AS A MEASURE OF HOW Thomas Edison changed the world, consider this: When he was born in 1847, there were no industrial research laboratories, no phonographs, no motion picture cameras, and no electric power systems, let alone practical electric lights. In 1931, the year Edison died, the United States produced 320 million lightbulbs and consumed 110.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity. Seventy-five million Americans attended the movies each week, spending $719 million ($10.6 billion today) at the box office.1
In the year of Edison’s death, the New York Times estimated the value of the industries based on his inventions at more than $15 billion. His inventions made the modern age possible. Without improved telegraph, telephone, and electric power systems and the ability to record, store, and transmit sound and images, there would be no Internet or computers.
From the 1870s through the 1920s, Edison’s laboratories combined knowledge, resources, and talented collaborators to turn ideas into commercial products. His laboratory workers invented the phonograph, a practical incandescent electric lighting system, and the motion picture camera. They also developed the nickel-iron storage battery, machinery for processing iron ore and manufacturing Portland cement, and a system for constructing molded cement houses. In his last experimental project, Edison created a process for extracting rubber from goldenrod, a flowering plant considered by most to be a weed.
Over the course of his long career, Edison organized and managed dozens of manufacturing and marketing companies. In the process of adopting new production and sales strategies, he helped create a mass consumer market in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Edison was also one of the first business leaders to brand himself, paving the way for Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, and other modern entrepreneurs.
Edison’s Menlo Park and West Orange labs created new industries, including electric lighting and power, sound recording, and motion pictures. Thomas A. Edison, Inc., promoted this economic legacy in the 1940s and 1950s.
Foreshadowing closer government-business relations in the twentieth century, Edison was a vocal proponent of military and industrial preparedness during the First World War. He also conducted research for the U.S. Navy during the war and served as president of the Naval Consulting Board, a group of civilian technical experts established to advise the navy on ideas for inventions.
Edison helped change the way technologies were developed. Benefiting from advances in science and the multidisciplinary labors of chemists, engineers, mathematicians, and other trained professionals, Edison’s laboratories introduced new products on a regular basis. Invention shifted from talented individuals working alone to organized groups working in laboratories established specifically for industrial research and development.
A century before the modern globalization of the world’s economy, Edison operated on an international scale. He manufactured and marketed his inventions in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. He relied on globally sourced raw materials and skilled workers. Ideas and concepts generated by an international community of scientists and researchers influenced his work, and, in turn, a global public eagerly awaited his “latest invention.”
Edison’s experience as an innovator is as relevant today as it was one hundred years ago. Edison devoted considerable attention to the questions all innovators face in modern times: Which products should I develop? How should those products be designed, manufactured, and marketed? How do I raise money to support research and development? How do I respond to competition and changing markets? Knowing Edison’s response to these questions brings us closer to understanding the nature of technological innovation and creativity.
Edison stands out as an innovator, not because he always succeeded, but because of the scope and range of his interests. His ability to pursue research in diverse fields and draw upon past experiences to solve new problems were among his greatest strengths. The cubbyhole in his West Orange laboratory desk marked “New Things” reminds us of his irrepressible interest in the next big idea. If he were alive today, he would be on the cutting edge of innovation.
Edison’s desk in the library of the West Orange lab. The cubbyholes reflect the diversity of his inventions and business interests. (Christopher Bain)
THE HISTORIC SITES AND MEMORIALS preserved for our benefit are a tangible legacy of his work. These include his Milan, Ohio, birthplace; the Port Huron, Michigan, train depot where he worked during the Civil War; and the house in Louisville, Kentucky, where he lived in 1866 during his years as an itinerant telegrapher. Henry Ford reconstructed Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory in the late 1920s at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, and Edison’s former electric light associates established a memorial tower on the site of the original Menlo Park lab in the 1930s. Edison’s widow, Mina Miller Edison, donated their Fort Myers, Florida, winter home to the city of Fort Myers.
Thomas Edison National Historical Park preserves and interprets his West Orange laboratory and nearby home, Glenmont, where he lived and worked for the last forty-five years of his life. The park’s museum collection is a rich trove of 400,000 artifacts, 48,000 sound recordings, 60,000 historic photographs, and more than five million archival documents. Most of the documents and photographs in this book come from the park’s collections and are presented here to make them more accessible.
The Charles Edison Fund and Edison Innovation Foundation are proud to join with Sterling Publishing and the National Park Service to present this book on Edison, the Innovator. The Fund represents the philanthropic efforts of Thomas’s son, Charles, who followed in the benevolent aims of his father and mother, Mina Miller Edison. Charles served as governor of New Jersey during the Second World War and, as secretary of the navy under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, championed the Iowa-class battleship and PT boat. The fund promotes the legacy of Thomas Edison and supports medical research, educational outreach, and historical preservation at Thomas Edison National Historical Park.
The Edison Innovation Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that supports the Edison legacy and encourages students to embrace careers in science and technology. The Foundation has a partnership agreement with the National Park Service to raise funds for Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Fund-raising efforts over the last five years have raised in excess of $20 million for the conservation, renovation, and preservation of the park’s significant collection of historical buildings and artifacts, making them accessible to future generations.
You can contact the Foundation at Thomasedison.org and through our Facebook page. As you travel with Thomas Edison on his amazing journey, enjoy this book, and remember his most famous quote: “There is a better way to do it. Find it!”
John P. Keegan
President & CEO
Charles Edison Fund
Edison Innovation Foundation