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Contact: Leonard DeGraaf, 973-736-0550 x22
Program on Thomas Edison and Deafness
Edison Book Club Meeting
2 pm, Sunday, March 8, 2020
"Although his disability was progressive -- "I haven't heard a bird sing since I was twelve years old" -- he had invented two hundred and fifty sonic devices: diaphragms of varnished silk, mica, copper, foil or thin French glass . . . dolls that talked and sang . . . a carbon telephone transmitter . . . a dictating machine, audio mail, an acoustic clock . . . a device that enabled him to listen to the eruptions of sun spots."
Edmund Morris on Thomas Edison, his deafness and his acoustic inventions (Edison, Random House, 2020)
On Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 2 pm, Mara Mills, Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communications at New York University will present a program on Thomas Edison, deafness and the development of early 20th century hearing aid technology at Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Professor Mills, who has researched in the Thomas Edison NHP archives for a study of hearing aids, specializes in communication history and disability studies.
Professor Mills received B.A. degrees in Biology and Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Biology/Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard University. Professor Mills is a co-founder and co-director of the New York University Center for Disability Studies. She is the author of On the Phone: Hearing Loss and Communications Engineering (forthcoming, Duke University Press) and co-editor of Testing Hearing and the Making of Modern Aurality (forthcoming October 2020, Oxford University Press).
This presentation will be the sixth meeting of the Edison Book Club, a series of programs designed to engage readers with Edison, the recently published biography of Thomas Edison by Edmund Morris (Random House, 2019). The discussion for this meeting will focus on Edison and deafness, but questions and conversation about other aspects of the Morris book are also welcome. The Edison Book Club is free and open to the public. Reading the Edmund Morris book is encouraged but not required. The meeting will be held at the Laboratory Complex, 211 Main Street, West Orange, New Jersey and will be live-streamed on Facebook.
Thomas Edison National Historical Park is a National Park Service site dedicated to promoting an international understanding and appreciation of the life and extraordinary achievements of Thomas Alva Edison by preserving, protecting and interpreting the Park's extensive historic artifact and archival collections at the Laboratory Complex and Glenmont, the Edison family estate. The Visitor Center is located at 211 Main Street in West Orange, New Jersey. For more information call 973-736-0550 extension 11 or visit our website at www.nps.gov/edis. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
-NPS-
Last updated: March 4, 2020