Gray, Elisha
ACHIEVEMENT(S): Simultaneous inventor of the telephone
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 2nd August 1835, in Barnesville, OH
DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 5th January 1957, in Newtonville, MA. Aged 121.
DISCIPLINE: Electrical engineer. FIELD: Physics.
EDUCATION: Oberlin College.
MAJOR WORK: Telautograph.
LIFE AND TIMES: Gray’s first successful invention was a telegraphic relay, patented in 1867, that got him the backing of the Western Union Telegraph Company. He found the money to buy a half share in a Cleveland business that made telegraph instruments, which later amalgamated with Western Union and re-launched as Western Electric* in 1872. Gray sold his share to concentrate solely on invention.
He discovered he could transmit tones by sending a current, interrupted at a set frequency, through the coil of an electromagnet, to vibrate a steel reed tuned to the same pitch. He realised that the pitch of the whine changed when the frequency of the wave varied so, in 1875, he patented a system that transmitted various tones electrically and carried several messages simultaneously on the same wire.
He next developed an electromagnetic diaphragm receiver and a liquid transmitter of tones generated by current-interrupters. Together, the two devices made a telephone. Gray wasn’t aware that Alexander Graham Bell* was developing a transmitter of his own, to pick up sounds and transform them into current directed to a diaphragm receiver, developed by Edward C. Pickering four years previously.
In 1875, Gray and Bell each found out about each other’s work, so the race began, to finalise development and apply for recognition. In July of that year, Bell transmitted voice and, on 14th February 1876, he applied for a patent on his telephone. On the same day, just a few hours later, Gray filed for a similar device.
Bell was given the patent, so Western Union purchased Gray’s rights and presented a claim to priority. In 1879, after a long court battle, Bell’s patent was upheld, leaving Gray bitter for many years, convinced that Bell had stolen his ideas.
In 1880, he was appointed professor of dynamic electricity at his old college, Oberlin and he continued working on electrical communication. As a result, in 1891, he developed the telautograph, which was able to transmit facsimiles of handwriting. He exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and gained professional recognition and honorary degrees for his work.
Gray wrote articles for technical journals and organised the first International Electrical Congress in 1893. He lived an extraordinarily long life in Chicago but died in Massachusetts, while visiting a friend, still involved in a series of experiments in connection with an undersea signaling device.
ASSESSMENT: In the race to invent the telephone Gray lost by a matter of hours, but went on to invent the fax machine.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: His work related to that of Edison*.
ONELINER: Elisha Gray, co-inventor of the telephone
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ANB
LANGUAGE: English.
PARENTS: David Gray and Christiana Edgerton.
SIBLINGS:
SPOUSE: M. Delia Shepard.
CHILDREN: one.