The emergence of new technology for electric cars makes the subject even more appealing to Shulman.
Thomas Alva Edison with an early model of his light bulb.NORTHAMPTON – The race is on to come up with a battery that will make the electric automobile a viable alternative to gas guzzlers, and Seth Shulman is chronicling it. The Northampton journalist and author has a lot of archives to pour through. The race he’s writing about took place a century ago between Thomas Alva Edison and Henry Ford.
Shulman, who writes about science and technology, got a recent boost on his current project when he was awarded a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The $40,000 fellowship was one of 180 bestowed upon scholars, artists and scientists in the foundation’s 87th Annual Competition this spring. For Shulman, who has five books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, the gift means a lot of visits to Edison’s archives in West Orange, New Jersey.
Shulman worked out of Boston until ten years ago, when he moved to Northampton with his wife, a University of Massachusetts professor. His field of interest has taken him both to the cutting edge of science and back into the past.
“I love the period around the turn of the last century,” he said. “In many ways it was like the times we’re living in.”
Author Seth Shulman, who has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a book on Thomas A. Edison, is seen last week in his Northampton home.Shulman has already penned non-fiction books on the birth of flight and the telephone. In “The Telephone Gambit,” he explores the possibility that Alexander Graham Bell plagiarized the ideas for his invention. Edison, perhaps the preeminent inventor of that era, has long been on Shulman’s to-do list.
“I’ve wanted to learn more about him,” he said. “Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most amazing inventors the world has ever known.”
In particular, Shulman is interested in Edison’s efforts to come up with an electric car. As he explains it, Edison was vying with Henry Ford at the time to produce an affordable automobile.
“It looked like he had a shot of winning that race,” Shulman said. “At one time there were more electric cars than gas-powered cars. We all know what happened.”
The emergence of new technology for electric cars makes the subject even more appealing to Shulman. He notes that in the course of his work on the electric automobile, Edison came up with the alkaline battery, which proved to be his most profitable invention. For more information, he plans to explore Edison’s voluminous New Jersey archives.
“There are a million pages of documents just on the stuff I’m looking at,” he said.
The Guggenheim fellowship has been a boon to his work, Shulman said.
“It allows me to do a lot of research, and it’s helpful to get a book advance.”
Beyond the financial perks, Shulman sees the fellowship as an affirmation of his work.
“It’s a nice honor to get recognized in that way,” he said.