Edison

by Edmund Morris

90. Stathis Arapostathis and Graeme Gooday, Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain (Cambridge, MA, 2013, 182; Joseph Swan, “The Sub-Division of the Electric Light,” Journal of the Society of Telegraphic Engineers 9 (1880), 346, 342, 362.

  91. Alexander Muirhead to TE, 13 Jan. 1881, PTAE.

  92. Papers, 5.920–21.

  93. Papers, 5.941, 921.

  94. Papers, 5.943–44; Hounshell, “Edison and the Pure Science Ideal.”

  95. Papers, 5.761–62, 778; Hounshell, “Edison and the Pure Science Ideal”; Israel, Edison, 464.

  96. Papers, 5.944.

  97. Papers, 5.889–91; Edison Electric Light Company vs. United States Electric Lighting Company—On Letters Patent 223,898 (1890). See Allerhand, Illustrated History, 225–27 and 125–28.

  98. Papers, 5.894; “Thomas Edison in Kansai,” Kansai Culture (Japan), 10 Apr. 2018; Hammer, “Edison and His Inventions,” vi; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 376.

  99. Papers, 5.903–44.

  100. Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 157.

  101. Papers, 5.959; Strouse, Morgan, 232. Except where otherwise indicated, the following account is based on Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 154; Francis Jehl, “Thomas A. Edison – Menlo Park,” ts. memoir, June 1908, TENHP; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 779–84; New York Times, 21 Dec. 1880, a detailed report from which the quotations are taken. Additional material from New York World, 21 Dec. 1880, and Chicago Tribune, 24 Dec. 1880.

  102. New York Times, 21 Dec. 1880; Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 172; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 385.

  103. New York Times, 21 Dec. 1880; Charles Mott laboratory diary, 20 Dec. 1880; Jehl, “Thomas A. Edison,” 88. “Here breathed a little community of kindred spirits, all in young manhood, enthusiastic about their work, expectant of great results; moreover, often loudly explosive in word, emphatic in joke and vigorous in action.” Charles Clarke quoted in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 858.

  104. Chicago Tribune, 1 Jan. 1881. The eclipse, “two new moons” in December, and TE’s “melancholy,” were all noted by Charles Mott in his laboratory diary, 31 Dec. 1880, PTAE.

  105. Chicago Tribune, 1 Jan. 1881.

  106. Arapostathis and Gooday, Patently Contestable, 177; Mary and Kenneth Swan, Joseph William Swan: Inventor and Scientist (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, 1929), 58–60.

  107. Chicago Tribune, 1 Jan. 1881.

  108. Strouse, Morgan, 232; Charles Mott laboratory diary, 6 Jan. 1881; New York Sun, 7 Jan. 1881. Amos J. Cummings of the Sun accompanied the financial party.

  109. Hammer Reminiscences, TENHP.

  110. Strouse, Morgan, 232.

  111. New York Sun quoting an unnamed EELC director, 7 Jan. 1881; Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 174–75.

  112. Charles L. Clarke, “Economy Test of the Edison Electric Light at Menlo Park, 1881,” in Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, “Edisonia,” 166. TE wanted to publish the results of the test at once, but when Henry Villard reminded him that knowledge was—especially in this case—power, he allowed it to remain secret until 1904.

  113. Ibid., 169.

  114. Ibid., 173, 177. See also Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 144–45; TE quoted in Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, “Edisonia,” 85.

  115. Strouse, Morgan, 230; Papers, 5.973.TE’s temporary fashion consciousness was noted by Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 506.

  116. This portrait of Mary Edison at Menlo Park is based on Öser, “Wizard of Menlo Park,” and Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 507–14. See also Israel, Edison, 230–31. “She was a very nice woman, bright and vivacious, beautiful in appearance and character…very much devoted to [Edison.]” Statement by Charles T. Hughes, 19 June 1907, Meadowcroft Collection, TENHP.

  117. In the 1880s “midtown” Manhattan centered on fashionable Union Square. Papers, 6.2; Israel, Edison, 230–31; TE to Naomi Chipman, 18 June 1881, PTAE.

  118. New York Herald clipping, 21 Jan. 1881, in Charles Batchelor Scrapbook (1878–1881), PTAE.

  119. Charles Batchelor Scrapbook, 1881, 1573, PTAE; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 328.

  120. Papers, 5.968.

  121. Clarke in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 862.

  122. Ibid.

  123. Papers, 5.969; Suncalc.net.

  124. Papers, 5.730ff.; Scientific American, 22 Jan. 1881; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 714.

  125. William H. Preece, “Electric Lighting at the Paris Exhibition,” Journal of the Society of Arts, 16 Dec. 1881; Papers, 5.818–19.

  126. The following account is taken from the recollections of Charles Clarke in a speech to the New York Illuminating Engineering Society, 14 Nov. 1907, transcript in William Meadowcroft Collection, TENHP; also Clarke in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 860, and TE quoted in Jones, Edison: Sixty Years, 116. Slightly different RPM figures are given by other witnesses in Papers, 5.991.

  127. Charles Clarke in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 860. Wagner applied the term Erdenton to the deep E-flat that resounds at the beginning of his Ring cycle.

  128. Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, “Edisonia,” 35; TE quoted in Jones, Edison: Sixty Years, 116. This test dynamo was never used, but served as a model for TE’s famous “Jumbo” generator, developed in the summer of 1881.

  129. McDonald, Insull, 10, 17–18. Stockton Griffin, TE’s previous secretary, had either resigned or been fired in February. Papers, 5.970.

  130. “Mr. Insull’s Notes, Feb. 09,” ts., in Meadowcroft Collection, 5, 3, TENHP; McDonald, Insull, 14–17, 20–21; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 329–30.

  131. McDonald, Insull, 21. At the beginning of the year TE’s bank balance had stood at $64,825. TE Private Ledger 1880–81, TENHP; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 331. The modern equivalent would be $1.6 million.

  132. McDonald, Insull, 18, 22, 13; Papers, 5.968, 990, 996–97.

  133. Charles Clarke to Francis Jehl, 29 Dec. 1932, TENHP.

  134. McDonald, Insull, 26; Israel, Edison, 210–11, 324; Eaton portrait in Findagrave.com.

  135. “Mr Insull’s Notes,” 20; Papers, 6.659, 5.xxv; Samuel Insull to John Kingsbury, 1 May 1881, PTAE. See also Papers, 6.42–45.

  136. Israel, Edison, 212; list in Dyer and Martin, Edison, 355.

  137. Quoted in Dyer and Martin, Edison, 719.

  138. Papers, 5.996, 988.

  139. McDonald, Insull, 22.

  140. Papers, 5.993–94; Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 162, 174, 172.

  141. Papers, 6.31, 1023, 1029; DeGraaf, Edison and Innovation, 55. At the time, the new location of the Edison Lamp Company was referred to as Harrison, New Jersey. Francis Upton urged transferring lamp production there because the locality offered “plenty of boys and girls at low wages.” Papers, 5.967.

  142. Edison Monthly, Aug. 1922; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 394; Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 177.

  143. Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 177; construction drawing, 15 Mar. 1882 in Papers, 6.429; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 402, 400; Samuel Insull in Papers, 6.34.

  144. Papers, 6.84.

  145. Papers, 6.85, 84.

  146. There are six references to Antoine in The Hunchback of Notre Dame; the wharf rats appear in the grotesque procession of the Fool’s Pope. Quasimodo, whom Grolio calls “an unholy demon” at birth and wishes to “send back to Hell,” carries a massive wart on his chest.

  147. Papers, 5.103–11, 6.84–85; 7.737–38; Notebook N306103 (Spring 1881), 103–11, TENHP.

  148. Papers, 7.632; Chris N. Alam and H. Merskey, “Neuralgia: The History of a Meaning,” Pain Research Management (1996), 1:3.

  149. Taylor, Mr. Edison’s Lawyer, 50.

  150. TE ms. r
eproduced in Kate Armour Reed, A Woman’s Touch: Kate Reed and Canada’s Grand Hotels (Canada, 2016), 35; Taylor, Mr. Edison’s Lawyer, 51. See also MME warning her son Theodore not to fall in love and marry too soon: “[Your father] made such a terrible mistake that he is fearful of you.” 26 May 1924, PTAE.

  151. Öser, “Wizard of Menlo Park.” “Everything Connected with Mrs. Edison Was Ornate in the Extreme.” Marshall, Recollections of Edison, 28.

  152. Papers, 6.100.

  153. Papers, 6.103.

  154. Charles Clarke in Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, “Edisonia,” 37.

  155. Ibid.; Papers, 6.100, 103.

  156. Papers, 6.100, 105–6, 168, 88, 103, 110; Charles Clarke in “Edisonia,” 37; TE Laboratory Notebook N-81-04-06, 126–49, TENHP.

  157. TE notebook entry, 15 July 1881, Papers, 6.104; Charles Clarke in “Edisonia,” 39; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 973. At 350 RPM, the machine produced an electromotive force of 110V, attainable only at 1,000 RPM on traditional Graemme dynamos.

  158. Papers, 6.169; Charles Clarke in “Edisonia,” 50.

  159. Papers, 6.170–71; Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 179; Bowers, Lengthening the Day, 87.

  160. Papers, 6.168, 225. Mary, accompanied by her daughter, had been visiting with TE’s brother William Pitt Edison in Port Huron, Michigan. She was described as “very ill” in mid-August and “seriously ill” on 2 September. Port Huron Times Herald, 29 July and 14 Aug. 1881; Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2 Sept. 1881. She was again, or still, ill in early Oct. 1881.

  161. TE in Dyer and Martin, Edison, 326–27, and Papers, 6.813; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 973.

  162. Papers, 6.175; TE to Charles Batchelor, 14 Sept. 1881, PTAE; Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 180; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 327.

  163. Cincinnati Enquirer, 28 Aug. 1881; New York Times, 5 Sept. 1881; Manchester (UK) Courier, 6 Sept. 1881; Menlo Park Scrapbooks, vol. 51A, passim, PTAE; London Standard, 24 Sept. 188; Preece, “Electric Lighting at the Paris Exhibition.” The story that the liner that brought the dynamo to France had just unloaded an elephant destined for Barnum and Bailey’s circus is apocryphal.

  164. L’Évènement, 24 Sept. 1881; Bright, Electric Lamp Industry, 55; Le Figaro, 29 Oct. 1881; Journal des Débats, 22 Oct. 1881.

  165. Papers, 6.96; Expériences faites á l’Exposition International d’Électricité par Mm. Allard…(Paris, 1883), 108. See also Robert Fox, “Thomas Edison’s Parisian Campaign: Incandescent Lighting and the Face of Technology Transfer,” Annals of Science 53 (1996).

  166. Lowrey to TE, 22 Oct. 1881, Letterbook Series, PTAE.

  167. Ibid.

  168. New York Times, 5 Oct. 1881.

  169. Ibid.

  170. Papers, 6.90.

  171. New York Edison Company, Thirty Years of New York, 151; Atlanta Constitution, 2 Oct. 1881. The arc lamps were hooked up to a small generator in Pearl Street; Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 163–64; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 408–9. For a detailed discussion of Kruesi’s insulation techniques, see Vanderbilt, Edison, Chemist, 79–83.

  172. New York Edison Company, Thirty Years of New York, 35; TE quoted in Papers, 6.815.

  173. Edouard Reményi to TE, 19 Aug. 1881, PTAE. The thirty-document series of letters between these two men tells one of the more moving personal stories in the Edison Papers. It is available online at http://edison.rutgers.edu/​NamesSearch/​NamesSearch.php.

  174. Reményi to TE, 25 Apr. 1883, PTAE; Papers, 6.816; Hammer Reminiscences, TENHP. In 1898 Edison served as a pallbearer at Reményi’s funeral in New York.

  175. Papers, 6.252–53, 263; Israel, Edison, 204; Papers, 6.253.

  176. Insull to superintendent, Pennsylvania Railroad Jersey City, 17 Dec. 1881, PTAE.

  177. Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 641. “Its simplicity and accuracy when correctly handled were so great that it remained in use for a number of years; then it was replaced by improved mechanical types.” Bright, Electric Lamp Industry, 69.

  178. Israel, Edison, 495, 981–82, 208. TE had already won 170 U.S. patents before the 1880s.

  179. Preece, “Electric Lighting at the Paris Exhibition.” The post-lecture comments included in this transcript are indicative of the gathering respect in Britain for TE’s lighting innovations.

  180. Ibid.

  181. Daily News (UK), 8 Apr. 1882.

  182. Papers, 6.468; Otto Moses in Papers, 6.363. Smithsonian Image 2003-35552, William J. Hammer Collection.

  183. Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 183; Papers, 6.314, 334, 350.

  184. Cincinnati Enquirer, 1 Jan. 1882; Papers, 6.701; Bowers, Lengthening the Day, 91; Papers, 6.260.

  185. Papers, 6.348.

  186. Papers, 6.348, 313, 417; New York dispatch to Topeka Daily Capital, 4 Mar. 1882; Insull to E. H. Johnson, Papers, 6.431. There are a number of references to TE’s “recuperative” vacation in Florida in U.S. newspapers during the month.

  187. Scientific American, 22 July 1882.

  188. Papers, 6.446.

  189. New York Times, 9 Mar. 1882.

  190. Israel, Edison, 167–68.

  191. Papers, 6.425ff.; New York Edison Company, Thirty Years of New York, 29; Friedel and Israel, Edison’s Electric Light, 185.

  192. TE Patent 460,122. See Edisonian 7 (Rutgers, NJ, 2012), online at http://edison.rutgers.edu/​newsletter7.html#2; Papers, 6.446–47. The first “village” to install this system was Roselle, New Jersey, on 19 Jan. 1883. Israel, Edison, 219.

  193. Bright, Electric Lamp Industry, 68–69; Papers, 6.582, 794–95. Edison delayed executing his patent on this invention until 27 Nov. 1882, allowing John Hopkinson to file a similar application in Britain well before that date. Papers, 6, 582, 794–95. The Edison system was awarded priority in the United States on 20 Mar. 1883 (U.S. Patent 274,290), but by then Hopkinson already had his British patent.

  194. TE to T. C. Martin, June 1909, quoted in Dyer and Martin, Edison, 342–43. See Papers, 6.609–11, for more details of the Wilber affair.

  195. Papers, 6.447.

  196. Scientific American, 22 July 1882. As of late August, TE had initiated three isolated lighting plants in England and three in Germany, as well as others in France, Holland, Italy, Hungary, Cuba, and Chile. Edison Electric Light Co., Thirteenth Bulletin, 28 Aug. 1882.

  197. New York Tribune, 5 Sept. 1889; Scientific American, 26 Aug. 1882; Papers, 6.428.

  198. Scientific American, 26 Aug. 1882.

  199. Ibid.

  200. Janesville (WI) Daily Gazette, 5 Sept. 1882.

  201. New York Sun, 5 Sept. 1882. There is some ambiguity in the newspaper accounts covering the system activation, The New York Times reporting that the lights came on two hours after the dynamos. But that was still two hours before dark. Edison Electric Light Co., Fourteenth Bulletin, 14 Oct. 1882, states specifically, “The plant was started and the district lighted up at 3 P.M.” Whatever the time, TE wrote in old age that starting up the system was “the most thrilling event of my life.” TE to F. D. Hopley, 11 Apr. 1921, HFM.

  202. “Edison’s Electric Light,” New York Times, 5 Sept. 1882; see also New York Herald, New York World, and New York Tribune, same date.

  203. New York Times, 5 Sept. 1882.

  204. Ibid. and New York Sun, 5 Sept. 1882. Francis Jehl, writing more than fifty years later in Menlo Park Reminiscences, 1065, had TE lighting up his system in the offices of Drexel, Morgan, but most contemporary accounts put him in the Pearl Street station. See, however, Papers, 6.539.

  205. New York Sun and New York Tribune, 5 Sept. 1882.

  206. The New York Herald actually had its own (isolated) Edison light system. For the pleased reaction of one group of night reporters, see New York Edison Company, Thirty Years of
New York, 26–27.

  207. See, e.g., the London Standard and Daily News, 6 Sept. 1882; Boston Globe, 6 Sept. 1882.

  208. New York Edison Company, Thirty Years of New York, 44. The date of the following incident is uncertain, except that it occurred on a Sunday, probably 10 September. See Papers, 6.670 and 676–77.

  209. Papers, 814–15 (TE dictating in June 1909).

  210. Clarke in Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, “Edisonia,” 49; New York Edison Company, Thirty Years of New York, 30; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 404. See also Hughes, Networks of Power, 43.

  211. Papers, 6.815.

  212. Edison Electric Light Co., Fifteenth Bulletin, 20 Dec. 1882. See also Scientific American, 30 Dec. 1882; Clarke in “Edisonia,” 47, 49; Papers, 6.671, 815, 676–77; Scientific American, 30 Dec. 1882; New York Edison Company, Thirty Years of New York, 46.

  213. Stephen Garmey, Gramercy Park: An Illustrated History of a New York Neighborhood (New York, 1984), 74; Israel, Edison, 201; Papers, 6.675.

  214. Papers, 6.199, 680, 683. The phrase “the most fashionable quarter of the city” is TE’s, Papers, 7.724.

  215. Papers, 6.675.

  216. Papers, 7.745, 724. The diary must have been left behind by Morse’s widow, a prior renter. Garmey, Gramercy Park, 154.

  217. Papers, 5.909–10; Tate, Edison Open Door, 35. TE’s total debt to Mrs. Seyfert was actually around $7,000 ($181,300 in today’s money) comprising interest and another note later dropped from her suit. The case grew to rival Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in complexity but is ably summarized in Papers, 7.603-4 and 8.328–29.

  218. Edison Electric Light Co., Sixteenth Bulletin, 2 Feb. 1883; Times, 5 Jan. 1883.

  219. Edison Electric Light Co., Sixteenth Bulletin, 2 Feb. 1883; Papers, 6.668.

  220. Edison Electric Light Co., Sixteenth Bulletin, 2 Feb. 1883; Insull in Papers, 6.669.

  221. Edward Johnson looked over the system at Morgan’s request and said, “If it was my own, I would throw the whole damned thing into the street.” “That’s just what Mrs. Morgan says,” the financier replied. However, he was too aware of the moneymaking potential of domestic incandescent light to jettison either the system or his own investment in it. Strouse, Morgan, 233–34; Papers, 6.750–51.