Alfred Ely Beach was an American
inventor and
journalist. He was born on Sept. 1, 1826 in Springfield, Mass., U.S.
Beach's father, Moses Beach was also an inventor and journalist and this was passed onto Alfred. Beach started working for the New York Sun, New York's first penny daily paper, owned by his father.
The Scientific American (now Scientific American) with a friend, Orsun D. Munn. Beach became the editor and transformed it into the magazine we have today. The magazine is responsible for stimulating many technological innovations of the 19th century.
Together with Munn and Salem H. Wales, Beach also started a patent agency, called Munn & Co. Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph to Beach and Samuel Morse and Alexander Bell sought advice from the agency.
In 1848, Beach's father handed management of the New York Sun to Beach and his brother, Moses.
In 1853, Beach handed over control of the New York Sun to his brother and started his own publication, called the People's Journal.
Also, Beach found time to be an inventor. In 1856, he won first prize and a gold medal at New York's Crystal Palace Exhibition for a typewriter for the blind that moved the carraige along after each keystroke. This is the mechanism still used today.
In 1867, he proposed an underground pneumatic train to help solve New York's growing traffic congestion problem. Even after constructing a small section of the tunnel, the idea eventually flopped.
Beach died on Jan. 1, 1896 in New York.