The WELL: inkwell.vue.45: Paul Israel, biographer of Thomas Edison

#48: Linda Castellani (castle) Tue 28 Sep 99 17:58

Tue, 28 Sep 1999 17:58:00 PDT

Oooh! Fate Magazine!

Thanks for that, Paul. [Read entire topic]

#47: Paul B. Israel (pauli) Tue 28 Sep 99 14:27

Tue, 28 Sep 1999 14:27:00 PDT

Sorry I haven't had a chance to respond yet regarding the early electric companies. I've been preparing a talk on "Science and Invention: Looking Beyond the Popular Image of Thomas Edison" that I'm giving at the Smithsonian on October 12. I needed to get it done as I'm going to Ann Arbor and Detroit next week for the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). I finished writing the paper and preparing the slides today so I hope to have a chance to respond tomorrow.

I had mentioned earlier that there was an article purporting to show that Edison had been contacted during a seance and directed the parties to the blueprint of his device for communicating with the dead. Somehow the blueprint had been lost but a tracing turned up and a machine built that failed. It did lead the GE researcher who tried to build the machine to design one of his own that purportedly worked. This is recounted in Wainwright Evans, "Scientists Research Machine to Contact the Dead," Fate (April 1963): 38-43. [Read entire topic]

#46: Roberta Piazza (rpiazza) Fri 24 Sep 99 14:47

Fri, 24 Sep 1999 14:47:00 PDT

This is just fascinating! [Read entire topic]

#45: (ideo) was I ere I saw (esau) Wed 22 Sep 99 13:01

Wed, 22 Sep 1999 13:01:00 PDT

Building on that question, I'm amazed by how many companies seemed to have been started and ended and how many TAE joined and quit--practically one for each new telegraph idea. I keep losing track of the alliances, and I'd love to see a chronology of his career. [Read entire topic]

#44: Paul B. Israel (pauli) Wed 22 Sep 99 12:53

Wed, 22 Sep 1999 12:53:00 PDT

Good question. I'm just getting caught up from being out of town and will try to compose an answer and post it tomorrow. [Read entire topic]

#43: Brian Slesinsky (bslesins) Sun 19 Sep 99 19:45

Sun, 19 Sep 1999 19:45:00 PDT

What were the early electric companies like? What sort of people worked for them? Were they similar to today's startups? [Read entire topic]

#42: Linda Castellani (castle) Tue 14 Sep 99 13:23

Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:23:00 PDT

I can't wait to hear about it! [Read entire topic]

#41: Paul B. Israel (pauli) Tue 14 Sep 99 13:18

Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:18:00 PDT

It was apparently never built. I'm not in my office so I don't have the citation handy (I'll post it after I get back next Monday) but there is some fellow who claims that through a seance in which Edison was contacted he was able to obtain the plans for the device. [Read entire topic]

#40: Linda Castellani (castle) Tue 14 Sep 99 12:05

Tue, 14 Sep 1999 12:05:00 PDT

And what happened to that device? I love the idea. Sounds plausible to me. [Read entire topic]

#39: Paul B. Israel (pauli) Tue 14 Sep 99 05:58

Tue, 14 Sep 1999 05:58:00 PDT

Unfortunately, there is no record of what they talked about during their trips. I did not see the play but did read about it and the author tried to imagine what they would have talked about.

In his later years Edison attempted to build a device that could communicate with the dead based on his idea that the atoms that made up the universe each contained a life force that would retain memories of past lives. [Read entire topic]