This was the first "professional card," if it may be so described, ever issued in America by a firm of electrical engineers.
In order to be near his new friend, Edison boarded with Pope at Elizabeth, New Jersey, for some time living the "strenuous life" in the performance of his duties and following up his work on telegraph printers with marked success.
In regard to this Mr. Edison says: "While with them" (Pope and J. N. Ashley) "I devised a printer to print gold quotations instead of indicating them. The lines were started, and the whole was sold out to the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company. My experimenting was all done in the small shop of a Dr. Bradley, located near the station of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Jersey City. Every night I left for Elizabeth on the 1 A.M. train, then walked half a mile to Mr. Pope's house, and up at 6 A.M. for breakfast, to catch the 7 A.M. train. This continued all winter, and many were the occasions when I was nearly frozen in the Elizabeth walk."
After the Edison and Pope printer was bought out by the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, its president, Gen. Marshall Lefferts, requested Edison to go to work on improving the stock ticker, he, Lefferts, to furnish the money.
Edison tackled the subject enthusiastically, and as one result produced the "Universal" ticker, which came into wide-spread use in its day. This and some other inventions had a startling effect on his fortunes. Mr. Edison says: "I made a great many inventions; one was the special ticker used for many years outside of New York in the large cities. This was made exceedingly simple, as they did not have the experts we had in New York to handle anything complicated. The same ticker was used on the London Stock Exchange. After I had made a great number of inventions and obtained patents, the General seemed anxious that the matter should be closed up. One day I exhibited and worked a successful device whereby, if a ticker should get out of unison in a broker's office and commence to print wild figures, it could be brought to unison from the central station, which saved the labor of many men and much trouble to the broker. He called me into his office, and said: 'Now, young man, I want to close up the matter of your inventions. How much do you think you should receive?' I had made up my mind that, taking into consideration the time and killing pace I was working at, I should be entitled to five thousand dollars, but could get along with three thousand dollars. When the psychological moment arrived, I hadn't the nerve to name such a large sum, so I said: 'Well, General, suppose you make me an offer.' Then he said: 'How would forty thousand dollars strike you?' This caused me to come as near fainting as I ever got. I was afraid he would hear my heart beat. I managed to say that I thought it was fair. 'All right, I will have a contract drawn; come around in three days and sign it, and I will give you the money.' I arrived on time, but had been doing some considerable thinking on the subject. The sum seemed to be very large for the amount of work, for, at that time I determined the value by the time and trouble, and not by what the invention was worth to others. I thought there was something unreal about it. However, the contract was handed to me. I signed without reading it"
Edison was then handed the first check he had ever received, one for forty thousand dollars. He went down to the bank and passed the check in to the paying teller, who handed it back to him with some remarks which in his deafness he did not hear. Fancying for a moment he had been cheated, Edison went outside "to let the cold sweat evaporate."
He went back to the General, who, with his secretary, had a good laugh over the matter, and told him the check must be endorsed, and sent with him a clerk to identify him.
The ceremony of identification performed with the paying teller, who was quite merry over the incident, Edison was given the amount in bundles of small bills "until there certainly seemed to be one cubic foot." Unaware that he was the victim of a practical joke, Edison proceeded gravely to stow away the money in his overcoat pockets and all his other pockets. He then went to Newark and sat up all night with the money for fear it might be stolen. Once more he sought help next morning, when the General laughed heartily, and, telling the clerk that the joke must not be carried any further, enabled him to deposit the currency in the bank and open an account—his first bank account.
Thus in a very brief time Edison had passed from poverty to independence. Not only that, but he had made a deep impression as to his originality and ability on important people, and had brought out valuable inventions. Thus he lifted himself at one hound out of the ranks and away from the drudgery of the key.
Many young men of twenty-two would have been so dazzled by coming suddenly into possession of forty thousand dollars after a period of poverty, struggle, and hard work, that their main ideas would have been of recreation and pleasure. Not so with Edison, however. Naturally enterprising and a pioneer, this money meant to him nothing but means to an end.