There is a teacher named John W. Wagner who thinks that the Smithsonian
Institute is playing favorites. After studying the remarkable life of Nikola Tesla,
Wagner, along with his third grade class, started a campaign to educate the world
about the obscure electrical genius from Serbia.
Wagner and his class wrote many letters to important people asking for their
support. A former student persuaded her father, an accomplished sculptor, to
create a bust of Tesla for their class.
A Third Grade requirement is to learn cursive handwriting, so their class work
now had a purpose...writing letters to raise money for their Tesla bust.
Unfortunately, most people had never heard of Nikola Tesla. And those who had,
seemed not to want to listen.
In fact, when the bust of Tesla was finished, Wagner and his class of eager
students offered it to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Dr. Bernard
S. Finn, (Curator of the Division of Electricity and Modern Physics) refused,
claiming he had no use for the bust.
They could not understand why the Smithsonian would have no use for a
$6,000 bust of such a great American and world-class scientist. After all, Tesla was
no slouch. Much of our modern technology owes its beginnings to Tesla. In 1882
he made the discovery that changed the world ! harnessing the awesome power
of Alternating Current (AC).
In 1888 Tesla obtained U.S. patents covering an entire system of polyphase AC
that remains unchanged in principle today. Tesla then promptly sold all of his
patents to George Westinghouse, an acquisition that made the Westinghouse
Company the giant it is today.
Westinghouse and Tesla were consummate friends, but after Westinghouse died
in 1913, the company forgot about its chief benefactor and Tesla fell victim to hard
times. Tesla died January 7, 1943, alone, and all but forgotten, in a New York
hotel room, paid for by a meager stipend provided by the Yugoslavian
government.
Today, industries prosper and flourish, the world surges from the power his
fertile mind created, radios blare with news and music, their transmission made
possible by his great intellect, all telling us that the forgotten genius, Nikola Tesla,
was here.
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