Thaddeus Cahill (June 18, 1867 – April 12, 1934) was a prominent inventor of the early 20th century. He is widely credited with the invention of the first electromechanical musical instrument, which he dubbed the

telharmonium The Telharmonium (also known as the Dynamophone) was an early electrical organ, developed by Thaddeus Cahill c. 1896 and patented in 1897. , filed 1896-02-04. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was hear ...

. He studied the physics of music at

Oberlin Conservatory The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a private music conservatory in Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1865 and is the second oldest conservatory and oldest continually operating conservatory in the United States. It is one of ...

in Oberlin, Ohio. After working as a clerk for Congress in Washington D.C. to pay for his college studies, he graduated from the Columbian (now

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

) Law School in 1889. He became convinced that music could be made with electricity (and also worked on an electric typewriter). He showed his first teleharmonium to Lord Kelvin in 1902. That year he established a laboratory at Holyoke, where he was joined by his brother, Arthur T. Cahill, and where the two would first demonstrate the teleharmonium to a public audience. Cahill had tremendous ambitions for his invention; he wanted

music to be broadcast into hotels, restaurants, theaters, and even houses via the

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

line. At a starting weight of 7 tons (and up to 200 tons) and a price tag of $200,000 (approx. $5,514,000 today), only three telharmoniums were ever built, and Cahill's vision was never fully implemented.

References

Literature

* * Reynold Weidenaar:
Magic Music from the Telharmonium
', The Scarecrow Press Inc.: London (1995).

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cahill, Thaddeus 1867 births 1934 deaths Inventors of musical instruments American inventors Oberlin College people People from Holyoke, Massachusetts People from Oberlin, Ohio