Man Born in 1853 Talks About Childhood in the 1860s- Enhanced Video & Audio [60 fps]

This is Elihu Thomson, engineer and inventor born on March 29, 1853. In this video, he talks about some childhood memories while living in Philadelphia in the 1860s. It was filmed on June 21, 1932. This video has been colorized, speed-adjusted and restored with audio enhancements for clarity.
Note: Thomson meant to say "75 years ago" rather than "65 years ago" in the beginning. His family shipped over to America in 1857.

This channel is not monetized (YouTube doesn't pay me to make videos).
To help keep the channel going, please consider supporting it on:

My new history channel "The History Zone"
Historical videos from all time periods

Our new music channel - Life in the Music
2-hour videos of music from the 1600s-1900s

Elihu Thomson was born March 29, 1853, in Manchester, England. His father,
who worked as a mill mechanic, was thrown out of work in 1857 and decided to
emigrate to the United States. In 1858 the family settled in Philadelphia,
where Elihu grew up. His father's work as a mechanic stimulated Thomson's
interest in mechanical and chemical processes. From his early teens he read
widely, built models, and conducted simple chemical experiments. At
Philadelphia's Central High School Thomson was an outstanding student who
attracted the interest of his instructors. Upon graduating in 1870 he was
offered a teaching position at the school.

Between 1870 and 1880 Thomson taught high school in Philadelphia. At the same
time he and a fellow teacher named Edwin J. Houston experimented with
electricity and succeeded in building a practical electric arc lighting
system. In 1879 a group of New England businessmen took an interest in
the Thomson-Houston arc lighting system and offered to finance its fabrication.
In 1880 Thomson moved to New Britain, Connecticut, as the company's chief
engineer. By 1881 Thomson had designed the best arc lighting system in the
country, but sales were slow. In 1882 a group of Lynn, Massachusetts,
businessmen purchased the company and changed the name to the Thomson-Houston Electric Company.

For this video, I colorized it using AI optimization software, interpolated it to 60 frames/second, speed-adjusted it and refined it with De Blur, Sharpness and Stabilization. For the audio, I remastered it using noise gate, compression, loudness normalization, EQ and a Limiter.

This video is made for educational purposes for fair use under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976.

[shawnpilgrim]

Imagine sitting there, talking about your life, never knowing that in 90 years a bunch of people will be listening to you from a device you would never believe could ever be possible.

[coltyn]

This is incredible that I can watch someone born almost 170 years ago speak about his life.

[TheVirginian]

I actually just Googled the guy. This isn't just any man. This man is Elihu Thompson. He was a famous inventor and industrialist. You could say this Englishman was one of the men who built American electricity.

[RSEFX]

In grade school in the mid-50's an extremely elderly man came to visit us: He had seen and shook the hand of Lincoln as a child in something like 1860-61. He shook our hands and told us "now you can tell your children you shook the hand of a man who shook Lincoln's hand. The man was going around meeting many children in schools and talking about history. I guess he was about 104-105, and was quite clear of mind and in decent health for his age.

[salg]

This guy witnessed the invention of telegraph, telephone, trains, steamboats, planes, tanks, automatic weapons, automobiles, radio, cinema and probably heard some news about a television device before dying. Amazing.

[gregsvoice]

It's amazing how much of a difference it makes having this old black and white footage colourised. It just makes it that much more real, and gives a feeling that this wasn't so long ago.

[vladtepesx]

I love how articulate he is, using advanced and exact vocabulary while speaking seemingly off the cuff. I would love if we could go back to that.

[prakashm]

You can hear kids laughing and playing in background. That's about 170 plus years ago.... wow!!

[JerseyFerdinand]

This man lived through the civil war, saw the first lightbulb, a telephone call, the radio and then silent and talking films, horses being replaced by cars. Everything we take for granted today. He saw them first. Amazing.

[pubpine]

I love how he isn’t interrupted the whole time. Interviews these days are something else

[OmegaVideoGameGod]

I know a 74 year old who was born in 1949, he told me stories about his great grandmother was 103 years old before she passed away he met her 5 years before she died, she was born in 1858 died 1961.

[SCUMMY]

My great grandma went through a lot. She was the 2nd youngest of SIXTEEN. Her oldest brother was born in 1899 and she was born in 1920. Her little sister (child #16) drowned in a lake near their house when she was 4. My great grandma watched her drown because she didn't know how to swim and they were miles away from home. It's crazy to think how these days kids wouldn't even be out unsupervised at that age. And even if they were, they would have the ability to call someone instantly. The world has changed so rapidly. My great grandma died in 2017 of old age. Full head of hair and a sense of humor. She was ready to die many years before she did. She would always talk about how she was done here. All her friends and siblings were dead. She outlived one of her own kids. And she got to see her oldest great grandchildren graduate high school. She was ready. RIP Grammy, you had a wild life, and crazy stories. I know she took the best ones with her to the grave lol.

[footstepsthroughhistory]

I'm 48. My first job, as a teen and right out of high school, was as an activity aid and nurse assistant in a nursing home. This was in the early/mid 1990s (1991-1995). We had some very old patients, a few over a hundred years old. It amazes me to recall stories that these people told of their childhood in the 1890s or early 1900s. One elderly lady, I remember her name to this day (Lucille), recalled her mother dying when she was six in 1894, and two of her siblings succumbing soon after, all due to influenza. Although she was so young when the events occurred, it stayed in her memory as fresh as if it had happened yesterday, her grief still palpable 98 years later. She was born in 1888, and was 104 when telling me these stories about how fast she had to grow up at the point of her mother's death. At age six, she was required to help out with her younger surviving siblings and do the majority of cooking. At six! Her whole life was equally sad and fascinating. She lost her husband in WWI and a son in WWII.

I was only around 18 or 19 years old, but I was enthralled with hearing her story, and the life stories of so many of these nursing home residents (the ones like her, without dementia, who, although very old, had razor sharp memories and could recall things I only read about in books). I still remember all of their names. All of them. It set me on a course in life to pursue an academic career in history, eventually earning a master's degree and becoming a historian. It all started with the stories told by very old residents in a nursing home.

To this day it astounds me that, as a woman born in the 1970s, I have spoken to and touched the hands of a few people born in the 1880s, and they have forever touched my heart. <3

[sherryfromrhodeisland]

I cannot get enough of these glimpses into the past. What a treasure.

[almeggs]

People still don’t appreciate the historical importance of this man sharing his childhood! This is a true treasure !

[danonyt]

The way he speaks… is so different. So noble 👏🏻

[Ultrasilvam]

This is so cool! He is the founder of one of the companies that merged to become General Electric, and he held over 700 patents. It just goes to show that fostering your child's creativity and knowledge is so important!

[yrosjzr]

I talked extensively to a man born in 1886. He told me stories of the past that somehow seemed magical. He died when I was 12yrs old in 1971. He was my grandpa. I visited him almost everyday.

[thinkhumanitas]

I wish we had footage like this for all of history. Being able to step into another time at a click of a button would be amazing.

[brianc]

The company this man co-founded, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, merged with Thomas Edison's company, Edison General Electric, to become General Electric in 1892.