Chapter 226 Inventors in the Slums (Wish everyone a happy Dragon Boat Festival!)
New York itself was built on the port, with dozens of docks of varying sizes scattered around Manhattan Island. The spacious river is filled with all kinds of sailboats and steamboats.
With a long whistle, the steamship spewing thick smoke slowly approached the dock. Every day, tens of thousands of European immigrants took steamships to New York and the New World. Many of them were penniless, and many were forced to make a living and were drafted at the dock. Many women could only watch their fathers, husbands, brothers or brothers being drafted.
The helpless women could only look for jobs in New York. The lucky ones would become maids, while the unlucky ones might even become prostitutes. Only a few lucky ones had the opportunity to ride a steam locomotive along the railway into the hinterland.
Railroads and immigration were changing the country, and of course the ongoing war was also changing the country.
The Fifth Ward in Lower Manhattan is one of the most famous slums in New York. It is home to many impoverished Irish people. Most of them wear shabby clothes made with rough workmanship and have pale faces. One can tell from their appearance that they are recent Irish immigrants. Of course, there are not only Irish immigrants here, but also Germans, French and Italians. Among these immigrants, there are not only ordinary people, but also many skilled workers, even engineers and mechanics.
But no matter where they come from, there are definitely few people who are well-dressed, even if they are engineers. There is no shortage of such people in the United States, and they are new to your place. In such a place, there are not many people who are well-dressed like Lu Anxue.
Since he came here, he felt that he had attracted other people's attention. For this reason, Lu Anxue's right hand deliberately swept down the hem of his clothes, revealing the pistol holster on his waist. This reduced the hostility a lot. In such a place, fists are the truth! Colt is the guarantee!
Luan came here to study in order to find a watchmaker.
Looking for a watchmaker in the Fifth Ward?
Do you need to travel so far to get your shoes repaired?
Of course not, but the reason why he came here to find the watchmaker was entirely because of something he heard from someone.
Perhaps others would just laugh off what they heard from others, but Lu Anxue felt that the rumor seemed to be true and very useful.
According to other people's introduction, that person lived in District 5 and was a watchmaker, but there were more than one watchmakers here.
Come on, go find it!
But you can always look for it aimlessly.
Looking at the little beggars on the roadside, perhaps these little beggars walking around the streets should know where they live.
Just as Lu Anxue walked towards those little beggars.
Suddenly, a figure appeared in front of him. It was a boy who looked to be only 13 or 14 years old, and he was wearing a uniform.
Postman.
The appearance of the postman made Lu Anxue's eyes light up. Compared with beggars, these postmen are the real living maps!
"Hello, young man."
"Sir, are you calling me??"
The little postman wondered.
"Yes, can I ask you something?"
Luan imitated the model and took out a ten-cent coin, which the little postman immediately took happily.
"Sir, do you have any instructions?"
"I want to find a watchmaker, a watchmaker who can invent. I think his name is..."
"Henri Goebbels! Sir, everyone here knows him. It's Mr. Henry Goebbels. He even made a telescope for looking at the stars and the moon in the square. It only costs 1 cent per time."
This is really a piece of cake!
"Sir, they live right in front, at number 15. That's Mr. Pierre's apartment. Mr. Henry Goebbels's shoe shop is right there. Be careful, there's dirty water on the floor."
With someone leading the way, they soon reached their destination.
"Well, sir, that's it, that's Mr. Goebbels's shop."
Finally, they arrived at a dilapidated three-story apartment building. Looking at the simple watch shop, Lu Anxue seemed to understand why the watchmaker did not apply for a patent - he was poor!
It costs money to apply for a patent. For most ordinary people, not to mention spending a dozen dollars to apply for a patent, even living becomes a problem.
"What? Light?"
Henry Goebbels looked at the Oriental man in surprise. He originally thought that he came to repair his watch, but he never thought that it was for his old invention from many years ago.
"Yes, sir. I heard from others that a watchmaker named Goebbels on Monroe Street made a lamp that used electricity for lighting more than ten years ago. It even stayed lit for hundreds of hours. Was it your invention?"
"Ah, I did build it ten years ago, but it doesn't seem to be of much use to me."
Henry Goebbels shrugged his shoulders casually and said.
"After all, it takes electricity to light it up, a lot of electricity, and there are many technical difficulties, even now."
Is that why he didn't patent it?
It is for this reason that Edison invented not only the electric light, but a series of inventions from generators to light switches. Only with these inventions can electric lights become popular. Otherwise, it would just be a light bulb.
It was precisely because he did not see its usefulness that Henry Goebbels did not apply for it. After all, applying for a patent requires money. Throughout history, countless inventors who lived in poverty did not even have the funds to apply for a patent and could only watch their inventions gather dust at home.
Even though Henry Goebbels used a carbonized bamboo filament to generate light under a vacuum glass bottle in 1854, and the light bulb he tested could last for 400 hours, he did not have the money to apply for a patent, and his limited knowledge led him to ignore this invention. More than 20 years later, Edison became the inventor of the electric light bulb. And what about Henry Goebbels? He was even sued by Edison for working as a technical consultant for the light bulb company that produced the light bulb he invented, and eventually died in poverty.
"So, sir, do you have the actual electric light here?"
"Of course. I have kept it in the box. As long as it is powered on, it will light up. Sir, are you interested in it? I have some other inventions. I am a mechanic. Sir, I have many other better inventions. Maybe you will be interested."
When the other party did not answer immediately, Henry Goebbels quickly changed the subject.
"100 dollars. I can sell it to you for only 100 dollars, including my design drawings. What do you think, sir?"
I wish you all a happy Dragon Boat Festival!
(End of this chapter)
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