Thomas Davenport (inventor)
{{Short description|American blacksmith}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Thomas Davenport
|image = Thomas Davenport.jpg
|caption = Davenport c. 1850
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1802|7|9}}
|birth_place = Williamstown, Vermont, United States
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1851|7|6|1802|7|9}}
|death_place = Salisbury, Vermont[http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/history/davenport.html Thomas Davenport] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081016141835/http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/history/davenport.html |date=October 16, 2008 }}
|resting_place = Pine Hill Cemetery, Brandon, Vermont
|known_for = inventing the electric motor
|employer = Orange Smalley
|occupation = Blacksmith
Inventor
|spouse = Emily (Goss) Davenport (m. 1827-1851, his death)
|children = 2
|signature = Signature of Thomas Davenport (1802–1851).png
}}
Thomas Davenport (July 9, 1802 – July 6, 1851) was a Vermont blacksmith who, with his wife Emily, constructed the first American DC electric motor in 1834.
Biography
Davenport was born in Williamstown, Vermont. He lived in Forest Dale, a village in the town of Brandon.
As early as 1834, he and his wife Emily Davenport developed a battery-powered electric motor. They used it to operate a small model car on a short section of track, paving the way for the later electrification of streetcars.[https://books.google.com/books?id=dAElGDvk2yUC&pg=PA86 Electrifying America] by David E. Nye, p. 86, from Google Books. Retrieved February 14, 2009. It is the first attempt to apply electrification to locomotion.{{cite book|last=Leuzzi|first=Vincenzo|title= Tecnica ed economia dei trasporti|author-link = Vincenzo Leuzzi|date=1947|location=Rome|publisher=Edizioni moderne|language=it|page=3}}
Davenport's 1833 visit to the Penfield and Taft iron works at Crown Point, New York, where an electromagnet was operating, based on the design of Joseph Henry, was an impetus for his electromagnetic undertakings. Davenport bought an electromagnet from the Crown Point factory and took it apart to see how it worked. Then he forged a better iron core and redid the wiring, using silk from his wife's wedding gown.Schiffer, 2008, pp. 65-66.
With his wife Emily and colleague Orange Smalley, Davenport received the first American patent on an electric machine in 1837, U. S. Patent No. 132.{{cite web|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US132A/en|title=Improvement in propelling machinery by magnetism and electro-magnetism|access-date=27 February 2011}} In 1840, he printed The Electro-Magnetic and Mechanics Intelligencer, making it the first magazine to be printed with electricity.{{cite book |title=The Electrical Journal |date=9 September 1882 |publisher=D. B. Adams. |page=399 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6LbmAAAAMAAJ&dq=The+Electro-Magnet,+and+Mechanics+Intelligencer&pg=PA399 |access-date=3 February 2023 |language=en}}
In 1849, Charles Grafton Page, the Washington scientist and inventor, commenced a project to build an electromagnetically powered locomotive, with substantial funds appropriated by the US Senate. Davenport challenged the expenditure of public funds, arguing for the motors he had already invented. In 1851, Page's full sized electromagnetically operated locomotive was put to a calamity-laden test on the rail line between Washington and Baltimore.Post,(1976), pp. 89-90.
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- Post, R. C. (1976). Physics, Patents, and Politics: A Biography of Charles Grafton Page. New York: Science History Publications.
- Michael Brian Schiffer, 2008. Power Struggles: Scientific Authority and the Creation of Practical Electricity Before Edison, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
- Frank Wicks. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070205211500/http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/membersonly/july99/features/blacksmith/blacksmith.html "The Blacksmith's Motor. Electricity, magnetism, and motion: A self-taught Vermonter pointed the direction for lighting the world."] [http://www.memagazine.org Mechanical Engineering], [https://web.archive.org/web/20060904062720/http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/july99/features/feat_toc.html July 1999].
- [http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20091015161434/http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/feb25b.htm Davenport's patent for the electric motor, issued in early 1837], Today in Technology History February 25 ([http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00000132&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D0000132.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F0000132%2526RS%3DPN%2F0000132&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page direct link])
- [http://www.uvm.edu/~histpres/SD/hist.html Smalley and Davenport's shop]
- The invention of the electric motor 1800–1854: [http://www.eti.kit.edu/english/1376.php#Davenport Thomas Davenport]
External links
- {{Findagrave|40741185}}
{{Electric machines}}
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Category:19th-century American inventors
Category:American railroad pioneers
Category:People associated with electricity