Charity surpasses goal to buy Tesla lab, now aims to set up museum on site
Goal quickly achieved thanks to support from popular blog “The Oatmeal”
Matthew Inman, the brilliant mind behind renowned comic-blog “The Oatmeal” recently used his online clout to popularize a charity he set up on crowd-funding platform IndieGoGo, with the goal of raising the funds necessary for a non-profit organization to secure Nikola Tesla’s final laboratory in Shoreham, New York, for the future development of a Tesla museum.
Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal set up a charity to support a non-profit organization’s attempt to secure a Tesla laboratory and convert it into a museum.
The original goal was $850,000. At the time that this article has gone live, his charity has raised close to $1.2 million . . . with 32 days to go.
Giving Tesla the respect he deserves (finally)
Nikola Tesla can be considered many things: inventor, physicist, engineer, scientist; one thing he is not, however, is respected. Just ask any student of the American education system if they’ve heard his name before or if they’re more familiar with names like Edison and Marconi.
It’s a shame because Tesla is the brains – brain, really – behind such revolutionary technologies as the alternating current electrical system, radio, radar, x-rays, transistors, and more (much, much more as a matter of fact). And yet, he does not have a single museum in the entire United States dedicated to him and all of his inventions.
Well, thanks to Inman and the online support he received, this will soon change. (Editor’s note: You can read The Oatmeal’s rather candid history of Tesla here.)
The Wardenclyff laboratory
In the early 1900s, Tesla constructed a tower that adjoined his Shoreham, New York-based laboratory, referred to as “Wardenclyffe.”
The Wardenclyff laboratory is located in Shoreham, New York. (Via: adafruit.com)
The theory behind the tower was to generate electricity and wirelessly transmit it to the rest of the world. It was a lofty idea, but failed for two reasons: (1) Initial attempts at transmitting electricity failed due to insufficient experimentation, and (2) J.P. Morgan froze their investment in Tesla’s project because of the financial panic of 1910.
As a result of the halt on the project’s progress, Tesla was forced to sell the land to pay off his overdue rent. The site’s new owners then destroyed Tesla’s tower for scrap in 1917.
Even though the tower’s no longer there, the land, laboratory, and foundation upon which the tower stood are all still present . . . for now.
Securing the property, building the museum
The aforementioned non-profit organization has been after this property for 15 years now. At present, it’s for sale for $1.6 million. New York State has agreed to provide a matching grant of $850,000 for the property, meaning the organization needed to raise just $850,000 to officially claim ownership.
It all sounded promising for the organization, that is, until an offer was placed on the table by a developer, whose goal is to buy the land, tear down the laboratory, and convert the area into retail space (ask any local resident and they’ll tell you that another strip mall is the last thing Long Island needs).
This is where Inman and his Oatmeal faithful stepped in. A charity was set up on the crowd-funding site IndieGoGo to generate the $850K necessary to outbid the developer and buy the land so that it can be permanently protected as a Nikola Tesla Science Center.
The charity was up for nine days before it surpassed the $1 million mark. Couple that with the $850,000 that New York State agreed to put in and the Tesla organization very quickly had nearly $2 million in their pockets.
Next steps
Inman has stated that he plans to keep the charity going for the full 45 day-run because while they surpassed the amount necessary to secure the land, it’s not nearly enough to build a museum and science center. He figures that every extra dollar donated “will go toward restoring the property, building exhibits, and turning this land into something worthy of Tesla’s awesomeness.”
If you’re interested in donating to the charity itself, you can do so here.
And if you have an extra few minutes, make sure to check out The Oatmeal’s very entertaining reason why Tesla deserves his own museum here. ■
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