Ted Leinhart
speaker
251 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 3 Aug
Ted Leinhart’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
not a prig by any means there was a saving human quality of error in the boy to amply redeem him from the colourless perfection of the story-book model one is almost glad to hear that he was not by any means a paragon as an operator and that he played tricks on the company by inventing a device which would automatically send in the signal to show he was awake at his post what time he comfortably snored in the corner
some such boyish mischief soon sent him in disgrace over the line to canada the heavy winter had cut off telegraphic connections and all other means of communication between the place in which he was sojourning and the american town of sarnier with characteristic promptness and originality
edison mounted a locomotive and tooted a telegraphic message again and again across the river until the americans understood and answered in kind among the tramp telegraphers for the next few years edison was successively in charge of important wires in memphis cincinnati new orleans and louisville he lived in the free and easy atmosphere of the tramp operators a boon companion with them
yet absolutely refusing to join in the dissipations to which they were professionally addicted he has always been a total abstainer and a singularly moderate man in everything but work for which he is a perfect glutton many are the stories current of the timely aid given his rollicking colleagues
when their potations had led them into trouble.
It was their custom, when a spree was on the tapas, to make him the custodian of those funds which they felt obliged to save.
On a more than usual hilarious occasion, one of them returned rather the worst for the wear, and knocked the treasurer down on his refusal to deliver the trust money.
The other depositors, we are glad to say, gave the ungentlemanly tippler a sound thrashing.
but though edison could be trusted with his colleagues money he was himself in a chronic state of penury since he devoted every cent regardless of future needs to scientific books and materials for experiments nor was he in any great favour with his employers they wanted operators not inventors so they not unreasonably said
the louisville press gives him a state dinner at one time he was in such straits that a necessary journey from memphis to louisville had to be performed on foot at the louisville station he was offered excellent chances to put his extraordinary skill to use he had perfected a style of handwriting which would allow him to take from the wire in very legible longhand forty-seven and even fifty-four words a minute
as he was but a moderately rapid sender he invented an automatic help which enabled him to record the matter at leisure and send it off as fast as was needed of this louisville stay one of his biographers says
true to his dominant instincts he was not long in gathering around him a laboratory printing office and machine shop he took press reports during his whole stay including on one occasion the presidential message and veto of the district of columbia by andrew johnson
and this at one sitting from three thirty p m to four thirty a m he then paragraphed the matter received over the wires so that each printer had exactly three lines thus enabling a column to be set up in two or three minutes time for this he was allowed all the exchanges he desired and the louisville press gave him a state dinner
Edison astonishes the eastern operators.
In 1868, Edison attracted much attention by a device utilizing one submarine cable for two circuits.
It won him a position in the Franklin Telegraph Office of Boston.
He came east with no ready money and in a rather dilapidated condition.
His colleagues were tempted by his hayseed appearance to salt him, as professional slang terms the process of giving a receiver matter faster than he can record it.
For this purpose the new man was assigned to a wire manipulated by a New York operator famous for his speed.
But there was no fun at all.
Showing 101–120 of 251 · page 6 of 13
← Previous
Next →