Reading Between the Lines

Erik Larson’s ‘Thunderstruck’ offers an interesting blend of technology and intrigue

by Chuck Wisman

In “Thunderstruck,” Erik Larson takes readers on a wild ride describing how the lives of two very different men intersected at the turn of the 20th century. Image credit: Amazon.com

“Thunderstruck,” by the New York Times bestselling author Erik Larson, is nonfiction at its best. Larson takes us on a wild ride describing how the lives of two very different men intersected at the turn of the 20th century.

The book focuses on Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy, and Hawley Crippen, a small, meek and unassuming man who is often described as the second-most-famous murderer in English history (after Jack the Ripper).

Marconi‘s father was Italian and his mother was Anne Jameson, daughter of the famous Irish whiskey empire. Although he was not a trained scientist and not college educated, he became an inspired inventor who began experimenting with wireless telegraphy while still in his early 20s. A tinkerer by habit, he experimented entirely by trial and error, often expanding upon the ideas of others.

Many scientists of the time believed it impossible to send signals through the air. Undersea cables connected North America and Europe at the time, but ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication were sorely needed.

Obsessed since childhood with the concept of telegraphy without wires, his initial attempts at wireless communication were very primitive, involving higher and higher towers, immense power generation, and high-voltage electricity.  At one point, the sending of signals was accompanied by loud booms and bright flashes of electrical discharges lighting the night sky. He even tried balloons and kites to erect ever higher antennae. It was a Herculean endeavor by Marconi to extend a signal even a few yards, let alone a few hundred yards and beyond. During his efforts, he used up prodigious amounts of investors’ patience and money while continuing his trial-and-error method of scientific advancement.

Initially, Marconi was successful at transmitting Morse code via cables and ultimately wireless. While he was making great inroads experimenting with wireless telegraphy in the late 1890s, others were racing to develop wireless before he could. This included Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Telefunken company of Germany. At the same time, shipping companies were competing to develop and use ever faster ocean liners to cross the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, Hawley Crippen grew up in a prominent and successful business family in Coldwater, Michigan (of all places!). He attended the University of Michigan School of Homeopathy but never finished. Subsequently, he traveled to England and practiced medicine at the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, popularly shortened to “Bedlam.” He later became a successful purveyor of patent medicines which were quite popular at the time.

In 1892, Crippen married Cora Turner who was a polar opposite to Crippen. He was meek, mild and of small stature, while she was curvaceous, outgoing and dedicated to finding success in opera and acting. Crippen and Turner married in 1893.  Cora, who used the stage name “Belle Elmore,” readily took advantage of her husband’s wealth for tutoring and classes in acting.  She was a prodigious purchaser of clothes and jewelry and became a social gadfly in London. Later, “Belle” developed a close friendship with another actor whose photo she kept on display in her home. She was often seen about town in the actor’s company, and, of course, meek Hawley Crippen had little to say about the relationship.

Subsequently, Crippen becomes infatuated with another woman, loses interest in his wife, Cora, and thus plans and executes an almost perfect murder.

Larson takes readers on a roller-coaster ride involving the development of telegraphy technology and a Scotland Yard detective’s cross-ocean hunt for a murderer. In doing so, he illustrates how Marconi’s wireless telegraphy played a major role in the pursuit of the murderer.

As an added feature, the book contains a number of photographs of the participants in this story.

“Thunderstruck” is available, by order, through CADL’s Stockbridge Library. Larson also has a number of other very popular books of historical nonfiction, including, among others, “The Devil in the White City,” “Dead Wake,” “In the Garden of Beasts,” and “Isaac’s Storm.”

Chuck Wisman still resides locally on the family farm and is retired from state government after almost 40 years of service. His father was an Air Force radio operator on B-24 heavy bombers and was stationed in England throughout WWII. The elder Wisman’s affinity and aptitude for high speed Morse code used in Air Force communications sparked his son’s interest in this story about wireless telegraphy.