Electrical Engineer

When Thomas Alva Edison came to New York City in 1869, the telegraph was already serving the Gold Exchange by transmitting electrical impulses and market information across distances.  At the height of the gold speculation, however, the system broke down.  Edison quickly found the problem, fixed the machines and was then promptly employed by the Gold Indicator Company for $300 a month (a good sum back then).  After making several improvements to the market system, he started calling himself an "electrical engineer."

Western Union discovered his talents and added him to their team of inventors.  His first assignment?  Manufacture 1200 of his new ticker design for the sum of $500,000.  At only age 24, he had started to make his mark in a big way (at least in New York City!)

The telegraph had another problem - it needed a way to send more than one message at a time over the wire as the present system was too slow.  Edison had actually been working on that very thing sing 1869 when he arrived in New York.  He had already come up with a "duplex" machine that would send a message in both directions at the same time.  By 1874, he had invented the "quadruplex" machine which sent two messages in both directions at the same time.  This one machine doubled Western Union output, saving millions of dollars.

Jay Gould (of railroad fame) actually bought Edison's interest in the quadruplex.  The transaction was so complicated that lawyers fought it out in court for decades.  Edison earned the nickname of "Professor of Duplicity and Quadruplicity."  (Ha ha)

Next time...The Wizard of Menlo Park
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Today in Pioneer History: "On March 30, 1867,  US Secretary of State, William Seward signs a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7 million.  Despite the bargain of roughly 2 cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as "Seward's Folly" and President Johnson called it the "polar bear garden."  (Amazing isn't it?)