Annotated bibliography
Sources
Every specific claim on this site is meant to trace back to this source page or to a page-level source block.
Source method
The Keely Motor record is unusually easy to distort because it contains both technical claims and spiritualized language. This archive uses four rules:
- State Keely's claims as claims, not as established physics.
- Prefer primary press, public-domain books, museum records, and modern scholarship over unsourced retellings.
- Separate biography from machine history; use johnkeely.com for broader life context.
- Flag uncertainty, especially the 1827/1837 birth-year conflict.
Primary and near-primary sources
These sources are closest to the historical actors or artifacts. Moore is a supporter source and must be read as advocacy. The 1899 newspaper material is expose material and must be read as press argument. Both are essential.
Primary and artifact sources
Clara Bloomfield Moore, Keely and His Discoveries (1893)
Public-domain supporter account and primary witness to the late sympathetic-vibratory framing around Keely.
Project Gutenberg full text of Keely and His Discoveries
Readable full text for Moore, including the 1872-1892 chapter sequence and Keely terminology.
New York Times, Keely's Secret Disclosed (January 20, 1899)
Contemporary report summarizing the Philadelphia Press investigation and hidden-tube claims.
Library of Congress, Keely Motor Company stock certificate
Public-domain 1879 engraved Keely Motor Company certificate published by National Bank Note Company.
Wikimedia Commons / New York Journal, Keely laboratory diagram
Public-domain 1899 diagram of concealed shafts, pulleys, tubes, and water motor layout.
Wikimedia Commons / New York Journal, Keely motor diagram
Public-domain 1899 newspaper diagram of the Keely motor apparatus.
Wikimedia Commons / New York Journal, sphere under Keely laboratory
Public-domain 1899 image of the large sphere found below Keely-related laboratory space after his death.
Reference and scholarship
Modern scholarship is used to place Keely in the history of thermodynamics, investment culture, and nineteenth-century metaphysical science. Reference entries are used for compact date and object checks, not as substitutes for the primary record.
Reference and modern scholarship
Robert MacDougall, Sympathetic Physics (Technology and Culture, 2019)
Modern history-of-technology analysis of the motor, stock promotion, thermodynamics debate, and Clara Moore.
Gale Encyclopedia entry on John Ernst Worrell Keely
Concise reference for incorporation, devices, supporters, death, and posthumous fraud findings.
National Endowment for the Humanities, The Etheric Force Machine
Short institutional overview of the American Precision Museum object and the hidden compressed-air explanation.
American Precision Museum, Etheric Force Machine object record
Museum object record for Keely-related surviving apparatus dated to 1878.
johnkeely.com
Sibling property for biographical context; keelymotor.com stays focused on the machines and company.
Known source gaps
Some Scientific American items and newspaper archives are difficult to access in full text online. When this site relies on a secondary pointer to a primary article, the page says so indirectly by citing the modern scholarship or reference entry that identifies the article. No fabricated quotes are used to fill those gaps.
The birth year remains unresolved in accessible sources. Rather than hide the conflict, the timeline and FAQ record it.