A 1920s portable book reader
Looking for some information about World War I in the Library of Congress of the United States, I came across this man in a series of photographs dating back to 1920…
The most curious thing is that it was precisely him that I was looking for. This is Bradley Allen Fiske (1854–1942), Rear Admiral of the US Navy. In particular, I was interested in checking a number of details about his early 20th century works in which he advocated the future importance of naval aviation and, by the way, described the use of seaplanes for launching radio-controlled torpedoes. I knew that I had patented many inventions, some of them related to the navy, precision instruments for navigation and naval aviation, of course, but this series of images made me look for his patents on portable reading devices, which he developed when he was already retired (see Fiske’s patents, of which there are several dedicated to miniaturized book reading devices).
As can be seen from the photographs and patents, it was a gadget that could be used to read books specially created by means of miniaturization technology (something similar to microfilming). These books, reduced to the smallest possible size, took the form of long tokens that could be stored in a “portable library” so that hundreds of books could be transported without taking up much space. However, the “reproduction” of the content, i.e. viewing through a lens system as if it were a microscope, does not seem to be very comfortable.
As reported in the magazine La Unión Ilustrada (Spain), July 23, 1922:
Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske has just patented a very curious device, which can produce a real revolution in the art of printing. The device so-called “Fiske Reading Machine” aims to reduce the volume and weight of books dramatically, making it easy to carry in your pocket even if it contains many thousands of books. Indeed, on each page of the books which are to be read with the help of the new machine, there are approximately 10,000 words and it should be noted that each of these pages is not much longer than that of an ordinary book, being, on the other hand, much narrower. Naturally, it is not a usual print but a photographic reduction in which the letters would not be distinguished without the help of a lens with ten magnification diameters. This lens, placed on a movable frame, is placed in a special mount where the page to be read is fastened, so that this lens, by means of a set of screws, can run through the entire page. (…) According to the inventor’s calculations, the paper used in each copy of a work prepared for the new reading machine is the sixteenth part of that used in a book printed by ordinary procedures.
