[D8914AAQ], Letter from Orville D La Dow to Thomas Alva Edison, May 27th, 1889
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/D8914AAQ
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- Title
- [D8914AAQ], Letter from Orville D La Dow to Thomas Alva Edison, May 27th, 1889
- Editor's Notes
- [Letterhead Dept of Agriculture Washington DC] You do not remember the writer, although I have met you several times during a somewhat extended telegraphic experience. I write now to inquire whether you have some position in your laboratory which could be given to a neighbor of mine, a young man of twenty or twenty-one. Please do not regard this as an ordinary application for employment. The boy knows nothing whatever of my writing you. He is a marvel of mechanical genius, as I could easily prove if I had the time to write, and you the time to read. He is especially interested in the subject of electricity. That is a science with which I am not entirely unfamiliar, and I do not hesitate to say that if you take interest in the development of such genius as I know he possesses, you would never be disappointed in him. He has already devised a dynamo, which I believe has positive merit. He lives in a little town in New York State, where he can have no advantages in developing his genius. Your people in Schenectady must have heard of him, for he received an offer of a place there, but as taken sick when about to go and had to give it up. It seems really too bad that he should not have some such advantages as he could secure with you. His parents are not wealthy, but I feel sure he would be willing to work for very little more than what his expenses would be at Menlo Park. If you have had patience enough with this letter to read it through and will answer it I shall be under many obligations, and I desire to emphasis the point above referred to, that he is a boy of remarkable genius, in fact, of marvelous genius, and should you be able to help him in his ambition to develop his electrical talents– an ambition which is in his thoughts by day and his dreams by night– you will have contributed that much towards the future of a man who some day will surely make his mark if given an opportunity now. ([marg.: His equal in handling machinery and trials of all kinds does not live ([-]) in my judgement in a boy of this age [ans June 6/89]
- Author
- La Dow, Orville D
- Recipient
- Edison, Thomas Alva
- Mentioned
- Edison Machine Works
- Date
- 1889-05-27
- Type
- Letter
- Folder ID
- D8914-F
- Microfilm ID
- 125:803
- Document ID
- D8914AAQ
- Publisher
- Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University
- Has Version
- Archive.org Viewer, Microfilm Series Reel 125
- License
- CC0 1.0 Universal