The Bowery Boys: Electric New York

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios

History, Society & Culture

4.5 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

October 21, 1879. It’s late in the evening and a 32-year-old inventor is in his New Jersey lab, tinkering with a carbon thread. When that young inventor—Thomas Edison—lights that thread that night, it isn’t quite a “eureka," lightbulb-over-the-head moment, but the lightbulb in his lab did stay lit long enough to convince him he was on the right track. How did New York City come to light? And how did the rest of the world follow suit? This episode comes from the podcast The Bowery Boys: New York City History. You can listen to more episodes of The Bowery Boys at https://apple.co/3mb4bJD.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:05.5	October 21st, 1879.
0:10.0	I'm Sally Homes.
0:12.5	It's late in the evening and a 32-year-old inventor is in his New Jersey lab,
0:17.0	tinkering with a carbon thread.
0:19.5	Two years earlier in this very building,
0:22.0	the young inventor had developed the first audio recording device, the phonograph.
0:27.0	Since then, he's working on all sorts of projects,
0:31.0	projects that use circuit breakers and magnets and carbon threads.
0:37.0	Tonight, he has the thought that this carbon filament might just be the answer to a puzzle he's been trying to solve.
0:46.0	The question of how to get a bulb to stay lit.
0:51.0	When that young inventor, Thomas Edison, lit a filament that night,
0:59.0	it wasn't the eureka moment that's often suggested.
1:02.0	It wasn't a light bulb over his head.
1:05.0	But the light bulb in his lab did stay lit long enough that he was convinced he was on the right track,
1:11.0	leading to the version of electricity that we now know.
1:16.0	Today, we're bringing you an episode from another show we think you'll enjoy.
1:20.0	The Bowrie Boys, New York City History.
1:23.0	Bowrie Boys is a podcast all about the history of one of America's greatest cities,
1:28.0	and this episode is called Electric New York.
1:31.0	It's about the people who helped light the city and the rest of the world along with it.
1:36.0	We'll be back next week with a new episode of History this week.
	...

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