4. First case study – the subdivision of the light - HM Treasury

F05 Ch4 Subdivision of the light.doc
05/04/2006 19:34:00
Technological roulette – a multi-disciplinary study of the dynamics of innovation in electrical, electronic
and communications engineering.
4. First case study – the subdivision of the light
seconds there was not a soul left in the meeting. All of them, including the parson, were
clustered round me, bidding against each other for copies of the precious paper.
“You can understand why it struck me then that the telegraph must be about the best thing
going, for it was the telegraphic notices on the bulletin boards which had done the trick. I
determined at once to become a telegraph operator.”
Clark1977, p11
By a chance of fate, Edison was involved in an incident in which the infant son of
J.U. McKenzie, a telegraph operator at Mount Clemens, one of the stations between
Detroit and Port Huron, was almost killed. Edison heroically snatched the lad from the
path of an oncoming rail car. To repay him, McKenzie taught Edison the skills of a
telegrapher.
At the age of sixteen, Edison was appointed as an operator in a small telegraph
office at Port Huron. He had a somewhat casual attitude towards his employment,
however, regarding it as an opportunity to study, repeating experiments he had read about
in the Scientific American, rather than giving priority to the transmission of his customers’
messages.
By the end of 1863 Edison felt he had learned all he could at Port Huron and moved
on to become a railway operator with the Grand Trunk Railroad at Stratford Junction,
about a hundred miles east across the Canadian frontier.
At Stratford, Edison worked at night. During the day he continued with his
experiments and studies. Edison’s study regime meant that he often fell asleep at his post.
The railway had a monitoring system which required the operators to transmit a signal
every hour as an indication that they were awake, but Edison managed to circumvent the
safety regulations by means of a notched wheel, attached to a clock, which made the
necessary connections and sent out the hourly “wide-awake” signal. His downfall was the
failure to pass on orders to hold a freight train, which, in consequence was nearly involved
in a head-on collision.
In February 1865, Edison moved to Cincinnati to work for Western Union. He
honed his skills and was promoted from “plug” operator to the status of “first-class man,”
capable of receiving press copy for as long as required. With this advancement, his salary
Clark 1977,p19
increased from $80 a month to $125.
107