Franklin Leonard Pope (2 December 1840 – 13 October 1895) was an American engineer, explorer, and inventor.

Biography

He was born in

Great Barrington, Massachusetts Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,172 at the 2020 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, ...

in December 1840 , the son of Ebenezer Pope and Electra Wainwright. He was a

telegrapher A telegraphist (British English), telegrapher (American English), or telegraph operator is an operator who uses a telegraph key to send and receive the Morse code in order to communicate by land lines or radio. During the Great War the Royal ...

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

, and

patent attorney A patent attorney is an attorney who has the specialized qualifications necessary for representing clients in obtaining patents and acting in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice, such as filing patent applications and op ...

. He was also a major contributor to the technological advances of the 19th century. He was one of the leaders of the explorations related to the Collins Overland Telegraph, otherwise known as the Russian American Telegraph. After developing a system which tracked and printed the prices of gold and stocks, Pope partnered with

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

in 1869, forming the company Pope, Edison & Company Electrical Engineers, and invented a one-wire telegraph in 1870. This telegraph is now known as a

stock ticker Ticker tape was the earliest electrical dedicated financial communications medium, transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines, in use from around 1870 through 1970. It consisted of a paper strip that ran through a machine called a ...

, and was widely used in large cities for exchange quotations. Pope’s partnership with Edison ended shortly after it was formed. Pope was awarded several patents for his work in railroad semaphore lock signal systems, the most important of which was his 1872 invention for the rail circuit for automatic control of the electric-block signal system, which was widely used by the major U.S. railways. Pope was president of the

American Institute of Electrical Engineers The American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) was a United States-based organization of electrical engineers that existed from 1884 through 1962. On January 1, 1963, it merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) to form the Insti ...

from 1886 to 1887. Pope was an editor of the magazine ''Electrical Engineer'', and edited the electrical section of ''The Engineering Magazine''. Pope also worked as a patent attorney for Western Union Telegraph Company, and was retained as an expert in many important patent suits. Pope married Sarah Amelia Dickinson on 6 August 1873; they had four children, two daughters and two sons. His youngest child, Seth Willard Pope, died a few weeks after birth. Pope died at age 54 as a result of an accidental

electrocution Electrocution is death or severe injury caused by electric shock from electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. The term "electrocution" was coin ...

by 3000 volts in the basement of his home at 518 Main Street in Great Barrington. His home is now a Bed and Breakfast called the Wainwright Inn B&B.

Pope's publications

* ''Modern Practice of the American Telegraph'' (1869) * ''Modern Practice of the Electrical Telegraph'' (1871) * ''The Life and Works of Joseph Henry'' (1879) * ''The Western Boundary of Massachusetts: a study of Indian and Colonial Life'' (1886) * ''Evolution of the Incandescent Lamp'' (1889) * ''Genealogy of Thomas Pope (1608–1683) and Some of his Descendants'' (1888).

In Popular Culture

In the 2019 film ''

The Current War ''The Current War'' is a 2017 American historical drama film inspired by the 19th-century competition between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over which electric power delivery system would be used in the United States (often referred to ...

'', Pope is portrayed by

Stanley Townsend Stanley Townsend (born August 1961) is an Irish actor. Personal life Townsend was born and brought up in Dublin. After attending Wesley College, Dublin, he studied mathematics and civil engineering at Trinity College. While there he joined the ...

References

External links

* * http://www.telegraph-history.org/pope/
IEEE biography of Pope
1840 births 1895 deaths People from Great Barrington, Massachusetts Engineers from Massachusetts American explorers 19th-century American inventors {{US-inventor-stub