In 2003, Museum President John Jenkins acquired a 19th-century electromagnet as part of a larger collection of early electromagnetic apparatus. Listed in the appraisal as a “Primitive electromagnet, American, circa 1830s,” it was displayed at the Spark Museum in the 1990s under the label: “Early electromagnet, contemporary with Joseph Henry, American, circa 1830s.”
Nearly a decade later, around 2010, Jenkins received a surprising email from Michael Littman, an engineering professor at Princeton University. Littman and graduate student Lucas E. Stern were studying Joseph Henry’s 1835 vibrating motor—widely regarded as the first electromagnetic machine—which still resided at Princeton, where Henry once taught.
Using computer modeling, Littman and Stern discovered something puzzling: the motor, as it had been configured for over a century—with a long bar magnet—couldn’t have functioned as originally designed. Further analysis revealed that the wooden supports for the magnet were curved, suggesting they were meant to cradle C-shaped magnets, not a straight bar.
Digging deeper into Henry’s writings, the researchers uncovered a letter in which Henry described using C-shaped magnets. They eventually found one such magnet of the appropriate size and shape in the Princeton collection—but only one.
The second magnet remained missing until Stern, while conducting a Google image search, stumbled upon what appeared to be a perfect match on Jenkins’ collection website. Littman contacted Jenkins, requesting measurements and detailed photos. The analysis confirmed it: the magnet in Jenkins’ collection was a perfect twin to the one at Princeton.
In 2011, Littman and Stern published their findings in the American Journal of Physics, shedding new light on a misunderstood piece of scientific history: https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/article-abstract/79/2/172/1043729/A-new-understanding-of-the-first-electromagnetic?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Then, on July 21, 2025, the story came full circle. Littman, passing through Bellingham, stopped at the Spark Museum to meet Jenkins in person. Upon arrival, he opened his suitcase—and to Jenkins’ astonishment—revealed the original 1835 Henry motor and one of the C-shaped electromagnets. Jenkins immediately retrieved his magnet from its display case. The two men carefully assembled the motor, reuniting it with its original components for the first time in well over a century. As Jenkins later described it, “I felt the world of science shake at that moment.”