The Cincinnati Inventor Who Patented Incandescent Light Bulbs Decades Before Edison

Who invented the electric light? You are forgiven if you think it was Thomas Edison. The so-called “Wizard of Menlo Park” certainly made some important refinements, but did you know Edison’s patent application for the light bulb was initially rejected? The acclaimed journal, Scientific American [18 January 1879] knew why:“A telegram from Washington, to the effect that Edison’s application for a patent upon a divisible electric light had been rejected at the Patent Office, was published in the daily papers of November 21. The ground alleged for the refusal of the patent, says the Operator, was that Edison’s invention was an infringement upon that of John W. Starr, of Cincinnati, who filed a caveat for a divisible light in 1845.”In other words, a Cincinnati man invented a working electric light bulb 33 years before Thomas Edison. (Edison’s patent was eventually granted.)John Wellington Starr was born in Cincinnati around 1825. It is possible that he worked as a “soap boiler” in one of…