Fessenden, Reginald A., Papers, PC.1140
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Fessenden, Reginald A., Papers
- Call Number
- PC.1140
- Creator
- Fessenden, Reginald K., 1866-1932
- Date
- 1887-1935
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Series Quick Links
- Fessenden Material Prior to 1905
- Miscellaneous Correspondence after 1905
- Papers of Corporations With Which Fessenden Was Associated
- Correspondence and Data Regarding United States Government
- Correspondence and Data Regarding Foreign Governments
- Inventions
- Patent Materials
- Legal Disputes
- Interest in Invention and Science in General
- Deluged Civilization
- Miscellaneous personal materials
- Cockburn Estate, 1931-1934
- Other material related to Fessenden
Collection Overview
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (October 6, 1866-July 22, 1932) was an American inventor and physicist whose career was varied and colorful. Born in Quebec, Canada, he was educated in schools in Canada and the United States. After two years as principal of Whitney Institute in Bermuda, he went to New York to develop his scientific interest through practical experience. After a year's work as tester for Edison Machine Works, in 1887 he was made chief chemist of the Edison Laboratory at Orange, New Jersey. In 1890 he went to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, as chief electrician for the Westinghouse plant there. He was professor of electrical engineering at Purdue University, 1892, and at Western University of Pennsylvania, 1893-1899. Fessenden came to North Carolina in 1900 under the auspices of the United States Weather Bureau to conduct experiments in wireless telegraphy on Roanoke Island. His two years' work here attracted considerable publicity and corresponded in time with the experiments of the Wright Brothers in that locality.
In 1902 Fessenden formed the National Electric Signaling Company with Darwin S. Wolcott, patent attorney, and T. H. Given and Hay Walker, Jr., financial backers, the purpose of the company being to promote Fessenden's inventions. He left the company in 1911; and after years of litigation, lost his legal fight to gain the right to use his patents privately. It was reported that the company later sold these patents to Radio Corporation of America for three million dollars. Fessenden had many vigorous legal battles over his patent rights, the most outstanding case being that known as the "Combination Suit." In this dispute, Fessenden successfully brought a charge of illegal use of his patents against a combination of eight of the country's leading electrical companies.
Fessenden served as consulting engineer for the Submarine Signaling Company from 1910 until his death in 1932, and, also, for several promi- nent electrical companies at various times during that period. He was married to Helen May Trott in 1890, and they had one son, Reginald Kennelly Fessenden. The inventor died in Bermuda. His biography, Fessenden, Builder of Tomorrows, written by his wife, was published in 1940.
Fessenden's patents number over five hundred, mostly in the field of radio. He is recognized as the originator of the continuous wave principle in wireless transmission, and, also, as the inventor of the heterodyne system of reception. From his Brant Rock experimental station, Fessenden made the first known radio broadcast of speech and music on Christmas Eve, 1906. The same year, he established what was said to be the first two-way trans-Atlantic wireless telegraphic contact, between Brant Rock, Massachusetts, and Machrihanish, Scotland. Among his better known inventions in fields other than radio are the fathometer (or sonic depth finder for ships), the smoke cloud for tanks, the turbo-electric drive for battleships, the wireless compass, and various submarine signaling devices.
The inventor was the author of many scientific papers and was in demand as a lecturer. Several installments of his autobiography were published in Radio News, but the work was never completed. Having been intensely interested in the classics since college days, Fessenden devoted much time in the last years of his life to research in the field of mythological origins, and in 1923 published The Deluged Civilization of the Caucasus, a resume of the book he planned to write. He later published several additional chapters, and also wrote a number of news- paper articles on the subject.
In 1921 the Institute of Radio Engineers awarded its medal of honor to Fessenden. In 1922 he was given the John Scott Medal by the Advisory Committee of the City of Philadelphia for his invention of continuous wave telegraphy and telephony; and in 1929 he was the recipient of the Scientific American Medal for his inventions promoting safety at sea. On April 1, 1952, the Radio Pioneers Club presented its Hall of Fame Award to Fessenden, Dr. Christopher Crittenden accepting the award on behalf of the Fessenden National Memorial Association. The Club inaugurated its Hall of Fame series in 1950. Awards previous to Fessenden were made to Edison and Marconi.
Because of Reginald A. Fessenden's pioneer radio work on Roanoke Island in 1901-1902, the Department of Archives and History, at the suggestion of the Fessenden National Memorial Association, requested his son to deposit the inventor's papers in the Archives. This he agreed to do, and the papers were subsequently received in August, 1944.
Contents of the Collection
1. Fessenden Material Prior to 1905
2. Miscellaneous Correspondence after 1905
3. Papers of Corporations With Which Fessenden Was Associated
4. Correspondence and Data Regarding United States Government
5. Correspondence and Data Regarding Foreign Governments
6. Inventions
7. Patent Materials
8. Legal Disputes
9. Interest in Invention and Science in General
10. Deluged Civilization
Scope and Content:
After World War I until his death in 1932, Reginald A. Fessenden concentrated on a geographical problem inherent in the classical myths which he called "mytharcheology." Assuming a reasonableness in the myths, he found data consistently confusing for one geographical area and concluded there was a misreading of the geographical descriptions. He determined that the "Atlantic Ocean" of the myths was really a reference to the Ocean of Atlantis (today's remnant is the Caspian Sea) and that this ocean and surrounding territory had been profoundly altered by a deluge, probably a tidal wave.
Fessenden also believed that on the western shore of the Ocean of Atlantis had probably existed a race of men living in an advanced state of civilization, in a veritable Garden of Eden, isolated and protected by natural barriers of water and mountains and that the deluge had dispersed these people, fanning them out in migrations for eventual nations of Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Sumerians, Finns, and Semites.
In 1923, worried that the new colonizations in the area of the Caucasus Isthmus by the Russians would obscure archeological data necessary to support his thesis, Fessenden hurried into print with a four chapter explication of a portion of this theory of the lost civilization as well as two extraneous chapters. In this collection are two copies of page proof and a typescript of THE DELUGED CIVILIZATION OF THE CAUCUS ISTHMUS (Boston: T. J. Russell Print Co., 1923), Pp. 139, 500 copies. The titles of the chapters are an adequate revelation of the contents:
I. The Geography of Greek and Semitic Mythology.
II. Sequences (Traditions of the Deluge, Birthplace of Mankind, etc.)
III. The Physical Characteristics of the Caucasus Isthmus and Their
Influence on Primitive Theology and Science (The Garden of Eden,
Description of Atlantis, etc.)
IV. By-Products of Civilizations (Labor and Capital, Sales Tax, How
Edward VII Gave Instructions which Resulted in the Invention of a
Device for Advanced Warning of Zeppelin Raids; Langley and the
Wright Brothers, etc.)
V. Solution of Problems (Crop Stabilization, Effects of Over-Organ-
ization, Power Storage, etc.)
VI. The Records of the Ur-Al and of the Cabeiri.
In addition to the above publication, Fessenden was billed $100 by a linotype company in March 1923, for printing a 28-page manuscript called, "A Possible Glacial Age Factor, and a Possible Definite Location and Date of the Deluge, and Its Possible Bearing on Race Migration." Only the typescript copy is in this collection.
[Note: There is also a printed flyer dated November 20, 1923, with
the heading ADDENDA - "National Council of Jewish Women Opposes Use
of Bible in Public Schools," with Fessenden's name printed after
the text. A typescript copy and a newspaper clipping from the
BOSTON TRANSCRIPT which is quoted in the flyer are preserved.
Correspondence relating to DELUGED CIVILIZATION includes ca. 400 letters to Fessenden as well as copies of his own letters to correspondents. Letters are to and from writers and scholars-- professional and amateur Egyptologists, Assyriologists, anthro- pologists, as well as amateur scholars--often members of the St. Botolph Club of Boston. Extended correspondence was exchanged with Edward Chiera, Institute of Oriental Studies, University of Chicago (28 letters); Robert E. Briggs of Boston (32 letters); Edward Gilchrist of the St. Botolph Club (24 letters); and poet Robert Hillyer (9 letters). Other scholars who shared ideas with Fessenden were W. E. D. Allen of London, author of A HISTORY OF THE GEORGIAN PEOPLE, 1932; James H. Breasted of the Oriental Institute, Chicago, author of THE CONQUEST OF CIVILIZATION, 1926; Assyriologist Albert F. Clay; W. J. Holland of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburg; geologist George McCready Price; archeologist Arles Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institute and Sir Flinders Petrie of The British School of Archeology in Egypt.
Those with expertise agreed with Fessenden that his hypothesis could only be supported by archeological exploration of the Caucasus Isthmus, possibly in conjunction with Russian scientists. Numbers of letters reveal Fessenden's hopes for an expedition, with Assyriologist Clay, Egyptologist Breasted, anthropologist Hrdlicka, and Fessenden himself as engineer or "general handy man...I can also cook." Letters indicate that in 1925 an endowment was sought from Mrs. Mary B. Longyear, member of the board of the American School of Oriental Research, and a few years later, after successful litigation over patents, Fessenden offered $10,000 of his own to support an expedition.
Many letters are basically acknowledgments for complimentary copies of THE DELUGED CIVILIZATION OF THE CAUCASUS ISTHMUS such as those from Thomas Edison; poet John Macy; senator Henry Cabot Lodge, whose copy is now in the Duke University Library; Lord Balfour; Herbert Weir Smith of Harvard; scientist Frank W. Very; Hilaire Belloc; C. B. Gulick, a classical scholar; V. S. Illiaschenko, student of philology; Edgar J. Banks, Babylonian scholar; novelist James Branch Cabell; W. J. H. Strong, research engineer and amateur archeologist; author Chard Powers Smith; Robert Fulton Blake of the Submarine Signaling Corporation; M. Rostovt- zeff, Yale Department of the Classics, etc.
Fessenden sought information on problems in the myths such as flying lizards and exotic citrus fruit, place names, and old maps from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, U. S. Department of War, and Royal Geograph- ical Society of London. His theories of taxation were discussed in some detail by correspondent Charles J. Bullock, the Harvard economist; philology and the tracing of place names were frequent topics with Gilchrist and Briggs. Occasionally letters provide a point of view on the unbecoming reclusiveness of the Lowell Institute in Boston, post-war attitude towards Germany, disapproval of Joseph Stalin and the new Russian regime, the Teapot Dome Scandal, architectural credit for the Library of Congress being given to the wrong man, controversy over the Wright Brothers' v. Langley's contribution to aviation, feasibility of power storage plant on the Alps (to Mussolini), similarities of the secret society of the Cabeiri and Freemasonry, etc.
Through the 1920's there are intermittant exchanges with Wilson Follett, editor of the Yale University Press and later an editor at Knopf Publishers concerning publication. While at Yale, Follett rejected DELUGED CIVILIZATION because advisory scholars took exception to the detail of Fessenden's treatment of ancient Oriental geography, history, folklore, and philology as often inaccurate and believed that his interpretations were more likely to be fanciful than scholarly (June 22, 1923).
Of special interest are two letters to Fessenden's son from W. E. D. Allen from London and Salzburg (February 28 and April 14, 1933) in which he discusses other scholars and scholarship relative to Fessenden's interest in a lost civilization, as well as Fessenden's own scholarship-- likening him to Schliemann, the amateur archeologist who uncovered the site of many-layered Troy. Allen advised that the two copies of the notes left by Fessenden be placed in two separate banks. (See Misc- ellaneous, DELUGED CIVILIZATION below for extent of notes preserved in this collection.)
On March 18, 1924, Chapter 10 of DELUGED CIVILIZATION was published in the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR with the headline, "Finding a Key to the Route Described in the Sacred Writings of the Egyptians." In the collection is a copy of the Monitor "chapter" and the typescript with the title "The Key to the Book of the Dead."
March 8, 1926, Chapter 9 was published in the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR with the headline "How it was Discovered that All So-Called Myth Lands were the Caucasus." A copy of the newspaper "chapter" is in the collection as well as the typescript copy with the title "The Mother-land of Mankind: the Caucasus."
Chapter 11, "The Egyptian and Aryan Home-Lands," DELUGED CIVILIZATION OF THE CAUCASUS ISTHMUS, was published by the Massachusetts Bible Society, Boston, 1927, 250 copies. Page proof in the collection indicates that there were ca. 22 pages; the typescript copy is also preserved.
A hundred copies of a posthumous edition consisting of published and unpublished papers relative to the DELUGED CIVILIZATION were published by Reginald K. Fessenden, the son. Two of the chapters are those cited above for 1924 and 1926. Preserved are the printer's copy and much of the type- script copy prepared by Fessenden, senior. The table of contents contains an introduction by the son and the following chapter headings: "The Records of the Pre-Deluge Civilization of the Caucasus Isthmus," Chapter 7, Pp. 4-14; "The Home of Abraham," Chapter 8, Pp. 15-19; "How it was Discovered that the So-Called Myth Lands were the Caucasus Isthmus," Chapter 9, Pp. 20-22 (See also CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, March 8, 1926); "Finding a Key to the Sacred Writings of the Egyptians," Chapter 10, Pp. 23-25 (See also CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, March 18, 1924); "Cacasia, Mother of the Great Civilizations," Pp. 26-28; "The Morning Land of the Caucasus," Pp. 29-31; "The Zenith of the Babylonian Astro- nomers," Pp. 32-34; "Plato's Atlantis Word Puzzle," Pp. 35-37; "The Egyptian Ten Pre-Deluge Kings of Solon and Plato," Pp. 38-40; "An Apparently Definite Identification on Masons with the Egyptian M-S-N," Pp. 41-44 [Reprint of six-page pamphlet by Bro. Professor Reginald A. Fessenden, P. M., Euclid Lodge, Boston; "An Apparently Definite Iden- tification of Masons with the Egyptian M.S.N." (Liverpool: Merseyside Association of Masonic Research, 1923)]; "Synopsis of Some Unpublished Chapters of The Deluged Civilization," Pp. 47; 2 maps.
NOTES: Two folders have miscellaneous notes on place names, primitive word roots, a few handwritten notes; and a 12-page typescript called "Eusebius, Preparatio." The balance of the notes are taken from Breasted's CONQUEST OF CIVILIZATION, Pliny's NATURAL HISTORY, Rostovt- zeff's IRANS AND GREEKS IN SOUTH RUSSIA, and other secondary sources.
Several folders of newspaper and magazine clippings deal with archeology and contemporary topics discussed by Fessenden in Chapters 4 and 5 in DELUGED CIVILIZATION. One folder contains pasteups of printer- ready maps and lists of maps.
Pamphlets and Periodicals include Charles J. Bullock's "The American Money Market," 1930; "Bank Advertisements: Ancient and Modern," 1928; "Dionysius of Syracuse--Financier," 1930; The American Schools of Oriental Research--Brochure, 1923-1924 and BULLETIN, October, December, 1923; October 1924. Also Josephus Daniels, "Wilson, Master Strategist," THE AMERICAN LEGION MONTHLY, December, 1926; Victor K. Eustafieff, "Cossack Youth," ASIA, January, 1930; "Second General List of Asiatic Names," Royal Geographic Society, 1923; W. E. D. Allen, "The Ancient Caucasus and the Origin of the Georgians," THE ASIATIC REVIEW, October 1928; Edward Gilchrist, "The Double Deacon," THE MASTER MASON, April, 1927 (et al).