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A History of Edison's West Orange Laboratory, 1887-1931

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A History of Edison's West Orange Laboratory, 1887-1931 A HISTORY OF EDISON'S WEST ORANGE LABORATORY 1887-1931 BY A.J. Millard ^à3//3Sù li A HISTORY OP EDISON'S WEST ORANGE LABORATORY 1887-1931 BY A.J. Millard with W.B. Carlson PREFACE. This final report on the history of Edison's laboratory began as National Park Service Contract number CX 1600-4-0047. W.B. Carlson and I won the contract in June 1984 and we formed Electro History to execute it. We carried out the research at the Edison National Historic Site in 1984 and 1985, and jointly wrote a first draft in June 1986. At this point it was decided that more research was required. I produced a new version of the history and delivered it in the first months of 1987. This draft was approved by the Park Service and all corrections and suggested changes have been incorporated into the final report. Dr. Carlson has contributed material on the storage battery and Portland Cement and has written the sidebars for chapters seven and eight. As primary author, however, I am responsible for all errors in the text. A.J. Millard Electro History 28 October 1987 CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: The Best Lab Ever. 33p Building the Laboratory Edison's Laboratory and the Context of Industrial Research TWO: Financing a Grand Strategy. 29p Research for Hire Sidebar: Financial Practices at the Lab THREE: Life and Work at Edison's Laboratory. 22p Managing the West Orange Work Force FOUR: THE PHONOGRAPH. 25p A Case Study of Research and Development Perfecting the Phonograph. FIVE: Edison's Laboratory and the Electrical Industry. 47p A Powerful Incentive The Leadened Collar The Battle of the Systems Sidebara: The Insulation Project; Edison's Finances and the Electrical Industry CHAPTER SIX: Diversification in the 1890s. 53p The Fresh Pull The Laboratory in the 1890s Edison's Folly: The Ore Milling Venture Moving Pictures The Kinetoscope. Sidebars: Electric traction; Edison and the "Boys" at Work; The Black Maria. SEVEN: R&D in the Nineteenth Century. 4Op Final Triumph of the Phonograph Competition in the Motion Picture Business. Forces of Change in the Laboratory. Sidebar: The Changing Research Process at West Orange EIGHT: An Industrial Empire. 53p Formation of TAE. Incorporated The Competitive Struggle. Forming an Engineering Department Sidebar: Marketing the Storage Battery NINE: R&D in the Twentieth Century. 41p Developing the Disc Phonograph Edison at the Helm. The Kinetophone. CHAPTER TEN: The Rise of the Organization 35p Out of the Ashes The Divisional Policy The Reorganization of the Laboratory ELEVEN: Business and Technology: The Dictating Machine. 22p Building the Organization Creating an Office System TWELVE: The Lab in War and Peace. 39p The Naval Consulting Board The West Orange Laboratory in the 1920s The Changing Status of the Lab Sidebar: End of the Edison Motion Picture Business THIRTEEN: Decline and Fall of the Phonograph. 32p The Post-War Depression. The Challenge of Radio Innovation in a Declining Industry Sidebar: The Tone Tests. FOURTEEN: The End of an Era. 24p Rubber from Weeds The Edison Legend Finale 500f LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration After Paqe 1-1 Edison in Building 4 1-1 1-2 Drawing of Planned lab 1-5 1-3 Building 5 1-12 1-4 Lab under Construction 1-13 2-1 Edison Phonograph Works 11-3 2-2 Ditto, interior II-3 3-1 Group Around 1888 Phonograph III-4 4-1 1888 Phonograph in Use IV-12 4-2 Doll Advertisement IV-14 4-3 Phonograph Manufacture IV-21 4-4 Music Room IV-2 2 5-1 Lab in 1890s V-l 5-2 Galvanometer Room V-8 5-3 Advertisement in Battle of Systems V-25 5-4 Municipal System V-31 6-1 Exhibit at Paris Exposition VI-6 6-2 Kinetoscope VI-29 6-3 Film Strips VI-36 6-4 Strip Kinetograph VI-38 6-5 Kinetograph in Black Maria VI-39 6-6 Amusement Arcade VI-41 6-7 Black Maria VI-43 7-1 Edison in Chem Lab VII-11 7-2 Edison with Phonograph VII-13 8-1 Lab Complex circa 1900 VIII-2 8-2 Administration Building VIII-8 9-1 Line of Phonographs IX-12 10-1 Map showing Fire Damage X-3 10-2 Edison and Hutchison X-8 10-3 Constable, C. Edison, Mambert X-14 10-4 Recording Committee X-23 10-5 Music Room X-27 11-1 1905 Business phonograph XI-2 11-2 Graphophone Advertisement XI-2 11-3 Dictating Machine Line XI-5 11-4 Telescribe Advertisment XI-7 11-5 Ediphone XI-9 11-6 Voicewriter XI-19 12-1 Lab Staff Ready for War XII-14 12-2 West Orange Complex in 1920s XII-31 14-1 Edison in Library XIV-1 14-2 Mourning Edison at Lab XIV-20 (All illustrations are from document and photograph collections of Edison National Historic Site. Color photographs were taken of machines at the Site.) 1 INTRODUCTION The Edison National Historic Site attracts thousands of people to West Orange who would normally avoid the harsh, de-industrialized landscape of north New Jersey. Situated about 45 minutes from New York City, the Edison laboratory and museum is one of the most popular of all the National Parks on the East Coast. The Park Service anticipates that over 50,000 people will visit the site in 1987— its centenary year. These visitors come from all parts of the nation and a large section come from abroad. It is hardly surprising that Edison's laboratory is most popular with Japanese tourists, who share his work ethic and commitment to innovation. It is perhaps significant that the architects of today's micro-electronics "revolution" find relevance in the history of the Second Industrial Revolution, which began in the 1870s and lasted until the Great War of 1914-1918. This period of rapid economic growth came after the first wave of industrialization had begun to transform the economy and society of the United States. Edison's invention of the incandescent light bulb marked the beginning of another burst of innovation that created several major new industries. The Second Industrial 2 Revolution does not have the same powerful images as the First; the steam engine and textile mill are universally recognized as the symbols for that great movement which began in Great Britain and spread to the United States in the second decade of the nineteenth century. The new industries of the 1870s and 1880s do not have the same familiar symbols. Edison's Pearl Street station— the architectural relic of the electrical industry— is no longer standing in downtown Manhattan. The Bessemer steel and synthetic chemical industries have left no structure that the general public immediately associates with a period of rapid economic growth in which the United States led the world. Edison's laboratory in West Orange, on the other hand, is both an accessible and appropriate symbol of the Second Industrial Revolution. The complex of buildings in West Orange was erected in the late 1880s, when the Second Industrial Revolution was just beginning. As the greatest industrial research facility in the United States, the laboratory was the breeding ground for a new generation of technology and the starting point of some important new industries of the twentieth century. Here Edison worked at spreading his electrical lighting systems all over the industrialized West and lowering the price of electricity until it was available to everyone. The motion picture camera was invented at the laboratory, along with a host of other important products such as the Edison storage battery and dictating machine. Edison perfected the phonograph at this 3 facility and manufactured thousands of them in his nearby factories. Two of the twentieth century's most influential service industries— motion pictures and musical entertainment— had their humble beginnings in this cluster of brick buildings. The experimental rooms and machine shops in the lab are a reminder of the highly complex technologies introduced by Edison. The impressive, multi-tiered library is evidence of the growing importance of science in the technologies of the Second Industrial Revolution— a revolution that was based on the so-called scientific industries of electricity, steel, chemicals, and communications. The rows of technical journals (many of them from outside the United States), scholarly books, and bound patents show that the information age had begun well before the twentieth century, and that Edison saw the importance of keeping up with scientific and technical progress wherever it occurred. The "old man" often began his day by reading the newspapers and technical journals at his desk in the library. Now only tourists walk around the library and cross the courtyard to the experimental buildings which serve as museums of Edison's achievements. The lathes and drills in the grimy machine shops are quiet now, the lights no longer burn all night in the experimental rooms and the "old man's" bunk in the library is never used. The surviving buildings of this once vast industrial complex serve not only as a museum but also as a reflection of the life and work of one of 4 America's greatest businessmen. The West Orange laboratory bore witness to a critical period in the economic history of the industrialized West and it provides an invaluable resource to understand our immediate past. I- 1 CHAPTER ONE THE BEST LAB EVER. When Edison reached the age of 40 in February 1887, he had achieved more than many men do in their whole lifetimes. (Illus 1-1, Edison in Metallurgy Lab.) As a successful manufacturer of stock tickers, Edison had gained profits and some influential friends on Wall Street.
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