Editing Tom Swift (section)

=== Original series (1910–1941) ===
{{quote box | bgcolor = #eee8aa | width = 26em | align = right
| quote =
"All right, Dad. Go ahead, laugh."

"Well, Tom, I'm not exactly laughing at you&nbsp;... it's more at the idea than anything else. The idea of talking over a wire and, at the same time, having light waves, as well as electrical waves passing over the same conductors!"

"All right, Dad. Go ahead and laugh. I don't mind," said Tom, good-naturedly. "Folks laughed at [[Alexander Graham Bell|Bell]], when he said he could send a human voice over a copper string&nbsp;..."
| source = — ''Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone'' (1912)<ref>Quoted in Prager (1976).</ref>
}}
In the original series, Tom Swift lives in fictional Shopton, [[New York (state)|New York]]. He is the son of Barton Swift, the founder of the Swift Construction Company. Tom's mother is deceased, but the housekeeper, Mrs. Baggert, functions as a surrogate mother.<ref name="Molson"/> Tom usually shares his adventures with close friend Ned Newton, who eventually becomes the Swift Construction Company's financial manager. For most of the series, Tom dates Mary Nestor. It has been suggested that his eventual marriage to Mary led to the series' demise, as young boys found a married man harder to identify with than a young, single one;<ref name="Time">"Chip off the Old Block" (1954)</ref> however, after the 1929 marriage the series continued for 12 more years and eight further volumes. Regularly appearing characters include Wakefield Damon, an older man, whose dialogue is characterized by frequent use of such whimsical expressions as "Bless my brakeshoes!" and "Bless my vest buttons!"

The original Tom Swift has been claimed to represent the early 20th-century conception of inventors.<ref>Molson (1999), 9–10.</ref> Tom has no formal education after high school;<ref>Prager (1971), 131.</ref> according to critic Robert Von der Osten, Tom's ability to invent is presented as "somehow innate".<ref name="Von269">Von der Osten (2004), 269.</ref> Tom is not a theorist but a tinkerer and, later, an experimenter who, with his research team, finds practical applications for others' research;<ref>Molson (1999), 10.</ref> Tom does not so much methodically develop and perfect inventions as find them by trial and error.<ref>Von der Osten (2004), 278–279.</ref>

Tom's inventions are not at first innovative. In the first two books of the series, he fixes a motorcycle and a boat, and in the third book he develops an airship, but only with the help of a balloonist.<ref name="Von269" /> Tom is also at times unsure of himself, asking his elders for help; as Von der Osten puts it, "the early Tom Swift is more dependent on his father and other adults at first and is much more hesitant in his actions. When his airship bangs into a tower, Tom is uncharacteristically nonplussed and needs support."<ref>Von der Osten (2004), 271.</ref> However, as the series progresses, Tom's inventions "show an increasingly independent genius as he develops devices, such as an electric rifle and a photo telephone, further removed from the scientific norm".<ref name="Vonder">Von der Osten (2004), 270.</ref> Some of Tom's inventions are improvements of then-current technologies,<ref>Sullivan (1999), 23.</ref> while other inventions were not in development at the time the books were published, but have since been developed.<ref name="Purpura 1996 187">{{cite book|last=Purpura|first=Philip P.|title=Criminal justice : an introduction|year=1996|publisher=Butterworth-Heinemann|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-7506-9630-2|page=187|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P8-oSPHlHXoC |access-date=January 27, 2015 |quote=The TASER (Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle) is a hand-held "stun gun" that discharges high voltage via tiny wires and darts}}</ref>