Thomas Edison’s “Frankenstein”
In 1910, the “world’s greatest inventor” presented the first filmed version of Mary Shelley’s classic novel.
As a child in grade school back in the 1970s, my classmates and I peeked into the future.
“You can become anything you choose,” Mrs. Croswell said.
Some wanted to be President of the United States.
Some, like me, wanted to be an astronaut.
The majority wanted to be great inventors.
The teacher asked, “Like Thomas Edison?”
Exactly. Like Thomas Edison. We already all knew about him.
He was a legend.
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 — October 18, 1931) was the one inventor most of us knew and studied back then. Video games were in their infancy, desktop computers were relegated to “Star Trek,” and man had only recently walked on the moon. We had no cell phones, no internet, no CGI in movies, and the very thought of augmented reality was silly fantasy.
Bereft of foresight into the rampant technological advances of the next 50 years, we studied Edison in the context of authentic reality at the time: His advances in sound recording, sound playback via his invention of the phonograph…
