Shaw, William E.

Attended the Portland (ME) School for the Deaf, then graduated the American School for the Deaf. Invented at least 50 devices for the benefit of the deaf in those pre-electronic days, including alarm clocks, door signals, baby cry signals, and even burglar and fire alarms. His "talkless telephone" used electricity to transmit and receive messages letter by letter, a precursor of the TTY, and won admiring notice from Alexander Graham Bell. Later, at Thomas Edison's invitation, he went to work as an electrician in Edison's laboratory in West Orange, NJ.