Next year, the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and the L.A. Public Library will unveil a new project titled No Prior Art. This exhibition and programming series is part of the Getty Foundation's third Pacific Standard Time initiative, focusing on the collaborative relationship between the arts and science. Our project, in particular, will examine invention as the bridge between these fields. The Los Angeles Central Library has long been a resource for local inventors and innovators using the library as an official U.S. Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC). No Prior Art will explore the history of California invention and art and their close ties to the Central Library. Throughout our research, several interesting themes have emerged as central to the process of invention.
One of the most important themes related to invention and innovation is often overlooked: failure. Successful inventions are rarely created on the first try. The process of innovation requires a series of trial and error for inventors to test ideas and improve upon them. However, the attempts which do not ultimately succeed are quickly forgotten, sometimes to the relief of their creators. Failure has often become stigmatized rather than recognized as an essential step and an act of creativity. The modern development of California has been colored by individual innovators' desire to create and their failures along the way. Among the many who came to California during the Gold Rush and in subsequent generations were inventors and innovators who sought to solve the unique issues they experienced. Their ideas would ultimately transform numerous aspects of daily life in fields such as agriculture, entertainment, and through some particularly curious anecdotes we've uncovered involving transportation.
Aviation and the race to construct the first successful flying machine was an international effort in which California inventors helped lead the way. San Francisco inventor Frederick Marriott envisioned a new type of flying machine that would today be considered an early blimp. Marriott hoped to create airship travel between New York and California and built a 37-foot-long airship called the Hermes Jr. Avitor. Shown off for the first time in the Bay Area in 1869, this device was powered by a steam engine and successfully flew for one mile. This was the first unmanned aerial vehicle to fly in the United States by its own power. While Marriott's invention failed to meet the expectation of cross-country travel, it was a necessary breakthrough in aviation, which would become a major California industry and paved the way for the first-ever International Air Meet in Los Angeles in 1910. Around this same time, other inventors similarly attempted to make other modes of transportation easier and quicker.
In 1876, S. R. Mathewson from Gilroy, California, unveiled a new locomotive for tramways powered by a 5-horsepower steam engine. His vehicle was shaped like a horse "so as not to frighten the horses in the streets." With the ability to go eight miles per hour, this invention provided an alternative to other locomotives that could distress animals and create chaos. A few years later, San Francisco inventor William A. Richardson created a swimming device that was meant to increase the user's speed. The swimming apparatus was claimed to reach speeds of four knots, or around five miles an hour. The user would work the device by cranking with their hands and feet, which would power propellers to make swimming easier and faster.
Neither of these inventions took off, and the swimming device would prove to be ineffective. While these ideas may have failed, their creators were attempting to solve challenges many innovators continue to work on. In reality, inventions are a series of improvements that require making incremental changes to the work of others. The preservation of failed machines like Mathewson's horse locomotive or Richardson's swimming device are rare. Countless other iterations and experimental versions of things we still use today have been lost to history, for better or worse.
Inventors in Los Angeles were no less creative or quirky than their northern counterparts. Gaylord Wilshire, the namesake of Wilshire Boulevard, is known today for being an eccentric character of L.A. history often derided as a "millionaire socialist." However, after Wilshire's failed career as a politician, he also had a stint as a failed inventor. In 1925, after 15 years of tinkering, Wilshire presented a brand-new medical device called the I-on-a-co. This machine was an electric belt that claimed to improve the health of its users in many spectacular ways. The device was popular, and consumers bought 50,000 units of the I-on-a-co without knowing that the belt did not, in fact, work. Doctors and medical experts soon caught on and denounced Wilshire's invention as quackery. Was this device made to be useless? Or did Wilshire believe that his I-on-a-co could deliver results through electricity? Regardless of his intentions, this miracle cure proved to be a flop. Wilshire would never again try his hand at inventing and died penniless in 1927. His life story, from multiple attempts at political office to his electric belt, is one of bold-faced failure that seems made for Hollywood.
Beyond the work of engineers and scientists, failure and the process of reinvention similarly applies to the fields of art and creative production. Just as inventions require a series of revisions, artworks can require multiple attempts before achieving the desired outcome. Some artists have explored this concept explicitly in their work in an attempt to destigmatize failure.
One such artist, Claire B Jones, created an entire art exhibition in which she highlighted sculptures that failed to live up to her artistic standards. Jones was inspired by her experiences in school, in which she was forced to confront failure and the opinions of others. She says, "Art doesn't magically happen, it's constant work, and there are often many missteps and mishaps along the way." In her 2022 exhibition called A Perception of Failure, Jones reveals her perceived flaws to the audience and begs the viewer to consider whether this information has changed their view of her art.
Another artist, Paul Ramírez-Jones' Heavier Than Air series, explores aerial innovation from the late 19th century, not unlike some of the Victorian-era experiments referenced above. He recreated prototypes of devices that failed to become the first successful flying machine. His work was done with the intention of valuing failure and the efforts put into creativity and showing an appreciation for the inherent aesthetic appeal of the prototype. He modeled his artwork off the designs of noted inventors like Alexander Graham Bell and Lawrence Hargrave. While their flying prototypes were unsuccessful, both men would eventually go on to find success in their experimentation. Bell is, of course, famous for his role in the invention of the telephone, and some of Hargrave's later creations would break ground in the field of aviation. Ramírez-Jones' artwork demonstrates that failure is not the end of the journey.
The L.A. Public Library has always played a role in the development of arts and inventions throughout the city. The library's patent collections have provided countless local innovators with the necessary resources to perfect their ideas. In recent years, the library has made efforts to provide further resources to creative visitors. In 2019, the Central Library opened the Octavia Lab: a makerspace that provides free access to high-quality creative technology. Visitors can experiment with their ideas using sewing machines, 3D printers, a photography station, a music studio, and more.
Most importantly, visitors are free to fail. The lab's namesake, Octavia Butler, was a prolific science fiction author and pioneering Black writer. She was also no stranger to failure and experienced a series of rejections before her career took off in the 1980s. Lauren Kratz, a librarian in the Science, Technology & Patents Department who oversees the Octavia Lab, has seen firsthand the role failure plays in visitors' creative process. Lab members make reservations to use certain equipment, and Kratz says, "Sometimes if a project doesn't end up the way they want, they're a little disappointed, but I notice they reserve it again, and they get it the next time." Failure provides various avenues to approach a project again and serves as a motivator. Kratz often tells visitors to "expect that you may possibly fail, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to get there!"
While failure is an unavoidable aspect of innovation and creativity, it is also a personal experience that can be fruitful. The feeling of failure can be profound and disheartening and result in people failing to continue their work, and while artists and thinkers have made efforts to destigmatize this concept, it requires a culture change as well. Failure should be celebrated as a unique opportunity arising from disaster or miscalculation. As librarian Lauren Kratz says, "I think it helps your self-confidence if you fail first because then it keeps you going!" It's certainly something we're keeping in mind as we look forward to exploring the creative process through the No Prior Art project, coming to a library near you in 2024.
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Post written by: Antonio Cáceres
About the author—Antonio Cáceres is a junior at UC Berkeley studying history and public policy and is currently a Getty Marrow Curatorial Intern with the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. As a part of the internship, he is supporting research for the Library Foundation and L.A. Public Library's upcoming No Prior Art project, which will be a part of the Getty Foundation's 2024 Pacific Standard Time initiative.