Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe INVENTION It was simply the thing to do. Victorian gentlemen invented and tinkered in science. This was an age in which the U.S. Patent Office received quite a spike of new patent applications. Advertisement Thomas Edison --- well known for the light bulb and running Mr. Maxim off to Europe to invent the machine gun -- was a prolific inventor. He demanded that his laboratories produce new inventions on a regular basis. Daily, weekly, monthly -- it was an invention factory. So, with that in mind, it's not difficult to imagine that Edison and crew were out to influence the printing industry as well. In Edison's 1876 patent drawings of a variety of electric engravers lie the blueprints for the modern tattoo machine used today. Edison's attempt was to modernize the printing industry with his electric stencil maker. He ended up forever changed the world of tattoo and should now be know as "Eddie." Before the common use and convenience of electric power, tattooing was performed with primitive hand-held pokers. The geographic origins of the tattoo seem to be in the Pacific Island with the natives. Sailors brought back "skin art," and the occasional pineapple, with them to Europe and America. Yikes! They used simple instruments -- a sharp bone, stick or a ship's sewing needle --- that remained, basically, unchanged for thousands of years (or at least as long as historians can document tattoo). Advertisement By 1884, a New Yorker named O'Riley had modified the Edison stenciling invention and was marketing it as the new electrical sensation. The sensation part, well...? Send your ideas and comments to [email protected]
