Trowbridge, John
Entry updated 31 July 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1843-1923) US professor of physics at Harvard and author, not to be confused with John Townsend Trowbridge (1827-1916), who also wrote stories for children, including a book-length poem, Darius Green and His Flying-Machine (1910), the winged machine of the title not actually capable of flight; he has also been listed, incorrectly, as the author of The Resolute Mr Pansy (1897) [see below]. Trowbridge himself, an advocate of the use of electricity as a universal Power Source, and the force behind a marriage of research and pedagogy which climaxed in the opening of the Jefferson Laboratory in 1884, wrote some boy's tales advancing his opinions, which are of sf interest. The Greatthings sequence begins with The Electrical Boy; Or, the Career of Greatman and Greatthings (1891), in which various scientific and medical Discoveries are made possible through electricity, thanks to Greatthings and his Inventions. The young protagonist experiences life in a Dime Museum and there he meets a giant (see Great and Small), whom he returns to Montana to die, where he will be a phenomenon for archaeologists of the future. Eventually the Electrical Boy becomes a benevolent magnate. Three Boys on an Electrical Boat (1894) also focuses on Greatthings, who has invented an electric torpedo, which is installed on the Electron, an advanced warship. Though not part of the series, The Resolute Mr Pansy: An Electrical Story for Boys (1897) is also an adventure story for boys, featuring a new schoolteacher who invents a dynamo which electrifies the lads' home town. [JC]
John Trowbridge
born Boston, Massachusetts: 5 August 1843
died Cambridge, Massachusetts: 18 February 1923
works (selected)
series
Greatthings
- The Electrical Boy; Or, the Career of Greatman and Greatthings (Boston, Massachusetts: Roberts Brothers, 1891) [Greatthings: illus/hb/L Bridgman]
- Three Boys on an Electrical Boat (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1894) [Greatthings: hb/]
individual titles
- The Resolute Mr Pansy: An Electrical Story for Boys (Boston, Massachusetts: Roberts Brothers, 1897) [illus/hb/Victor A Searles]
links
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