Nathan Stubblefield

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Nathan B. Stubblefield (November 22, 1860 - March 28, 1928) was an American inventor and Kentucky melon farmer. It has been claimed that Stubblefield invented the radio before either Nikola Tesla or Guglielmo Marconi, but his devices seem to have worked by audio frequency induction or audio frequency earth conduction [1] (creating disturbances in the near-field region) rather than by radio frequency radiation for radio transmission telecommunications. Though there were contemporaneous experiments by others such as William Preece, Stubblefield has been proposed as a claimant for the invention of wireless telephony, or wireless transmission of the human voice. The physics club of Murray State University is named in his honor.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Stubblefield was the second of seven sons (Walter Watt 6/27/59, James Franklin 10/25/62, Louis Shelly 6/27/64, Robert Reginald 11/26/65, William Victor 1/27/68 and Harry Lee 9/26/71) of a lawyer, William "Capt. Billy" Jefferson Stubblefield (1830-1874), and Victoria Bowman Stubblefield (died 1869). Stubblefield lived in Murray, Kentucky. He was orphaned in 1874. Stubblefield was tutored by a governess and later attended a boarding school called the "Male and Female Institute" in Farmington, until his father died.

Stubblefield was self-educated by reading whatever publications were available in Murray, such as The Scientific American and Electrical World. He married Ada Mae Buchannan in 1881. They had nine children, three of whom died in infancy. His son Bernard was his primary assistant in the wireless telephone experiments. From 1907 to 1911, Stubblefield operated a home school called "The Nathan Stubblefield Industrial School," or "Teléph-on-délgreen Industrial School" built on his 85 acre melon farmland. [2] It is now the campus of Murray State University.

[edit] Middle years

[edit] Later years

[edit] Death and afterwards

Stubblefield later lived in a self-imposed isolation in a crude shelter near Almo, Kentucky and eventually, starved to death. Stubblefield destroyed every prototype he made. He was buried in the Bowman Cemetery in Murray, Kentucky (Calloway County).

Since his death, various individuals and groups in Murray, Kentucky have publicized Murray as the Birthplace of Radio, a claim which is not widely recognized, and Stubblefield as the Father of Broadcasting, a claim which has more merit. Loren J. Hortin, Journalism Professor at Murray State, organized his students to investigate Stubblefield's work, leading to the dedication of a monument on campus in 1930. Hortin later said "Radio is a device that transmits and receives voice over considerable distance without connecting wires. Stubblefield invented, manufactured, and demonstrated such a device and did so before anyone else on the planet." The radio station in Murray, WNBS, used Stubblefield's initials in its call letters. (Lochte)

[edit] Timeline

1892 - First to broadcast human voice, using his wireless telephone attached to a ground electrodes
1898 - May 8: patented "electric battery" (wireless telephone transmission coil)
1902 - First Ship-to-shore wireless telephone broadcast, using wires dropped in the water from the steamer Bartholdi
1908 - Patented the all-in-one Wireless Telephone for auto/ship/train: U.S. Patent 887357 .

[edit] Further reading

Historical
Documents during Stubblefield's lifetime
  • Fawcett, Waldon, The latest advance in wireless telephony, Scientific American, May 24, 1902, p. 363
  • "Kentucky farmer invents wireless telephone", St. Louis Post Dispatch, January 12, 1902
  • "To Try Wireless Telephony. Inventor Stubblefield to Give an Exhibition of His Apparatus Thursday on the Potomac River"' New York Times, March 17, 1902, p. 1
  • Nathan B. Stubblefield Papers, Pogue Library, Murray State University, Murray, KY
  • "Radio Pioneer Dies, Poor and Embittered. Kentucky Hermit, Stubblefield Had Wireless Phone in 1902-Predicted Broadcasting", New York Times, April 24, 1928, p. 25
  • Stubblefield Collection, Wrather Museum, Murray State University, Murray, KY
  • White, Trumbull, Telephoning Without Wires, pp. 297-302, in Our Wonderful Progress: The World's Triumphant Knowledge and Works, book 2, "The World's Science and Invention", Trumbull White, 1902
  • "Wireless Telephony Tests. Partial Success of Inventor Stubblefield Near Washington", New York Times, March 21, 1902, p.2
Books, Periodicals, journals, and dissertations after 1928 discussing Stubblefield
  • Cory-Stubblefield, Troy and Josie Cory, Disappointments Are Great! Follow the Money... Smart Daaf Boys, The Inventors of Radio & Television and the Life Style of Stubblefield, Marconi, Ambrose Fleming, Reginald Fessenden, Tesla, ... DeForest, Armstrong, Alexanderson and Farnsworth, 2003, Library of Congress Catalog Card #93-060451, ISBN 1-883644-34-8
  • Horton, L.T.(sic) (L.J. Hortin), Murray, Kentucky, Birthplace of Radio, Kentucky Progress Magazine, March 1930
  • Kane, Joseph, et al, "Famous First Facts" 5th Edition, New York: Wilson, 1997. p. 455, item 6262, First radio broadcast demonstration (by Stubblefield, 1892). p 590, item 7716, First mobile radio telephone marine demonstration, March 20, 1902 (by Stubblefield)
  • "Listening In" by Orrin E. Dunlap Jr., New York Times, April 13, 1930, p. 137
  • Lochte, Bob, Kentucky Farmer Invents Wireless Telephone! But Was It Radio? Facts and Folklore About Nathan Stubblefield, All About Wireless, 2001, ISBN 0-9712511-9-3
  • Morgan, Thomas O., The Contribution of Nathan B. Stubblefield to the Invention of Wireless Voice Communications, dissertation, Florida State University, 1971
  • Nahin, Paul J. "The Science of Radio, 2nd Ed." Springer Verlag, New York, 2001, p 7
  • Sivowitch, Elliot N., A Technological Survey of Broadcasting's 'Pre-History,' 1876-1920., Journal of Broadcasting, Winter 1970-1971

[edit] References

Citations
  1. ^ History of the Radio Industry in the United States to 1940 by Carole E. Scott, State University of West Georgia
  2. ^ Lochte, Bob, Kentucky Farmer Invents Wireless Telephone! But Was It Radio? Facts and Folklore About Nathan Stubblefield, All About Wireless, 2001, ISBN 0-9712511-9-3
Notes

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Patents
John Bedini's take on Nathan Stubblefield
PESWiki entry on Nathan Stubblefield
Pro-Stubblefield pages

(ed. The links below are cited in Troy Cory-Stubblefield and Josie Cory book)

Other
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