Customer Reviews

House of Invention: The Secret Life of Everyday Objects

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Are all inventors wacky? Well, maybe not all, but certainly some -- and a number of them are detailed here, along with what they invented. Lindsay takes three inventions from each room of the house and discusses them. Some of the info is not terribly new if you read this kind of thing, but I would guess most people don't. Even so, he adds some info not usually found in previous writings about those same inventions.

Lindsay seems to have relied very heavily on Charles Panati's classic "Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things" - still a bestseller. Whereas Lindsay covers a few items, in brief, Panati covers hundreds, and in depth. And, too, Panati's book sets the format of taking you through rooms in a home - bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, etc. - to explain the origins of items found there. I find it strange - troubling, in fact - that in Lindsay's end-of-book "Suggested Further Reading," he lists scores of books, but not Panati's. Then again, maybe it's not so strange after all. Panati's classic is half the price and twice the info and entertainment.

Suppose you had an old tea chest, a "bull's-eye" lens from a bicycle light, some sealing wax, glue, surplus army wire, knitting needles, a hat box, serrated biscuit tin, ordinary lamp and electric fan -- do you think you could make a basic television set?

Scotsman John Logie Baird did, thus inventing the basics of television in 1922. The first TV broadcast was that of a Maltese cross, transmitted a distance of at least two feet. It's one of the delightful stories on the nature of inventions offered by David Lindsay, which is really a series about the oddball habits and ideas of people who invent things.

When 16-year-old Polly Jacobs was dressing for an evening party in 1914, she rebelled against the masses of undergarments then worn by all respectable ladies. Her response, Lindsay says, was to tell her maid "Bring me two of my pocket handkerchiefs, and some pink ribbon ... and bring the needle and thread and some pins into my bedroom." A few minutes later, she emerged with the first brassiere.

When Thomas Edison wanted to promote the use of direct current and discredit alternating current, his lab paid neighborhood urchins to round up stray dogs and cats. They were then electrocuted with alternating current, or as the media of the day reported, the process was "to be Westinghoused."

Lindsay has a keen eye for the little oddities, roadblocks, persistence and showmanship that moves new ideas into popular use; plus, sometimes, the outright theft of new ideas by major corporations. Anyone who's ever come up with a fresh idea can appreciate and sympathize with the fate, follies and fortunes of men and women who never lost faith in their own bright ideas.

It's a book about the personality of inventors, which is very different than that of people who merely improve existing products. When King Camp Gillette invented the first disposable razor, he came up with the first new idea in shaving in thousands of years. Invention of the "double blade" is hardly in the same category, despite the fervent pleas of advertising executives.

Inventors are oddballs, Lindsay writes, ". . . perhaps it's because human folly is intimately bound up with the actual work of inventing. Doing the `wrong thing,' after all, is not so very different from doing the new thing.

"Put the other way around, if so many inventions start as mistakes, it's probably because some humans are especially prone to making them," Lindsay writes. That is the key to his delightful book, a brief survey of 21 everyday items that are so common we scarcely think of them as being "invented." It'll give heart to everyone who's ever wondered about an original idea.

Frozen food? Yup. it had to be invented. Clarence Birdseye, spending a winter in northern Canada, saw how quickly fish caught by the Inuit were frozen solid -- and later thawed out and eaten with no loss of taste. For how many thousands of years had that been done? Until Birdseye, no one had figured out it would benefit American households.

Of course, Birdseye also had to invent store freezers, and a distribution system to keep food frozen during shipping. Nobody ever said inventing was easy. Now, frozen food is a $10 billion industry. That, so well explained in this book, is how great inventions come to be commonplace.

House Of Invention provides some involving stories in the world of invention and the effects of science on the American home, providing a fun survey of the companies and individuals involved in making products for consumers. Science, technology and consumer use blend in a lively survey of how common household products were developed.

"House of Invention" is a spry, anecdotal account of (mostly) obscure inventors and their inventions. Inspiration for new products could come from many sources. For instance, a champagne cork in the eye led to the invention of the intermittent windshield wiper.

The inventor, Robert Kearns is still in the process of suing the big auto manufacturers for stealing his patent. Chrysler and Ford have already paid off, but there are still GM, Saab, Honda, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes, etc. that refuse to acknowledge their theft. Mr. Kearns plans to spend the rest of his life in court, and I hope he keeps winning. As the author of "The House of Invention" puts it:

"In the annals of technology, tales of corporate abuse are strewn across the American century like so many highway accidents, and in a sense, Kearns has fought for the many inventors who ended up as roadkill."

Nikola Tesla did not profit from his invention of the alternating-current electrical motor as much as did the company that was to become General Electric. Eventually GE, under the leadership of J. P. Morgan also did in Thomas Edison and his championship of direct current (although one does not usually think of the Wizard of Menlo Park as roadkill.)

Then there was George Squier, inventor of the `wire-wireless' technology that allowed radio signals to travel through a telephone line (the precursor to `Muzak'), who was robbed of his patent by AT&T.

Overall, this is a very light-hearted, irreverent book about inventors, but it does have its serious moments. In addition to the numerous inventors who ended up cheated and broke, there is also the graphic story of how alternating current triumphed over direct current as the preferred method of capital punishment.

My favorite stories involve the invention of the pencil by the ancient Egyptians, who also came up with the first door lock, and the invention of the flat-bottomed paper bag by the American, Margaret Knight. The author tells tales of many eccentrics, including the man who invented Vaseline and then ate a spoonful of the stuff daily for the rest of his life (he died in his nineties).

Here was someone who truly believed in his product.

Mr. Lindsay is an engaging story teller, which makes this book interesting to read. He has taken the process of invention and marketing the subsequent common products and turned them into humorous tales of delicious irony.

The book is organized along the lines of rooms in a person's life: bathroom, kitchen, foyer, office, garage, family room, and bedroom. Each one has three inventions: bathroom (disposable razor, Vaseline, and hair straightener); kitchen (frozen food, blender, and breakfast cereal); foyer (intercom, bank notes?, locks and keys); office (Muzak, pencil, electrical outlet); garage (intermittent windshield wiper, standard screw thread, and flat-bottomed paper bag); family room (television, exercise machine, and solitaire); and bedroom (brassiere, shatterproof glasses, and condom).

Although I was familiar with the invention of 6 of these items, I did not know all of the ironies involved. So unless you are a historian of inventions, you will probably learn a lot here.

One of the interesting ironies is that many of these inventors were also idealists who were as interested in improving the human condition as they were in inventing. Unfortunately, they were considerably less successful in their utopian pursuits than in their inventing. For example, King Gillette (who made the first disposable safety razor blade) had an idea for a new kind of city where the whole country would live near Niagara Falls to take advantage of the power there from the falls. Later he conceived of a new company where everyone would work for it, be an owner, and live in Texas. Both books about these concepts did not sell well, nor did his concepts see fruition. John Harvey Kellogg, the co-inventor of breakfast cereal, was interested in optimal living regimens. His more practical younger brother and co-inventor, W.K. Kellogg, built the cereal company.

The promotional side was often quite extreme. Alfred C. Hobbs went around picking competitors' locks around the world to win prize money and fame for his own locks. He arranged to have letters of introduction when he traveled so the local police would not mistake him for a burglar. Edison encouraged demonstrations of electrocutions of animals to warn against the dangers of alternating current (and to promote his invention of direct current). The first video game (an early version of Pong) was put together as a visitors' exhibit at Brookhaven National Laboratory in a display of Atoms for Peace.

The inventions often led to vicious competitions for credit. When Robert Kearns invented the intermittent windshield wiper, he quickly shared it with Ford. Ford began to use it without paying him, and others soon copies Ford. Kearns spent most of his life in litigation, serving as his own attorney. Eventually, he collected millions, but only after sacrificing most of his productive life to the law suit. Margaret Knight showed her invention of the flat-bottom paper bag to a visitor, and he later claimed a patent on her invention. She prevailed through the litigation, given the benefit of the doubt mostly because she kept a meticulous journal of her work and was a woman in a male-dominated society.

Many of these people were original thinkers in many ways, but many would also have found them to be odd. Robert Chesebrough used to burn and cut himself so he could demonstrate the healing benefits of Vaseline. He later admitted that he ate the stuff every day for most of his life. Arthur Jones, who developed the Nautilus machine, is a lifelong smoker, swears like a drunken sailor, is usually cranky, admires some things Hitler did, and marries often. Caresse Crosby, who invented the brassiere, lived an unconventional life. She dabbled in opium, followed a 'vaguely Incan brand of sun worship,' made her entrance at a ball by riding down the Champs-Elysees on a baby elephant, and later made a topless appearance onstage at the ball (hardly an advertisement for her invention).

The inventions themselves were sometimes the result of quick inspiration. Clarence Birdseye perceived the advantages of quick freezing fish while on an expedition in Labrador, watching the local people catch fish which froze quickly and was quite edible when cooked. The first brassiere was put together in a few minutes while dressing for a party.

In other cases, many years of difficult labor were required. Persistence was important in these cases, such as the evolution of the pencil until it was perfected by the French during the Napoleonic Wars while supplies from England and Germany were cut off. By mixing more or less clay with carbon and baking the results, leads of different hardnesses could be created as we use today.

The stories are brief and witty. If you are troubled by sexual puns, you might want to skip the section on the condom. The author obviously had a lot of fun with that subject.

If you enjoy a longer look at ordinary inventions, I suggest you read One Good Turn (which I have also reviewed). Both books capture a similar sense of whimsy about these inventions.

My only complaint about the book was that I could never figure out why or how the invention of paper money fit into the foyer. The story itself is quite interesting. A former treasure hunter led an expedition to conquer Quebec from Massachusetts. Unsuccessful in the quest, a way had to be found to pay the soldiers. Paper money became a device that you could use to pay your taxes. The Bank of England later copied the Massachusetts experiment.

After you finish this book, you should ask yourself what ordinary object you could develop or perfect. Perhaps you can outdo Rube Goldberg and Dr. Seuss in making something that will help us all live better. Here's a hint: Now that the Patent Office permits patents on basic business models and ways of doing things, perhaps you can come up with a better method of sharing ideas. For example, with all of the information on the Internet, how can one find information that is the most pertinent, easy-to-use, accurate, and trustworthy? That would make a book in and of itself. Have fun thinking about that one.

I just finished reading this book and thought it was disappointing at best. The subtitle (at least on my edition) "The Secret Life of Everyday Products" would infer that the book was actually about the inventions themselves, perhaps with some elaboration on their origins and advancements. Instead what you get is a poorly written compilation of super brief biographies of the inventors of the products. In itself that would be just fine, but in several entries there is almost no mention of what they actually invented or how or why they invented it. It seems like the author had some basic biographical information on these inventors but didnt want to spend the time to do the research to figure out how and why they invented what they did.

One of the better entries is on the television where the author gives a fairly comprehensive account of both the inventor and his invention. On the other hand, the entry about "The Exercise Machine" simply mentions that its inventor created it and never explains what the machine is, what it does, or why the man created it.

Overall I think this is a terrible book. If zero stars were an option I would have picked that, but unfortunately I am forced to give it a single star. It's good for a quick read if you're bored, but I wouldnt expect to come out with any sense of enlightenment or satisfaction after you're done.

This is an interesting collection of essays on the origins of many common household items.

Some of these essays stray off the point a bit. I'm still not clear as to how the Nautillus exercise machine, or shatterproof glasses, or the electrical outlet were invented. But all-in-all, this book was informative as well as easy and fun to read. In addition to (or, in a few cases, instead of) just an account of how something was invented, it tells you some interesting (and sometimes disturbing) details of the lives of various inventors.

I haven't read Charles Panati's "Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things" (which some reviewers think is better than "House of Invention"). Perhaps that one might be worth a look too. In any case, I recommend Mr. Lindsay's book as well.

Here's a fun way to bust out of the doldrums and learn about the really important things in life. Author David Lindsay has stuck his nose (and eyes and feet and Lord-knows-what-else) to find the truth behind the origins of those things we take for granted. Like Vaseline. It was first marketed as a medicine, Doris Day slathers the stuff on her nightly (let's face it, her skin is oh-so-soft) and its inventor ate a spoonful of the stuff every day...and lived to his 90s. Like the intermittent windshield wiper. It was invented by a man who was hit in the eye with a champagne cork on his wedding night, causing permanent damage. (All that squinting in rainy weather.) Like the brassiere. The over-the-shoulder boulder holder was invented by the very first Girl Scout of America as an alternative to the restrictive corsets of the late 19th-century. Now, really, would we make this stuff up?ONS