The Electro-Magnet, and Mechanics Intelligencer

The Electro-Magnet, and Mechanics Intelligencer was an 1840 newspaper published by Thomas Davenport, inventor of the electric motor. This newspaper, published in New York City, was the first printed on a press run by electricity. It was the first American periodical devoted to electricity and the world's first electrical technical journal.

Description

Thomas Devenport electric motor,
patent model 1837^[1]

Davenport already had mechanical lathes powered by electric motors in 1836, so had decided to expand this concept to other applications. He reported on December 13, 1839, that he mechanically attached a hundred pound electric motor to a printing press.^[2][3] He was the first to use this electro-mechanical press idea.^[4][5] The Electro-Magnet and Mechanics Intelligencer was a newspaper he printed, becoming the first printed using electricity as power to run the press.^[6][7] The power for his electric motor he used for the press came from a battery of amalgamated zinc and sheets of platinized silver.^[8]

Davenport's paper was sometimes referred to as a journal and other times as a magazine.^[6][7] The periodical, a weekly publication,^[9] was the first in America devoted to the subject of electricity.^[10] It was the world's first electrical technical journal written specifically for those interested in mechanical devices related to electricity.^[11][12][13]

Davenport was the sole editor of The Electro-Magnet, and Mechanics Intelligencer.^[14] The paper was eleven inches by fourteen inches in size and had eight pages with four columns to a page. He published his issues in New York City at 42 Stanton Street in 1840.^[14] The first issue was put out January 18.^[15] It had on the front page an article talking about how the power of electro-magnetism and his new invention of the electromagnetic motor could be used for the benefit of people by saving labor.^[14][16]

Davenport wrote in his newspaper on the second issue put out on January 25 on various subjects besides electrical or magnetic related subjects. "No. 2, Vol. 1" looked physically very much like the first issue with the same number of pages and columns. The first page had an article on "The Origin of Galvanism", "The Vision of Columbus", and "The Fancy Dress Ball."^[17] He knew there were many skeptics of his new electric motor invention and responded to their concerns in this issue.^[14][15]

Davenport used this application of an electric printing press for demonstration purposes to show an example of what could be done with his new electric motor invention. Many business people submitted possible uses for his new device and he decided that printing a newspaper would be the most effective way of showing what could be done with his invention. In the newspaper he asked for investors to help him financially develop ideas he had for electric motor applications.^[14] In spite of his plea for investors in his journal Davenport ultimately did not turn a profit from his motor invention, mainly because the batteries needed to operate it were too expensive.^[18]

Demise

Davenport was optimistic that his paper would be successful, but before the third printing due on February 1,^[19] he wrote a letter to his brother in Brandon, New York, on January 28 of his concern that he was not able to pay an editor and had to do all the work himself.^[20] The newspaper-journal experiment was discontinued then due to lack of enough subscribers.^[17][21]

Davenport did a second similar journal in July entitled The Magnet; Devoted to Arts, Science and Mechanism, but that venture failed also. It was printed in quarto form on a sheet 16 inches by 22 inches. He wrote in the one issue that he had demonstration models of his electrical motors at No. 4 Little Green Street printing the Declaration of Independence.^[20]

References

Sources

• American_Printing_History_Association (1982). Printing History. American Printing History Association. 
• Gray, James (1882). The Electrician. James Gray. 
• Carey, Charles W. (14 May 2014). American Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and Business Visionaries. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-6883-8. 
• Davenport, Walter Rice (1929). Biography of Thomas Davenport, the 'Brandon blacksmith'. Montpelier, Vermont: The Vermont historical society. This was a small paper 11 by 14 inches, and was not in any way remarkable save that the press printing it was driven by electricity, the first instance in human history of this kind. In a letter written December 13, 1839, and dated in New York, Davenport wrote to this John H. Smith of Glasgow that he was driving a rotary printing press with a machine weighing less than a hundred pounds. ... But he did this: he edited and published the first electrical magazine in all history, and he ran the first printing press by electricity, and was thus a pioneer after whom thousands have followed in the years since. His press was run by motors of two different types, one of them being the one for which the patent was granted, and which has previously been fully described, and the other was a "helix machine" for which he filed a caveat for a patent, which was not granted. 
• Day, Lance (2002). History of Technology. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-65020-0. 
• EE_staff (1891). Electrical Engineer. Electrical Engineer. (Little Green street is between Broadway and Nassau street, and runs from Maiden Lane to Liberty street.) 
• Gazette (1840). THE MECHANICS' MAGAZINE,. "The first number of the Electro Magnet was issued on Saturday, January 18, 1840, which was the first paper ever printed by the power of electro-magnetism or galvanism. 
• Kane, Joseph Nathan (1997). Famous First Facts, Fifth Edition. The H. W. Wilson Company. ISBN 0-8242-0930-3. Item 4769, page 326 The first electricity journal was The Electro-Magnet and Mechanics Intelligencer, which appeared on January 18, 1840. It was printed in New York City on a press 'ropelled by electro-magnetism.' The editor of the magazine and the inventor of the electrical printing press was Thomas Davenport. / Item 5775, page 411 The first electric printing press was invented by Thomas Davenport of Brandon, VT, and used in 1839 in New York City. It was a rotary press operated by an engine weighing less than 100 pounds. Beginning in January 1840, he used it to print the journal Electro-Magnet and Mechanics Intelligencer, of which he was the editor. He obtained a patent on February 25, 1837, on an 'electrical motor'  
• Munn (1911). Scientific American: Supplement. Munn and Company. Davenport was not only the first man to drive a printing press by electric motor, but he was the editor and publisher of the first electrical journal in the world. In 1839 he gives details with regard to the operation of a rotary printing press with a motor weighing less than 100 pounds. In January, 1840, he began in New York City the publication of a journal which he called The Electro-Magnet and Mechanical Intelligencer, which was not only devoted to electricity but was printed by electrical energy. 
• Telegraph_Engineers (1909). Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers. Editing Committee. In America, in 1836, a Mr. Davenport, then a blacksmith in Philadelphia, had turning lathes actuated by this power, and in his determination to go ahead he commenced in January, 1840, a newspaper entitled the Electromagnetic and Mechanics' Intelligencer. This paper, published at New York, was printed on a press worked by an electro-magnetic engine. 
• Vermont (1910). Vermont History. Vermont Historical Society. Davenport was not only the first man to drive a printing press by electric motor but he was the editor and publisher of the first electrical journal in the world. 
• Wetzler, Joseph (1888). The Electric Motor and Its Applications. W.J. Johnston.