Alfred Ely Beach (September 1, 1826 – January 1, 1896) was an American inventor, entrepreneur, publisher, and patent lawyer, born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is known for his design of the earliest predecessor to the New York City Subway, the Beach Pneumatic Transit, which became the first subway in America.Swift as Aeolus" American contribution in developing pneumatic railways as compared to European achievements, Society for the History of Technology, Sławomir Łotysz, 2003. He was an early owner and cofounder of Scientific American and Munn & Co., the country's leading patent agency, and helped secure patents for Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and other innovators.William I. (1915). Patent History Materials Index – Patent Materials from Scientific American, vol 112 (June 1915), Scientific American, v 112, p 533, June 5, 1915, The Patent Office and Invention Since 1845, How the Government Has Kept Pace With the Inventor Wyman A member of the Union League of New York, he also invented a typewriter for the blind and a system for heating water with solar power."The Union League Club of New York", The Club-house, University of Michigan, 1905, page 89.
Early years
Beach was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and was the son of a prominent publisher, Moses Yale Beach, owner of the New York Sun and member of the Yale family. His brother William Yale Beach was a banker while his other brother, Moses S. Beach, took over the family newspaper and supported the policies of Abraham Lincoln during his ownership. Alfred's brother was also later a trustee and shareholder in his Broadway Underground Railway Company, along with his son Frederick C. Beach, and his nephew Charles Yale Beach.
Charles Yale's brothers-in-law were Commodore Holland Newton Stevenson, and John McAllister Stevenson, a Yale graduate and board director of the Pittsfield Electric Street Railway Company in 1892, which operated electric trolley cars, replacing horsecars.Rollin Hillyer Cooke (1906). Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, John McAllister Stevenson, Lewis Publishing Co., Vol I. New York and Chicago, p. 252-2561902 – Periodicals – STREET RAILWAY JOURNAL (SEPTEMBER 13, 1902), p. 345 His three nephews and his great-grandnephew, Rev. Brewster Yale Beach, all attended Yale University.Rollin Hillyer Cooke (1906). Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, John McAllister Stevenson, Lewis Publishing Co., Vol I. New York and Chicago, p. 252-256The Courier-News, September 25, 1979, Tue ·Page 16
Alfred worked for his father at the "Sun" until he and a friend, Orson Desaix Munn, decided to buy Scientific American, a relatively new publication, becoming the early founders of that company. He also brought in the venture Salem Howe Wales, President of the New York City Department of Docks and co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Beach was the editor and publisher of Scientific American for fifty years and ran the magazine until his death. It was then edited by his son and grandson.Beach, Stanley, Archives at Yale, Stanley Yale Beach papers, Number: GEN MSS 802, 1911–1948
Scientific American is now the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States, and has featured prominent scientists over time such as Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, and Thomas Edison. They reported the invention and patent of Abraham Lincoln relating to his device that intended to help boats navigate shallows.
On June 30, 1847, at 21, Alfred married 18-year-old Harriet Eliza Holbrook.
Munn & Co.
In 1846, Munn and Beach established a prominent patent agency within Scientific American named Munn & Co., in synergy with the scientists featured in the magazine who wanted to patent their inventions. They provided the service for the patent applications and tracked the progress once it reached the U.S. Patent Office, having their headquarters next door in Washington.
As a boy, Thomas Edison used to walk a few miles every week to get his copy of the magazine, and later on in his career, he walked in Beach's office one day and showed him a device he called the phonograph, being the first to see his invention. Beach tested the device with Edison, liked it, and helped him file the patent. Edison would become a frequent visitor of Beach.
He also helped Alexander Graham Bell, Samuel F. B. Morse, Elias Howe, R. J. Gatling, Capt. John Ericsson, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Col. John Jacob Astor IV, and thousands of other inventors.Seventy Years of the Scientific American, Scientific American, Volume 112, 1915, p. 540 The magazine's patent department eventually filed about three thousand patents a year, forcing Beach to split his time between New York and Washington, defending the patents of the inventors in court.
Beach patented some of his own inventions, notably an early typewriter designed for use by the blind, an engineering first for the Americas. He received the gold medal by the American Institute at the New York Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1853, and his invention served as the prototype for typewriters over the next century. He invented a cable traction railway system, and designed and built one of the world's first tunnelling shields in the same year as famed engineer James Henry Greathead.
His patent agency eventually brought him fame and fortune, and his magazine helped stimulate 19th-century technological innovations and became one of the most prestigious scientific magazines of its time. During its peak years, Munn & Co., as the patent agency of Scientific American, prosecuted about one third of all the patents issued by the US Patent Office. By 1924, they had filled more than 200,000 patents, representing about 15% of all the patents filled in the United States, and was partly responsible for the rapid growth of the US patent system. After opening an office in Washington, they opened new offices across the globe and became recognized as the most successful patent law firm in the world.
Invention of a subway
Beach's most famous invention was New York City's first subway, the Beach Pneumatic Transit.Most, Doug, The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the incredible rivalry that built America's first subway (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2014), . He received his first charter by the legislature in 1868, four years before Commodore Vanderbilt's attempt to build a subway in New York.Wallace B. Katz (1979). The New York Rapid Transit Decision of 1900: Economy, Society, Politics, Historic American Engineering Record, Interborough Rapid Transit Subway, N-Y-122, p. 22-23 Beach created his own enterprise using pneumatic tube technology, naming it the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company, and made himself its President. This idea came about during the late 1860s, when traffic in New York was very difficult, especially along its central artery of Broadway, crowded with pedestrians and horse carriages. Beach was one of a few visionaries who proposed building an underground railway under Broadway to help relieve the traffic congestion. The inspiration was the underground Metropolitan Railway in London, but in contrast to that and others' proposals for New York, Beach proposed the use of trains propelled by pneumatics instead of conventional steam engines, and construction using a tunnelling shield of his invention to minimize disturbing the street.
Beach used a circular design based upon Marc Isambard Brunel's rectangular shield, which may represent the shift in design from rectangular to cylindrical. It was unclear when or who transitioned tunneling shield design from rectangular to circular until The New York Times wrote an article describing the original Beach tunneling shield in 1870. See also:
Beach was also interested in pneumatic tubes for the transport of letters and packages, another idea recently put into use in London by the London Pneumatic Despatch Company.Alfred E Beach, "The Pneumatic Dispatch". New York: The American News Company, 1868. He refused to bribe corrupt politician "Boss" Tweed to have his proposal approved."Speaking III of the Dead: Jerks in New York History", Kara Hughes, November 8, 2011, page 18. Instead, he built the tunnel in secret during the night, carting away the dirt under the cover of darkness, with the city officials at City Hall just across the street.The Secret Pneumatic Subway: Beach vs Tweed, American Studies Biographical Stories, Business Environmental History, Political History, April 17, 2018 He put up $350,000 of his own money to bankroll the project, allowing him to bypass the corruption and extortion schemes of Tammany Hall, which included the Governor, the Mayor, the City comptroller, and countless of other corrupted officials. His thinking was that once the public saw the completed subway, the politicians would not dare to stop him. With a franchise from the state, he began construction of a tunnel for small pneumatic tubes in 1869, but diverted it into a demonstration of a passenger railway that opened on February 26, 1870."Scientific American", March 5, 1870. It is most interesting to note that Beach's tunnel design was likely the first cylindrical tunnel design ever used in the Americas and built using a design inspired by James Henry Greathead's successful shield patents in London for construction of the Tower Subway project. Greathead invented and built his own design of a shield as the contractor for that project, under Peter W. Barlow who was the engineer. Since Beach was a patents lawyer, it is likely he discovered the 1869 Greathead patent and the patent application by Barlow from 1864, using an imitated Barlow's patent design for engineering the PTS tunnel design.
To build a passenger railway he needed a different franchise, something he lobbied for over four legislative sessions, 1870 to 1873. Construction of the tunnel was obvious from materials being delivered to Warren Street near Broadway, and was documented in newspaper reports, but Beach kept all details secret until the New York Tribune published a possibly planted article a few weeks before opening."New York Tribune", January 11, 1870. The Mayor of New York, Abraham Oakey Hall, grew suspicious and sent an aide over to the construction site with a written order to inspect Beach's work, but his workers blocked the inspectors.
When it was finished, after 58 successive nights, it became New York City's first underground subway. Beach hosted a gala on February 26, 1870, to which he invited city and state officials, enraging "Boss Tweed" for not having profited from the venture, and for challenging his monopoly on streetcars. In less than a year, Beach's underground system was used by 400,000 people, and he requested his line to extend to Central Park, with an injection of 5 million dollars in capital, hoping to get financiers such as John Jacob Astor III in the venture.
Downfall