Edison

by Edmund Morris

  Vol. 7: Losses and Loyalties, April 1883–December 1884. Edited by Paul Israel et al. 2011.

  Vol. 8: New Beginnings, January 1885–December 1887. Edited by Paul Israel et al. 2016.

  Vol. 9: Competing Interests: January 1888–December 1889. Edited by Paul Israel et al. Forthcoming.

  Albion, Michele W. The Florida Life of Thomas Edison. Gainesville, FL, 2008.

  ———. The Quotable Edison. Gainesville, FL, 2011.

  Ballentine, Caroline Farrand. “The True Story of Edison’s Childhood and Boyhood.” Michigan History Magazine 4 (1920).

  Bryan, George S. Edison: The Man and His Work. New York, 1926.

  Carlson, W. Bernard. “Edison in the Mountains: The Magnetic Ore Separation Venture, 1879–1900.” In Norman Smith, ed., History of Technology, vol. 8. New York, 1983.

  Collins, Theresa M., and Lisa Gitelman. Thomas Edison and Modern America: A Brief History with Documents. New York, 2002.

  DeGraaf, Leonard. Edison and the Rise of Innovation. New York, 2013.

  ———. Historic Photos of Thomas Edison. Nashville, TN, 2008.

  Dennis, Paul M. “The Edison Questionnaire,” Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences 20, no. 1 (1984).

  Dickson, William Kennedy. “A Brief History of the Kinetograph, the Kinetoscope, and the Kineto-Phonograph.” Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 21, no. 6 (Dec. 1933).

  Dickson, William Kennedy, and Antonia Dickson. The Life and Inventions of Thomas Alva Edison. New York, 1894.

  Dyer, Frank Lewis, and Thomas Commerford Martin. Edison, His Life and Inventions, 2 vols. New York, 1910.

  Edison: The Invention of the Movies: 1891–1918. Museum of Modern Art / Library of Congress DVD set, 2005.

  Feaster, Patrick. “Speech Acoustics and the Keyboard Telephone: Rethinking Edison’s Discovery of the Phonograph Principle.” ARSC Journal 38, no. 1 (2007).

  Friedel, Robert, and Paul Israel. Edison’s Electric Light: The Art of Invention. Baltimore, 2010.

  Fritz, Florence. Bamboo and Sailing Ships: The Story of Thomas A. Edison and Fort Myers, Florida. Fort Myers, FL, 1949.

  Gall, Michael J. “Thomas A. Edison: Managing Menlo Park, 1876–1882.” MA thesis, Monmouth University, 2004.

  Hammer, W. J. “Edison and His Inventions,” 12-part memoir, as told to Willis J. Ballinger. NEA Press Service, Oct.–Nov. 1931.

  Hendricks, Gordon. Origins of the American Film. A reprint compilation of this author’s The Edison Motion Picture Myth (1961), Beginnings of the Biograph: The Story of the Invention of the Mutoscope and the Biograph and Their Supplying Camera (1964); and The Kinetoscope: America’s First Commercially Successful Motion Picture Exhibitor (1966). New York, 1971.

  Hounshell, David. “Edison and the Pure Science Ideal in Nineteenth-Century America.” Science 207 (1980).

  Israel, Paul. Edison: A Life of Invention. New York, 1998.

  Jeffrey, Thomas E. “ ‘Commodore’ Edison Joins the Navy: Thomas Alva Edison and the Naval Consulting Board.” Journal of Military History 80 (April 2016).

  ———. From Phonographs to U-Boats: Edison and His “Insomnia Squad” in Peace and War, 1911–1919. Bethesda, MD, 2008.

  ———. “Tom and Beatrice Edison.” Unpublished biographical essay, 2018, privately held.

  ———. “When the Cat Is Away the Mice Will Work,” New Jersey History 125, no. 2 (2010).

  Jehl, Francis. Menlo Park Reminiscences, 3 vols. Dearborn, MI, 1937, 1938, 1941.

  Jones, Francis Arthur. Thomas Alva Edison: Sixty Years of an Inventor’s Life. New York, 1908.

  Josephson, Matthew. Edison: A Biography, 1959; New York, 2003.

  Lathrop, George P. “Talks with Edison.” Harper’s Magazine 80 (Feb. 1890).

  Martin, Thomas C. Forty Years of Edison Service, 1882–1922: Outlining the Growth and Development of the Edison System in New York. New York, 1922.

  McClure, James B., ed. Edison and His Inventions, Including the Many Incidents, Anecdotes…1879.

  McPartland, Donald Scott. “Almost Edison: How William Sawyer and Others Lost the Race to Electrification.” PhD diss., City University of New York, 2006.

  Meadowcroft, William H. Boys’ Life of Edison. New York, 1921.

  Millard, André. Edison and the Business of Invention. Baltimore, 1990.

  Nerney, Mary Childs. Thomas A. Edison, A Modern Olympian. New York, 1934.

  Öser, Marion Edison. “The Wizard of Menlo Park, by His Daughter,” March 1956, TENHP.

  Pretzer, William S., ed. Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience. Dearborn, MI, 1989.

  Tate, Alfred O. Edison’s Open Door: The Life Story of Thomas Alva Edison, a Great Individualist. New York, 1938.

  Vanderbilt, Byron. Thomas Edison, Chemist. Washington, DC, 1971.

  Warren, Waldo P. “Edison on Invention and Inventors.” Century Magazine, July 1911.

  Wile, Raymond S. “Edison and Growing Hostilities.” ARSC Journal 22, no. 1 (Spring 1991).

  ———. “The Edison Invention of the Phonograph.” ARSC Journal 14 (1982).

  ———. “The Rise and Fall of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company, 1877–1880.” ARSC Journal 8, no. 3 (1976).

  BOOKS (GENERAL)

  Allerhand, Adam. An Illustrated History of Electric Lighting. Bloomington, IN, 2016.

  Association of Edison Illuminating Companies. “Edisonia”: A Brief History of the Early Edison Electric Light System. New York, 1904.

  Bowers, Brian. Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology. New York, 1998.

  Bowser, Eileen. The Transformation of Cinema, 1907–1915. New York 1990.

  Bright, Arthur A., Jr. The Electric Lamp Industry: Technological Change and Economic Development from 1800 to 1947. New York, 1949.

  Carlson, W. Bernard. Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton, 2013.

  Copeland, George A., and Michael W. Sherman. Collector’s Guide to Edison Records (Monarch Record Enterprises, 2012).

  Craig, Lee A. Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times. Chapel Hill, 2013.

  De Borchgrave, Alexandra Villard, and John Cullen. Villard: The Life and Times of an American Titan. New York, 2001.

  Dickson, W. K. L., and Antonia Dickson, History of the Kinetograph, Kinetoscope and Kineto-Phonograph 1895; New York, 2000.

  Fahie, J. J. A History of Wireless Telegraphy. New York, 1901.

  Finlay, Mark R. Growing American Rubber: Strategic Plants and the Politics of National Security. New Brunswick, NJ, 2009.

  Geduld, Harry M. The Birth of the Talkies: From Edison to Jolson. Bloomington, IL, 1975.

  Gelatt, Roland. The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877–1977, 2nd rev. ed. London, 1977.

  Gleick, James. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. New York, 2011.

  Gitelman, Lisa. Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era. Stanford, CA, 1999.

  Grant, James. The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself. New York, 2015.

  Hammond, John Winthrop. Men and Volts: The Story of General Electric. Philadelphia, 1941.

  Harvith, John, and Susan Harvith, eds. Edison, Musicians, and the Phonograph: A Century in Retrospect. New York, 1987.

  Helmholtz, Hermann. On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music. Translated by Alexander J. Ellis. London, 1875.

  Hughes, Thomas P. Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930. Baltimore, 1983.

  Johnson, Rodney P. Thomas Edison’s “Ogden Baby”: The New Jersey & Pennsylvania Concentrating Works. Highland Lakes, NJ, 2004.

  Lief, Alfred. Harvey Firestone: Free Man of Enterprise. New York, 1951.

  Marshall, David T. Recollections of Edison. Boston, 1931.

  McDonald,
Forrest. Insull: The Rise and Fall of a Billionaire Utility Tycoon. Washington, DC, 1952.

  Millard, André. America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound, 2nd ed. New York, 2005.

  Musser, Charles. Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Berkeley, CA, 1991.

  ———. The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907. New York, 1990.

  National Park Service. Historic Furnishings Report: Edison Laboratory. Harpers Ferry, WV, 1995.

  New York Edison Company. Thirty Years of New York, 1882–1912: Being a History of Electric Development in Manhattan and the Bronx. New York, 1913.

  Newton, James. Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel, and Charles Lindbergh. New York, 1987.

  Parker, Richard G. School Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philosophy: Embracing the Elementary Principles of Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Acoustics, Pyronomics, Optics, Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism, Electro-Magnetism, Magneto-Electricity, and Astronomy, Containing Also a Description of the Steam and Locomotive Engines and of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. New York, 1856.

  Prescott, George. The Speaking Telegraph, Electric Light, and Other Recent Inventions. New York 1879.

  ———. Electricity and the Electric Telegraph, 2 vols. New York, 1888.

  Rowsome, Frank Jr. The Birth of Electric Traction: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Frank Julian Sprague. North Charleston, SC, 2013.

  Scott, Lloyd N. Naval Consulting Board of the United States. Washington, DC, 1920.

  Simil, Vaclav. Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867–1914 and Their Lasting Impact. New York, 2005.

  Slosson, Edwin S. Creative Chemistry. London, 1921.

  Smoot, Tom. The Edisons of Fort Myers. Sarasota, FL, 2004.

  Spehr, Paul C. The Man Who Made Movies: W. K. L. Dickson. New Barnet, Herts., UK, 2008.

  Stamps, Richard, Bruce Hawkins, and Nancy Wright. Search for the House in the Grove: Archeological Excavation of the Boyhood Homesite of Thomas A. Edison in Port Huron, Michigan 1976–1994. Rochester, MI, 1994.

  Sward, Keith. The Legend of Henry Ford. New York, 1948.

  Thirty Years of New York: Being a History of Electric Development in Manhattan. NY Edison Co., 1913.

  Taylor, Jocelyn Pierson. Mr. Edison’s Lawyer: A Biographical Sketch of the Founder of the Edison Electric Light Company, Grosvenor Porter Lowrey. Privately printed, 1978.

  Venable, John D. Out of the Shadow: The Story of Charles Edison. East Orange, NJ, 1978.

  Welch, Walter L., and Leah B. S. Burt. From Tinfoil to Stereo: The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877–1929. Gainesville, FL, 1994.

  White, Wallace D. Milan Township and Village: One Hundred and Fifty Years. Milan, OH, 1959.

  Wile, Raymond E., and Ronald Dethlefson, eds. Edison Artists and Records, 1910–1929, 2nd ed. New York, 2012.

  Williams, Samuel Crane. Historical Sketch of the Growth and Development of the Town of West Orange, NJ, 1862–1937. West Orange, NJ, 1937.

  NOTES

  The main archive of Edison documents at Thomas Edison National Historical Park (TENHP) in West Orange, New Jersey, comprises some five million pages. Although much of that gigantic collection remains unexplored by scholars, a Rutgers University project, The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, is in the process of editing and publishing the records that relate most closely to Edison and his work. Most of these are housed at TENHP, but the Papers project also includes documents from a wide variety of other repositories. Core material from whatever source is being issued in three related yet dissimilar forms: a multivolume book edition of selected and annotated documents; a larger digital edition accessible online; and a very large microfilm edition available in research libraries. At the time this biography was written, the book edition totaled eight volumes out of a planned fifteen and covered the period 1847–87, roughly half of Edison’s eighty-three-year lifespan. (A ninth volume, Competing Interests: January 1888–December 1889, is scheduled for publication in 2020.) The digital edition extends the coverage of TENHP documents to 1898. The microfilm edition, structurally similar, extends it to 1919, but this extension is not digitized. The period 1920–31 is still unselected.

  Consequently, much of this biography was researched among original documents held at Thomas Edison National Historical Park. But advantage has been taken of the digital edition’s supplementary scans (unrestricted as to time period) of virtually all other collections of Edisonia in the United States.

  It will be seen from the above-described complexity that referring directly to specific editions of The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, let alone to outside repositories embraced by the project, would complicate citations to the point of algebra. For that reason, references in the endnotes relate to the online index to The Papers of Thomas A. Edison at http://edison.rutgers.edu/, abbreviated henceforth as PTAE. This index is forbiddingly sophisticated but once mastered directs scholars to the exact document sought, often in downloadable image form.

  An exception to the general citation of PTAE as the gateway to The Papers of Thomas A. Edison is when the book edition offers scholarly editorial commentary unavailable elsewhere. In such instances, it will be simply cited as Papers, with volume and page number.

  The abbreviation TENHP refers to original documents in the archive at West Orange. Other source abbreviations are given in the Select Bibliography.

  One major collection of Edison papers will remain closed until 2025. The author is grateful to Edison’s great-grandson, Dr. David Edward Edison Sloane, for privileged access to it, and for permission to publish certain quotations. A minor but historically important collection of love letters from Edison to his wife, Mina, has for years been withheld without explanation by the board of the Charles Edison Fund of Newark, New Jersey.

  Thomas Edison is identified as TE in the notes, and Mina Miller Edison as MME. Other family members retain their full names.

  PROLOGUE (1931)

  1. Key West Citizen, 11 Feb. 1931; Albion, Florida Life of Edison, 169–70; New Castle (PA) News, 11, 12 Oct. 1931.

  2. TE to Dr. C. Ward Crompton, 21 Dec. 1921, and to George W. Barton, 10 Jan. 1923, TENHP; Hammer, “Edison and His Inventions”; TE to Josephus Daniels, quoted in New York Sun, 11 Oct. 1914; MME to Theodore Edison, 23 Mar. 1925, PTAE. Asked by a Yale hygienist in 1930 about his tobacco habit, TE responded, “Chew constantly + 2 to 3 cigars a day,” and said he had developed his taste for plug at age ten. TE to Irving Fisher, 12 Oct. 1930, TENHP.

  3. John Coakley Oral History, 36, Biographical Collection, TENHP; Israel, Edison, 10; Dr. Frederick M. Allen to TE, 28 June 1931, TENHP; Pittsburgh Press, 19 Oct. 1931. In a letter dated 9 Jan. 1931, TE calibrated his milk intake at 375 cubic centimeters, rather less than a pint, every two hours. Just when he adopted this all-milk diet is uncertain. He told his correspondent he had been on it “for over 8 years,” whereas his personal physician stated in a posthumous report that TE had given up on solid food “three years ago.” Bishop William F. Anderson noticed on 23 June 1929 that TE ate nothing at dinner, saying that “he had already dined” on milk. In the fall of 1930 TE reported that he took “only milk and orange juice: 6 times a day.” On 1 Dec. 1930 he told a former employee, “I live on milk now.” On 5 February 1931, the famed Battle Creek surgeon/dietitian John Harvey Kellogg was unable to persuade him to break this liquid diet. Three months later TE was living, or rather dying, on milk alone. TE to Clifton S. Wady, 9 Jan. 1931, TENHP; William F. Anderson, “A Sunday in the Home of Mr. Thomas A. Edison,” ts., ca. 1931, PTAE; TE to Irving Fisher, 12 Oct. 1930, TENHP; Marshall, Recollections of Edison, 100; San Antonio Express, 19 Oct. 1931.

  4. Fort Myers News-Press, 11 June 1931.

  5. Piqua (OH) Daily Call, 19 Oct. 1931; Joseph Lewis, “A Visit With Thomas Alva Edison,” in At
heism and Other Addresses (New York, 1938).

  6. Albion, Florida Life of Thomas Edison, 174.

  7. Narney, Edison, Modern Olympian, 16; Paul Kasakove, “Reminiscences of My Association with Thomas Alva Edison,” 8–9, TENHP; Pittsburgh Press, 2 Aug. 1931.

  8. TE’s courtship of personal publicity throughout his career had as much to do with his iconic stature as with the things he invented. Three critical studies of TE the self-promoter are Wyn Wachhorst, Thomas Alva Edison: An American Myth (Cambridge, MA, 1981); Gordon Hendricks, The Edison Motion Picture Myth (1961), in Hendricks, Origins of American Film; and David Nye, The Invented Self: An Anti-Biography from the Documents of Thomas A. Edison (Odense, Denmark, 1983). While necessarily corrective, these books advance myths of their own.

  9. TE in 1925, quoted in Dagobert Runes, ed., The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (New York, 1948) 50.

  10. TE notebook N-88-01-03.2, PTAE; Israel, Edison, 409.

  11. TE Patent 1,908,830, approved 16 May 1933.

  12. Israel, Edison, 461; MME to Theodore Edison, 12 July 1931, PTAE; Pittsburgh Press, 3 Aug. 1931.

  13. Israel, Edison, 461; Finlay, Growing American Rubber, 21, 107–8; Chicago Tribune, 22 Oct. 1931.

  14. Chicago Tribune, 22 Oct. 1931; Albion, Florida Life of Edison, 176–77; Jefferson City (MO) Tribune, 21 Oct. 1931.

  15. William Edison to TE, 18 Feb. 1931, TENHP.

  16. Madeleine Edison Sloane to MME, 28 May 1928, TENHP. The last of TE’s grandsons, Michael Edison Sloane, was born on 8 Jan. 1931.

  17. This selection is partial. For a full listing, see “Edison Companies” in the Thomas A. Edison Papers website, Edison.rutgers.edu.

  18. For TE’s merchandising of his own name, see Gitelman, Scripts, Grooves, 163–64 and passim.

  19. Medical bulletins, 2 Aug.–18 Oct. 1931, TENHP; Oakland Tribune, 19 Oct. 1931; Newton, Uncommon Friends, 6.

  20. Albion, Florida Life of Edison, 176; Associated Press releases, 4 and 8 Oct. 1931; Chester (PA) Times, 9 Oct. 1931.