I was a chemist, physicist, and inventor, who is most famous for my important role in the development of electric lighting. I was born in Sunderland, England on October 31, 1828 to John and Isabella Swan. A particularly inquisitive child interested in creative endeavors, I began an apprenticeship with a pharmacist when I was 13. Afterwards, I began as an assistant in a firm of manufacturing chemists, in which I worked my way up, eventually becoming a partner.
obrien, nikolas. "molecular expressions." micro.magnet. micro.magnet, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/timeline/people/swan.html>.
Edison was not the only inventor trying to make a light bulb. One of his major competitors was me.a chemist, I experimented in the 1850s and 60s with carbon filaments. My early efforts failed however, because the vacuum pumps of those years could not remove enough air from the lamps. By the mid-1870s better pumps became available, and I returned to My experiments.
obrien, nikolas. "lighting Revolution:joseph swan." americanhistory. americanhistory.com, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/bios/swan.htm>.
Like other early inventors, I used a carbon rod with low electrical resistance in My lamp. Due to the relationship between resistance and current, a low resistance element required lots of current in order to become hot and glow. This meant that the conductors bringing electricity to the lamp would have to be relatively short (or impossibly thick), acceptable for an experiment or demonstration, but not for a commercial electrical system.
obrien, nikolas. "lighting Revolution:joseph swan." americanhistory. americanhistory.com, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/bios/swan.htm>.
When working with wet photographic plates, I noticed that heat increased the sensitivity of the silver bromide emulsion. By 1871 I had devised a method of using dry plates and substituting nitro-cellulose plastic for glass plates, thus initiating the age of convenience in photography. Eight years later I patented bromide paper, developments of which are still used for black and white photographic prints.
obrien, nikolas. "joseph swan." en.wikipedia.org. wikipedia, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swan>.
obrien, nikolas. "joseph swan." en.wikipedia.org. wikipedia, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swan>.
In 1883 the Edison & my United Electric Light Company was established. Known commonly as "Ediswan" the company sold lamps made with a cellulose filament that I had invented in 1881. Variations of the cellulose filament became an industry standard, except with the Edison Company. Edison continued using bamboo filaments until the 1892 merger that created General Electric -- and that company then shifted to cellulose.
obrien, nikolas. "lighting Revolution:joseph swan." americanhistory. americanhistory.com, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/bios/swan.htm>.
While searching for a better filament for his light bulb, I made another advance. I developed and patented a process for squeezing nitro-cellulose through holes to form fibers. My newly established Swan Electric Company, which by merger was to become the Edison and Swan United Company, used the cellulose filaments in their bulbs. However, the textile industry also used my method to create artificial fibers for clothing and domestic products.
obrien, nikolas. "lighting Revolution:joseph swan." americanhistory. americanhistory.com, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/bios/swan.htm>.
obrien, nikolas. "lighting Revolution:joseph swan." americanhistory. americanhistory.com, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/bios/swan.htm>.
The chemical company that employed me, among other goods and services, produced photographic plates, which led my to some of his most impressive scientific innovations. In 1862, I patented the first commercially feasible procedure for carbon printing in photography. Then, having observed that heat increases the sensitivity of silver bromide emulsions, I invented the dry plate in 1871, followed by the development of bromide photographic paper in 1879.
obrien, nikolas. "molecular expressions." micro.magnet. micro.magnet, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/timeline/people/swan.html>.
obrien, nikolas. "molecular expressions." micro.magnet. micro.magnet, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/timeline/people/swan.html>.
By late 1878, I reported success to the Newcastle Chemical Society and in February 1879 demonstrated a working lamp in a lecture in Newcastle. My lamps contained the major elements seen in Edison's lamps that October: an enclosed glass bulb from which all air had been removed, platinum lead wires, and a light-emitting element made from carbon.
obrien, nikolas. "lighting Revolution:joseph swan." americanhistory. americanhistory.com, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/bios/swan.htm>.
obrien, nikolas. "lighting Revolution:joseph swan." americanhistory. americanhistory.com, 3/25/2011. Web. 25 Mar 2011. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/bios/swan.htm>.
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