introduction.txt

Edison, His Life and Inventions







by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin













GENERAL COUNSEL FOR THE EDISON LABORATORY



AND ALLIED INTERESTS







AND







THOMAS COMMERFORD MARTIN



EX-PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE



OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS















INTRODUCTION







PRIOR to this, no complete, authentic, and authorized



record of the work of Mr. Edison, during an active life,



has been given to the world. That life, if there is anything



in heredity, is very far from finished; and while it continues



there will be new achievement.







An insistently expressed desire on the part of the



public for a definitive biography of Edison was the



reason for the following pages. The present authors



deem themselves happy in the confidence reposed in



them, and in the constant assistance they have enjoyed



from Mr. Edison while preparing these pages,



a great many of which are altogether his own. This



co-operation in no sense relieves the authors of



responsibility as to any of the views or statements of



their own that the book contains. They have realized



the extreme reluctance of Mr. Edison to be made the



subject of any biography at all; while he has felt that,



if it must be written, it were best done by the hands



of friends and associates of long standing, whose judgment



and discretion he could trust, and whose intimate



knowledge of the facts would save him from



misrepresentation.







The authors of the book are profoundly conscious



of the fact that the extraordinary period of electrical



development embraced in it has been prolific of great



men. They have named some of them; but there



has been no idea of setting forth various achievements



or of ascribing distinctive merits. This treatment



is devoted to one man whom his fellow-citizens



have chosen to regard as in many ways representative



of the American at his finest flowering in



the field of invention during the nineteenth century.







It is designed in these pages to bring the reader face



to face with Edison; to glance at an interesting childhood



and a youthful period marked by a capacity for



doing things, and by an insatiable thirst for knowledge;



then to accompany him into the great creative



stretch of forty years, during which he has done so



much. This book shows him plunged deeply into



work for which he has always had an incredible



capacity, reveals the exercise of his unsurpassed



inventive ability, his keen reasoning powers, his



tenacious memory, his fertility of resource; follows



him through a series of innumerable experiments,



conducted methodically, reaching out like rays of



search-light into all the regions of science and nature,



and finally exhibits him emerging triumphantly from



countless difficulties bearing with him in new arts



the fruits of victorious struggle.







These volumes aim to be a biography rather than



a history of electricity, but they have had to cover so



much general ground in defining the relations and



contributions of Edison to the electrical arts, that they



serve to present a picture of the whole development



effected in the last fifty years, the most fruitful that



electricity has known. The effort has been made to



avoid technique and abstruse phrases, but some



degree of explanation has been absolutely necessary



in regard to each group of inventions. The task of



the authors has consisted largely in summarizing



fairly the methods and processes employed by Edison;



and some idea of the difficulties encountered by



them in so doing may be realized from the fact that



one brief chapter, for example,--that on ore milling--



covers nine years of most intense application and



activity on the part of the inventor. It is something



like exhibiting the geological eras of the earth in an



outline lantern slide, to reduce an elaborate series



of strenuous experiments and a vast variety of



ingenious apparatus to the space of a few hundred



words.







A great deal of this narrative is given in Mr. Edison's



own language, from oral or written statements



made in reply to questions addressed to him with



the object of securing accuracy. A further large part



is based upon the personal contributions of many



loyal associates; and it is desired here to make grateful



acknowledgment to such collaborators as Messrs.



Samuel Insull, E. H. Johnson, F. R. Upton, R. N



Dyer, S. B. Eaton, Francis Jehl, W. S. Andrews, W.



J. Jenks, W. J. Hammer, F. J. Sprague, W. S. Mallory,



an, C. L. Clarke, and others, without whose aid



the issuance of this book would indeed have been



impossible. In particular, it is desired to acknowledge



indebtedness to Mr. W. H. Meadowcroft not only for



substantial aid in the literary part of the work, but



for indefatigable effort to group, classify, and summarize



the boundless material embodied in Edison's



note-books and memorabilia of all kinds now kept



at the Orange laboratory. Acknowledgment must



also be made of the courtesy and assistance of Mrs.



Edison, and especially of the loan of many interesting



and rare photographs from her private collection.