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The inventor and inventor's son

The Two Isaac Adams

by Anthony J. Marolda

Who invented the electric light bulb?  Thomas A. Edison?  Not according to some scholars.  Fourteen years before Edison patented his carbon filament bulb, Dr. Isaac Adams of Cambridge and Annisquam , Massachusetts had working versions of virtually the same device.  Then, why haven’t you ever heard of this inventor?  

Dr. Adams has sole credit for inventing the nickel plating process, but he never claimed to have invented the electric light bulb.  He was a man of strong character and integrity.  At the 1890 patent trial to determine the rights to the electric light bulb technology, Dr. Adams presented his work in the most exact terms when he could have “spun” the facts to make a strong case for his invention.  As a result, Edison was awarded the patent.  

From the time he was a young boy, Dr. Adams character was molded by his father, Isaac Adams, Sr.  The father was the inventor of the first powered printing press, a wealthy entrepreneur and businessman, and a well-known resident of Boston and Sandwich , New Hampshire . 

A new biography by author, Anthony Marolda, focuses on the lives of these two men of the nineteenth century.  It is titled “The Inventor and the Inventor’s Son.”  The lifelong bond between Isaac Adams, Sr. and his son is the focus of this story.  The very powerful, determined father, a self-made millionaire, wants his son to be a physician and a gentleman.  While, through his business success, the father has power and prominence in Boston Society, he recognizes that his lack of a formal education and cultural refinement makes him feel inferior.  He needs to have his namesake live the life that he wished for himself but could not attain because of his poor upbringing in rural, early 19^th century New Hampshire.  

The son willingly carries out his father’s academic plans for him and goes to Bowdoin College and Harvard Medical School.  While at Harvard, he develops a strong interest in electrochemistry and solves most of the problems that have stopped scientists from developing a successful nickel plating process.  But, because of his father's insistence, Isaac, Jr. goes on to graduate from Harvard and continues his medical education at L'Ecole de Medicine in Paris .  There, he again spends a great deal of time away from medicine, this time working with Geisller tubes, the technology that would eventually lead him to the early invention of a carbon filament, electric light bulb. 

Upon returning from Paris in the middle of the Civil War, Isaac, Jr. sets up a medical practice in South Boston , near his father's company.  Unbeknownst to both Isaac, Jr. and his father, however, the younger Adams subconsciously wants to follow in his father’s footsteps as an inventor and entrepreneur.   After a short medical practice, the younger Adams turns to technology for his career and capitalizes on his earlier inventions.  While the father objects strenuously to the change, Isaac, Jr., because of his education, talent and good fortune, is able to fulfill both of their dreams. The nickel plating process patents that he receives allow Dr. Adams and his associates to control the licensing of the technology for the next seventeen years.  It makes them all millionaires.

While young Isaac is making his reputation and fortune in Boston and Cambridge , Isaac Sr. uses his wealth to fulfill his early aspirations in a society where he does feel at home.  He sells his businesses in Boston and returns to Sandwich .  There, he amasses a large number of farms in the Sandwich-Moultonborough area and proceeds to establish a showplace estate where he carries out a number of unusual projects.

The evolving narrative that stretches across the entire 19^th century creates an interwoven fabric of personality, character and intellectual achievement, the story of the inventor and the inventor’s son.

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Last modified: 06/09/07