Nathan Beverly Stubblefield (November 22, 1860 – March 28, 1928) was an American inventor best known for his wireless telephone work. Self-described as a "practical farmer, fruit grower and electrician", he received widespread attention in early 1902 when he gave a series of public demonstrations of a battery-operated wireless telephone, which could be transported to different locations and used on mobile platforms such as boats. While this initial design employed conduction, in 1908 he received a U.S. patent for a wireless telephone system that used magnetic induction. However, he was ultimately unsuccessful in commercializing his inventions. He later went into seclusion, and died alone in 1928. Disagreement exists whether Stubblefield's communications technology can be classified as radio, and if his 1902 demonstrations could be considered the first "radio broadcasts". Most reviews of his efforts have concluded that they were not radio transmissions, because his devices, although they used a form of "wireless", employed conduction and inductive fields, while the standard definition of radio is the transmission of electromagnetic radiation. However, Stubblefield may have been the first to simultaneously transmit audio wirelessly to multiple receivers, albeit over relatively short distances, while predicting the eventual development of broadcasting on a national scale.
Biography
Early years and family life Stubblefield was the second of seven sons of William "Captain Billy" Jefferson Stubblefield (1830–1874), a Confederate Army veteran and lawyer, and Victoria Bowman (1837–1869), who died of scarlet fever. Stubblefield grew up in Murray, Kentucky, and his education included tutoring by a governess, followed by attendance at a boarding school in nearby Farmington called the "Male and Female Institute". His formal education ended in 1874, at the age of 14, with his father's death, which left Stubblefield an orphan in the care of his step-mother. However, he continued to develop his technical knowledge by reading contemporary scientific publications, such as Scientific American and Electrical World. In 1881 he married Ada Mae Buchannan, by whom he had nine children, two dying in infancy. Six of Nathan's surviving children left no descendants. The seventh, Oliver (RayJack), married Priscilla Alden, who gave birth to two daughters and Nathan's only grandson, Keith Stubblefield, who would become a television and recording personality under the professional name Troy Cory. Initially Stubblefield supported his family by farming. (His farm land later became part of the campus of Murray State University.) From 1907 to 1911, he operated a home school called "The Nathan Stubblefield Industrial School," or "Teléph-on-délgreen Industrial School".
Inventions Despite very limited finances, in his spare time Stubblefield worked on developing a series of inventions. His first patent, U.S. patent 329,864, was issued on November 3, 1885, for a tool for lighting coal oil lamps without having to remove the glass chimney.
Acoustic telephone In late 1886, Stubblefield began to sell and install acoustic telephones—an early and somewhat limited form of the telephone, which, instead of using electricity, employed a taut wire to carry sound vibrations directly between two soundboxes which were located at the far ends of the wire. Although most installations were around Murray, he also made sales as far away as Mississippi and Oklahoma. On February 21, 1888, Stubblefield and partner Samuel Holcomb received U.S. patent 378,183 for their "mechanical telephone" design. However, the establishment of a local Bell Telephone franchise, whose electric telephones were far superior to Stubblefield's offerings, ended most of the acoustic sales by 1890.
Earth battery In 1898, Stubblefield was issued U.S. patent 600,457 for an "electric battery", which was an electrolytic coil of iron and insulated copper wire that was immersed in liquid or buried in the ground. Stubblefield made the unsubstantiated claim that, combined with normal battery operation, his device also drew additional power from the earth. However, it did successfully serve as both a power source and ground terminal for wireless telephony.
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