(magical fairy music) - Hi friends, I hope you're
having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and this is the Dark History Podcast. Welcome! If you're a curious cat like myself, then let's journey together
and learn something new, shall we? Got my Dark History book here. So we're gonna bust it open
and learn about lights today. Oh, yes, lights. Okay, listen, I was sitting down, right? I was sitting minding my own business and I was thinking lights, lights. Isn't a weird? Like when you kinda like think about it, we take it for granted,
lights, groundbreaking. They give us light, incredible. So I don't know if you guys know this, but I know when I was in school, I was told that Thomas Edison
invented the light bulb. I mean, that's where I get my
electric bill from, Edison, so there's gotta be some
truth in there, right? But I had heard rumors that Thomas Edison actually didn't invent the light bulb. So then that got me thinking, you know, if he didn't invent the
light bulb then who did? So, naturally, I went
down my Google rabbit hole and it turns out he did, but like he also didn't at the same time. He was literally like the
Steve Jobs of the 1800s or like whenever this took place, but he was like the Steve Jobs of that. Thomas Edison just showed up one day with his dad jeans, white Velcro sneakers and was like, "Hey, I got
an idea, light, you know. It's gonna come out of a
bulb, fucking get on it, bye." You know, he told the people
like, "Make it happen." And then just left. That's what he did. So, he had everyone else
pretty much doing it for him and he just took all the credit for it. Super iconic. And rumor has it, some of his best ideas were stolen from people he may
or may not have even killed. Mm-hmm! Like he was good when he
started out but then... Okay, Thomas Edison was
really good, really smart. I'm not gonna discredit him
in any way, shape or form, but, you know, as time went on, money always seems to corrupt people. I mean, one of his best
scientists, he fried off his arm because of Mr. Edison's ideas. Hello? Would you give up your arm
or your life for your boss? No, please, we are too busy. We've got shit to do. To be honest here, Edison
wasn't the worst guy ever, but he wasn't really that truthful. Again, we're taught that
Edison was this scientist, but he was just like
another mean businessman who want to make money. Same shit different era. So, hop off the Edison hero worship train, and all aboard the train
that's duct taped together and looks very questionable. Okay, let's get into the story, shall we? Let me open up my book. (Bailey humming) What secrets is it gonna tell us today? Lots, lots, okay. So let's start at the beginning. Thomas Edison, where'd he come from? Well, he was born Thomas Alva Edison and he was born in Milan, Ohio. Yes, Ohio. All the way back in 1847, Thomas, he was the youngest
of seven and as a boy, he was described as being
like a funny little child who loved being alone. Not funny in a fun way,
it was like funny, like, you know what they say in the South? You know how they're always
like, "Oh, bless his heart. Oh, bless their heart." It was kinda like that,
like he's a bit funny if you know what I mean. It was kinda like an insult. This kid, he was way more
interested in steam engines, the normal kid shit, like recess and playing tag, I don't know. He spent a lot of time alone in his room and taught himself how to
make his own chemistry lab, printing press and telegraph equipment. By the way, we're gonna be
talking a lot about telegraphs in this episode. It was one of his biggest things. Basically, it was a way
to send text messages over a telephone wire with beeps, beeps and that kinda stuff,
kinda like Morse code. And back then, that was a
major form of communication. Now, the fact that he created one as a child is insane, right? A lot of people call them funny and weird, but he was freaking smart this guy, okay? I mean, wow! Right? 'Cause when I was a kid, okay? I was practicing making
out with my shower wall. I know, laugh all you want, but I know I'm not alone in that. I was in the shower just
making out with my wall, just practicing for my
prince charming one day, you know. I don't know. I'm sure someone else out there listening probably did it too. I'm sure my wall would give me five stars. Thank you so much. Now, as you might be able to imagine, a kid who doesn't spend
much time socializing is, maybe, kinda bad at socializing, and Edison, he was bad at socializing. He was described as kind of
having like a lack of charm and a gruff manner, which
is, normally how you describe your possessive ex-boyfriend or something, not a 12-year-old boy. And this fueled his lifelong obsession with experimentation and science. He would rather just spend time in his lab than interacting with people, which makes sense, I get that. I do that with makeup. Like I haven't left this room
in weeks, you know, it's fun. Why talk to people? Just be alone with my
thoughts and my staff. It also didn't help that
he was hard of hearing. So Thomas was born half deaf in one ear and fully deaf in another. And sometimes he would
use that as a reason to not interact with people, hide away in his lab and
just focus on his work. He even said he liked
using his partial deafness as a way to avoid people. In 1854, the Edison
family moved to Michigan, but Thomas only briefly attended school. The thing is, there really wasn't like
any schooling available when he moved to Michigan. His mom tried homeschooling him, but he was smart on his own, you know. He was building stuff 'cause he built his own Telegraph machine. So school wasn't really his main priority because his family was kind of poor. So, it was great and all, but basically he just wanted to get a job. I mean, he's super
smart, he can get a job, and financially, I don't
know, take care of the family. It was around age 11 that
he decided, "You know what? I just wanna skip junior high completely. I've spoken to like a career coach and I'm just ready to join the workforce. I don't need school." Which I totally get that. Like, junior high sucks, doesn't it? It does. So he shifted his focus
to helping his father grow and sell produce for work. He was immediately
interested in making money and soon after, he got
a job as a train boy on a Michigan railroad. And you might be wondering,
"Well, what the heck is a train boy?" Half boy, half train? No, no. It's basically just a
kid who walks up and down the passenger train, the aisle, you know, and then sells things, like
newspapers, magazines, candy, cigarettes, stuff like that. So what he did was, he
would send the headlines of the newspapers he was selling ahead to the next train stop so the big crowd of people
waiting for the train would all be buzzing
around about the headlines and they couldn't wait
to buy the newspaper. It was like clickbait before
clickbait was a thing, whatever, you get it. And then when he got to the train stop, he would jack up the price
of his papers more and more. So he was just making huge
profit at like every stop. Good for him, you know, great. Scamming people, we love that. Tommy wanted to invent stuff. I mean, he was a natural at
tinkering with electronics, but he was also smart about it. And he realized like,
hey, people with money, they will pay for this stuff, especially if I do it
better than anyone else. Inventing was great and all, but Tommy liked creating his own market. Plus he had discovered at a young age, the power of communication and press, and more importantly that there
was money to be made there. We'll see all of these
themes come up a few times, but we think of him as
like this great adventure when really he was just
a great businessman. I don't wanna say just
a great businessman, he was a great businessman,
and average in venture and he also had a below
average personality, but who did in like, what year is this? 18 something? I'm sure people weren't
more like freaking amazing. Should we go on a break? We usually go on a break. Okay, we're gonna go on a break. Today's video is brought
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for partnering with me on today's episode. Now, let's get back to the story. Anyways, by the age of 16, Tommy
got a job as a telegrapher. His job was to send and
translate telegraphs as well as fix the machines
when they were broken. This pay Tommy's bills, but it would allow him to
tinker with the machines so that he can kinda learn how they worked and just learn the technology in general and his skills were
getting better and better. So he got really good at
messing with these machines that he eventually
decided to leave his job and just become a full time inventor. Tommy's first invention was... (Bailey drumming) That's my drum roll. The electric vote recorder. Yeah, it wasn't sexy. I don't know if it was
supposed to be sexy, but maybe it was sexy. I guess it just depends on who you ask. He got his first patent with the idea of speeding up the voting
process for senators in Congress. Now, the thing is the machine,
it took too long to set up that people would literally
change their minds on who they were gonna for. Now, they didn't want
people changing their minds, it just wasn't worth it. So, it really never got used. And it certainly was
not a moneymaker at all and this was an important
lesson for old Tommy, because he realized that like,
if he's gonna be an inventor, he needs to invent stuff
that's gonna make him money, not necessarily because
the world needs it. Boring. So, one thing I should mention about the business of invention is that it's a lot of passing
things back and forth. For example, like let's say Joey, the lighting guys that
you guys all roasted, he creates the PC computer
and I create the Mac book. They are different, but they
serve a similar purpose, do they not? Let's say Amanda makes a mirror and I make a mirror with lights on it with like a magnetic
attachment for your phone. Mine is better and everyone wants mine. So, Amanda she's like, "Fuck!" You know. That was Tommy's whole
approach to inventing. He wanted the credit for everything and the only way to do this was to get the patent for everything. So his goal was just to
improve, I'm using quotes here, every single thing he could find and then outsell every other
invention similar to his. So, he was just like a
one upper essentially. And if you wanna make money at this time, you pack your bags and
you hedge the big apple. You wanna make something of yourself, kid? You wanna see your name in lights? Well, first thing you gotta
do was invent the light bulb. Now Tommy would do just that later on, but this is where like
it literally all begins. So it's 1869 in New York City, I feel like all of our stories kinda take place in New York City, right? Isn't that funny? It's not. Now that Tommy was not a mere telegrapher and a full blown freelance,
hot shot inventor, he could get his foot in the
door with some big names. He started inventing
products for Western Union and formed a few businesses that were set up to be little
like invention laboratories. So he could hire people to invent for him while he came up with the ideas. Because of his work as
inventing and doing shit, Tommy was able to meet the
people known at the time as the movers and shakers
of the telegraph industry, the biggest names in science, the people above the people, you know. It made it so that he was able
to create a few businesses that dabbled in telegraph machinery. This is when he started work on his first successful invention, the universal stock printer. Wait, no, I'm sorry, he
actually didn't invent that. Yeah, you know, he actually improved it. He improved it and put his name on it, so he was credited as the inventor. The machine was pretty simple
and it doesn't exist now, but it just helped with
like updating prices and train arrival times a lot faster. It doesn't really matter how it works. The takeaway is that
Thomas now had a laboratory and a successful invention
bringing in money. Yes! his is the point in the story where Edison starts to wolf of wall street his way into the world of inventing. Now, if Edison were alive today, he would essentially be Jeff
Bezos going to the moon. Well, he didn't go to the moon, I'm sorry. He just like went up
and then came back down. What was the point of that? Anyone? Okay, anyways, so, there are
people in the tech industry, there's putting out app
after app, after app, because right now we're just living in the wild west of app developing and there's a ton of money to be made and a ton of power if you do it correctly, especially if you have your eye on being like the next Facebook. But back then electricity
was a brand new technology and the person who controlled it would have major power and major money. I mean, this is a time when
things needed to be invented. I mean, they had electricity,
but nothing to use it on. What were they gonna use it for? Communication, power for
houses, business transactions? The answer is, yes, to all of it. It was a brand new industry
ripe for the taking and a lot of people
had the job of inventor in the hopes of inventing
the next great thing that everybody would want. Oh, I just thought of
a new game we can play, Dark History game. Take a shot every time I say inventing. You might die, but it could be fun. Tommy was so obsessed with
inventing and telegraphs that when he got married he had kids and he nicknamed his kids dot and dash because of Morse code. Isn't that kinda fun? That's cute. They had a third kid
and his nickname was... I'm doing Morse code, you get it? (Bailey chuckles) I'm just kidding. He didn't have a nickname
'cause dot and dash were taken, and honestly, it's for the best. His personal life at this time was just a little different, okay? He would drink points of
warm milk every few hours. Yeah, this was literally
the only thing he drank, warm milk, no water. And he would only eat six
ounces of regular food per meal. So that's like barely any food, you know. He was basically on a diet of
milk, room temperature milk, and it was believed that
milk was super healthy, but he took it to the next level. He was dedicated to the milk, probably 'cause he didn't have a fridge, probably cause he didn't have a fridge. It didn't exist yet. Ah, makes sense now. Maybe it wasn't that
weird, he just liked milk. We don't judge here. Also, Mr. Edison, he claimed
to work 50 hours at a time. Not per week in a row, you know, yeah. So he would take like random
naps whenever he felt like it or just whenever he needed it, I guess. But then this got me thinking, when you think back to
your great grandparents or grandparents and they would
work like 50 hours in a row. I mean, they're always bragging about how hard they had to work, but don't let us in on like
how did they actually do it. Grandma, was it drugs? Was it drugs, grandma? As you can imagine, living
like this is not healthy and it can lead to
pretty erratic behavior. Historians note that
his mood was disastrous and that he was
absent-minded with his wife and emotionally abusive to his children. Super fun. I guess there was even a
time where on the 4th of July he would light fireworks
and throw them at us kids. Thanks, dad, you know, wow, cool. The milk wasn't working and he seemed to be not
the best father, great. Sleep is important people. It makes a big difference. You need at least seven to nine hours. I'm personally practicing sleep
hygiene and you should too. We should take an ad break really quick. Let's take a nap. Today's video is brought
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for partnering with me on today's story, and now let's
get back to today's story. Anyway, after years hunched
over on his work bench in his little laboratory,
Tommy stacked up some cash from, quote unquote, his inventions, and he was ready to expand
to a bigger laboratory. He decided to upgrade. It's time to upgrade and he builds one in
Menlo Park, New Jersey. Now it's important to know where this was because it became his nickname,
The Wizard of Menlo Park. So here, Tommy got together
with the best scientist and experimenters money could buy. First invention they put together was the tin foil phonograph. Oooh! The tinfoil
photograph was up, I dunno. You'll notice a lot of
things Edison invented were the foundation for
things that we have today. So even though it's still not here, it was a big deal when it came out. So why was the phonograph a big deal? Well, it was the first
machine that could record and reproduce sound, okay? So to us that may sound a little basic, but this led to the record
player, which led to tapes, which led to CDs, which
led to digital music, no phonograph, no iPods, you know. Plus, this technology was
used in radios and telephones. So this was, again, a huge
deal and the foundation to a lot of things we know today. Some historians think that this
invention is why we're able to even have this technology
in our phones today. And he did all of this by the age of 31. Basically, the machine
looked like a little soda can and it would spin with a cone near it. And as it spun, it would
go through the cone and it would basically
play music that way. Later on, it would be simplified and become like what we know
today as the record player. So this machine, it was a huge hit and it got him invited to
the white house, right? Like, "Yeah, we wanna talk to
you man and congratulate you." And he's like, "Fuck, yeah!" So he went there and then he became
internationally famous, right? 'Cause everyone is like, "This is amazing. We can hear music well." So, the first recording
done on this machine was of Tommy himself singing
Mary Had a Little Lamb. They would literally scream
into it and sing into it. It's so funny. I watched this video on how they use it and they're turning it and they're like, "Mary had a little lamb." I cry-laughed. We're spoiled today I know, I'm aware. But hold the photograph, Mr. Edison, America believes you invented this. I mean, I thought that too. I thought that all day while
I was researching this, but nay, nay, mm-hmm. In fact, a man named John Kruesi that worked for Thomas Edison was actually the one who
invented this device. Edison designed it with his team, but John is credited as the one who really made all of Edison's
wildest dreams come true. Historians say that if any
of the things John made didn't work out, it's not
because they were badly made, it's because they were
just straight up bad ideas. So, if his ideas were good
ones like the phonograph, John would prove it. And then Tommy would take the credit. Great. To him life was a competition
and he would do anything to beat his competitors
and make more money. His competitiveness is why he was always pushing his employees. He was a workaholic and he
wanted to be able to say, "Look, I made this crow first." That's a crow next to me, if you're listening to
this on the podcast, there's a crow next to me,
so that might make sense, but you know what I'm saying. He wants credit. Do you know what I wish
Edison would have invented? Something to help get rid of cramps. How come no one's coming
up with these ideas. Hello? Cramps has been around
for a hundred million years. Why have we not found
out, like what can we... We need some kind of invention
just get rid of them. Am I right? Edison, get on it. Oh, you're dead, sorry man. Anyhow, there's no better
example of his competitiveness than the contest he had with another company
called Volta, yeah, Volta. They had a way cooler name
than Edison Electric, honestly, real creative Tommy Edison, great. Anyway, let me tell you about Volta. They tried to improve
Edison's tinfoil phonograph, and once they started
trying to improve it, Edison also started
trying to improve it, yes. Volta's improvement was called
the perfect graphophone, which when you think
about it, it's kinda funny because graphophone is
just phonograph backwards, phonograph, graphophone. Yeah, they're not very creative. Okay, they just like flip-flop everything. Great, petty, love it. The main difference was that
they used a wax cylinder to record sound instead
of the tinfoil one. It doesn't really matter all
that much but the point is, Edison was so mad that
they were trying to improve and capitalize on his device that he took them all the way to court so that he could make sure he
was credited as the inventor on the patent, hmm. So, I know you're probably thinking that something more dramatic was gonna come out of that
statement I just made. But you see, Edison, he
was getting like a taste of how people were gonna
start coming first throne as like the big time
electronics inventor, you know. It was just like a little
taste of his own medicine. At this point, Edison is at
the peak of his career, okay? And the next things that happened for him, they all just kinda happened
at the same time, you know, or at least like there's a
bunch of overlap going on. So I'm just like gonna
tell you about some stuff that I found to be interesting, you know, but it's not exactly a straight line. It'll get really confusing. Look, I'm trying to
make this simple, okay? History is hard to simplify,
but I'm trying my best. Edison, most famous for
the light bulb, right? People won't shut up about the light bulb. It's just like, wow, light bulb. By now, this may not be surprise to you, but it was not his invention. Electric lighting already
existed in the 1800s, but it was really sketchy
because it was super unreliable. It could easily lead to fires
and it was hella expensive. Edison was interested in his technology because he saw the potential of it. Candles sucked, people were over it. Electricity was the hot new industry, and if there was a way to use
electricity to see at night and like make it available to everyone, he knew, not only is
everyone gonna use it, he's gonna be rich, like super rich, yeah. When Edison had this idea,
he was like, "You know what? Light, we're gonna do it. Get to work on it." that's what he said to his workers. "Get on it, make a light bulb." Great. Now there had been a lot of other people who had been experimenting
with electric light. The first instance is all the way like almost 80 years previously. It was like in 1802, way
before even Edison was born. It was not bright at all and it really didn't last that long and it was a completely different setup than what we know as today the
light bulb looks, you know. I never thought in a
million years I'd be sitting talking about history
'cause I got a straight C, kinda D student and here I am. Like dream big you guys. Dream big, you know what I'm saying? Anyways, light bulbs. Several others worked on the technology before Edison even started on it, but nobody really had perfected it. So there was this man named
John Starr, which honestly, great name for a light bulb, right? Starr? That's great. But he came the closest
to the inventing light because he patented the design and he had like a little twisty
wire inside the light bulb that would allow it to glow. It's called the filament. It's still there, I believe, I don't know. But that was basically the main piece that people were trying to
invent that would make it work. Anyway, sadly, Starr died. Okay, he died and his design didn't become commercialized yet. Bummer. The other issue everyone was having when trying to invent this thing was that if air was getting
into the glass bulb, then it would make the
electricity get too hot because fire needs oxygen and the bulb would burn out super fast, does that make sense? But then the big breakthrough,
or light bulb moment. Ooh, joke, you know, if
you wanna call it that. It happened when a man named Joseph Swan developed a strong enough
filament and vacuum pump that would seal the air to
create the first version of the modern light bulb in 1878. So what do you think Edison did? He's like, "A light bulb? Hmm, I'm gonna improve it and prove it." If you've been following along, it basically means just slapping
his name on it, you know. So at this point he was
getting very, very good at improving things. It seems very minor, like a bunch of, "Let's fix this here and
let's tweak this here." But the short of it is, Tommy's light bulb was better than Swan's. Even if Swan made it first,
Tommy did do it better. Tommy saw the light bulb
as revolutionary technology that literally everyone would want and it was cool as shit, you know. Like light from electricity, yes, please. No more burning your eyebrows on candles. Let's go, let's go. We probably would have light
technology without Edison, but maybe would look different, you know. Like his competitiveness,
it drove the entire industry like today with computers
and the apps and, what else are they making? Stuff that's important, you know, cool. So anyhoo, in 1880, both men filed patents for what is basically the same damn thing. Tommy, he didn't deserve a
patent, but since his was better, he took Swan all the way
to court, he sure did. We don't know much about the
actual court proceedings, but how it ended was Tommy
made a settlement with Swan where the two of them, they
went into business together. He was like, "Hey, join me or
I'm gonna bury you in cement. I'm just kidding, but am I? I'm just kidding, I got
ya, but I might, LOL. So now Tommy was not only
internationally famous, but he was internationally successful and there is a big difference. Okay, sometimes fame brings you success, like in Edison's case, he
built himself a reputation pretty early on as an inventor, but really he just knew a
lot of other good inventors and he was good at picking and choosing what ideas he
wanted to capitalize on. I mean, he was a really
good businessman, okay? Despite this, he became known by the press as the "Inventor of the Age!" I mean, this allowed him to basically go wherever he wanted in
life unquestioned, right? He was not only world famous, he was popular with journalists because of all the jobs he had before and they constantly fond him
and showered him with adoration for what a perfect genius he was. So, this is how we end up with
the idea that Thomas Edison was the inventor of literally everything. And America was more than happy
to claim this brilliant man as their own, but really the reason he was so successful isn't because he was some lone genius, it's because, again, he had
the best talent money could buy working in Menlo Park with him. And with big money comes lots of success, with lots of success also
comes big expectations. And sometimes Tommy boy's ideas were a bit too big to pull off, and the results would be tragic. So sorry. Before we get into that tragedy, let's pause for an ad break. Squarespace's over here in powering millions of people like you, the movers, the makers, the dream shakers. They're offering the tools you
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for partnering with me on today's episode. Now, let's go back to the story. In 1895, a German
scientist was experimenting with a tube that was filled
with gas and electricity and he noticed like there
was this creepy green light coming out of it, yeah, you know. What the German scientists stumbled on was a form of radiation that
was able to pick up on things that couldn't be seen
by the naked eye, mm-hm. It turns out he had accidentally invented the world's first x-ray machine. I love great accidental inventions. Amazing! Now, if you've ever
had an x-ray, you know, it's a whole production, okay? You have to put on like
this special, heavy moomoo. It's filled with led because
x-rays are very radioactive. You have to protect your special bits, your bits and pieces, if
they get too much radiation you could get cancer, they could shrivel up,
stuff could fall off, you know, it's just bad. Well, back then they had no idea what they were dealing with. They were just thrilled to
be able to see through skin and look at bones. Ooh! You know. I mean, it's pretty incredible
when you think about it. I'm still impressed
when I go to the dentist and they could see like
fricking all my teeth. It's insane, it's insane. They can see everything. It's wild, really. At this time they barely
had regular pictures. Well, that's not true. They had pictures, but they
couldn't see bones yet. These guys were in the
electricity business, so at this point they
really believed electricity could do anything. It can light your house. It can play back voices. It can even keep your food cold. You can even look at
your insides, you know. Wow! It's so great. So this German scientists
basically looks at this as a new toy, version one of one. Just playing with it, hugging it, snuggling it at night, you know. He even showed off his fancy new machine by making an x-ray of his
wife's hand that showed her, her hands had bones inside and it even showed off her wedding ring. And he's like, "Look
what I can do, you guys." He's just showing everybody,
they're losing their minds. People's heads are exploding. They're like, "Oh my God!
Like, what is that bones? I mean, that's gotta be
wild, that's gotta be wild. And you know who else loved it? Do you know who else loved it? Our boy, Thomas Edison. He loved it, he loved it. He's like, "What a great idea. Can I see that really quick?" Mm-hmm. He saw this as a chance
to, again, make some money. He could improve it, make
it a little bit better, even though it's somebody else's idea. So, he's fiddling around with it and he's essentially making his own. He combined it with his
own fluorescent lamps and started working on
his own fricking version of the x-ray. He's a little stealer. One of Edison's workers
was named Clarence Dally and they were super interested
in this x-ray project. They're like, "Hey, can I get in on that? That looks fun. What is that?" And he would spend hours
testing out the machine with his own hand, you
know, his literal hand. So remember they didn't know
like the effects of x-rays yet so he... I'm laughing because it's
just like poor guy, you know, 'cause he was literally
exposing himself, his hand, to harmful radiation, okay? But his work paid off, I guess, big time. It created sharper images
than the German scientist and it was just all around better. So Edison wants to show
off this x-ray machine, he's all excited, super jazzed about it. So he takes it to an
electricity exhibition in 1896. Now, there are people lined up because they got word
of this x-ray machine and they want to see their bones. They're like, "Oh my
God, I wanna try this." So they line up, showing off their bones and they don't even realize they're exposing themselves to
insane amounts of radiation. Whoops! You know, LOL. About four years later after more testing, Clarence started to show
signs of radiation poisoning. He had skin lesions, his
hair was falling out, his hands were like super swollen and it was really painful, poor guy. And these are just like
the short term effects. So, what do they do to deal with the pain? Well, he was like, "You know what? My left hand hurts, let me start practicing
on my right hand instead like that's probably better." So he just switched
hands, smart, you know. At night he would sleep
with his hands in water just to stop the burning. I mean, how much did Edison need before telling this poor guy to stop? He's like literally burning
his poor hands-off, poor guy. I'm sorry, Clarence. But the work, it had to go
on and the x-ray machine just kept getting more and more popular, but Clarence condition, it
was getting worse and worse. He eventually had to
have his own skin grafted onto his hands from his legs. And when cancer appeared on his left arm, the only option was to have it removed. Yeah, the whole arm, the
whole arm had to go, bye. Not only that he loses an arm, he also had to remove four
fingers from the right hand. So I think, that was enough
to get Edison's attention. Finally, Edison let him stop working, but honestly it was too late at this point because a year later Clarence
died from skin cancer. Sadly, he was only 39 years old. Shortly after his death, Edison stepped away from the x-ray project and when someone later on
in his life asked like, "Hey, what happened with the x-ray thing? Like why'd you stop?" Edison said quote, "I'm afraid of them." I mean, yeah, it's pretty scary
to watch your lead scientist on a huge project just
deteriorate like that right in front of your freaking face. And he waited until he died until he actually like stepped away. Instead of perfecting this
hugely helpful technology, I mean the x-ray would go on to revolutionized a medical field, Edison decided, "You know what? (Bailey humming) I'm gonna put my brakes on that, I don't want any part of it." It had a huge potential to help people, but he was more interested in making money and something as dangerous as x-ray was probably not going to be a path to more fame and success. He didn't want to tarnish his reputation by putting more people at risk while perfecting this technology. So I guess, good, he didn't
want to harm more people, right? But it seems like with his determination to perfect everything, he seemed to really miss the opportunity to help on this one, I would say. I guess it's good that he didn't patent it because others picked up research and we eventually ended up
with the x-ray technology we have today. Imagine if he treated the
x-ray like the light bulb, what would happen? I don't know. But you know what did have money in it? Something that really
caught Edison's eyes? Well, it was movies. Oh, that's right, baby. Are you listening? Movies. Tommy was gonna be on the silver screen, a Hollywood princess, a star. We should pause for an ad break. I know a lot of ad breaks, I see you guys complaining about it, but you're not paying the bills
around here, these ads are. We've got people to pay,
air conditioning to run, cameras to use. I mean, come on, give me a fucking break. Give me a break. I'm just kidding. Let's pause for an ad break. Today's episode is brought
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focus back to phonographs, like the little tin cans speaker thing. He was like, "Okay,
enough of this horrifying hand cancer machine. Let's go back to some of
my greatest hits, right? He wants to play it safe and
he wants to do what works or at least, what he knows works. And now the technology was
a little more advanced. It allowed him to expand
his factory and staff to the entertainment sector, right? So his photograph machines
started using records as we know them today, and he started manufacturing
and selling it for home use. So, in trying to make something
for a little bit of cash, he accidentally created the
entire recording industry. Oopsies! You know, but you're welcome. And since he had all of these materials focused on creating, quote
unquote, entertainment, it made sense for him to start working in the new industry of movies. At this time in 1887, movies, they weren't
being made in Hollywood like they are today. Not even in Hollywood, isn't
it like, what is it, Atlanta? Isn't that where they make movies now. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter 'cause
it's not like that, okay? There are many instances
throughout history of film where somebody is credited
as being the first to make a movie or film, you know. But most historians agree
that the very first film was actually made, not in Hollywood, but in France, oui oui, by a man named Louis Le Prince. Oh, yes! Now, you're probably asking, "Okay, who the hell is Louis
Le Prince, come on Bailey?" Here's why I'm bringing him up. There's a rumor, some
rumor, there's some drama, some jealousy going down, okay? That Edison may have killed Louis, mm-hmm. No, this is not murder
mystery makeup, my friends but it kinda sounds like it. Thomas Edison may have
killed a man out of jealousy. I know, let's get into that
'cause that's kinda juicy. Louis was a man in France
who spent a lot of his youth hanging out at the
studio of a family friend who was a pioneer in
the photography field. He thought he was like really cool, and he started this lifelong
obsession with photographs and later he would go to England and learn how to make his own pictures. But by the 1880s, he created
a camera that was successful in stringing like all
of these images together and create what we now know as a movie. He did this over half a decade
before Thomas Edison would and so he patented this invention and filmed the first
motion picture in 1888. Now you're probably wondering
if Louis invented movies, then why don't we know this? Why don't we know about him? Well, this is the point where
the story gets a little juicy, super juicy. You see, Louis was supposed to
show his movies to the public in September of 1890. And then he just never showed up. It was weird. In fact, Louis went missing altogether after his brother had dropped
him off at the train station, literally, poof! Vanished, gone. They never found him. Many have speculated on his fate, but he's never been
found, very mysterious. Now this was a highly competitive time. Movies were new and had the potential to become basically, the biggest
thing since the light bulb. So, of course, somebody says light bulb and Tommy's like, "Did
somebody say light bulb? That's my thing. You know, I'm the most
famous person alive." Nothing is more important
than the light bulb, nothing. There are a few theories as to what exactly happened to Louis. Some say that his
brother tried to kill him for inheritance money. I mean, their mom had just
died so this is a possibility, but Louis widow had a different theory that Louis was murdered
by a competitor, mm-hmm. And who was Louie's biggest competitor? Well, that would be none other than Mr. Thomas Warm Milk Edison. Mh? Now, here are the facts. Thomas was known to be overly competitive. He was pretty egotistical and as we've seen time and
time again in this story, he was willing to do whatever he could to make sure he could own the patent. So Louis widow figured, "Hey,
if he's willing to do that, why not take credit from everybody else that stood in the way of
him owning the patent?" You see Tommy was obsessed
with holding patents for stuff as we've seen. To him, that cemented him
as the official inventor and owner of the idea. And I mean, he was kinda right. but Louis had a patent for a film camera and was ready to show it
off to the world, right? So rumor was going around town
that Tommy heard about this, that he had the patent, you know, and Tommy would kidnap Louis to stop him from being
able to claim that he had, in fact, invented motion pictures. She believed that he was
holding Louis captive and would only release him if
he let Tommy have the patent. So, this seems kind of random, but Edison had gotten into motion pictures while he was expanding
his phonograph business. It was a smooth transition, and he saw a lot of room for improvements that he could capitalize on. He was doing some cool stuff too. Like he had created a film studio where the roof opened up and
allowed sunlight to come in. Then the stage and side
would move with the sun so the shadows were always
in the same spot on camera. The coolest studio did
make you the inventor of the film camera though, you know. And that was Louis Le
Prince's claim to fame. Some dispute the story because they say Edison
didn't even know about Louis. He was so busy with all of
his other business ventures and making money from them
that he didn't he didn't bother with other people's business like Louis. Oh, I don't know him. And that might be true, right? It makes sense, but still, the press was interested in
the story and Louis' family was dead set on pointing
the finger at Edison. And honestly, it kinda makes
you think you had a motive. Mm-hm? You're probably wondering
what happened to Louis. Well, his son Adolphe,
not Hitler, don't worry, he spends some time
gathering evidence on Edison. One of the main pieces of
evidence was that Thomas claimed that he invented the
version of the film camera, which was called the
Kinetoscope before Louis camera, but Adolphe, not Hitler, showed Louis' film had his grandma in it. Why is granny important you ask? Because grandma died in 1888. Thomas created the Kinetoscope in 1891. If you know math, that's not adding up. Hmm. So Adolphe, he goes on to
defend his father's legacy and he takes us all the way
to court and tries to prove that his father's company
to serves the patent. Well, doesn't go so well. Well, Adolphe loses the case
because the two inventions were actually different
in the eyes of the courts and Edison's Kinetoscope
maintains its patent. After all this mess is
over, Louis was never found and his son Adolphe
ended up beaten to death under mysterious circumstances. Please. So, obviously, Adolphe pissed
somebody off, you know. Mh? That's kinda weird. Again, this was never officially verified in any way, shape or form, but
it does reek of spoiled milk. Now, I'm not trying to say
that Edison had Louie murdered, but I'm saying we don't know that he didn't have him murdered if you know what I mean, you know. And Edison like randomly got involved with the cement industry shortly after the whole Louis debacle, debacle? Debacle, debacle. You know. They were using cement to build stuff and in my personal opinion, cement seems like a great
place to hide a body. Why did you say? Who's gonna find it? How do you get to it? Where did it go? Nobody knows. The only thing related to Louis Le Prince that Edison was affected
by was his reputation and even that was minor. There was no proof that he was involved in Le Prince's death, but
the media was interested and it wasn't a good look
for him, it was very bad PR. Edison was smart enough to
mostly keep his distance from any potential scandals, you know, but he was also insulated by his fame. Like he was adored by the
press and he could do no wrong. So honestly, if you wanted
to get rid of someone he could, allegedly, you know. But there is one thing we
forget to credit Edison with, being a damn hazard in the workplace. That's right. Thomas, he's really not like a villain that we normally talk about on this show. He's not pure evil, I'm sure. He was pretty smart. He's just your run of the mill douchebag who made a lot of money. It's a bummer, but he's actually
kind of a perfect example of an American businessman; money, no matter what, win at all costs. You have the ideas, but
you get other people to actually execute those ideas of yours. Now, the thing about this
story that's actually amazing is that Tommy actually, he
knew he wasn't a pioneer. No, seriously, he knew it. He said it to himself, yeah, he did. He once claimed that he
never had an idea in his life and that his so-called
inventions already existed. He then admits that he created
nothing because in his eyes, nobody creates anything. It's probably safe to say
the one thing he did invent was hustle culture, and
today in California, there's a city named Menlo Park. This city is like the
center of the tech booms where Apple, Google
and Facebook are based. It's an intentional nod to the
inventor who started it all. Edison would die peacefully
in his home at the age of 81 with a belly full of milk. Since Edison has been around, companies have claimed ownership over their employees'
intellectual property forever. And I get why when you get
hired to work for a company, you know, a lot of times
you come up with this stuff and then the company gets to keep it. Thomas Edison was, he was
kind of abusive to his kids. He was a neglectful husband. He drank warm milk. He invented stuff and on top of that, he may have murdered someone, you know. And if he didn't, he definitely
benefited from their murder or disappearance,
disappearance, I should say. So take all that as you
will and maybe if you want, form your own opinion, you know. So what's our takeaway here. I don't know. Next time you hear a
good idea, just steal it, steal it and run with it and get a patent and make it your own. You might even end up in history books, but if you're not careful, you might even end up in my big book of Dark History, you know. We might talk about you or
something, I don't know. Just be a good person, it's not that hard. That's my review. Anyhoo, I would love to
hear your guys thoughts. Do you know more about this? Let's continue the conversation
over on social media using the #darkhistory, or
how about #warmmilkedison? Yeah? No, okay, darkhistory, it works. Join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these
episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs and
also catch my murder mystery and makeup, which drops every Monday. I hope you have a
wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices, and I'll be talking to you next week, bye! Thank you so much. Dark History is an Audioboom Original. This podcast is executive
produced by Bailey Sarian, Chelsea Durgin from Slash Management and Fanny Baudry from Wheelhouse DNA, produced by Lexxi Kiven, Derrial Christon and Spencer Strasmore. Research provided by Tisha Dunstan, writers, Jed Bookout,
Michael Oberst, Joey Scavozzo and me, Bailey Sarian. Today's historical
consultant, Dr. Michael Landis and Maria Lewis, author
of Louis Le Prince. And again, me, I'm your host, welcome. Hi, princess, just princess, just call me Princess Bailey Sarian.
