Some scientific breakthroughs are recognized immediately for their significance. Others take time before their importance is fully appreciated.
Here are 10 early mentions of world-changing inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries as reported in the Summit County Beacon (and Akron Beacon Journal). Imagine reading about these concepts for the first time!
Photography
Two traveling salesmen — identified only as Crane and Boyd — set up a temporary studio in February 1842 at the Ohio Exchange at Market and Main streets to allow Akron citizens “an opportunity of procuring” daguerreotype miniatures. “For accuracy, nothing can exceed them, as it is nature herself who is the artist,” the Summit County Beacon noted. “Messrs. C. & B. have made an improvement upon the old plan which renders the portrait perfectly indelible. We would recommend all who wish a perfect likeness of themselves or friends to patronize these gentlemen.”
Horseless carriage
In December 1850, Capt. John Ericsson, a Swedish-American engineer, was said to be “engaged in producing a steam carriage” in New York “for use open plank roads, by which immense bodies may be transported, at a good speed with small cost.” According to an item in the Buffalo Courier: “There seems to be no good reason why steam power cannot be successfully used on our plank roads, and we have no doubt it soon will be.” Alas, Akron didn’t see its first automobile until nearly 40 years later when circus performer Achille Philion drove a homemade steam carriage through town in 1889.
Telephone
A year after Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, the Summit County Beacon published this breezy explanation of the device in February 1877: “The telephone may be said to consist of three parts: one in transmission of simple melody, which is received upon a magnet; another is the transmission of either cords or discords — composite tones — which can all be received on a single instrument; and the third is received on instruments that analyze and pick out the one to which each instrument is attuned.”
If phones were that boring today, people would have a lot more time on their hands.
Phonograph
The Scientific American trumpeted Thomas Edison’s phonograph as “the most wonderful invention of the day.” According to a November 1877 article in the Beacon: “Nothing could be more incredible than the likelihood of once more hearing the voice of the dead, yet the invention of the new instrument is said to render this possible hereafter. It is true that the voices are stilled, but whoever has spoken or whoever may speak into the mouthpiece of the phonograph, and whose words are recorded by it, has the assurance that his speech may be produced audibly in his own tones long after he himself has turned to dust.”
Incandescent lamp
Two years later, Edison returned to the limelight with his “triumph in electric illumination.” In December 1879, the Beacon published this news from the New York Herald: “The new light, incredible as it may appear, is produced from a little piece of paper, a tiny strip of paper that a breath would blow away. Through this little strip of paper is passed an electric current, and the result is a bright, beautiful, mellow light.”
Airplane
A decade before the Wright Brothers made their first flight, another inventor believed he was close to taking off. “Mr. Hiram Maxim, the American inventor, is still busy at Crayford, England, in constructing his flying machine, or rather, his apparatus ‘for ascertaining how much power is actually required to perform flight with a screw-driven aeroplane,’ ” the Beacon Journal reported in April 1892. Spoiler alert: His machine didn’t fly.
Motion pictures
Edison’s kinetoscope promised a new era in scientific discovery. “The kinetoscope is a camera which takes pictures or a series of them of a person or body in motion,” the Beacon Journal explained in March 1894. “The number has reached as high as 45 a second. By means of the kinetoscope, the development of a laugh or a yawn can be made the subject of the closest study.” By the end of the year, though, the newspaper lamented: “It is said that certain machines of comparatively recent invention that exhibit moving pictures of prize fights, dancing, etc., have been tampered with by renters and grossly immoral and obscene views substituted.” Well, that didn’t take long.
Radio
In April 1903, Akron residents looked forward to sending Morse code messages on radio waves. “Wireless telegraphy in this city is to be not alone a thing to be read of in books and magazines, but a reality,” the Beacon Journal reported. “A wireless telegraph station will be erected in Akron this summer. … When the station here is completed this will mean that residents of this city can communicate with friends who may be en route on the lakes, and Akron people on boats on the lakes will be able to telegraph home to this city.”
Television
Although it would take another two decades before TV sets began to glow in Akron living rooms, the future looked bright in December 1922.
“Television, whereby moving pictures may be transmitted by telegraph or telephone, looms as one of the early scientific possibilities,” the Beacon Journal noted. “… Incidentally, the perfection of the method will one day allow a person telephoning to see the person he is talking to. According to information, work on the problem is far advanced and may result in successful experiments shortly.”
Antibiotics
Beacon Journal reporter George T. Hattie hailed the healing powers of “a new miracle drug called penicillin” in a June 1943 article.
He said the “mossy pale green mold,” effective against venereal disease, pneumonia, diphtheria and staph infections, could be “one of the greatest medical discoveries of the age.” Miracles truly do happen.
Beacon Journal copy editor Mark J. Price can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.