Leland I Anderson: Difference between revisions
Enhance: add death (15 Oct 2021) and fix present tense; restructure into Career / Tesla scholarship / The Anderson archive sections; add University of Minnesota, Sperry Univac, Dept of Interior, the Tesliana newsletter, the Tesla Presents series and the archive now at the Heinz History Center; fix mangled '?' and point known_for at Nikola Tesla |
Add exact birth date (12 Oct 1928, St. Paul MN) and switch to {{death date and age}} so the age renders — he died three days after his 93rd birthday |
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| name = Leland I. Anderson | | name = Leland I. Anderson | ||
| alt = Leland I. Anderson | | alt = Leland I. Anderson | ||
| birth_date = 1928 | | birth_date = {{birth date|1928|10|12|mf=y}} | ||
| death_date = {{death date|2021|10|15| | | birth_place = St. Paul, Minnesota, United States | ||
| death_date = {{death date and age|2021|10|15|1928|10|12}} | |||
| fields = [[Electrical Engineer]], Technical writing, History of science | | fields = [[Electrical Engineer]], Technical writing, History of science | ||
| alma_mater = University of Minnesota | | alma_mater = University of Minnesota | ||
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'''Leland I. Anderson''' (1928 – 15 October 2021) was an American electrical engineer, technical writer and archivist, and the foremost historian of [[Nikola Tesla]]. More than any other individual he is credited with the '''recovery of Tesla's reputation''' in the second half of the twentieth century — assembling the documentary record at a time when Tesla had been largely written out of the standard histories, and making it available to others. | '''Leland I. Anderson''' (12 October 1928 – 15 October 2021) was an American electrical engineer, technical writer and archivist, and the foremost historian of [[Nikola Tesla]]. More than any other individual he is credited with the '''recovery of Tesla's reputation''' in the second half of the twentieth century — assembling the documentary record at a time when Tesla had been largely written out of the standard histories, and making it available to others. | ||
Anderson's contribution to the tradition documented on this wiki is not a theory but something arguably rarer: he ensured that the '''primary sources survived and could be read'''. The Tesla literature catalogued here rests very largely on material he located, transcribed, annotated and published. | Anderson's contribution to the tradition documented on this wiki is not a theory but something arguably rarer: he ensured that the '''primary sources survived and could be read'''. The Tesla literature catalogued here rests very largely on material he located, transcribed, annotated and published. | ||
Latest revision as of 20:49, 20 July 2026
Leland I. Anderson | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 12, 1928 St. Paul, Minnesota, United States |
| Died | October 15, 2021 (aged 93) |
| Residence | Denver, CO, United States |
| Nationality | USA |
| Alma mater | University of Minnesota |
| Known for | Tesla scholarship, the first comprehensive Tesla bibliography, the Tesla Society |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Electrical Engineer, Technical writing, History of science |
Leland I. Anderson (12 October 1928 – 15 October 2021) was an American electrical engineer, technical writer and archivist, and the foremost historian of Nikola Tesla. More than any other individual he is credited with the recovery of Tesla's reputation in the second half of the twentieth century — assembling the documentary record at a time when Tesla had been largely written out of the standard histories, and making it available to others.
Anderson's contribution to the tradition documented on this wiki is not a theory but something arguably rarer: he ensured that the primary sources survived and could be read. The Tesla literature catalogued here rests very largely on material he located, transcribed, annotated and published.
Career
Anderson graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1954 with a degree in electrical engineering. He worked for Sperry Univac in Minnesota during the 1960s, and later moved to Denver, Colorado, where he was employed by the United States Department of the Interior. His Tesla work was carried on alongside this professional career rather than as part of it.
Tesla scholarship
Anderson's interest in Tesla took root in the early 1950s and continued for some seventy years.
He compiled the first comprehensive bibliography of Tesla's life and work, encapsulating hundreds of scientific papers and newspaper articles — the reference tool that made systematic Tesla scholarship possible, published as Dr. Nikola Tesla Bibliography. He founded the Tesla Society and edited its newsletter, Tesliana, for many years from the 1950s onward.
His major editorial achievement is the Tesla Presents series, in which he prepared and annotated primary Tesla material for publication:
- Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents — Tesla's own extended account, given under oath in pre-trial testimony, of the development of his alternating-current system.
- Nikola Tesla: Lecture Before the New York Academy of Sciences, April 6, 1897 — a lecture on the Lenard and Röntgen streams, reconstructed by Anderson from surviving fragments.
- Nikola Tesla: Guided Weapons and Computer Technology.
- Nikola Tesla's Teleforce and Telegeodynamics Proposals.
He also wrote the monographs Priority in the Invention of Radio - Tesla vs. Marconi, which assembles the documentary case for Tesla's priority over Marconi, and Ball Lightning & Tesla's Electric Fireballs, on Tesla's production and observation of ball lightning.
The Anderson archive
Over seven decades Anderson assembled what became the largest Tesla archive in the United States, and the second largest in the world after that of the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade. The collection is now curated by the Heinz History Center, the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania.
The archive is the reason much of the Tesla material on this wiki exists in citable form: correspondence, testimony, lecture texts and press coverage that would otherwise have been dispersed or lost.
Related work on this wiki
Tesla is among the most heavily represented subjects here; see Nikola Tesla and the material indexed under Category:Tesla. Anderson's own papers catalogued on this wiki are listed below.
Abstracts
- 2006 - "Final Thoughts on Tesla's Work with High-Frequency Alternating Currents"
- 1998 - "Rare Notes from Tesla on Wardenclyffe"
Books
- 2002 - "Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents" (Read in full)
- 1998 - "Nikola Tesla Guided Weapons & Computer Technology (Tesla Presents Series, Part 3)" (Read in full)
- 1998 - "Nikola Teslas Teleforce & Telegeodynamics Proposals (Tesla Presents Series, Part 4)" (Read in full)
- 1994 - "Nikola Tesla Lecture Before the New York Academy of Sciences - April 6, 1897: The Streams of Lenard and Roentgen and Novel Apparatus for Their Production (Tesla Presents Series, Part 2)" (Read in full)
- 1979 / 1995 - "Dr. Nikola Tesla Bibliography" (Read in full)
- "Ball Lightning & Tesla's Electric Fireballs" (Read in full)
- "Priority in the Invention of Radio - Tesla vs. Marconi" (Read in full)