Thomas Alva Edison’s Menlo Park Invention Factory

Thomas Alva Edison’s Menlo Park Invention Factory. . , Plaque 1: , 1876-1882 Main Laboratory Building, In 1875, Thomas Edison was a young relatively unknown inventor with a shop and small laboratory in Newark, New Jersey. Seeking to move out of the crowded city, he asked his father, Samuel, to look for property on which to build a newer, larger laboratory. Samuel discovered Menlo Park, a failed housing development located on the Pennsylvania Rail line overlooking pasture lands in Raritan Township (today Edison Township). At the end of the year, Edison bought two tracts of land for $5200.00 including the model home/business office that would serve as the Edison family home. In March 1876, the twenty-nine-year-old inventor moved into this new home with his wife Mary and their two children, Marion and Thomas, Jr., Samuel Edison also oversaw the construction of a laboratory building which was completed in March 1876. His staff at the time included two experimenters and three machinists who had accompanied him from his Newark lab. In a January 1887 letter asking William Orton, the president of Western Union, for funds to help operated he laboratory, Edison described it as “25 x 100 and 2 stories filled with every kind of apparatus for scientific research” and noted that “with machinery and apparatus (has) cost about $40,000” (about $900,000.00 today). Orton agreed to provide Edison with funds to operate the machine shop at the lab in exchange for Edison’s inventions in telegraph and telephone technology., The interior of the lab was described by Popular Science in an August 1878 article: “On the ground floor, as you enter, is a little front-office, from which a small library is partitioned off. next is a large square room with glass cases filled with models of his inventions. In the rear of this is the machine shop, completely equipped, and run with a ten-horse-power engine. The upper story occupies the length and breadth of the building, 25 x 100 feet, is lighted by windows on every side, and is occupied as a laboratory. The walls are covered with shelves full of bottles containing all sorts of chemicals. Scattered through the rooms are tables covered with electrical instruments…microscopes, spectroscopes, etc. In the centre of the room is a rack fill of galvanic batteries.” Popular Science, Volume 13 August 1878., Plaque 2: , 1876-1882 Interior Main Laboratory Second Floor, Edison supplemented his funding in 1878 when his invention of the phonograph led to the formation of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. As a result Edison increased his staff, hiring about twenty additional employees, including machinists, experimenters, office staff, and a secretary to handle the influx of mail due to his new-found fame. In late 1878, the Edison Electric Light Co. was founded to fund Edison’s work on lighting technology, and Edison hired more machinists, chemists; (sic) a steam engineer and a lamp blower. He also hired physicist, Francis Upton, the first person to receive a Master of Science degree from Princeton University. Edison also added a new large brick machine shop, a two-story brick office and library, and a boarding house for his employees run by Mary Edison’s step-sister, Sarah Jordan., By 1880, Edison employed more than (missing?) men at the laboratory. With the dramatic increase of manpower, workspace, and equipment Edison had a significant edge on other inventors. With these resources, Edison could rapidly develop and test prototypes of new inventions and work on different technologies simultaneously. It was these advantages that enabled Edison to invent not just a successful incandescent lamp but develop the electrical system that made it a commercial success. The laboratory complex included the original two-story lab building along with a brick machine shop (rear) and brick office and library building (far right) built with funds from the Edison Electric Light Co. In addition there was a carpenter shop and a building for the glassblower, along with other small buildings., Plaque 3: , Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory holds the distinction as the world’s first organized research laboratory; it would be credited to the development of the modern industrial laboratory. Some would later call this historically important site “The Invention Factory.”, Sean Carlucci , Troop 53 , Eagle Scout