Debunking the Mechanical Turk Helped Set Edgar Allan Poe on the Path to Mystery Writing

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2021-07-08 08:30:09

At the beginning of the 1770s, Wolfgang von Kempelen, a European inventor, premiered his newest creation: a robotic chess player. “Known initially as the Automaton Chess Player and later as the Mechanical Turk—or just the Turk—the machine consisted of a mechanical man dressed in robes and a turban who sat at a wooden cabinet that was overlaid with a chessboard,” writes Ella Morton for Mental Floss. “The Turk was designed to play chess against any opponent game enough to challenge him.” It toured Europe, beating the likes of Benjamin Franklin. Eventually, it was sold to Johann Maelzel, who took the Turk on its biggest adventure yet.

When the Mechanical Turk came to America in April 1826, writes historian Stephen P. Rice, over a hundred people gathered to see its New York debut, and thousands read rave reviews in the newspapers the next day.

“Nothing of a similar nature has ever been seen in this city, that will bear the smallest comparison with it,” wrote the New York Evening Post. Naturally, people were curious how the new man-made wonder worked, Rice writes, leading to further press as Maelzel took the Turk on a tour of the United States.