Moses G. Farmer

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Moses Gerrish Farmer (February 2, 1820 - May 2, 1893) was an electrical engineer and inventor. Farmer was a member to the AIEE, later known as the IEEE.

He was born at Boscawen, New Hampshire. He received his schooling at Philips Academy and Dartmouth College. He was a pioneer telegraph operator. He constructed and maintained the telegraph lines of Massachusetts. He later became a superintendent of a telegraph company. Farmer investigated multiple telegraphy. He successfully demonstrated duplex telegraphy between New York and Philadelphia in 1856 (Conot, p29). Farmer also investigated telluric currents. In 1847, Farmer developed an electric train. Farmer later fabricated a process for electroplating aluminum. At Boston in 1851, he constructed an electric fire-alarm service. He invented several forms of the incandescent electric light. He built a platinum filament incandescent light in 1859 (Conot, p120). At the age of 39 while living in Salem, Massachusetts, he lit the parlor of his home at 11 Pearl St with incandescent lamps, the first house in the world to be lit by electricity. He was a co-inventor of the self-exciting dynamo, an electric generator using electromagnets for the field which are energized by the generator output, in 1866 (Derry & Williams, p614). In 1868, with the Farmer dynamo, Farmer lit a house in Massachusetts. He also patented an early lightbulb (which was later bought by Thomas Edison). With his partner William Wallace, he invented the an early dynamo which powered a system of arc lights he exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia, and which inspired Thomas Edison to work on an improved incandescent light. Edison used the Wallace-Farmer 8 horsepower dynamo to power his early electric light demonstrations (Jonnes, p47,54, Josephson 176-186). Farmer served as a teacher for a time. Farmer died at the World's Columbian Exposition. Farmer was a pioneer of many aspects of 19th century electrical invention, but failed to carry his ideas to commercial success.

[edit] References

"A Streak of Luck," by Robert Conot, Seaview Books, New York, 1979, ISBN 0-87223-521-1
"A Short History of Technology," by T.K. Derry and Trevor I. Williams, Oxford University Press, New York, 1961
"Empires of Light," by Jill Jonnes, Random House, New York, 2003, ISBN 0-375-50739-6
"Edison; a biography." by Matthew Josephson. Francis Parkman Prize Edition History Book Club (2003), ISBN 0965569934