Francis Robbins Upton
American physicist (1852–1921)
Francis Robbins Upton (1852 in Peabody, Massachusetts – March 10, 1921, in Orange, New Jersey) was an American physicist and mathematician. Upton worked alongside Thomas Edison in the development of incandescent light bulbs, electric generators, and electric power distribution. He was the first president of the Edison Pioneers.
Early life
Francis Upton was the son of Elijah Wood Upton and Lucy Elizabeth Winchester. Elijah was well educated and after, he did European travel. Later he was forced to take over his father's glue business due to his father's illness. Francis was 16 by this time and studying at Phillips Academy in Andover, after he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1875 at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME. There he met Elizabeth F. Perry, later to become his wife.
Francis Upton also attended Berlin University and Princeton University. Francis was the first ever to officially receive his doctoral degree from Princeton University. Upton was then hired by Thomas Edison.
“Francis Robbins Upton” enters the record as american physicist (1852–1921). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Francis, Robbins and Upton can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q339294. VIAF identifies the subject as 3907099. The Library of Congress control number is n85135660. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1852, 1921 and 1875.
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This entry incorporates text from “Francis Robbins Upton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.