David Brooks was a

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

inventor, remembered for an innovative insulator for

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

lines in 1864 and 1867. He patented it while working for the

Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in N ...

. His patents allowed the railroad to more easily communicate with construction crews building the

first transcontinental railroad North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...

in America.Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
/ref> The insulator had a thick metal casing around blown glass; the assembly was held together with molten sulfur. Out of the tube extends a "ramshorn" rod that held the telegraph wires. It was mounted into holes drilled into the bottom of wooden crossarms attached to poles. Prior to the invention, Brooks worked for the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

, which in the 1850s received permission to build its own telegraph line, having bought necessary patents. Brooks was the railroad's first superintendent of telegraphs, appointed in 1852.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, David American inventors American engineers Year of birth missing Year of death missing American people in rail transportation Pennsylvania Railroad people