1843-1899

Technician and inventor, born in Speicher, Canton Appenzell-Outer Rhodes. Trained as a clockmaker and instrument builder and worked in Zurich and Paris before coming to the US in 1870 where his first job was with the Singer Sewing Machine Co in Elizabeth, NJ. He joined the staff of Thomas Edison’s Newark shop in 1872. He built instruments and apparatus for Edison’s experiments in various technologies, making his own significant contributions. He collaborated with Edison on his electric lighting project for New York, developing an underground electric tube system, patented in 1883. But he is best remembered for the work he carried out under Edison's instructions in 1877, building the first experimental phonograph, which launched the gramophone age..