December 14, 2005
Edison's Environment:
Great Inventor, Great Polluter
George J. Hill, M.D.
Author
Minutes of the 13th Meeting of the 64th Year
President Haynes called the meeting to order at 10.12 AM. - early. Charles Dennison presented the invocation at a slightly higher pitch than usual.
Richard Armstrong read the minutes of the meeting of 7th December, giving a full and masterly account of the talk on singing machines and laptop orchestras. About seventy-five members attended plus a guest, Scott McVay, introduced by Seymour Meisel.
The President called attention to the meetings of the Executive Committee and Committee of Chairs of later that day, and said that the next meeting, the first of the winter term, would take place at the Friend Centre on 4th January next year.
Joe Bolster introduced the speaker, Dr George Hill, telling us of his birth in Cedar Rapids in 1932 - an event beginning a medical career in which he has never looked back: membership of the faculties of four universities, then, on retirement, becoming a historian of note after gaining a master's degree at Rutgers. He has also been active in the Naval Reserve and the Boy Scouts, as well as being a marathon runner, ranch-hand, parachutist, mountaineer and competitive ballroom dancer.
As soon as Dr Hill launched into his talk - "Edison's Environment: Invention and Pollution in the Career of Thomas A. Edison" - it became apparent that Edison was a multifaceted firebrand, rather, if I may say so, like himself in some ways. Among Edison's inventions are the phonograph, incandescent lamp, movies, fluoroscope, lead-acid storage battery, stock ticker, electric chair, miners' safety lamp, railway crossing signals, and - joy to many of us - the electric train.
Born in Ohio in 1847, his first invention was in Boston at age 22; he arrived in New Jersey in 1869. Dr Hill traced his family back to Elizabethtown in 1664. In 1870 he began his first and unhappy marriage to Mary Stilwell of Newark (three children survived infancy). After she died in 1884, he married Mina Miller two years later and they had three children. Though Edison lived to the age of 84, he was plagued by illnesses, infections, deafness, X-ray poisoning and stress, finding relief perhaps in occasional selfishness, crudeness and cruelty. No doubt society pays a price for its geniuses. One of these prices was the willingness to pollute the environment – a readiness general amongst the go-getters of the era. Edison's plants were located near water and railroads and traces of them are to be found in Union, Essex, Sussex, Warren and Hudson Counties. Details of these were furnished by the speaker from his meticulous researches. His conclusion was that Edison was a great inventor and a great polluter, even by the lax standards of his day. It has to be remembered that our visions come through the spectacles of our own time - a factory belching smoke may have been acceptable a hundred years ago but recently my pipe-smoking brother-in-law was expelled as a polluter from the house by my ten-year-old daughter.
After a salvo of seven questions, the meeting closed at 11:11 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
J. B. M. Frederick
Richard Armstrong read the minutes of the meeting of 7th December, giving a full and masterly account of the talk on singing machines and laptop orchestras. About seventy-five members attended plus a guest, Scott McVay, introduced by Seymour Meisel.
The President called attention to the meetings of the Executive Committee and Committee of Chairs of later that day, and said that the next meeting, the first of the winter term, would take place at the Friend Centre on 4th January next year.
Joe Bolster introduced the speaker, Dr George Hill, telling us of his birth in Cedar Rapids in 1932 - an event beginning a medical career in which he has never looked back: membership of the faculties of four universities, then, on retirement, becoming a historian of note after gaining a master's degree at Rutgers. He has also been active in the Naval Reserve and the Boy Scouts, as well as being a marathon runner, ranch-hand, parachutist, mountaineer and competitive ballroom dancer.
As soon as Dr Hill launched into his talk - "Edison's Environment: Invention and Pollution in the Career of Thomas A. Edison" - it became apparent that Edison was a multifaceted firebrand, rather, if I may say so, like himself in some ways. Among Edison's inventions are the phonograph, incandescent lamp, movies, fluoroscope, lead-acid storage battery, stock ticker, electric chair, miners' safety lamp, railway crossing signals, and - joy to many of us - the electric train.
Born in Ohio in 1847, his first invention was in Boston at age 22; he arrived in New Jersey in 1869. Dr Hill traced his family back to Elizabethtown in 1664. In 1870 he began his first and unhappy marriage to Mary Stilwell of Newark (three children survived infancy). After she died in 1884, he married Mina Miller two years later and they had three children. Though Edison lived to the age of 84, he was plagued by illnesses, infections, deafness, X-ray poisoning and stress, finding relief perhaps in occasional selfishness, crudeness and cruelty. No doubt society pays a price for its geniuses. One of these prices was the willingness to pollute the environment – a readiness general amongst the go-getters of the era. Edison's plants were located near water and railroads and traces of them are to be found in Union, Essex, Sussex, Warren and Hudson Counties. Details of these were furnished by the speaker from his meticulous researches. His conclusion was that Edison was a great inventor and a great polluter, even by the lax standards of his day. It has to be remembered that our visions come through the spectacles of our own time - a factory belching smoke may have been acceptable a hundred years ago but recently my pipe-smoking brother-in-law was expelled as a polluter from the house by my ten-year-old daughter.
After a salvo of seven questions, the meeting closed at 11:11 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
J. B. M. Frederick