What is George Lafayette Mason's Story?
- Giuseppe Cavaleri
- Nov 29, 2025
- 4 min read
When I created Phosfor earlier this year, it wasn't enough to simply create it. I wanted to find everything I could about the device I drew inspiration from, and the man who invented it.
I came to know the device through a blink-and-you'll-miss-it 10 second digression on a Technology Connections video https://youtu.be/YGT1EvmDJh4?si=KsgPHzZRVANYsPZB&t=25. I liked its look. One which appears like a half-measure between art nouveau's majesty and modern clean monospaced type. Like it were phasing from the primitive technological past into some greater future-- the likes of which wouldn't see common adoption until the 1940's. But it's the real story I want to uplift here, and uncovering it is an undertaking only possible in the pause between significantly larger projects.
Found a huge piece of the puzzle tonight! The Mason Monogram Company was an exhibitor at the 1901 Pan-American Expo in Buffalo, New York!!!!
A few months ago I began looking through catalogs and newspapers for public demos related to new innovations in electricity and around 1898. Here! In the Official Catalogue and Guide Book to the Pan-American Exposition, not only is Mason Monogram Company listed as an exhibitor, the office address is shared on page 104!
The address is for the 17-story Bowling Green Offices Building. With the building completed in 1898 it's likely Mason Monogram Co. was among its' first occupants. Though not notable to be listed among larger former occupants by the Landmarks Preservations Commission, who issued this report in 1995, I'm optimistic about finding more.
I know the Pan-American Expo was one of the most documented events of the day. Though cameras weren't as ubiquitous as today I'm hoping one of the many photobooks released might share a glimpse of Mason's exhibition section.
Tonight I looked through 15 books, pamphlets, and reports documenting the expo. Calling it after this post. Have many more reports and photobooks to sift through. So far the official photographer Charles Dudley Arnold's online public archives haven't gotten me much closer. There are private collections I'll reach out to, at some point. There's enough public material to keep me occupied for a while. https://archive.org/search?query=The+Pan-American+Exposition&page=3
Of the photos skimmed through tonight, the best collection of presentation areas appears to belong to the University of Buffalo: https://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/Items/browse?collection=64&advanced%255B0%255D%255Belement_id%255D=advanced%255B0%255D%255Btype%255D&search=Electricity+Building
Love these proto-metal letterforms for the Electric Tower!
Saw all kinds of incredible photos, among many more incredibly offensive racist photos. But-- this post isn't about the well documented and analyzed insensitivity of racial attitudes back then. It's about common everyday tech before it became so common it became unremarkable. Specifically, one of histories nearly forgotten innovators. Look forward to sharing more as its uncovered.
For most of the year I've found little worth sharing about this process. Between a 127-year temporal buffer, a digital divide adding further attrition, and hurdles relating to physical proximity to public archives in New York it's been slow moving towards resolution.
Search being further poisoned by the founding father and Viginian statesman, George Mason, didn't help. This George Mason authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights 111 years before George Lafayette Mason submitted his first patent for the Interchangable Electric Display Apparatus.
Small breakthrough came earlier this November. Might have found his obituary in the NYT archives, dated January 2nd, 1929. It lists him as an inventor before anything else. Clearly, this was important to him to be known for inventing. Well. Let's see what else I can cover, George.
Per the obituary, he retired to Newark, NJ.
This all started with an inventors name: George Lafayette Mason
A company: Mason Monogram Company
surfaced a second one, submission date November 29th, 1898.
Apparently no additional patents? Or, no other patents digitized? TBD.
During the last month I got as far as I could with public, online, civic records for both NYC and Newark. So the breakthrough he participated in the Pan-American Expo is beyond exciting!
Not too bad starting this search with only the information on those 11 pages split between two patents.
--------------------------
Was about to hit post and thought, hey- feelin' lucky- let's run a random search- AND MIGHT HAVE FOUND A PHOTO OF HIM! And definitely found his burial spot. A Facebook post came up in Google search, posted to Rose Hill Cemetery's Facebook group in Marc 2025. About the same time I was finishing up the first three styles of Phosfor!
Rose Hill Cemetery is where he's buried per his obituary! Birth and date year accurately ages him to 74 years of age. The obituary also mentions Miss Mollie Mason, his sister, listed below in the directory of the interned.
Rose Hill Cemetery's website didn't have a fully searchable directory- but someone replied with a photo of a scan so it must exist somewhere on that site. https://www.facebook.com/groups/567415089690600/posts/569651839466925/
Photo of George Lafayette Mason included in original post's source is credited to Find A Grave however I just looked and see no such photo posted there.
Ran an image search with Google's new image search looking for exact matches. Not entirely reliable but worth a shot. Nope.
5 results returned. Only the first one actually uses the photo attributed to George Lafayette Mason. Well. Is this photo below actually him?
Has a bend and scanner artifacts so it's, at least, a genuine photo. I doubt it's AI generation and photoshop manipulation. But is it really him? Time will tell! I'll reach out to that community at a reasonable hour.
Comments