Man Born in 1853 Talks About Childhood in the 1860s- Enhanced Video & Audio [60 fps]

Imagine sitting there, talking about your life, never knowing that in 90 years a bunch of people will be listening to you from a device you would never believe could ever be possible.

This is incredible that I can watch someone born almost 170 years ago speak about his life.

I actually just Googled the guy. This isn't just any man. This man is Elihu Thompson. He was a famous inventor and industrialist. You could say this Englishman was one of the men who built American electricity.

In grade school in the mid-50's an extremely elderly man came to visit us: He had seen and shook the hand of Lincoln as a child in something like 1860-61. He shook our hands and told us "now you can tell your children you shook the hand of a man who shook Lincoln's hand. The man was going around meeting many children in schools and talking about history. I guess he was about 104-105, and was quite clear of mind and in decent health for his age.

This guy witnessed the invention of telegraph, telephone, trains, steamboats, planes, tanks, automatic weapons, automobiles, radio, cinema and probably heard some news about a television device before dying. Amazing.

This man lived through the civil war, saw the first lightbulb, a telephone call, the radio and then silent and talking films, horses being replaced by cars. Everything we take for granted today. He saw them first. Amazing.

I love how articulate he is, using advanced and exact vocabulary while speaking seemingly off the cuff. I would love if we could go back to that.

My great grandma went through a lot. She was the 2nd youngest of SIXTEEN. Her oldest brother was born in 1899 and she was born in 1920. Her little sister (child #16) drowned in a lake near their house when she was 4. My great grandma watched her drown because she didn't know how to swim and they were miles away from home. It's crazy to think how these days kids wouldn't even be out unsupervised at that age. And even if they were, they would have the ability to call someone instantly. The world has changed so rapidly. My great grandma died in 2017 of old age. Full head of hair and a sense of humor. She was ready to die many years before she did. She would always talk about how she was done here. All her friends and siblings were dead. She outlived one of her own kids. And she got to see her oldest great grandchildren graduate high school. She was ready. RIP Grammy, you had a wild life, and crazy stories. I know she took the best ones with her to the grave lol.

This man was much more than an ordinary engineer and inventor. He co-founded General Electric with Thomas Edison and has quite a lot written about him on the Internet.

I'm 48. My first job, as a teen and right out of high school, was as an activity aid and nurse assistant in a nursing home. This was in the early/mid 1990s (1991-1995). We had some very old patients, a few over a hundred years old. It amazes me to recall stories that these people told of their childhood in the 1890s or early 1900s. One elderly lady, I remember her name to this day (Lucille), recalled her mother dying when she was six in 1894, and two of her siblings succumbing soon after, all due to influenza. Although she was so young when the events occurred, it stayed in her memory as fresh as if it had happened yesterday, her grief still palpable 98 years later. She was born in 1888, and was 104 when telling me these stories about how fast she had to grow up at the point of her mother's death. At age six, she was required to help out with her younger surviving siblings and do the majority of cooking. At six! Her whole life was equally sad and fascinating. She lost her husband in WWI and a son in WWII. I was only around 18 or 19 years old, but I was enthralled with hearing her story, and the life stories of so many of these nursing home residents (the ones like her, without dementia, who, although very old, had razor sharp memories and could recall things I only read about in books). I still remember all of their names. All of them. It set me on a course in life to pursue an academic career in history, eventually earning a master's degree and becoming a historian. It all started with the stories told by very old residents in a nursing home. To this day it astounds me that, as a woman born in the 1970s, I have spoken to and touched the hands of a few people born in the 1880s, and they have forever touched my heart. <3

The way he speaks… is so different. So noble 👏🏻

I know a 74 year old who was born in 1949, he told me stories about his great grandmother was 103 years old before she passed away he met her 5 years before she died, she was born in 1858 died 1961.

It's amazing how much of a difference it makes having this old black and white footage colourised. It just makes it that much more real, and gives a feeling that this wasn't so long ago.

We’re hearing directly from one of the people responsible for the lighting and electrical systems that completely changed the world. Incredible.

People still don’t appreciate the historical importance of this man sharing his childhood! This is a true treasure !

So revealing to see this! His humility and industriousness and the joy of learning and creating, and the simple joys of life are so evident in this man! He reminds me an elderly man I knew who was maybe a bit younger than him ... that same sense of appreciation for life, and the sense of wonder ...

This is so cool! He is the founder of one of the companies that merged to become General Electric, and he held over 700 patents. It just goes to show that fostering your child's creativity and knowledge is so important!

I love how he isn’t interrupted the whole time. Interviews these days are something else

This sort of content is so interesting. Other comments noting how incredible it is to see someone in the flesh speak of times we think are so long ago. But I really like how well he remembered a book he had read as a child 60 years before. The power of books and of ideas.

I wish we had footage like this for all of history. Being able to step into another time at a click of a button would be amazing.