Thomas Davenport - Definition and Overview

Thomas Davenport (1802-1851) was a Vermont blacksmith.

With his wife (Emily Davenport), and a colleague (Orange Smalley), he invented the electric motor and electric locomotive circa 1834. Thomas Davenport received the first patent on an electric machine in 1837.

Further Reading

• Frank Wicks. "The Blacksmith's Motor. Electricity, magnetism, and motion: A self-taught Vermonter pointed the direction for lighting the world." (http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/july99/features/blacksmith/blacksmith.html)   Mechanical Engineering (http://www.memagazine.org), July 1999 (http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/july99/features/feat_toc.html).

• Patent 132. http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/feb25b.htm

• Smalley and Davenport's shop. http://www.uvm.edu/~histpres/SD/hist.html