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Marconi and the Maxwellians: the Origins of Wireless Telegraphy Revisited Author(S): Sungook Hong Source: Technology and Culture, Vol

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Marconi and the Maxwellians: the Origins of Wireless Telegraphy Revisited Author(S): Sungook Hong Source: Technology and Culture, Vol Marconi and the Maxwellians: The Origins of Wireless Telegraphy Revisited Author(s): Sungook Hong Source: Technology and Culture, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 717-749 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of Technology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3106504 . Accessed: 20/02/2015 20:40 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Johns Hopkins University Press and Society for the History of Technology are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Technology and Culture. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 209.129.30.134 on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:40:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Marconiand theMaxwellians: The Originsof Wireless Telegraphy Revisited SUNGOOK HONG The point is which of the two was the firstto send a wirelesstelegram? Was it Lodge in 1894 or Marconi in 1896? [SILVANUSP. THOMPSON, London Times, July 15, 1902] We live in a world where technologicalpriority disputes and patent litigationare so commonplace that only a spectacular case, such as Kodak versusPolaroid over the instantcamera, attracts our attention.In the past two hundred years,such disputes have become increasingly frequent.Notable examples include those over the inventionof spin- ning machines (John Hargreavesvs. RichardArkwright), steelmaking (Henry Bessemer vs. William Kelly), the incandescentlamp (Thomas Edison vs. Joseph Swan), the telephone (Alexander Graham Bell vs. Elisha Gray),the airplane (theWright brothers vs. Samuel Langley),and amplifiersand the heterodyneprinciple in radio (Lee De Forest vs. Edwin Howard Armstrong). Historiansof technology,however, have generallypaid littleattention to the conflictingpriority claims themselves,except when priorityand patent disputescan be used as a windowthrough which the character- istics of the evolution of technologyare analyzed.' There are two well-groundedreasons for this neglect.First, unlike scientificdiscover- DR. HONG received his Ph.D. from Seoul National Universitywith the dissertation "Forgingthe Scientist-Engineer:A ProfessionalCareer ofJohn Ambrose Fleming" and is workingon the science-technologyrelationship in powerand earlyradio engineering.He thanksJedBuchwald, Bert Hall, Bruce Hunt,JanisLangins, and the Technologyand Culture refereesfor theirvaluable comments.He is indebted to ProfessorThad Trenn of the Universityof Toronto and Roy Rodwell of the Marconi CompanyArchives for their help withthe archivesquoted here, and he thanksYoungran Jo, ShinkyuYang, Jane Jenkins, Andre Leblanc, and Ben Olshin for theirassistance, as well as the Instituteof Electrical and ElectronicsEngineers Fellowship in ElectricalHistory for facilitating the research. 'See, e.g., the important research of David E. Hounshell, "Elisha Gray and the Telephone: On the Disadvantageof Being an Expert," Technologyand Culture16 (1975): 133-61; Robert C. Post, "StraySparks from the Induction Coil: The Volta Prize and the Page Patent,"Proceedings of the Institute ofElectrical and ElectronicsEngineers (IEEE) 64 (1976): 1279-86; JamesE. Brittain,"The Introductionof the Loading Coil: GeorgeA. Campbell ? 1994 by the Societyfor the Historyof Technology.All rightsreserved. 0040-165X/94/3504-0004$01.00 717 This content downloaded from 209.129.30.134 on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:40:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 718 SungookHong ies, prioritydisputes in technologyoften develop into patentlitigation, which ultimatelyinvolves judicial decisions or interferencesby the PatentOffice. These court decisions act like a forcedjudgment on the question of priority."Closure" of the controversy(to use the social constructivist'sterm) is not broughtabout by negotiationamong the engineers involved,but ratherby external,compulsory forces. These courtjudgments, which historianscannot overruleand which funda- mentallydetermine future histories, sometimes differ from those based on detailed historical analysis. Historians thereforetreat historical assessmentsof inventionsas a sphere separate from legal decisions about patentsand avoid enteringinto the latterrealm.' Second, and more important,historians of technology have usually considered inventionas a long-term,social process,which includes not only the creativeactivity of an inventorbut also historicallyaccumulated tradi- tionsin whichthe workof manypeople is merged."The prioritydispute is itselfinterpreted as evidencefor regarding the inventionas something sociallyconditioned. The question,for example, of who firstinvented wireless telegraphyis hardly meaningfulfrom such a perspective, because "wirelesstelegraphy" itself did not burstinto being as a resultof a single genius's efforts,but was graduallyshaped as several different technologicaltraditions converged. Recent historicalstudies on the originof radio reflectsuch a shiftof emphases in the interpretationof technologicalinventions. In a highly influentialmonograph, Syntonyand Spark:The Originsof Radio, Hugh G. J.Aitken argues thatwireless telegraphy cannot be said to have been and Michael I. Pupin," Technologyand Culture11 (1970): 36-57. Hounshell contraststhe amateurishstyle of invention(Alexander Graham Bell) withthe professionalstyle (Elisha Gray), arguing for the former'sadvantage, whereas Brittaincompares the organized scientificresearch of Campbell withan independentinventor, Pupin. Post examines how the "notorious Page patent" on the induction coil was constructedin the name of "scientificchauvinism" and exploited by the corporateinterest. 'Compare Brittain (n. 1 above) with Joseph Gray Jackson, "Patent Interference Proceedingsand Priorityof Invention,"Technology and Culture11 (1970): 598-600. See also Thomas Hughes's analysisof Lucien Gaulard andJohn D. Gibbs's (who were defeated byS. Z. de Ferrantiin litigation)pioneering works on alternatingcurrent transformers; in Thomas P. Hughes, NetworksofPower: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983), pp. 86-96. 3LynnWhite, jr., "The Act of Invention:Causes, Contexts,Continuities, and Conse- quences," Technologyand Culture3 (1962): 486-500; Maurice Daumas, introductionto A Historyof Technologyand Invention(New York, 1979), 3:1-15; Hugh G.J. Aitken, The ContinuousWave: Technology and AmericanRadio, 1900-1932 (Princeton,N.J., 1985), pp. 14 ff.;George Basalla, TheEvolution of Technology(Cambridge, 1988); John Law, "Theory and Narrativein the Historyof Technology:Response," Technologyand Culture32 (1991): 377-84. This content downloaded from 209.129.30.134 on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:40:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Originsof Wireless Telegraphy Revisited 719 inventedby Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937). He argues instead that WilliamCrookes had conceivedof Hertzianwave telegraphyin 1892 and that Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) demonstratedthis before the British Associationat its annual meetingin Oxford in 1894, one or twoyears before Marconi. In a criticalpassage, Aitken remarks,"Did Lodge in 1894 suggestin public thathis equipment could be used forsignalling? Did his lecturerefer to the applicationof Hertzianwaves to telegraphy? Did he demonstratetransmission and reception of Morse Code? The answerwould seem to be affirmativein each case. In thissense Lodge mustbe recognizedas the inventorof radio telegraphy."'This interpre- tation is quite novel and revisionist,since, beforeAitken, Marconi had usuallybeen regarded as the firstto inventwireless telegraphy.5 In thisarticle, I shall take up the prioritydispute between Marconi and Lodge over the inventionof wirelesstelegraphy. My analysiswill show that any claim for Lodge's priorityis incorrect.But my main purpose is not to argue instead for Marconi's priority.It is ratherto deconstructthe Lodge versusMarconi debate to reveal how twototally differentdiscourses (as noted in this article'sepigraph fromSilvanus Thompson) firstcame into being and how these were then reinforced by the differentinterests involved. After beginning withAitken's evi- dence, I then turnto whatwas later claimed as Lodge's demonstration 4Hugh G.J. Aitken,Syntony and Spark: The Originsof Radio (New York, 1976; 2d ed. Princeton,N.J., 1985), p. 123. One reviewerof the second edition of Syntonyand Spark noticed thispoint; see A. N. Strangesin AmericanHistorical Review 91 (1986): 1166-67. 5For claims supportiveof Marconi's priority,see Charles Sfisskind,"Popov and the Beginning of Radiotelegraphy,"Proceedings of theInstitute of Radio Engineers50 (1962): 2036-47, "The Early Historyof Electronics.III. Prehistoryof Radiotelegraphy,"IEE Spectrum6 (April1969): 69-74, and "The EarlyHistory of Electronics.IV. FirstRadioteleg- raphyExperiments," IEEE Spectrum6 (August 1969): 66-70. Aitken'sclaim for Lodge's prioritywas not unprecedented.W. P.Jolly, who has writtenbiographies of both Lodge and Marconi,admitted Lodge's wirelesstelegraphy at the BritishAssociation meeting in 1894. CompareW. P.Jolly, Marconi (London, 1972), pp. 41-42, withhis Sir OliverLodge (London, 1974), p. 97. AfterAitken,however, Lodge's prioritywas widely accepted. A recentbiography of Lodge emphasizesLodge's
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