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telegraph improved upon the so-called ‘stock-ticker’, the stock printing
instrument first developed by Edward Calahan.

Edison’s invention of the quadruplex telegraph system allowed more
than one message to be sent in one direction over a single wire.
Recognising the significant profit-improvement possibilities which the
innovation offered to the telegraph companies, Edison approached the
Western Union Telegraph Company. When the company asked Edison to
name his price, Edison reversed the rules by inviting Western Union to
make an offer. Its offer of $40,000 was in marked contrast to the figure
of $2,000 which Edison had previously had in mind.

The $40,000 contract from Western Union allowed Edison to found a
research and development facility in rural Menlo Park, New Jersey in
1876. Nicknamed ‘the Invention Factory’ by Edison, the Menlo Park
complex housed a laboratory, machine shop, office and a library. With
literally everything which could be needed for effective innovation
available under one roof, it was the first facility of its kind in the world.

‘The Invention Factory’ was staffed by a large range of specialists who
were often fresh from college or from technical training and became
known as ‘muckers’. The laboratory also included a pipe-organ, which
Edison would play to accompany the singing, beer and sandwiches which
were a feature of the regular late-night working sessions among the
muckers.

Edison was always prepared to challenge conventional thinking with
these ‘muckers’. When he wanted Reginald Fessenden to work as a
chemist, for example, Fessenden protested that he had been trained as
an electrician. Edison replied: ‘I have had a lot of chemists . . . but none
of them can get results.’

Edison first became involved with telephones when Western Union
retained him to circumvent some of Alexander Graham Bell’s patents for
the Bell telephone. Edison duly came up with a carbon button
transmitter which formed part of the telephone’s mouthpiece and which
vastly improved the transmission of the speaker’s voice across the wires.

While working to improve the efficiency of a telegraph transmitter,
Edison noted that the machine’s tape gave off a noise resembling spoken
words when played at high speed. This analogy caused him to wonder
whether he could record a message for the telephone system with which