It was Miller Hutchison who invented the first electrical hearing aid around 1895, which then had a name tough to pronounce – Akoulathon. People also called it the micro-telephone, as it was very similar to the early telephone made by Alexander Graham Bell. A large carbon microphone called the ‘transmitter’ caught the sound and delivered it to a small carbon ‘receiver’ which reached the sound to the ear though headphones.
Hutchison joined Edison’s group in 1909, and served as chief engineer at the West Orange Laboratory from 1912 to 1918. A brilliant electrical engineer, he was awarded an honorary Electrical Engineering degree from Auburn University, and an honorary Ph.D. from Spring Hill College. The Klaxon warning device invented by him was widely used on the ships of the U.S. Navy.
He later formed his own company named Miller Reese Hutchison Incorporated, which made and sold improved versions of batteries developed at Edison’s laboratory.
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