Love that site and the old phonograph pix. Speaking of that, I went out
to Sagamore Hill a couple of weeks ago to tour Teddy Roosevelt's home, and in the museum they were playing a recording of an old phonograph record of one of his campaign speeches. They also had displayed two versions of it...the 78 rpm disk and a cylinder.
But on to Mr. Edison...
He sure invented a whole bunch of stuff that we take for granted today. But the more I learn about the person...well...he was very, very definitely not a nice guy...from any viewpoint.
Two examples...
(This comes from the Tom Hanks produced HBO mini-series of From the Earth to the Moon. (highly recommeded)
Some guy (forget his name) made a movie by the same name sometime in the early days of silent flicks, and was a pioneer in special effects. (Well, in those days cutting and splicing film was a special effect). The result was a real ground-breaker in entertainment.
So the film did very well in England. The artist was all prepared to take it to America and release the film here. But when he got here he found out that it had already been released in a way that precluded him from ever getting any royalties at all from the showing.
Seems our friend, Mr. Thomas Alva, had been to England, saw the flick, and bribed the theatre to give him copy. He brought it home, and ....you know the rest.
Second example...well, what Mr. Thomas and his good buddy Westinghouse did to Tesla...
So...what does this mean? Nice guys finish last? Marketing savvy beats technical savvy anyday? Or...frig you buddy before your buddy frigs you?
