and Dey streets). He transmitted “Mary Had a Little Lamb” to the tune of the “Mabel Waltz” and recited Edison’s favorite line from Richard III, “Now is the winter of our discontent.” Cat. 1233:52 and “Phonograph and Telephone,” New York Herald, 22 Feb. 1878; “The Phonograph and Telephone Programme,” Cat. 1240, items 375, 377, both Batchelor (TAEM 90:79; 94:114).
Among those who saw the exhibition was Albert Hale, who taught school in Tarrytown, N.Y. After the exhibition, Edison explained in detail how his phonograph and telephones were constructed and operated and he offered to send Hale a tinfoil recording from the phonograph for use in his class. On 28 February, Hale wrote to thank Edison for the tinfoil recording and suggested that he try a porcelain or earthenware Page 103 funnel “to avoid that harsh metallic sound which the instrument gives to the words now.” Edison’s marginal note for use by William Carman in replying to Hale states: “That he [Edison] has now obtained perfect reproduction—& that your suggestion of a porcelain funnell is good he will try it and thanks you for the suggestion.” Hale to TAE, 22 and 28 Feb. 1878, DF (TAEM 18:921, 930).
Edison also received an inquiry from Frank Scott of Scribner’s Monthly, who upon hearing about the exhibition asked if Edison “could give a similar entertainment for the benefit of Presby Memorial Church 53d St. and Madison Ave.” Edison replied that he planned to make available small exhibition phonographs and Scott indicated that he would “await with interest the appearance of the small inexpensive instruments.” Scott to TAE, 18 and 21 Feb. 1878, DF (TAEM 15:246, 259).
From George Beetle
Paris Feb 24th 1878
Friend Edison
Yours of the 10th reed today.1 I shall take occasion to conform to your request so far as Mr Brequet is concerned, you need not expect much sympathy in that quarter, as he is Bells manufacturer and in the latters interest.
Roosevelt (Cornelius)2 Bells agt in France informs me that Bell took out a new patent on the 8th in Washn and on the 12th in Paris,3 this he thinks will hold as there was not time for the thing to become public property.
For your own protection hereafter I would suggest that you procure your patents in the US and in Europe as nearly together as possible, and do not place a description of future inventions before the public until you know that your foreign patents are secured. I will send you an extract from the French patent law in a few days,4 a literal translation of which would in my opinion kill your Electric Pen patent in France and might possibly compromise the Telephone and Phonograph.5
I am giving a little attention to patents, not from choice but from” necessity. I am afraid we shall have to manufacture in Belgium to protect your “Pen” patent. Mr Brandon 6 acknowledges that the situation is serious. I shall know more definitely in a few days.
I hope to show progress in Electric Pen matters ere long.
Where is Mr Paskas? Report says that he has been in London for over 2 weeks, I have seen nothing or heard nothing direct from the gent Very truly
Page 104
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:272). aInterlined above.
1. Not found.
2. Cornelius Roosevelt, Hilborne Roosevelt’s brother, had acquired an interest in Bell’s French patent the previous fall and had been in Paris since December. Bruce 1973, 246; Hilborne Roosevelt to TAE, 19 Apr. 1878, DF (TAEM 15:542).
3. Alexander Graham Bell’s only U.S. patent in 1878 was 201, 488, which issued on 19 March. The French patent dated 12 February was 122, 580.
4. Not found.
5. Edison’s French electric pen patent was 112, 719, dated 6 May 1876; his telephone patent was 121, 687, dated 19 December 1877; and his phonograph patent was an addition to 121, 687, dated 19 February 1878.
6. David Brandon handled most of Edison’s French patents for several decades. See TAEB 3:513 n. 2.
Charles Batchelor to Edward Johnson
Menlo Park N.J. Feb. 26th 1878
Dear Sir
I send you 3a three coils, 3a three transmitters and 3a three receivers the coils are connected up like sketch with plug in transmi[tter]b circuit to open your battery when you have to wait.1
These coils are the best we have had, but last night we wound a coil that was at least five times louder and the articulation most perfect.2 We find Bradley coils will not do as we must have better insulation [—]c You would be surprised at our result after making one perfectly insulated. We are putting some of these coils now in hand and I shall send you two if Edison says so and you let me know where I can send them3
ALS (letterpress copy), NjWOE, Lbk. 1:356 (TAEM 28:224). aCircled. bCopy ran off edge of page. cCanceled.
1. Text is, left to right: (top) “Line” and “Battery,” (center) “[Fine?]” and “[coarse?],” (bottom) “Receiver,” “Plug,” and “Transmitter.” The following day, Batchelor drew a diagram that he labeled “New Coil box connections.” However, this design probably did not work Page 105 properly as he gave another diagram to John Kruesi with the instruction to “make all connections hereafter like this You see there is no cross on these but in making these square connections on the other bases there may be.” There are also two draft versions of the second design. Vol. 14:46–49, Lab. (TAEM 4:187–90).
The new coil box connection design of 27 February.
2. The laboratory staff had been experimenting with coil designs since the beginning of the month (Batchelor to S. Bergmann & Co., 7 Feb. 1878, Lbk. 1:337 [TAEM 28:210]). Records of these tests are incomplete, but notes of 10 and 20 February indicate that the best coil they had was one designated No. 12 with .6 ohms primary and 200 ohms secondary (Vol. 14:39, 43, Lab. [TAEM 4:180, 184]). On 28 February, Edison executed a patent application for a telephone call-signal which included a
peculiar inductive coil, formed of a primary wire, forming part of a circuit in which is included a battery and a carbon telephone transmitting instrument. Around the primary wire is wound spirally but insulated from it a long length of fine wire which is included in the main line circuit, with the receivers, the coil, owing to the close proximity of the primary to the secondary, induces a very powerful current; an iron core somewhat increases this power, but decreases the clearness of articulation. [Pat. App. 203, 017]
3. On 8 March, Johnson wrote Edison "I am a little shaky about the Induction Coils I have the sound was very low on the 26 miles I worked—& this time I've got to work 70. Hadn't you better let Bergman Bring in with him Monday 2 of your best— I will put them on my Boxes— I only want the coils." DF (TAEM 15:335).
To Charles Fiske 1
Menlo Park Feb 27, 1878
Dear Sir
Your letter of 25th receiv[ed.]2a You ask if the Phonograph will record accur[ately]a at the rate of 135 words per minute would sa[y]a that it does and even faster. It is at present [too?]a young for practical courtee reporting as you have to put your mouth within an inch or [two?]a of the machine in order to get the vibrations [re]corded.a I will soon have it perfected to answer all the purposes you speak of for fourther information I would refer you to Chas A. Cheever Tribune Building, N.Y. Respt Yours
L (letterpress copy), NjWOE, Lbk. 1:375 (TAEM 28:239). Written by William Carman. aEdge of original not copied.
1. Unidentified.
2. Not found. Fiske was one of many who made inquiries as new reports about the phonograph began to spread. These correspondents asked Edison for information about the working of the machine and how they could either acquire one or obtain an agency for selling them (see “Edison, T. A.—Unsolicited Inquiries,” 78–018, DF, NjWOE). Many of them also provided Edison with suggestions for possible improvements in the phonograph; see “Suggestions to Edison on Phonograph and Telephone” in Unbound Documents (1878), Batchelor (TAEM 92:294–89) and some of the letters in “Edison, T. A.—Advice,” 78–004, DF, a sampling of which are in TAEM beginning on 16:596.
3. William Carman.
Frotn George Bliss
Chicago. Feb. 27th, 1878a
Dear Sir:
Charley1 writes me from Port Huron and offers to work for me at the Paris exposition providing I will pay his expenses while he is at Paris.
As most of the visitors will be foreigners it will be necessary to have some one who can speak their languages.
It is barely possible if Charley can put up and explain the quadruplex and the other articles which you will exhibit that he can be used to advantage
Please let me know what you think of this. Charley says he is going to Menlo Park soon and I presume he will talk to you about this matter. Respectfully,
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 17:555). Typed in upper case. Letterhead of Electric Pen and Duplicating Press Co., George Bliss, General Manager; letterhead and dateline are electric pen copy. a“Chicago” and “187” preprinted.
1. Charles P. Edison (1860–1879), son of Edison’s brother, William Pitt Edison.
2. De Lancey Louderback (1849–1914), a former telegraph operator and manager, was at this time agent for Western Electric Manufacturing Co. in Philadelphia (NCAB 16:233). In another letter of this date, Bliss had written Edison that Louderback had “worked like a beaver for the [electric] pen this last year” and was interested in obtaining the phonograph agency for Philadelphia and the surrounding region (DF [TAEM 18:928]).
3. William Carman wrote a letter almost identical to Edison’s marginal note on 2 March in which this word was “recommendation” (Lbk. 1:392 [TAEM 28:254]). It probably refers to Bliss’s other letter of 27 February (DF [TAEM 18:728]).
From Asahel Eaton
Brooklyn, N.Y., Feb 27th 1878a
Dear Edison
The glass you inquire for would have to be made specially for you. 1 I do that kind of work and will undertake it for you if you wish. How many would you require.
Prof. Plympton2 and three or four other professional gentlemen have expressed a wish to call upon you at Menlo Park, and see the wonders of the place. If you can name any time when you will be sufficiently at leisure, I will pilot them to your place Yours
〈I may require a 1000, but want 25 immediately. I use the disks which are 5/8b diameter & 3/100 b thick fe In my Carbon telephone, for pressing down the platina disk on Carbon button by diaphragm Ivory wood Vulcanite etc swells or warps by pas heat due to passage of current through carbon How much per 100. or doz They must be flat. will name day when to bring your men over=〉
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 19:635). Letterhead of A. K. Eaton, Chemist. a“Brooklyn, N.Y.,” and “187” preprinted. bWritten by William Carman.
1. Two days earlier, Edison had written Eaton, “Do you know where can I get glass 3/100 thick and perfectly flat on surface I want to procure Page 108 discs of that thickness and about ⅝ diameter probably you know some one who would make them for us” (Lbk. 1:364 [TAEM 28:228]). On 6 March, Eaton replied that he could make the disks for $3.60 per dozen and for less than that by the hundred (DF [ TAEM 19:647]).
2. Prof. George Plympton was a well-known civil engineer and professor of physics at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Obituary, New York Times, 13 Sept. 1907, 7.
From Norman Miller
Wednesday— [February 27, 1878]1
Edison.
Mr O. called me yesterday morning, and asked “what I knew about” Adams going to Phila I told him that I was down to see you Monday, and you expected A. to go down Tuesday evening— He said that Merrihew2 had full instructions, and that he had asked Bentley to give his personal aid and attention—3
In closing the conversation he as good as said that Your Tel. had got to do the “long and hard work of business lines—
I think he has great hopes of a good report from Phila
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 19:637).
1. Doc. 1225 appears to be a response to Orion’s inquiry; 27 February was a Wednesday.
2. James Merrihew, who had been connected with telegraphy since 1849, was district superintendent in Philadelphia for Western Union’s Southern Division. Reid 1886, 657; Western Union 1878.
3. Bentley wrote Edison on 25 February that he had seen Orton two days previously and “he seemed very much interested in the proposed trial of your Carbon Telephone by me.” Bentley asked Edison to make “this trial at as early a date as possible—if you have them so I can do so,” as a report in the New York Sun concerning “your working to me in the midst of W.U. wires is exciting a great number of inquiries of me from many sections—I presume on account of its not being entirely believed” (DF [TAEM 19:632]). The New York Sun article is probably “A Marvelous Discovery,” from 22 February, which quotes Edison, “I have whispered into [the telephone] here at Menlo Park, and been answered in a whisper by Henry Bentley in the Western Union office at Philadelphia” (Cat. 1240, item 378, Batchelor [TAEM 94:115]).
From Edward Johnson
[c. February 27, 1878]1
My Dr Edison
Everything conspires to curtail my Lecture business I yield to the pressure and have today indefinitely postponed the following
| Providence R.I. | Bradford Pa. |
| Corning N.Y. | Richmond Ind. |
| Bath N.Y. | Cincin 0. |
And have agreed to give the following
Syracuse N.Y. 28th
Rochester N.Y. 12th
Buffalo N.Y. 13tha
The conspiracy is thus composed
1 st Edisons aversion.
2nd Hubbards opinion that more harm is done—by premature Exhibition—than good—2
3rd My appointment as Generalissimo of the Phono Company3 with full power to act & push things—& Especial advice to consult with you.
4th My Clockwork man made a miscalculation as to Power & produced a beautifulb Piece of mechanism “but it dont work”—hence I am compelled to go to Syracuse without it—but otherwise well equipped—
I of course dont pay him—& he has gone to work to make one twice as powerful & have it done by the 10th4c—thus giving me a 1st class outfit for Roch. & Bu. I want to give that one at Providence for Dr Channing5 too. These Impt. & occassional Lectures I can easily find time to attend to without any special effort—It is clearly better for me to do it—than a Bell Telephone party— I return the checks as I have no immediate occasion to use them much obliged all the same Yours Truly
Am glad to hear of the Improvement in the Telephone. You will be able to give me a pair of the Imprd Coils by Mch 10th Yrs
ALS, NjWOE, DF (TAEM 15:278). aFollowed by horizontal line. Interlined above. bObscured overwritten characters.
1. This letter was written after Johnson received Charles Batchelor’s letter of 26 February (Doc. 1219) regarding the improved telephone coils. Page 110
2. On 25 February, Cheever wrote Gardiner Hubbard and informed him
I did speak to Johnson about the lecturing business, told him we did not think any more lectures better be given until we are ready to sell &c. He expressed himself as satisfied with my explanation & said “of course I will not exhibit any more for the present if that is your idea.”
I did not make it peremptory with him but put it in the shape of a suggestion and as that seemed to satisfy him thought I would not force it harder. Shall speak to him again about it tomorrow. [Box 1205, NjWAT]
3. Johnson was formally designated general agent of the as-yet unincorporated phonograph company a few days later (see Doc. 1238 n. 1).
4. This clockwork was made by Henry Loriot who delivered it by 12 March and billed it to Edison.-Loriot was still trying to collect the $110 he charged for this clockwork as late as January 1880. Loriot to Johnson, 12 Mar. 1878; Loriot and Ostrom to TAE, 9 July, 8 Aug., and 12 Dec. 1879 and 15 Jan. 1880, all DF ( TAEM 17:49; 51:680, 737; 52:90, 55:283).
5. William Channing was a medical doctor and inventor who had joined with telegraph inventor Moses Farmer to develop the first practical fire-alarm telegraph which was installed in Boston in 1852. At this time he was experimenting with telephones in Providence, R. I. DAB, s.v. “Channing, William Francis”; Prescott 1878c, 274–78; Prescott to TAE, 15 Feb. 1878 and Channing to TAE, 13 Mar. 1878, both DF (TAEM 15:241; 18:940).
To William Orton
Menlo Park N.J. Feby 28. [1878]
Dear Sir
Mr Bentley has heard from me because I have written him three letters since monday. Mr Adams will go to Philadelphia tomorrow. The assignments were all delivered to Serrell today.1 Mr Pope is over zealous about them Yours
ALS, DSI-NMAH, WUTAE.
1. It is not known which patent assignments were delivered, but on 9 February, Serrell had written Edison that “the Western Union Telegraph Company require certain assignments in connection with some of your applications” and asked Edison to come to his office as soon as convenient. DF (TAEM 18:628).
Patent Application: Telephony
New York, February 28, 1878a
1b To all whom it may concern.— Be it known that I, Thomas A. Edison, of Menlo Park in the County of Middlesex, and State of New Jersey, have invented an Improvement in Acoustic Telegraphs, (Case No 151,) of which the following is a specification:
2 The object of this invention is to transmit and receive oral communications over telegraphic wire by sound.
3 The invention relates to an arrangement of devices for transmitting two classesc of signals—one by the vibrations of the voice and thec other by a key or switch for signalling the distant station.
4 In my application No. 141 ford Letters Patent, filed July 20th, 1877,—1 I have shown a carbon disk acted upon by the vibrations of a diaphragm to produce rise and fall of electric tension upon the line, such carbon disk being in the mainline circuit, and in my application No 146, filed Dec. 13 th, 1877,—2 I have shown a rheostatic device acted upon by the diaphragm to produce rise and fall of tension in the primary circuit of an induction coil.
5 I find that the carbon heretofore employed in connection with a diaphragm is not adapted to use in the primary circuit of an induction-coil, because its resistance is too great, and the necessary risec and fall of tension is not produced.
6 If the carbon is mixed with other substances so as to separate the particles, the rise and fall of tension can be obtained, but its resistance is too great to be used in the primary circuit of an induction-coil.
7 I have discovered that lamp black obtained from the combustion of very light hydrocarbons, such as gasoline or naptha, can be used for the aforesaid purpose.
8 I select from lamp black thus made only the very blackest portions, and then place the same in a mould, and subject it to a very powerful pressure, sufficient to consolidate the same,3 and place it in a correspondingly shaped cavity contiguous to the diaphragm, with a piece of cork or a piece of rubber intervening between the same and the diaphragm, and connect the disks of platina foil that are used at each side of the carbon in the primary circuit of the induction coil, and obtain from the pressure resulting from the motion of the diaphragm the necessary rise and fall of tension without the great resistance heretofore inseparable from the carbon in said circuit. Page 112
Inventor Thos A. Edison, per Lemuel W. Serrell atty. Witnesses Chas H. Smith4 Harold Serrell5c
9 I will now describe the action of the apparatus. A at station 1 is the carbon transmitter.6 9 is the body of the telephone. 10 is the cap for securing the diaphragm tightly. 8 is a piece of cork and rubber tube secured to the diaphragm, the rubber tube rests, when properly adjusted for speaking, against an ivory disk, 7.
10 The ivory disk rests upon a disk of platina foil, resting upon a button of Lamp black Carbon, 6; this, in its turn, rests upon the platinized surface of the rod 5, which is adjustable to and from the diaphragm by the right and left hand screws 3 and 4.
11 The platina on the top of the carbon disks next to the diaphragm is connected to a binding-post, and to the other binding-post a wire connects with the rod 5. Thus the circuit must first pass to the upper platina and through the carbon to the lower plate. Page 113
12 The vibrations of the diaphragm subject the cabrbon to different pressures, according to the amplitude of motion resulting from the sound-waves, and this difference of pressure varies the resistance offered by the carbon to the passage of the current, and produces a rise and fall of electric tension.
13 The instrument A. is included within the primary circuit of the induction-coil D.E. D is the primary wire of the coil, and is wound on the outside of the secondary coil E. C. is a switch which when moved to the right, in contact with 15, places the transmitter A in the primary circuit containing the battery K and coil D; when the switch is in the centre, the primary circuit is open and the apparatus is ready for the reception of a call-signal; when the switch is turned to the left, at 16, the instrument A is thrown out of circuit, and the battery only is connected to the primary coil D.
14 The movement of the switch from 16 several times serves to open and close the primary circuit and throw a powerful induced current into E and then to the line.
15 The polarized relay F, coil E, and receiving-instrument B are all placed in the main-line wire at both stations. The powerful current thrown into the secondary coil and line by the movement of the switch C from 16 works the tongues of both polarized relays F in unison with the switch; the tongues, closing against their contact-points, close a local ciercuit containing a call-bell, H.
16 The same battery K that is employed with the telephones is utilized to ring the bell, the connections for the transmitter A are from the battery K. by wire 20 to 21, then through the telephone A to wire 22, and from 22 to 15 through the switch-lever c to the primary coil D, and to wire 23 back to battery. Thisc is the connection for transmitting and receiving telephonically. when not thus working the switch C is placed in the central position between 15. and 16, when in this position, if the switch of the distant station is moved to operate the call, the tongue of F closes the local circuit at g. thence by wire 24 to battery K, and through K. to wire 25, thence through the magnets of the bell-call to wire 26, and then through the tongue of the polarized relay.
17 When the switch c is moved to work the distant call it is brought into contact with 16. and the current passes from K. by wire 20 to 16, thence through c. to the primary wire D, thence to 23, back to the battery K, and setting up a powerful induced current in the coil E and line. Page 114
Telephone circuit and bracket design from Edisons U.S. Patent 203, 017.
18 I will mention that it is not necessary to use a polarized relay, as an unpolarized relay of the ordinary character may be used, as the current due to the opening of the primary circuit is much the strongest; but the lever of the unpolarized relay should be light and the spool very short, it is not even necessary to use the call-bell H in many instances when the terminal is very quiet, as the sound given by the polarized relay itself is sufficient; or a small bell may be worked by the tongue. 7
19 The tongue of a polarized relay should be biased, so that it will always be away from the point g except when moved by the signalling currents, so as to prevent short circuiting the battery K. when transmitting telephonically.
20 By employing two cells and a considerable resistance in the magnets upon the call-bell it is not essential to bias the tongue, but it may be made to respond to both positive and negative, a shunt from one cellc being used to furnish current to the call-bell
I claim as my invention—
1stf The combination of transmitter A, coils D E, switch C, polarized relay F, bell H, battery K, and circuits arranged and operating substantially as herein set forth.—
2nd In combination with a telephonic and thef primary circuit of an induction-coil, the button of lamp black carbon prepared as set forth, and placed in the primary circuit, substantially as and for the purposes set forth.8g
Signed by me this 28th day of February, ad 18789
Witnesses, Harold Serrell Geo. T. Pinckney10
DS and PD, MdSuFR, RG-241, Pat. App. 203, 016. Written by Harold Serrell; numerous alterations were apparently made to the document during the examination and publication process at the U.S. Patent Office; these have been ignored. Oath omitted. aPlace taken from oath; date taken from text, form altered. bSection numbers written in margin in another hand. cObscured overwritten letter. d”my application No. 141 for” interlined above; “No. 141” transposed from another line. eSignatures taken from printed drawing. fInterlined above. g“and . . . forth.” interlined above.
1. U.S. Pat. 474, 231.
2. U.S. Pat. 203, 013.
3. Prescott 1879 (pp. 530–33) discusses Edison’s experiments with various carbon buttons, why he thought lampblack superior, and the process of preparing the carbon button. This section of Prescott is based on Edison’s draft (Undated Notes and Drawings, Menlo Park Period, Lab. [TAEM 45:123]). Page 115
The lampblack as it comes from the burning apparatus is laid upon a white slab and those portions that have a brownish tinge are picked from the pile. The remainder is ground in a mortar and then placed in a large mould & subjected to a pressure of several thousand pounds The cake thus pressed is repowdered & repressed several times, finally it is weighed out in lots of 300 milligrammes & moulded into buttons as seen in the telephone.
4. Charles Smith witnessed many documents in Lemuel SerrelPs office.
5. Harold Serrell, Lemuel SerrelPs son, was a clerk in Lemuel’s office.
6. Here is a clearer version of transmitter A in the patent drawing.
7. The call-signal arrangement shown in this patent was for use on long lines. On the same day, Edison executed another patent application (U.S. Pat. 203, 017) for use on short lines of one to twenty miles in length. In that design, the receiver was placed in a bracket with a lever extending over it and when a signal was sent from the other end of the line, the attraction of this lever by the receiver’s electromagnet caused it to act like a telegraph sounder and signal the call. He also designed another call arrangement for use on moderate-length lines up to thirty miles long in which he used a telegraph sounder as a call signal (see Doc. 1240 n. 2). Edison described these and other call-signal arrangements in Prescott 1878c, 227–31.
8. This second claim was added before the application was sent to the Patent Office.
9. This application was filed on 7 March and issued as U.S. Patent 203, 016 on 30 April 1878.
10. George Pinckney was a clerk in Serrell’s office.
Caveat: Phonograph
New York, N.Y, February 28th, 1878.1a
To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that I, Thomas A. Edison, of Menlo Park, in the county of Middlesex, and State of New Jersey, have invented an Improvement in Phonographs, of which the following is a specification:
The object of this invention is to record and reproduce Page 116 from such records or a copy thereof, the human voice or other sounds.
The invention relates to the devices to accomplish this object, and I have set forth some of the details of the same and the incidental modifications employed or tested by me.
In my application, No. 149, filed December 24, 1877,2 I have shown a cylinder rotated by hand and moving longitudinally at the same time by a screw.
The circumferential surface of the cylinder have a grooved spiral cut from end to end, having the same number of spirals per inch as the thread or screw on the shaft upon which the cylinder is secured, and on one side of the cylinder is a speaking tube, diaphragm and indenting point, immediately opposite the grooves on the cylinder. The movement of the diaphragm being recorded by indenting a material placed on the cylinder; on the opposite side is a similar apparatus provided with a diaphragm and point, also opposite the grooves which serves to produce the sound recorded by indentations. I have now dispensed with the extra apparatus employed for reproducing and now use the apparatus that records also for reproducing from its own records. After the record has been made the cylinder or plate is turned back to its original position and re-started when the indenting points riding in and out of the indentations originally made, set the diaphragm in motion and reproduce all the sounds. At the present moment I am not fully satisfied that using the same diaphragm, both for recording and reproducing, gives better articulation than when double instruments are used, it is certainly more simple. It is probable that a double instrument will have to be used to obtain loud reproductions.
The recording diaphragm being arranged with the spring containing the embossing or indenting point so that there is no lost motion between it and the diaphragm, the latter being a small and stiff diaphragm; on the other hand, the reproducing diaphragm is of very thin material, with a very elastic thin spring, such as the hair-spring of a watch, with a very fine point; by using a very delicate reproducing diaphragm and spring but little pressure is necessary against the indented material; hence, the point will not destroy the finer spaces between the indentations like the rigid system for recording.
It may be arranged so that one single spring can be used, both for indenting and reproducing, double diaphragms on one mouthpiece being arranged with a double lever to connect the spring with one or the other, at pleasure. I find that the Page 117 smaller the diaphragm the better is the articulation; however, the amplitude is insufficient to give very prominent records, hence I use a moderately-sized diaphragm, dampening it on one or both sides as in Figure 1;b
Fig. 1.
e is the spring having an indenting point n; the spring is fastened to the upright arm, G; d is a rubber tube about one-fourth of an inch in length, connecting the spring with the diaphragm, c. It is fastened permanently.
A and B are also pieces of rubber tube placed on each side of the diaphragm and serve to dampen the diaphragm and prevent squeaking noises and improve the articulation by causing the diaphragm to return immediately to its normal position after each vibration— stiff springs, felting, water, mercury, air valve, magnetism, are among the means which may be employed for dampening the diaphragm. Even a rubber strip stretched tightly across the diaphragm on both sides may be used; a fiddle string may be also used on both sides provided with tightening screws to give it great tension that the diaphragm may be brought quickly to its normal position. It is not absolutely essential that a diaphragm for taking up the sound vibrations should be used, as strips as in Figs. 2, 3, and 4 and 5, may be used;
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
in fact, thin sheets of metal corrugated or having their edges turned over may be used in innumerable shapes; neither is it absolutely essential in recording or reproducing that the diaphragm should be in actual contact or be connected in any way to the spring e. Page 118
Fig. 6.
Fig. 7
A small disc A, of mica or other stiff and light material is secured to the spring e, Figs. 6 and 7, which disc is immediately opposite the diaphragm B (Fig. 7), but not touching the air waves serving to give the requisite motion.
The disc may be iron and the diaphragm, or vice versa, polarized by a permanent magnet so that the motions are given to the spring through the medium of magnetic attraction and air as in Fig. 6.
The speaking and hearing diaphragm may be connected to the spring in various ways, such as a tightly-stretched thread, or telephonically by causing the spring which should be of steel magnetized, or of iron or capped with a disc of iron to be opposite a magneto telephone; its motion will give rise to induction currents in the magneto generator and these may be used in another telephone, as in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8.
When the carbon telephone is used, the spring is connected by a piece of rubber tubing to the two platina discs between which is the carbon all placed in a circuit containing a battery and receiver, as in Fig. 9. Of course, the line may be of any required length with complete apparatus at each end, the phonograph merely replacing the person talking.
Fig. 9.
Fig. 10.
When it is desired to record speech from a distance, I arrange it as in Fig. 10; an electro-magnet in the line serves to give motion to the indenting spring directly or from a diaphragm. Page 119
When it is desired to collect speech several feet from the instrument, I arrange the diaphragm as in Figs. 11 and 12, a large chamber D, Fig. 11,
Fig. 11.
being used to collect the sound; this it does with great power; several of them may be connected together; another plan is to use several chambers in different parts of the room and connecting by tubes to the recording diaphragm; still another plan is to connect several of my carbon telephones, Fig. 12,
Fig. 12.
with the induction coils and batteries with these collectors and convey wires from each coil to a common magnet working the indenting point.
Another arrangement is to use but one coil and place it[s] secondary in connection with the magnet working the indenting point and all the carbon transmitters in one primary circuit of the coil with one battery. Many kinds of material may be used for diaphragm, such as mica, glass, porcelain, cork, rubber (soft and vulcanized), aluminum and other metals, parchment made impervious to moisture by a varnish, celluloid, guttapercha, sulphur, isinglass, gelatin paper cloth stiffened by varnishes and other materials, woods of various kinds, ivory, balato bone.
The material for recording upon may be various metallic foils or sheets, such as tin-foils of various compositions, iron, copper, brass, lead, tin, cadmium, zinc; also, paper and various other absorbent materials may be used and coated with paraffine and other hard hydrocarbons, waxes, gums, lacs, and Page 120 these may be used to record on directly, or they may have a metallic surface; for instance, paper may be made to pass through a bath of hot paraffine, thence between scrapers; immediately after passing the scrapers thin metallic foil is placed on it from a continuous roll and again passed through rollers or scrapers, thus giving a beautiful surface and preventing the material from clogging the indenting point. The paper may be coated with gutta-percha or substances which become soft by heat, then in the act of indenting, it may be rendered plastic by heat, either by hot air or a lamp under the cylinder or plate. If thin iron-foil is employed, the indentation may be made in the usual way, but a novel plan may be adopted for reproducing the undulations of the diaphragm as illustrated in Fig. 13,
Fig. 13.
in which the spring-arm of the reproducing point connected to the diaphragm is highly magnetized, or the iron-foil may be magnetized, as in Fig. 14;
Fig. 14.
then when an indentation passes the point the attraction will be less than when no indentation passes; this will give good articulation, free from the scraping noise of the point on the foil, for in this case it does not touch the foil, but is worked by magnetic attraction.
If very thin foil is used with wide grooves in the cylinder, the indenting point may be dispensed with altogether and the indenting made directly by the force of the air-waves as in Fig. 15.
Fig. 15.
Page 121A is a funnel, ending with a very fine hole at the end of the funnel, almost in contact with the cylinder containing the foil. The force of the air-waves serves to force the foil inward between the edges of the grooves and thus record each vibration; these are reproduced by the disturbance of the air at the small end of the tube. A diaphragm closes the large end of A, thus creating a suction to raise the spaces between; the point may be even rounded and be in contact with the foil and produce the same effect.
The sheet to be recorded upon may be prepared with gelatine and bichromate of potash, and the diaphragm control a source of light, and thus record the vibrations, or the diaphragm may control a self-feeding pen, which deposits a fluid in more or less quantity, according to the amplitude of the diaphragm, and this fluid may combine with a material on the paper to make an insoluble compound, whereas the parts not touched with it may be washed away. Duplicate copies may be made with foils by using several together. The indenting point indents all at the same time.
The apparatus I propose to use for dictating letters is shown in Figs. 16 , 17, 18, 19, 20.
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18.
Fig. 19.
Fig. 20.
Fig. 21.
X, Figs. 16 and 19, is a plate revolved horizontally by a train of gear as shown in Fig. 21 ; this plate has two volute spirals cut from the center outward; the inner spiral 11, Fig. 16, is used for the purpose of carrying the arm A outward; this arm has upon its extremity the diaphragm and guide or carrying arm n; 3 the other spiral 12 is used to lay the foil or material Page 122 to be indented upon; the point worked by the diaphragm is immediately over the grooves.
C is a frame hinged to X, and is used to secure the material to the plate X.
This frame is provided with 4 holes, 1, 2, 3 and 4, which, when closed on X, fit exactly over four pins 1, 2, 3 and 4, on X.
These pins are used to register the foil which is previously indented to go over the pins; the holes so punched in the record sheet I propose to eyelet. The sheet prepared for use is shown in Fig. 17. B is thick paper with a large hole in it equal to the size of the grooves in X; stretched over the frame work of paper is foil Q, with a small hole in the center. A1, A2, A3, A4, are holes punched to insure registration on the pins 1, 2, 3, 4 of X. It is not essential that the plate X should be square, it may be octagon or round; the spiral 11 may be dispensed with and cut underneath the plate, a,nd the whole plate, two inches from the center, used for recording.
Even a separate plate on the same shaft may be used, this having the spirals for guiding the arm upon it, as in Fig. 18. A double spiral may be cut, one within the other, from near the center to the circumference of X, one being used to move the arm, the other to record in.
Even spirals may be dispensed with at 12, the guiding spiral alone being used, the foil being placed on a polished surface of glass, steel, or even a yielding material; the guiding spiral may be dispensed with and a worm used, connected to the driving gear, for giving a slow outward motion to the arm.
Fig. 22.
In Fig. 22 is shown a method of recording and reproducing the sounds on the principle of a sirene; A is a diaphragm which makes great amplitude; the grooves are so narrow and the point upon the diaphragm so sharp that the indentations are punched clear through the material. C is a cylinder, hollow, with a funnel-shaped face. B is an air tube connected to a source of compressed air or steam; it ends with a very small point immediately opposite the perforations; every time a perforation passes the hole it allows a puff of air to pass within C, Page 123 and thus a sound is given. A flap may be used around the point of B to prevent leakage.
Fig. 23.
In Fig. 23 is shown a method of obtaining the advantage of leverage to indent a hard material.
Fig. 24
Fig. 25.
In Fig. 24 is shown the method of recording and reproducing by a point direct upon the diaphragm. Fig. 25 shows another arrangement to obtain the advantages of leverage. Fig. 26 shows a method whereby several persons may speak and have it recorded simultaneously.
Fig. 26.
Fig. 27.
Fig. 27 shows another arrangement whereby several persons may speak simultaneously, but their record will be in separate spirals, the cylinders being provided with double thread or spirals.
Figs 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 83
Fig. 28
Figs. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 83 show different indenting and reproducing points.
Fig. 39.
Page 124Fig. 39 shows a cylinder which has upon it iron-foil, indented by a separate mouthpiece. A is a permanent magnet close to the indentations; around the magnet is a coil of wire. B is a polarized receiving instrument. The rotation of N causes the indentations to throw inductive currents into B, and thus reproduce the speaking or other sounds; although the point of A does not touch N, the approach and recession of the iron causes the currents to be set up.
Fig. 40.
Fig. 40 shows both a recorder A, and a reproducer B A acts direct, while the lever of B cannot of itself indent the foil, yet falls into the indentations made by A.
Fig. 41.
Fig. 41 shows a plate with spirals cut on each side with double reproducers, 1 and 2. This will be useful in toys, the sentence or sound being indented permanently on each side of the plate and the arms 1 and 2 being thrown in and out automatically.
Fig. 42 shows a reproducing apparatus for toys, etc., using a continuous indented band.
Fig. 42.
Fig. 43.
Fig. 43 shows a long strip or roll like that of a Morse register. A is a roll of the material, D the drum, B the reel upon which the material is wound, C, a roller which keeps the material smoothly on B.
A is rotated by friction and a belt from D. Page 125
Fig. 44
Fig. 44 shows a reciprocating lever and a continuous roll of material for recording and reproducing.
This system I am now engaged in perfecting.
Fig. 45.
Fig. 45 shows an indenting and reproducing apparatus carried back and forward automatically by a double thread, one right hand on the front and left hand on the back of the machine.
Fig. 46.
Fig. 46 shows an automatic machine suitable for advertising purposes: the arm F is carried forward by the screw G, in going forward it lifts up A, until A drops back, then the spiral spring, c, causes B to run over A, back to its starting point again.
D runs upon the smooth shaft, keeping F and its devices at a proper distance from the cylinder.
Fig. 47
Fig. 47 shows a peculiar mouth-piece.
Fig. 48.
Fig. 49.
Fig. 50.
Figs. 48, 49, 50, 51 are mouth-pieces; the sharp edged holes are for the purpose of reinforcing the hissing consonants. Page 126
Fig. 51.
Fig. 52
Fig. 52 shows a mouth-piece with the orifice of soft rubber and fitting in the mouth to the lips.
Fig. 53.
Fig. 53 shows the machine which I make for experimental illustration of the invention
Fig. 54.
Fig. 54 shows a continuous roll of material with holes punched in each edge fitting over pins upon the drum to insure accurate registration of the ribbon.
Fig. 55.
Fig. 55 shows a speaking box, where the whole head of the person speaking is confined.
Fig. 56.
Fig. 56 shows a stretched sheet for insuring the reproduction and recording of high notes.
Fig. 57.
Fig. 57 shows a method of preparing bands of material already indented with the proper indentations for reproducing any kind of sounds, one roller having an original made by coating-tin foil with copper and then steel, or making a plaster of Page 127 paris mould from an original, then plating or casting from it and plating with steel or using soft iron and indenting, then placing it around a cylinder, backing it up with copper and case-hardening or carbonizing it so as to make it hard.
Fig. 58.
Fig. 58 shows a plan of using a wheel so prepared to knurl the indentations in by rotating A against a wheel B of soft material.
Fig. 59.
Fig. 60.
Fig. 59 shows a drum with sides and provided with pins for registering the sheet, as shown in Fig. 60.
Fig. 61.
Fig. 61 is a toy apparatus; X, a clock-work rotating the cylinder continuously; an arm carrying the reproducing diaphragm is reciprocated by a double-threaded screw right and left on the shaft.
Fig. 62 shows almost the same thing; the double thread being on the drum.
Fig. 62.
Fig. 63.
Fig. 63 shows a pull strip upon which the indentations are, pulling the strip downward, winds up a rubber elastic; when the strip is let go of the worm and fan regulates the power of the elastic.
Fig. 64.
Fig. 65.
Page 128Fig. 64 is similar to 62. Fig. 65 is a cylinder and key board, around the cylinder opposite the keys are the necessary indentations to form a letter of the alphabet or a tone or note of the scale.
There are 26 keys for the alphabet, and for music several octaves.
The cylinder continuously rotates; the depression of any key causes the production of a musical note, or if for alphabets, the letter of the alphabet; it is very useful in the last instance to learn children the names of the letters.
Fig. 66 shows double indenting points and double thread or grooves on the cylinder,
Fig. 66.
Fig. 67.
Fig. 67 shows a plate for recording upon, with plate underneath for guiding the speaking tube.
Fig. 68.
Fig. 69
Figs. 68 and 69 show a method of recording the movements of the lips and reproducing the same upon the same material as the talking is recorded.
Fig. 70 shows a raised screw on cylinder with a recording point like a W.
Fig. 70.
Fig. 71
Fig. 71 shows a method of obtaining amplified records from the indented sheet. M is the lever, X a lamp-blacked cylinder; both are rotated slowly.
Fig. 72.
Page 129Fig. 72 shows a method of amplifying the records and photographing the same; n is the cylinder containing the indentations; m a small mirror; G a stand holding an electric or other light which passes through a slot 3 to the mirrors m, and is reflected back upon the paper T, which, with the cylinder N, is rotated by a shaft P, handles R, and worm at each end.
The paper T is photograph paper. X is the battery for giving the electric light.
Fig. 73.
Fig. 73 is a plan for amplifying and reindenting.
This amplification is obtained by leverage. B is the cylinder containing the material to be reindented; it is rotated by a belt and pulley slightly faster than A, the extra movement of the lever B going faster gives longer and deeper indentations before the amplification takes place; the material on A should be stiffened by plating up it.
Fig. 74 shows double diaphragms.
Fig. 74.
Fig. 75.
Fig. 76
Figs. 75 and 76 show stretched diaphragms.
Fig. 77 a double apparatus for recording and reproducing, the change from one to the other being made quickly by a lever.
Fig. 77.
Fig. 78.
Fig. 78 shows a method of recording on smoked glass, for stereopticons.
Fig. 79.
Page 130Fig. 79 a method of recording the sound, and4 tuning-forks and obtaining their vibrating time, X being a pendulum to give the time.
Fig. 80.
Fig. 81.
Fig. 80 shows a bent spring to replace the rubber tube usually employed.
Fig. 81 an indenting spring with three points.
Fig. 83.
Fig. 83 shows an extra point c, for slightly grooving the foil before the indenting point; this takes part of the work off the indenting point.
I will mention that my latest experiments prove that it is not necessary that grooves should be used opposite the indenting point, as a cylinder or plate of polished metal, glass, or other material may be used and thick foil or sheet metal laid upon it to receive the indentation. Even the indentations may be made in solid cylinders or plates of metal, such as type metal, copper, iron (this may be case hardened). I propose to use ruby or agate indenting points; I will mention that I have succeeded in engraving the indentations in metal from looking at an amplified record, and have succeeded in producing musical notes by drilling numerous holes close together around cylinders; these may be made to work the reproducing point of the diaphragm and give a loud noise suitable for awakening persons, attached to a clock.
Fig. 82.
Page 131Fig. 82 shows a strip of paper secured at one end to the indenting diaphragm.
By drawing back the diaphragm and indenting point and bending the strip of paper, as shown by dotted lines in said Fig. so that the end of the strip is in the line of the indentations, the sounds recorded upon the foil will be reproduced by the same diaphragm that caused the sounds to be recorded.
Signed by me, this 28th day of February, 1878.
Witnesses: Geo. T. Pinckney. William G. Mott.5
PD (transcript) and D (copy), NjWOE, Lit., American Graphophone Co. v. United States Phononograph Co., Edison Caveat of March 8th 1878, Defendant’s Exhibits, p. 330 and PS, Caveat Drawings, Caveat No. 77 (TAEM 116:341, 8:890). Petition and oath omitted. The historic transcription was entered in evidence as an accurate reproduction, but many extant slips probably were not in the original text; obvious cases have been ignored or silently corrected. Inconsistent italicization of figure labels has not been reproduced. aPlace and date from petition. bAll figures are on four separate sheets.
1. Edison executed this caveat on 28 February. He filed it and a caveat on telephones, probably executed on the same day, at the Patent Office on 8 March (neither is in the existing National Archives file of Edison caveats; TAE to Painter, c. 8 Mar. 1878, UHP). Edison had essentially completed the designs in this document by 20 February, when he sent materials to Lemuel Serrell for preparation of the official copy (TAE to Serrell, 20 Feb. 1878, Lbk. 1:343 [TAEM 28:216]). Surviving sketches from 3, 4, and 8 February were clearly intended for this caveat (NS-78–007, Lab. [TAEM 7:862–70]; NS-78–007 (misidentified as NS-78–001), Supp. Ill [TAEM 162:552]). The three large sheets of drawings sent to Serrell on 20 February (Caveat Drawings, PS [TAEM 8:89496]) contain only two sketches not repeated in the official caveat.
This was initially referred to as Edison’s Caveat 77 (the telephone caveat of the same date was number 76). However, those numbers had already been used (Doc. 715 is Caveat 77). After the duplication was noticed this caveat became 77A.
2. Edison’s U.S. Patent 200, 521 had actually issued nine days before the execution of this caveat.
3. Should be “h.”
4. Probably “of” in the original.
5. Unidentified.
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