Thomas A. Edison: Managing Menlo Park, 1876-1882

Thomas A. Edison: Managing Menlo Park, 1876-1882

By

Michael J. Gall

A Thesis submitted to the

Graduate School-Monmouth University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts

Graduate Program in History

written under the direction of Dr. Brian Greenberg

2004

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Acknowledgments

This endeavor was made possible with the assistance of a number of individuals. I wish to thank my advisor, Dr. Brian Greenberg, and second reader, Dr. Richard Veit, for providing constructive criticism and guidance, and further focusing my research objectives. Edison historian Paul Israel is thanked for providing technical comments. The Papers of Thomas A. Edison generously assisted in my quest for information. Lastly, I would like to thank my family, Jack, Joann, and Joseph; friends; and my fiancée, Allison, for their patience, inspiration, encouragement, and assistance during the three years it took to complete this study.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................i Table of Contents..........................................................................................................ii List of Figures, Tables, and Charts ...............................................................................iii Chapter 1. Introduction.................................................................................................1 Chapter 2. Growth of an Inventor and the Exposure to Artisan Traditions And Industrialization .................................................................................12 Chapter 3. Edison’s Menlo Park Laboratory: The Growth of the Facility ..................31 Chapter 4. Artisan Management Strategies and the Craft of Invention.......................54 Chapter 5. Industrial Management Strategies..............................................................79 Works Cited ..................................................................................................................113

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List of Figures, Tables, and Charts

Figures Figure 1: Detail of Laboratory Facility, Post 1878 ......................................................33 Figure 2: Second Floor Interior of Laboratory, February 22, 1880 .............................34 Figure 3: Portrait of Chief Laboratory Assistant Charles Batchelor............................36 Figure 4: Portrait of Machine Shop Foreman John Kruesi..........................................38 Figure 5: Map Showing the Location of Edison’s Buildings at Menlo Park, N.J. ......41 Figure 6: Menlo Park Complex Original Site ..............................................................42 Figure 7: Sarah Jordan Boarding House ......................................................................47 Figure 8: 1879 Portrait of Thomas A. Edison..............................................................67 Figure 9: Edison and His Principal Assistants, 1878 ...................................................68 Figure 10: Edison and Crew in Front of Laboratory, ca. 1880 ....................................69 Figure 11: Charles Batchelor’s Conception for Semi-Automated Lamp Manufacture, December 19, 1879 ..............................................................92 Figure 12: Drawing by Charles Batchelor of Proposed Stages of Bulb

Manufacture ................................................................................................94 Figure 13: John Kruesi’s Conception for Semi-Automated Lamp Manufacture May 20, 1880 ..............................................................................................95 Figure 14: Edison Lamp Works Glass Blowers ..........................................................97 Figure 15: Overview of the Vault’s Interior as it Currently Appears ..........................102 Charts Chart 1: Laboratory Facility Hierarchy Pre 1878 ........................................................82 Chart 2: Laboratory Facility Hierarchy Post 1878.......................................................85

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List of Figures, Tables, and Charts

Charts Continued Chart 3: Edison Lamp Works Hierarchy .....................................................................86 Tables Table 1: Wage Comparison..........................................................................................59 Table 2: Work Hours Comparison...............................................................................61

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Chapter 1: Introduction

This thesis examines, as a case study, the evolution of Thomas Edison’s

management strategy, from craft-based to industrially directed, at his Menlo Park

laboratory facility and the associated Edison Lamp Works. Ultimately, this strategy

influenced scientific research and development laboratories well into the twentieth

century. During most of the nineteenth century, management of the invention process

relied heavily, if not exclusively, on the use of artisan-based traditions. In fact, invention

itself was an informally learned craft and coordination of the invention process required

great skill, as the inventor simultaneously assumed the roles of scientist, experimenter,

entrepreneur, and manager.

Laboratories, financed by inventors, were typically small, and inventors

commonly relied on the assistance of or solicited advice from a few skilled individuals,

such as machinists and mechanics. By the late-1870s and 1880s, as a result of corporate

sponsorship of technological innovation, management of the invention process began to

change, and large, complex laboratory facilities were established. To provide financial

support for the larger facilities, inventors established manufactories to produce their

inventions. At their laboratories, inventors conducted a panoply of experiments on

numerous inventions developed for specific industries, such as telegraphy or electrical

generation. To efficiently conduct and coordinate the increasingly complicated process

of invention, inventors had to selectively adopt industrial management tactics, including

bureaucratization, task specialization, detailed record keeping, and intellectual property

protection. The change from craft-based to industrially directed management strategies

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was most evident at Thomas A. Edison’s invention and manufacturing facility in Menlo

Park, New Jersey, which operated from1876 to 1882.

This thesis examines the evolution of management strategies as it occurred at

Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory facility. This chapter presents a context to the

change in management strategies inventors employed as a result of the growth and

professionalization of the invention craft during the mid to late-nineteenth century.

Chapter 2 describes Edison’s initial experience with craft-based work and

industrialization, and his early growth as an inventor before 1876. The growth of the

Menlo Park facility, between 1876 and 1882, including the establishment of the Edison

Lamp Works in Menlo Park, which was directly connected to and relied upon the lab

facility for its operation, is outlined in Chapter 3. In these years, Edison developed

industrial management tactics. Chapter 4 examines the craft traditions employed,

primarily prior to late-1878, before the facility expanded. During this early period, the

small operation of the facility enabled Edison to oversee the operation through a process

of direct management.1 A small number of employees worked under his constant

direction and oversight. To encourage the success of his laboratory and inventions,

Edison relied upon craft traditions and artisan shop culture largely composed of worker

semi-autonomy, apprenticeship, self-education, loyalty and camaraderie, industriousness,

reciprocity, and bonds of mutuality.

Chapter 5 analyzes Edison’s selective implementation of industrial management

strategies. By late 1878, the facility and workforce at Menlo Park had significantly

increased in size. The expansion was a result of Edison’s efforts to invent an

1 James Soltow, “Origins of Small Business and the Relationships Between Large and Small Firms: Metal Fabricating and Machinery Making in New England, 1890-1957,” in Small Business In American Life , ed. Stuart Bruchey (New York, 1980), 194.

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incandescent lamp and an associated system of electrical generation and distribution.

Edison’s goal was to patent an efficient and marketable incandescent lighting system

capable of competing with the pre-existing gas and arc- lighting industries. The inventor

proposed to market the new system by developing and installing central and isolated

electrical power stations supported by a newly invented system of electrical generation

and distribution. To produce lamps for this system, an incandescent lamp manufactory,

was added to the Menlo Park complex in October 1880. The lamp manufactory, known

as the Edison Lamp Works, relied heavily on the lab facility to test its lamps, invent cost-

reducing production equipment and technology, and, initially, to provide payroll for its

employees. In return, the lamp works was to provide the lab with funding for continued

research and development on inventions that would further reduce the costs of

production. This cyclical relationship became a defining feature of modern industrial

research and development laboratories. To effectively undertake the additional work and

coordinate tasks, Edison systematically augmented the traditional pre-industrial

management style with limited aspects of modern industrial management tactics.

The Invention Process

In a process known as cooperative shop invention, inventors, during much of the

nineteenth century, directly managed the processes of invention in small, make-shift

laboratories.2 Working in cramped, rented spaces, in attic rooms, or in machine shops,

inventors stocked their laboratories with an assortment of tools, spare parts, chemicals,

and scientific books and apparatus. Inventors would commonly hire, contract, or solicit

2 Carroll Pursell, Jr., Early Stationary Steam Engines in America: A Study in the Migration of a Technology (City of Washington, 1969), 12-25; Paul Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory: Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention,1830-1920 (Baltimore and London, 1992), 2.

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the advice and talents of one or two machinists, mechanics, or skilled craftsmen. Skilled

worker’s knowledge was essential for the development and refinement of efficient,

operational, and patentable inventions. For example, during the development of his

telegraph, Samuel Morse enlisted the help of mechanic Alfred Vail. For a short period in

1837, the two improved the telegraph from a cumbersome to a simple and efficient

device at Vail’s father’s manufactory, the Speedwell Iron Works, in Morristown, New

Jersey.3 Other inventors who followed this model included Alexander Graham Bell and

Elihu Thompson.

The process of invention contained a number of steps. The first step was concept

creation, whereby the inventor conceived a new system or mechanical device, typically as

a significant improvement to an existing mechanism or technology. With luck and

entrepreneurial skill, the inventor was able to convince wealthy capitalists to finance the

invention. Limited funding prohibited the inventor from hiring a large number of

assistants. Employing his technical experience and scientific and mathematical

knowledge, the inventor constructed, experimented, and make necessary improvements to

the experimental instrument or system.4 Less the lone inventor, the successful creation

and redesign of an invention into a patent model entailed the cooperative efforts of one or

two experimental assistants, machinists, and mechanics.5 Once the patent model was

constructed and tested, the invention and a written detailed description of its operation

and component parts, including schematics, were presented to the United States Patent

Office for patent application and approval.

3 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 31-37. 4 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 20-21. 5 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 21.

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The successful implementation of the invention process relied not only on the

knowledge, experience, and ingenuity of the inventor and his assistants, but also on the

inventor’s entrepreneurial skills and ability to manage and coordinate inventive tasks;

skills known collectively as the craft of invention. 6 The craft of invention, principally

established in the early to mid-1870s by inventors such as Thomas Edison, initially

employed craft-based management strategies. In the laboratory, the inventor, who

coordinated the operation through a process of direct management, assumed the role of

the master artisan; his assistants became his apprentices. Inventors also heavily utilized

aspects of artisan shop culture, including open and accessible dissemination of

knowledge among employees and peers, irregular work hours, opportunities for upward

mobility, and the mastery of trade skills.7 Shop culture also consisted of a task-oriented

and worker-controlled production pace, worker autonomy, close relationships between

masters and their journeymen and apprentices, and bonds of mutuality. Inventors like

Edison maintained these pre- industrial traditions to make the execution and coordination

of the skill-based craft of invention most efficient.

Modification of the Invention Process

By the late-1870s and 1880s, inventors, such as Thomas Edison and Elihu

Thomson, modified the traditional, strictly craft-based system of invention. Edison, at

Menlo Park, selective ly adopted industrially-based management tactics without fully

abandoning pre-existing management strategies.8 The combined use of pre-industrial and

6 W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870-1900 (Cambridge 1991), 66. 7 Andre Millard, “Machine Shop Culture and Menlo Park,” in Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience, William Pretzer, ed. (Baltimore and London, 2002), 48-64. 8 Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York, 1998), 167.

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modernized management practices resulted from limitations placed on inventors’ ability

to directly manage the invention process as their small laboratory facilities expanded into

moderate-sized, multi-component complexes. At Menlo Park, the expanded required a

higher number of assistants, enabling multiple projects to be conducted simultaneously.

As the inventor’s direct control over employees, experiments, and related inventive tasks

became more limited, successful coordination of the operation required a bureaucratic

management structure and the employment of modernized managerial practices.

In this new structure, the inventor’s role became more focused on innovation

conception, financial appropriation, and overall management. Increased experimental

projects required a team approach for research and development of technology

innovation, whereby teams of assistants would experiment on and develop specific

elements of the invention conceived by Edison. Teams were headed by a team leader or

manager, who received from and provided continual project updates to Edison. The team

research approach forced assistants to specialize in certain aspects of an invention’s

development and operation.

Specialization provided workers with intimate knowledge of the science and

technology surrounding only a particular component of an invention. Consequently, their

knowledge of all aspects of the invention process was reduced. This limitation,

combined with restrictions on the flow of company information and training in the craft

of invention and the science of electrical engineering, was also necessary to protect

Edison’s intellectual property from being obtained by his competitors. Ultimately,

Edison reserved such information and training for his most loyal employees.

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In addition to these modifications, Edison also realized that for the business of

innovation to be profitable he needed to develop and patent inventions that he could

manufacture, such as the incandescent lamp.9 Edison did this through the creation of his

incandescent lamp manufactory, the Edison Lamp Works. Once established, Edison

intended to use the manufactory to fund continued industry-based innovation by creating

inventions that would reduce the costs of production. Ultimately, the establishment of a

manufactory in association with an invention factory became a necessary component of

the invention process.

The transformation or evolution of innovation management from strictly craft-

based to both craft and industrially-based was influenced by the inventor’s general

awareness of industrialization and modern management tactics. Edison witnessed such

industrial management strategies during the mid-1860s while working as an itinerant

telegrapher for Western Union Telegraph Company, a large national firm that sought to

create a monopoly in the telegraph industry. Inventors also observed the rapid, but

uneven, industrialization of artisan trades that occurred nationally.10 Throughout the

nineteenth century, but with tremendous advances in the postbellum period,

industrialization reduced workers’ skills and wages, produced a division of labor,

simplified and subdivided work tasks, employed greater mechanization, and created a

9 Andre Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation (Baltimore and London, 1993), 42, 58. 10 Susan Hirsch, Roots of The American Working Class: The Industrialization of Crafts in Newark, 1800-1860 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 21-24; Walter Licht, Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century (Baltimore and London, 1995), 21-23; Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America: Essays in American Working-Class and Social History (New York, 1977), 13; Sean Wilentz, “The Bastardization of Craft,” in The Industrial Revolution in America, ed. Gary Kornblith (Boston and New York: 1998), 79-87

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management hierarchy, a process known collectively as the “bastardization of craft.”11

Unlike other industrialists, the inventor/entrepreneur could not employ all the elements of

modern industrialization in his laboratories. A wholehearted adoption of these elements

would have rendered the inventor and his staff incapable of conducting the skill-based

operation of invention. Choosing the most efficient aspects of each in the invention

process enabled inventors like Edison to selectively blend craft and industrial practices.

Research and Research Goals

In order to create a detailed examination of Edison’s management strategy and the

forces that influenced that strategy, this study focuses primarily on the years the Menlo

Park lab facility was in operation, circa 1876-1882. This thesis is then a case study of a

six-year period of the management practices at one of America’s first and most prolific

scientific industrial research and development laboratories. Research for this study relied

largely on primary sources. Unfortunately, during this study, the main repository of

Edison-related records and documents, the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange,

New Jersey, was closed. Consequently, research relied primarily on printed patent

interference court records held at the National Archives, published documents in the

Thomas A. Edison Papers Microfilm Edition and The Papers of Thomas A. Edison,

diaries, reminiscences, local accounts, labor statistics, and newspaper articles. Also

consulted were workers’ time sheets, letters of correspondence, historic maps and images,

and personal documents in the Edison Pioneers biography files and the William Hammer

Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Secondary sources were utilized to help focus

the research topic and provide valuable insights into the context of nineteenth-century

11 Hirsch, Roots of The American Working Class, 22-24, 35; David Bensman, The Practice of Solidarity: American Hat Finishers in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 74.

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management strategies, invention operations, the social forces guiding innovation, and

Thomas Edison’s inventive career. Finally, archaeological data gathered from recent

excavations at Menlo Park by Monmouth University, provided valuable, previously

undocumented information about the infrastructure of secrecy and intellectual property

protection at Menlo Park.

Historiography

The results of this study add to the historiography of Thomas A. Edison and the

Menlo Park laboratory facility. Like most histories of the famous inventor, this study

focuses on Thomas Edison, yet it is not intended as a biography or a history of

technology. Early Edison biographers, such as Frank Dyer, Thomas Martin and William

Meadowcroft, Mary Nerney, and Francis Jones, present Edison, as suggested by the title

of Nerney’s book, Thomas A. Edison: A Modern Olympian, as a sole inventor,

highlighting only his most impressive and famous inventions.12 These works utilize

Edison’s own faded, distorted, and incomplete memories as the basis of their work.

Between the 1950s and 1970s, biographers Matthew Josephson and Robert Conot were

among the first to review the then unorganized multi-million-page document record

generated by Edison, his laboratories and companies, and his workforce.13 Their works

were the first to critically examine Edison and his career, identifying his weaknesses and

strengths as an inventor and businessman, and the importance of his utilization of

cooperative shop practices to successfully conduct the invention process.

12 Nancy Nerney, Thomas A. Edison: A Modern Olympian (New York, 1934); Francis Arthur Jones, The Life Story of Thomas Alva Edison (New York, 1907); Frank Dyer, et al., Edison: His Life and Inventions Volume 1 (New York and London, 1929). 13 Robert Conot, A Streak of Luck (Toronto, New York, and London, 1979); Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography (New York, 1959).

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By the late 1980s, the three-part series, The Thomas A. Edison Papers: A Selective

Microfilm Edition, was completed. This series contained thousands of chronologically

sequenced primary documents, organized by subtopics, and enabled researchers to fill in

gaps and correct misinformation presented by the preceding histories. Numerous Edison

histories were produced after the publication of the microfilm edition. The first of these

includes William Pretzer’s edited work, Working at Inventing, which provides a history

of Edison’s creation of a new system of invention, which utilized a diverse social and

technically-trained workforce and the use of corporate capitalism to fund technology

innovation, influencing the management of later research and development facilities. In

this work, historian Andre Millard, points out that Edison utilized artisan shop culture to

conduct the invention process, a concept elaborated upon in this thesis.14 In Edison and

the Business of Innovation, author Andre Millard, later challenges the myth, in part

perpetuated by Edison himself, that the great inventor was not a keen businessman. 15

Millard highlights Edison’s attention to detail and entrepreneurial skills as a manager of

his laboratories and companies, focusing primarily on Edison’s years at his West Orange,

New Jersey laboratory and associated manufactories after 1887. Millard points out that it

was often the lack of sponsorship for technology innovation, rather than ill management,

that forced the downfall of many Edison-owned companies. Finally, Paul Israel’s recent

work outlines Edison’s development and career as an inventor, defining his importance

and influence in the development of science and modern scientific innovation.

This study adds to the Edison historiography by examining Edison’s

entrepreneurial and management skills, and the role of craft and industrially-based

14 Millard, “Machine Shop Culture and Menlo Park,” 48-64. 15 Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 50.

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management practices in the invention and manufacturing process. The pros and cons of

using craft and industrially-based management tactics is not part of the scope of this

study. Rather, this study examines the development of, forces behind, and selective

implementation of a diversity of management tactics at Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park

laboratory necessary for the evolution of invention from an artisan craft into an

industrially influenced trade.

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Chapter 2: Growth of an Inventor and the Exposure to Craft Traditions and Industrialization Thomas Edison first experienced pre-industrial craft traditions and artisan shop

cultures in the mid-1860s during his teenage years as an apprentice in the nascent field of

telegraphy, and, later, in his work in machine shops. Like many apprentices, Edison soon

became a journeyman in his trade. Working for a number of telegraph companies, he

roamed the country as an itinerant telegrapher, learning and participating in the artisan

shop culture of the telegraph operator. In the late-1860s and 1870s, as telegraphy

underwent increased mechanization, task specialization, division of labor, reduction of

trade skill and wages, and management bureaucratization, Edison was also exposed to

industrially-based management strategies. His exposure to both artisan traditions and

industrialization influenced his management strategy at Menlo Park.

Learning the Craft and Exposure to Industrial Management Tactics

Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio to Nancy and

Samuel Edison. In 1854, his family moved to the growing town of Port Huron,

Michigan, a stop on the Grand Trunk Railway. Typical of most rail lines, the railway

contained telegraph lines along its right-of-way. First introduced commercially in 1844,

telegraphy was still a new technology during his youth. Intrigued, Edison quickly took

an interest in the work of telegraphers and the science and mechanics that governed the

telegraph’s operation. 1

As a boy, Edison’s formal education was limited, due to his family’s financial

setbacks caused by the 1857 economic depression. Aware of the importance for an

education, Edison’s mother, Nancy, continued her son’s tutelage through home-

1 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 36.

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instruction. 2 Under his mother’s guidance, Edison read an array of literature, including

Richard Parker’s Natural Philosophy, and Carl Fresenius’s System of Instruction in

Qualitative Chemical Analysis.3 Natural Philosophy introduced Edison to telegraphy, as

well as electricity, physics, and mechanics, and Fresenius’ work to chemical analysis.

These works, part of the increasing popularization of science during the nineteenth

century, sparked his interest in science and furthered his intellectual development.4

Inquisitive and curious like most boys, Edison was eager to put theory into

practice.5 He soon gained permission to set up his first laboratory in a baggage car at the

nearby railroad stockyard. This situation, however, was short lived due to complications

from spilled chemicals that engulfed the car in flames. Determined to continue, but

banned from using the rail cars, young Edison moved his assortment of chemicals and

scientific apparatus into the cellar of his home. Edison’s home laboratory was similar to

that of the inventor Elihu Thomson, who also experimented with chemicals and electro-

mechanisms during his adolescence.6 Both labs were filled with a variety of chemicals

and home-made mechanisms. Like many boys his age, Edison sought to create a space at

home that was relatively free from adult supervision and control in order to freely explore

the mysteries of science and unknown forces that governed the world in which he lived.7

2 Dyer, et al., Edison: His Life and Inventions, 1:26. 3 Dyer, et al., Edison: His Life and Inventions, 1:26-28, 37. 4 Hyman Kuritz, “The Popularization of Science in Nineteenth-Century America,” in History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Autumn, 1981), 259-274. 5 According to social and gender historian E. Anthony Rotundo, applying knowledge in this way and learning from experience was part of boyhood culture during the nineteenth century. E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York, 1993), 44. 6 Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 34. 7 Rotundo, American Manhood , 33. Archaeological excavations at the site of his boyhood home in Port Huron yielded one glass pharmaceutical measuring cup, fragments of scientific glass vials, and two pieces of elemental copper. These artifacts may represent the physical evidence of Edison’s adolescent experimental activities. Richard Stamps, Bruce Hawkins, and Nancy Wright, Search for the House in the

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In 1862, Edison constructed a crude telegraph line between childhood friend

James Clancy’s home and his own. Looking to improve his skills, that same year Edison

informally began to learn the craft of the telegraph key from local telegraphers John

Thomas and John Raper. Later that year, his formal introduction to the trade began with

his apprenticeship under telegrapher James MacKenzie. During his apprenticeship, he

tirelessly and industriously worked to become better acquainted with telegraph

technology and the telegraph trade. Eager to improve at manipulating the telegraph key,

Edison claims to have worked eighteen hours daily under MacKenzie’s guidance to learn

the Morse code and the skills needed to become a second class, or plug, operator.8 As an

apprentice, Edison experienced the craft-based traditions and telegraph operators’ shop

culture.9 Upon finishing his year- long apprenticeship, Edison, like most telegraph

operators of his day, roamed the countryside, visiting new places in search of work.10

Being on the “tramp” or journeying in search of work to learn new skills and visit

unseen places was part of every telegrapher’s life, as it was for most artisans of the day. 11

As an itinerant telegrapher, Edison worked in a number of telegraph offices across the

country, mainly for the Western Union Telegraph Company, as well as for smaller

companies. Through constant practice, experimenting, and observation, he increased his

knowledge about the telegraph trade and eventually acquired the necessary skills to

become a first class operator. Edison, however, was less interested in being an operator

Grove: Archaeological Excavations of the Boyhood Homesite of Thomas A. Edison in Port Huron, Michigan 1976-1994 (Rochester, 1994), 180. 8 Thomas Alva Edison, “Edison’s Autobiographical Notes,” in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison: The Making of an Inventor, February 1847-June 1873 , vol. 1, ed. Reese Jenkins, et al. (Baltimore, 1989), 631. 9 Dyer, et al., Edison: His Life and Inventions, Vol. 1, 49-50; Conot, A Streak of Luck , 19. 10 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 20. 11 Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century America (Urbana and Chicago, 1997), 36.

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than he was in experimenting on and improving the machines and electrical instruments

operators controlled and in inventing electro-mechanical devices.

Like many of his fellow operators, Edison “had the profoundest curiosity as to the

underlying principles of electricity that made telegraphy possible.”12 Such curiosity was

the foundation of a telegraph technical community, in which some telegraphers shared

information regarding technological advances, science, and mechanical technology.

They learned from reading scientific publications and trade journals, and, like the

“fraternity of mechanicians” found in the metal working trade, from constructing and

examining each others’ innovative mechanical instruments.13 It was during his early

years as a telegrapher that Edison was introduced to the necessary skills to become an

inventor; skills the historian W. Bernard Carlson calls the “Craft of Invention.”14

Carlson explains that the craft or art of invention was a learned and intensive

process that required an inventor to observe new scientific discoveries, to experiment, to

turn concepts into working mechanisms, to patent the inventions, and to present his

findings or results to the scientific community in published form. 15 This craft required

the inventor to not only master technical skills, but also learn entrepreneurship, attention

to detail, and management skills. As such, the inventor assumed the role of scientist,

inventor, manager, and entrepreneur. Typically, the inventor conceived an idea for a new

mechanism or technology, acquired funding, hired skilled assistants, and managed

finances, tasks, and employees. The inventor was required to coordinate these elements

to efficiently research, experiment, and develop an invention to create a patent model and

12 Dyer, et al., Edison: His Life and Inventions, Vol. 1, 100. 13 Anthony F. C. Wallace, “The Fraternity of Mechanicians,” in The Industrial Revolution in America, ed. Gary J. Kornblith (Boston and New York, 1998), 23-29. 14 Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 66. 15 Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 57-78.

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patent application. Edison principally acquired the necessary skills for the craft of

invention through a process of self-education and observation.

As an itinerant telegrapher, Edison, like many other journeyman telegraphers,

spent his leisure and work hours tinkering with and experimenting on the telegraph to

familiarize himself with the instrument’s mechanics and electrical operation. He realized

that self- improvement, the cornerstone of the popularization of science, was necessary for

advancement in scientific professions.16 Edison tirelessly absorbed scientific literature,

visited libraries, purchased books, and experimented on electro-mechanical devices.

Education and experiential knowledge were key to understanding the underlying

principles of telegraphy and gaining insights to telegraph technology. Intent on making

significant improvements upon the telegraph, Edison constantly made adjustments to the

telegraph apparatus. These experiments included work on self-adjusting relays, modified

repeaters, multiple telegraphy, systems of secret signaling, and fire-alarm and stock

printing telegraphs.17

Reading about, experimenting with, and learning telegraph technology was part of

the telegraph operators’ shop culture. So too was augmenting the routine of work, study,

and experimentation with necessary periods of relaxation and fun. Edison and his fellow

operators typically relieved the strenuous workday with long conversations, story-telling,

and practical jokes. At work, Edison continuously found new ways to amuse his co-

workers. One practical joke involved attaching batteries to a washbasin so that when

touched, the unsuspecting party was briefly shocked.18

16 Kuritz, “The Popularization of Science in Nineteenth-Century America,” 264. 17 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 35-49. 18 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 22.

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Humorous initiations, suffered by most telegraph operators, were also part of the

work routine. For example, in April 1868, on his first day at work at the Boston Western

Union office, he was told to take a lengthy press message for the Boston Herald from a

New York operator. As Edison later told the story, the New York operator began sending

the message with great speed, but he was able to keep up. Intent on making Edison break

or interrupt the message, an action that first class operators discouraged, the New York

operator began abbreviating and slurring his message. Knowing full well that he was at

the receiving-end of a joke, Edison, keyed the New York operator, “You seem to be tired,

suppose you send a little while with your other foot.”19 The room immediately filled with

laughter and Edison passed the initiation. Initiations and shop practices like this bound

operators into a community. Known as the “Knights of the Key,” the telegraphers took

pride in their competence, skill, and command over the electro-mechanical devices

needed to send and receive a coded language.

During periods of slow business, operators, like Edison, utilized their skill and

limited autonomy to communicate over the telegraph with one another between distant

locations. Operators told stories and jokes, shared personal information, offered advice

to one another, and solidified friendships over the wire. Operators also became aware of

changes occurring nationally within their trade, such as wage reductions, implementation

of easily operated telegraphic machinery, the utilization of cheap female labor, and task

specialization.

Prior to the mid-1860s, operators enjoyed relatively high wages due to the skill

needed to accurately send and receive messages and tend the ir machines. The telegraph

19 Thomas A. Edison, “Edison’s Autobiographical Notes,” in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison: The Making of an Inventor, February 1847-June 1873 , vol. 1, ed. Reese Jenkins, et al. (Baltimore and London, 1989), 637.

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trade was craft-based, and telegraphers were responsible for conducting a multitude of

tasks associated with telegraph communication. Telegraphers were expected to be

knowledgeable in line and telegraph repair, battery recharge, and coded message

communication. 20 Operators also had to be versed in electrical science. However,

telegraphy as a skilled, craft-based trade would begin to change as companies grew

larger, bureaucratized, and became more competitive. Operators’ work also changed as

their tasks became more specialized and deskilled due to the introduction of increased

technological improvements to telegraphic machinery, such as automatic printing

telegraphs.

By the late-1860s and 1870s, telegraph firms, such as Western Union Telegraph

Company, had expanded and adopted industrial processes that resulted in the elimination

of operators’ craft traditions from the workplace. Connected to the telegraph industry,

during the 1870s after he became a professional inventor, Edison was aware of these

changes. As the firms grew, they absorbed smaller companies and established control

over vast regions of the country. 21 The competition between the large firms necessitated

cost cutting measures and the implementation of modernized managerial strategies. To

reduce the skills required by telegraph operators, companies subdivided work tasks by

creating new, more specialized, positions.22 Telegraph companies employed linesmen,

battery operators, electricians, and mechanics. Operators were simply required to send

and receive messages.

20 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 64. 21 Vidkunn Ulriksson, The Telegraphers: Their Craft and Their Unions (Washington, D.C., 1953), 9-13; Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 54. 22 Edward Gabler, The American Telegrapher: A Social History, 1869-1900 (New Brunswick and London, 1988), 51, 69.

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To gain greater control over the process and reduce production costs, large firms

contracted inventors to create new telegraph devices. For example, duplex and diplex

machines, introduced in 1872, allowed two messages to be sent or be received over a

single line, thus reducing the cost of line installation and maintenance.23 Companies

were determined to blanket the telegraph industry with corporate-owned patents. The

goal sought by all companies was to retain the rights to key patents for which the industry

depended, such as those for multiple telegraphy. 24 Patent ownership enabled individual

firms to dominate the industry.

Inventors were also hired to create telegraph machinery that required less skill to

operate. For example, inventors constructed telegraphs that could accurately record

messages on chemically treated paper, leaving black marks or perforations for the

message to be read and translated with ease. The new instruments enabled the companies

to reduce operators’ wages and skills, as well as begin to hire women as a cheap

workforce. 25 Ultimately, workers were made expendable through the process of

industrialization and the bastardization of craft.26

In response to the initial problem of wage reduction during the mid-1860s, as well

as to gather as a fraternal organization united by the craft skills shared by operators, many

telegraph operators united to form the National Telegraphic Union (NTU).27 In the fall of

1865, Edison, who wanted to retain high wages but welcomed the new strategy of

corporately sponsored innovation, became one of the founding members of the Cincinnati 23 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, Chapter 5; Leonard Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876-1926 (Cambridge, 1993), 4; Paul Israel, “Invention and Corporate Strategies,” in The Industrial Revolution in America, ed. Gary Kornblith (Boston and New York, 1998), 150-151. 24 Israel, “Invention and Corporate Strategies,” 150-151. 25 Gabler, The American Telegrapher, 51. 26 Sean Wilentz, “The Bastardization of Craft,” 79-87. 27 Ulriksson, The Telegraphers, 16.

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District of the NTU. 28 Edison’s support of the union was based on his acknowledgement

of the importance of skill, high wages, self- improvement, and occupational mobility as

vehicles for success. Edison and other tradesmen agreed that these artisan traditions were

necessary elements for the retention of the free labor ideology, as well as the pervading

success ethic and concept of manhood, whereby male workers were determined through

their own assiduousness, competence, skill, autonomy, and free labor to establish

themselves as self-made men.29 In forming the NTU, operators joined together and

encouraged strong trade community bonds, the retention of worker skills, and the

promotion of self- improvement and self-education. In fact, the editors of The

Telegrapher, like Edison, acknowledged that one of the few ways operators could gain

occupational mobility and success was by learning the technical aspects of their trade, as

well as science and mechanics in order to improve telegraph technology through

invention.

Like a number of his fellow telegrapher operators, Edison hoped to succeed as an

inventor by undertaking a process of self-education and self-discipline.30 Edison later

wrote in 1882 that this process entailed reading, observation, experimentation, patience,

28 Jenkins, et al., in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 1:xxxix, Doc. 168, n.1; Francis Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1 (Dearborn, 1937), 35. 29 Daniel Rodgers. The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920 (Chicago and London, 1978), 30, 35; Brian Greenberg, Worker and Community: Response to Industrialization in a Nineteenth-Century American City, Albany, New York, 1850-1854 (Albany, 1985), 26-27; Gary Kornblith, “The Entrepreneurial Ethic,” in Problems in American Civilization: The Industrial Revolution in America, ed. Gary Kornblith (Boston and New York, 1998), 71-79; John Cawelti, Apostles of the Self-Made Man: Changing Concepts of Success in America (Chicago and London, 1965), 5-6; Ava Baron, “Acquiring Manly Competence: The Demise of Apprenticeship and the Remasculinization of Printers’ Work,” in Mark Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America, eds. C. Carnes and Clyde Griffen (Chicago and London, 1990), 153; Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist (Urbana and Chicago: 1984), 23-24. 30 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 65.

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perseverance, enthusiasm, experience, imagination, and hard work.31 Engaging in these

elements enabled Edison and other inventors to develop skills in the craft of invention.

Beyond engrossing themselves in scientific literature and experimenting on new

telegraphic machinery, skills and knowledge were also acquired by immersing in the

technical communities found in cities across the country. Cities such as New York and

Boston had exceptional technically-oriented telegraph and machine trade communities,

both of which aspiring inventors like Edison embraced. To develop their concepts into

patentable inventions, operators with innovative mechanical concepts commonly

consulted machinists and other telegraph operators for advice. However, most lacked

financial support to see their concepts into patented, marketable inventions.

During the late 1860s, Edison worked in Boston, Massachusetts, and became

acquainted with numerous telegraph companies and their associated machine shops.

There, struggling to gain funding to invent his innovative concepts, Edison became aware

of the necessity for financial support for his inventions. Edison understood, like most

independent inventors, that investors would only provide financial support for the

creation of inventions for which there was or potentially could be a real market demand.32

Moreover, in the industrial arena, such as the telegraph industry, corporations selectively

sponsored the invention of innovative technology geared toward reducing production

and/or operating costs. With this knowledge, his growing skills in the craft of invention,

and his insatiable urge to invent, Edison decided to become a professional inventor.

31 Thomas A. Edison, “How to Succeed as an Inventor,” in How to Succeed in Public Life: A Series of Essays, ed. Lyman Abbott (New York, 1882), 94-104. 32 Dyer, et al., Edison: His Life and Inventions, vol. 1, 103; Edison, “How to Succeed as an Inventor,” 101-102.

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Entrepreneur and Inventor

On January 30, 1869, at almost 22 years old, Edison permanently ended his career

as an itinerant telegraph operator to devote his full time and energy to inventing.33 Four

months later, he moved to New York City, where he found the largest and most

technically oriented telegraph community in the nation. New York also offered Edison a

supply of potential investors eager to increase their wealth, as well as telegraph

companies that sought to monopolize on inventors’ patents. During the late-1860s and

1870s, the telegraph industry experienced a significant rise in company-sponsorship of

technological innovation for new telegraph instruments and systems.34 One such

company was Gold and Stock Telegraph Company (GSTC). In February 1871, GSTC, a

leading private-line telegraph company, attempted to increase its patent ownership by

enlisting Edison’s inventive talents. Gold and Stock Telegraph Company contracted

Edison as a “Consulting Electrician and Mechanician.” 35 Under this contract, Edison

was responsible for inventing new and efficient private-line telegraph apparatus, the

patents for which were sold to and controlled by GSTC.

Edison included in the contract a provision that required GSTC to provide him

with funds for a facility to invent a facsimile telegraph instrument. Edison historian Paul

Israel notes that it was probably Edison who wished to include this provision on account

of his former experience with manufacturing delays in Boston, where typical machine

shop back orders delayed the construction of a patent model. Writing about this

experience, Edison observed,

33 “Editorial Notice in the Telegrapher,” January 30, 1869, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 1, ed. Jenkins, et al., 111, Doc. 55. 34 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 4. 35 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 52.

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What delays me here is awaiting the alteration of my instruments which on account of the piling up of jobs at the instrument makers have been delayed and I will probably have to wait one week longer, and then if everything works as it has got to do for I’ll never say ‘fail’…36 Due to the rapidity of technological innovation in the telegraph industry, delays

associated with invention and the patent process had to be minimized.

Funds provided in this contract enabled Edison to establish a machine shop

initially for the sole purpose of inventing an efficient facsimile telegraph. On February

15, 1870, Edison established the Newark Telegraph Works, at 15 New Jersey Railroad

Avenue in Newark, New Jersey with machinist, William Unger. By April, GSTC

requested Edison to make improvements to and manufacture a gold stock report printing

telegraph, for which it had recently acquired patent rights. The new facility allowed

Edison to invent, experiment on, modify, and manufacture telegraph instruments at will.

Edison now had a machine shop with which he could control output with relative

certainty. He was also able to utilize his machinists’ and mechanics’ craft and technical

skills to assist in the invention process.

Few other inventors at this time, such as telegraph inventors Elisha Gray and

Jesse Bunnell, were able to operate in their own machine shops by establishing business

partnerships with machinists and mechanics.37 More commonly, inventors such as

Alexander Graham Bell, Elihu Thomson and others during their early careers rented

small spaces in machine shops. In these shops, the inventors paid one or two machinists

to construct their inventions. By working directly with the machinists during this

process, inventors, including Edison, oversaw the creation, alteration, and modification of

36 Letter from Edison to E. Baker Welch, May 8, 1869, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 1, ed. Jenkins, et al., 121-123, Doc. 68. 37 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 83; Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 53.

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their concepts into working patent models. Most inventors typically did not own their

own shops, and, consequently, their experimental work was often delayed because of

large customer orders that received priority. Edison, of course, no longer dealt with such

delays. The Newark Telegraph Works was the first machine shop dedicated entirely to

Edison for experimental work on and manufacture of stock printing telegraphs for GSTC.

Between 1870 and his departure from Newark in March 1876, Edison was a co-

founder/owner of five different machine shops within the City of Newark. Some of these

shops operated simultaneously, and all specialized in telegraph manufacture and

invention for different telegraph companies, includ ing GSTC, the Automatic Telegraph

Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the Atlantic and Pacific

Telegraph Company. In these shops, Edison developed the skills necessary for invention.

Here, he acquired the skill and capability of simultaneously researching and developing

multiple inventions, made possible through the employment of a coordinated, semi-

bureaucratic management structure. Edison headed this loose hierarchy, based in a

traditional cooperative artisan shop culture, where he was assisted by a small number of

experimental assistants and a foreman, under whom worked machinists and mechanics.

Work on multiple inventions also necessitated long workdays of strenuous,

tedious, and precise work. To ensure that he had ample time to conduct his work, Edison

requested a clause in the lease for his machine shop, the American Telegraph Works,

which conducted work for the Automatic Telegraph Company, that permitted the shop to

“have the right to run nights.”38 Edison’s desire to work long days was typical of his

personal and managerial style. In fact, Edison commonly worked sixteen to eighteen

38 Letter from Thomas Edison to George Harrington, September 1870, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 1, ed. Jenkins, et al., 189-190, Doc. 108.

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hours daily in his shops, later stating that sleep caused a “loss of time, vitality, and

opportunities.”39 His views about rest and work were indicative of the pervading success

ethic.40 For Edison and many other workers, particularly artisans, hard work helped build

strong character, promoted one’s social status, and increased one’s chances of success

through social and occupational mobility. 41 Edison often pushed himself and his men to

continue laboring once a task or invention was near completion or when a concept or

mechanism was undergoing development. 42 During such times, it was necessary for the

work momentum to remain static to encourage successful completion of steps within the

invention process. To ensure that his assistants had full understanding of his inventive

goals, Edison was continuously and fully engaged in the work with his men, toiling and

getting dirty like an average employee. The inventor later commented, “I gave them a

good training as to working hours and hustling.”43

After long work stints, Edison usually allowed his men time to rest, a tactic he

had learned while an itinerant telegrapher and through his general awareness of task-

orientated, pre- industrial modes of production. During this time, they socialized and

indulged in alcohol and tobacco smoking for hours.44 In fact, Edison commonly joined

his men during their leisure, chewing tobacco, drawing cartoons, and telling stories. In

prosperous times, when he or the company earned profits, Edison displayed his

appreciation for his shop workers’ fine and hard work by providing them with a

39 Thomas A. Edison, The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison, ed. Dogbert D. Runes, (New York, 1948), 178; Conot, A Streak of Luck ,48. 40 Rodgers. The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 7; Bensman, The Practice of Solidarity, 47-48; David Bensman, “Economics and Culture in the Gilded Age Hatting Industry,” in Small Business in American Life, ed. Stuart W. Bruchey (New York, 1980), 360. 41 Rotundo, American Manhood , 175. 42 Conot, A Streak of Luck , 49. 43 Dyer, Martin, and Meadowcroft, Edison: His Life and Inventions, vol. 1, 138. 44 Conot, A Streak of Luck , 50.

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celebratory supper.45 For Edison, unlike most industrialists of his time, it was important

to establish a feeling of camaraderie and promote a mutuality of interests with his

workers, a style of leadership that would carry through into his years at Menlo Park.46

By February 1872, in a partnership with machinist Joseph Murray, Edison

established a telegraph instrument manufacturing shop called Murray & Co at 115 New

Jersey Railroad Avenue in Newark to fulfill GSTC’s enormous orders.47 By mid-

summer, this shop moved to 10-12 Ward Street in Newark and was renamed Edison &

Murray. 48 The new shop was large. An 1872 company inventory/balance sheet compiled

by Charles Batchelor, Edison’s chief experimenter, indicates that the new shop contained

$34,774.98 worth of equipment, tools, supplies, chemicals, and machinery. 49 Certainly,

Edison was making headway establishing himself as an inventor and manufacturer.

A variety of machinists, mechanics, and experimenters were employed by Edison

& Murray, some of whom exhibited great skill and interest in electro-mechanical

instruments. These men would later follow Edison to Menlo Park. One of these

employees was Charles Batchelor, nicknamed “Batch” by Edison. Batchelor came to the

United States in 1870 from England as a textile mechanic. In 1871 he served as a

precision machinist and mechanic in Edison’s Newark machine shop, the American

Telegraph Works. Edison took notice of Batchelor’s mechanical skills and interest in

electrical matters, and soon promoted him to the position of chief experimental assistant.

45 Conot, A Streak of Luck , 87; Dyer, et al., Edison: His Life and Inventions, vol. 1, 135. 46 Brian Greenberg notes, in Worker and Community, 30-31, that some industrialists, such as those in Albany during the mid -1850s, supported craft traditions by engaging in public outings, target shooting, and games to establish a sense of camaraderie with their employees. 47 R. G. Dun and Company Credit Report, March 6, 1872, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 1, ed. Jenkins, et al., 469, Doc. 252. 48 Jenkins, et al., in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 1, ed. Jenkins, et al., 501, n. 1-2. 49 Edison and Murray Balance Sheet, January 1, 1873, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 1, ed. Jenkins, et al., 515-519, Doc. 280.

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Edison paid Batchelor double what other workers in the Newark shop earned. Edison

was also impressed by the mechanical skills of Charles Dean. Dean later worked at

Menlo Park and conducted contract work for the precision-machined parts needed in the

incandescent lamp experiments.

Additional machinists and mechanics from Newark who followed Edison to

Menlo Park included Swiss machinist John Kruesi, later foreman of the Menlo Park

machine shop, John Ott, Carl Herman, and James Bradley. Other workers included

machinist Charles Wurth, Edison’s nephew Charles Edison, and ex-sailor turned

experimental assistant James Adams. Adams, like Batchelor, later proved instrumental in

the development of new inventions both at the Ward Street shop and at Menlo Park. By

1875 Adams became one of Edison’s chief experimental assistants.50 The machine shop

skills exhibited by these men were impressive, and Edison knew it. He utilized their

skills and talents during the invention process, which was key to the success of his

endeavors. At his Ward Street shop, Edison worked closely with the instrument makers,

machinists, and mechanics. He learned from their skills and suggestions regarding

modifications and alterations to improve the mechanical function of the instruments. His

need for skilled artisans to assist in and make alterations to his work was crucial

throughout the inventive process, and he often rewarded those who assisted most for their

valuable contributions.

For example, in recognition of their enormous intellectual and mechanical

contribution in the development of his inventions, such as his electric pen and press

machine, a duplication machine invented at his Newark, Ward Street shop for use by

50 Robert Rosenberg, et al.., in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison: From Workshop to Laboratory, June 1873-March 1876, vol. 2, ed. Robert Rosenberg, et al., (Baltimore and London, 1991), 581.

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stenographers, Edison rewarded his most valued machinists, mechanics, and experimental

assistants with percentages of the royalties earned from the invention. 51 In fact, in an oral

agreement with Charles Batchelor, Edison gave the experimental assistant ten percent of

the gross profits received from all inventions on which he was a mutual collaborator.52 In

this way, Edison affirmed his bonds of mutual interest with his workers by

acknowledging and rewarding their hard work.53 Few contemporary employers

attempted to create such bonds. Those that did, however, viewed it as a way to obtain a

loyal and industrious workforce.54

In autumn of 1875, Edison was contracted by Western Union as an experimenter

in the new field of acoustic telegraphy, experiments for which he conducted at his Ward

Street shop. In order to reduce expenses during the 1873 depression, as well as retain

their dominance over the telegraph industry, Western Union needed to remain ahead of

the competition with patent ownership of new, cutting-edge technologies. Through his

contract negotiations with Western Union president William Orton, Edison demanded

$200 weekly and $6,000 plus royalties for any successful patents that allowed the

simultaneous transmittal of five or more telegraph messages over a single wire.55 Edison

continued experimentation in the field of acoustic telegraphy for the remainder of the

year, at which point he made significant progress toward creating an acoustic telegraph

instrument.

51 Thomas Edison Agreement with Charles Edison and W. H. Blennerhassett, October 1, 1875, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 2, ed. Rosenberg, et al., 584-586, Doc. 636; Thomas Edison Agreement with Charles Batchelor and James Adams, October 2, 1875, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 2, ed. Rosenberg, et al., 586, Doc. 637; “Edison’s Electric Pen and Duplicating Press Co., Charles Batchelor, and Thomas Edison,” 1876, in Thomas A. Edison Papers Microfilm Edition: Part 1, 1850-1878, ed. Reese Jenkins, et al. (Fredrick, 1985), microfilm 13: 934-938. 52 Conot, Streak of Luck , 103. 53 Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 46-47. 54 Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 46-47. 55 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 110.

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By late 1875 Edison became increasingly concerned with the long-term

expenditures of his Ward Street shop. Lease costs for his shop totaled at least $1,500 for

the building rental.56 Moreover, the building could not be modified. Intent on saving

money and to avoid paying rent, Edison decided to relocate his operation. In December

1875 Edison sent his father, Samuel, in search of a suitable location for his shop. After

an exhaustive effort, Samuel and Thomas decided upon the small, rural hamlet of Menlo

Park, New Jersey. Menlo Park was located immediately northeast of Metuchen and New

Brunswick and a little over twenty miles southwest of New York City. This community

offered Edison a quiet and secluded location to continue experimentation on acoustic

telegraphy. Edison also chose Menlo Park because it was a stop on the Pennsylvania

Railroad line. Proximity to the railroad provided him with quick and easy access to New

York City, the nation’s financial and commercial center.

At the time Edison chose Menlo Park, the hamlet was the site of a failed real

estate development. Established just one year prior by the Menlo Park Homestead

Association, the community consisted of only a handful of homes and a few dirt roads.57

On December 29, 1875 Edison purchased seven property lots for $5,200 from Menlo

Park Homestead Association Trustee George Goodyear.58 One of these lots, located on

the edge of the community, was the display home/office for the Menlo Park Homestead

Association. Edison chose the large three-story dwelling as his residence. Located just

56 Thomas Edison and William Unger Lease from William Kirk, May 1, 1871, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 1, ed. Jenkins, et al.,273, Doc. 157. 57 Thomas Archey, “Map of the Menlo Park Homestead Association on New Jersey Railroad.” Map filed at the Middlesex County Clerks Office, January 4, 1869: Map No. 77, File No. 77; Everts and Stewart, Combination Atlas Map of Middlesex County New Jersey: Compiled, Drawn, and Published from Personal Examinations and Surveys (Philadelphia, 1876); Fredrick W. Beers, “Topographical Map of Middlesex County, New Jersey” (New York, 1872). 58 Deed recorded on December 29, 1875 in the Middlesex County Clerks Office in Book 157, Page 380; Deed, mortgage, bond, and agreement, Thomas A. Edison with George Goodyear, December 29, 1875, in Thomas A. Edison Papers Microfilm Edition, Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 28:1180-1181.

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two blocks south of the future lab, the residence allowed Edison to easily travel to work

at all hours of the day. The grand size of the home typified Edison’s newly earned status

as a middle-class entrepreneur. Edison’s chief experimental assistant Charles Batchelor

also displayed his newly acquired middle-class status by purchasing a property lot one

block south of the lab and erecting a large home.59

The remaining six property lots would house the future laboratory. Edison hired

his father, Samuel, a talented carpenter, to erect the lab. Situated on a hill crest

overlooking the surrounding quiet rural landscape, Samuel and a team of local workers

constructed a long and narrow, two and one-half story, gable-front building with white

clapboard siding. The laboratory’s façade resembled both a schoolhouse and a church,

and was similar to that of early-nineteenth-century textile mills. The deceptive

appearance of this structure disguised the fact that it housed, on its first floor, a machine

shop and office, and on its second floor, one of the largest private research and

experimental laboratories in the world. Edison now owned his own machine shop and

laboratory, both strictly dedicated to inventing. This facility was to prove unique and

become the frontrunner and model for industrial research and development into the

twentieth century.

59 Letter from Charles Batchelor to Thomas Batchelor, February 8, 1876, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 2, ed. Rosenberg, et al., 2:758-760, Doc. 723.

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Chapter 3: Edison’s Menlo Park Laboratory: The Growth of the Facility

Edison moved into his Menlo Park laboratory in late March 1876. The facility

remained in operation until October 1882. During those six years, the facility underwent

three significant changes; the growth of the facility and workforce, a move to more

focused experimental work, and the addition of the Edison Lamp Works, an incandescent

lamp manufactory. The changes in the facility’s growth led Edison to revise his

approach to management from one based solely on craft-based traditions, to one that

combined these traditions with an industrial management approach.

1876-1877

Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory facility was established to invent, develop, and

patent commercially marketable electro-mechanical devices related to the telegraph

industry. This facility was initially funded by Western Union Telegraph Company and

GSTC. These two companies contracted with Edison to invent new telegraph

technology, the patents for which they purchased. For example, on January 29, 1877

Edison wrote to William Orton, President of Western Union, in request of a contract that

would provide the inventor with $100 weekly for shop expenses, as well as royalties in

exchange for the patent rights on all future inventions related to commercial telegraphy. 1

Nearly two months later, Edison was granted the contract.2 In an effort to acknowledge

the labor and skill required to develop an invention, Western Union agreed to provide

Edison with additional compensation if the telegraph company later made improvements

1 Thomas Edison to William Orton, Draft, 29 January 1877, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison: The Early Years, April 1876-December 1877, vol. 3, ed. Robert Rosenberg, et al, (Baltimore and London, 1994), 238-239, Doc. 850. 2 Agreement with Western Union Telegraph Co., 22 March 1877, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 3, ed. Rosenberg, et al, 275-280, Doc. 876. Edison actually ended up receiving $150 weekly for shop expenses from Western Union.

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to an invention he created.3 Such funding gave Edison advantages over many other

contemporary inventors, most of whom conducted their experiments with a single

assistant in a small room or machine shop. Corporate financial support enabled Edison to

expand his experimental facility and to hire highly skilled machinists and college trained,

technically-oriented assistants.4

Financial support enabled Edison to create the largest private laboratory in the

country, and in 1877, he described his facility:

I have now thoroughly completed and stocked my laboratory at Menlo Park N.J. 26 miles from New York on the Penn. R.R. The building is 25 X 100 [feet].&. 2 stories fitted with every kind of apparatus for scientific research= I have in the Laboratory a machine shop run by a 5 horse power engine. The machinery is of the finest description. I employ three workmen two of whom have been in my Employ for five years and have much experience. I have also two assistants who have been with me 5 and 7 years, respectively both of which are very expert.5 The first floor of the laboratory building was utilized as a machine shop and an office, the

upper floor as the central experimenting room (Figure 1). Here, Edison experimented on

and developed his innovative electro-mechanical devices. The experimenting room was

brightly illuminated by a series of windows and gas, later incandescent, lamps. Shelves

containing an assortment of chemicals bordered the room (Figure 2).

Edison’s initial workforce of craftsmen and experimental assistants was small. In

1876, he employed approximately ten individuals.6 Most of his Menlo Park employees

had worked at his Newark Ward Street machine shop and laboratory. In particular, his

chief experimental assistants, James Adams and Charles Batchelor, machine shop

3 Agreement with Western Union Telegraph Co., 22 March 1877, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 3, ed. Rosenberg, et al, 275-280, Doc. 876. 4 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 155. 5 Thomas Edison to William Orton, Draft, 29 January 1877, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 3, ed. Rosenberg, et al, 238-239, Doc. 850. 6 Jenkins, et al., The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 3, ed. Rosenberg, et al, 6 n.5, 60, 63, 147, 148 n.1.

Figure1:Detailofthelaboratoryfacility,post1878. Center:Laboratory;Left Background:MachineShop; RightBackground: GlassBlowers'Shop.ImagefromtheNationalParkService,EdisonNationalHistoricSite.Image10.250/26.

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Figure 2: Second floor interior of laboratory, February 22, 1880. Edison is seated in center background with some of his laboratory assistants. Image from theCollections of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.

34

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foreman, Charles Wurth, who quite later in April 1877, and machinist Ezra Gilliland,

followed Edison to the new facility (Figure 3).7 Others whom Edison hired included

assistants Anthony Bronk and James Gilliland, Ezra’s brother, machinist Alfred

Swanson, and local carpenters, Martin Force and Milo and Smith Acker. With help from

these men, Edison began experimenting.

Between March 1876 and December 1877, Edison and his team developed and

experimented on a number of innovative mechanical, electrical, and acoustic instruments,

including an acoustic telegraph, the phonograph, and improvements on his electric pen

and duplicating press. Because of his recent work with and knowledge of acoustic

telegraphy, Edison also embarked in the related, nascent field of telephony, and improved

upon Alexander Graham Bell’s recently invented, but inefficient, telephone transmitter.

Developing a new telephone transmitter, Edison and his team tested materials

such as plumbago and carbon to amplify and better regulate electrical resistance of the

signal transmitted through the telephone line. Carbon produced the best results creating a

marked improvement of vocal transmission. Realizing the profits that could be gained,

Edison began manufacturing small carbon buttons in his carbon production shed.

Located near the rear of the laboratory, this shed was filled with numerous kerosene

lamps. To acquire sufficient carbon deposits, lamp wicks were turned high, creating a

sooty film on the interior of the lamp chimneys. One or two helpers working in this shed

scraped the film from the chimneys and gently rolled it into small buttons. The carbon

buttons were then sold to Western Union for use in telephone transmitters.8

7 Jenkins, et al, The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, vol. 3, ed. Rosenberg, et al., 287. 8 Paul Israel, et al., ed., The Papers of Thomas A. Edison: The Wizard of Menlo Park, 1878, vol. 4, ed. Paul Israel, et al. (Baltimore and London, 1998), 259.

Figure3:Portraitofchiefexperimentalassistant,CharlesBatchelor.ImagefromtheCollections oftheNationalParkService,EdisonNationalHistoric Site. Image10.131/17.

36

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Edison next attempted to create an apparatus for the telephone that would allow

one to record and repeat verbal conversations, in order to replace printing telegraphs. On

July 18, 1877, the concept of the phonograph was born which could do just that. Edison

and his workforce spent the next eighteen months assiduously laboring to develop and

improve his phonograph. In December 1877, John Kruesi, Edison’s new machine shop

foreman, had constructed an early working model of the phonograph (Figure 4).9 Within

weeks, Edison displayed this instrument to Western Union officials and journalists. They

were astonished. Never before had the human voice been repeated by a machine.

1878 and 1879

By early 1878 Edison and his phonograph had become instant sensations.

Reports about his new invention quickly flooded newspapers.10 The novelty and

originality of the instrument made Edison and his laboratory famous. The public

marveled at the unknown forces behind its operation and traveled to the laboratory in

swarms to obtain a glimpse of the famous speaking machine. Edison and his laboratory

became the center of attention for reporters for the next few years. Newspaper journalists

began to write about Edison and his talents in mythical proportions, dubbing him the

“Wizard of Menlo Park.” His facility, which produced new inventions at a factory- like

pace, was called the “invention factory.” Hereafter, this conjurer of unknown forces and

his staff were plagued by crowds of journalists eager to get the scoop on his next big

invention.

Edison’s fame from his phonograph invention provided him with new

opportunities. He was now a popular figure. The publicity he received from press

9 John Kruesi became foreman between January and April 1877. 10 Anonymous, “The Phonograph,” Harper’s Weekly: Journal of Civilization, March 30, 1878, 249-250.

Figure4:PortraitofmachineshopforemanJohnKruesi.ImagefromtheCollections oftheNationalParkService,EdisonNationalHistoricSite. Image 10.140/1.

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reports made him a desired employer to work for. Skilled workers and young boys eager

to learn mechanical and electrical knowledge from one of the world’s most famous

inventors bombarded Edison with letters of application. His popularity enabled him to

choose the most qualified men to serve as assistants and excite the interest of potential

financiers and investors, including J. P. Morgan, affiliates of Drexel, Morgan and

Company, and William Orton, President of Western Union.

By autumn of 1878, major changes had occurred at the laboratory facility.

Edison’s efforts to make the phonograph commercially marketable continued,

significantly reducing his work in telegraphy. Edison, also took on a new project that

September, the invention of an efficient incandescent lamp and the development of an

associated system of electrical generation and distribution. This project required

enormous effort, time, money, manpower, and intelligence. It also necessitated an

expansion of the facility and workforce, as well as the creation of new departments to

conduct the work.11

To finance the incandescent lighting project, on October 16, 1878 Edison and

twelve other investors, including affiliates of Western Union and Drexel, Morgan and

Company, incorporated the Edison Electric Light Company. This company was

established to “own, manufacture, operate and license the use of various apparatus used

in producing light, heat or power by electricity.”12 The new company provided Edison

with $30,000 investment capital to devote toward the invention of a marketable

incandescent lamp that could compete with gas and arc lighting. Technology historian

11 Thomas Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, Sawyer and Man versus Edison (1881), in Thomas A. Edison Papers, Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 2:73. 12 Incorporation and Association Papers: The Edison Electric Light Company, 16 October 1878, in Thomas A. Edison Papers , Part 1 , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 18:38.

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Thomas Hughes indicates that the Edison Electric Light Company was largely formed as

a means to provide funding for Edison’s inventive activities in the field of incandescent

lighting.13 For the next two years, Edison and his team worked towards the development

of an efficient incandescent lamp.

Once Edison began the new project, his workforce and the laboratory

experienced enormous growth (Figures 5 and 6; see Figure 2). After one year, the

number of employees at the facility increased from eighteen to forty-two.14 To

accommodate the now larger workforce and the increased inventive activity, and to better

manage, coordinate, and subdivide work tasks, Edison had to expand the facility. By the

end of Autumn, 1878, the lab’s first floor now included rooms for chemistry,

photometering, a galvanometer, telephone development, and a furnace. To staff these

new departments, Edison hired a barrage of skilled and semi-skilled workers, including

chemists, mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and a number of technically oriented

assistants. Many of these employees were university educated and had received degrees

from such colleges as Bowdoin College, Rutgers University, Princeton University,

Stevens Institute of Technology, Columbia College, and various American and foreign

polytechnic institutions. Many new employees were also artisans who learned their trade

skills from master artisans.

In November 1878 Edison used funds from Edison Electric Light Company to

move the machine shop from the first floor of the laboratory into a new brick building

13 Thomas P. Hughes, “Edison and Electric Light,” in Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, ed., The Social Shaping of Technology, 2nd ed. (Bunkingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1999), 54. 14 Twelve of the forty-two employees worked for less than one year and were no longer employed at the laboratory complex by the end of 1878. The 1878 total of forty-two employees represents the total number of workers present during that year, but not the greatest number present at any given time during that year.

Figure5:MapshowinglocationofEdison’sbuildingsatMenloPark,N.J.ImagefromtheCollectionoftheHenryFordMuseumandGreenfieldVillage.ImageP.B.95711.

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Figure6:MenloParkcomplex,originalsite. Intheforegroundarelamppostsfromthe second incandescent lightingdemonstration. The laboratoryfacilityisdepictedinthe background. From lefttorightthestructuresinclude:office/library,laboratory,carpenters’shed,glassblowers’shed,andthemachineshop. ImagefromtheCollectionsoftheHenryFordMuseumandGreenfieldVillage. ImageP.B.7430.

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erected immediately behind the lab. The shop, run by shop foreman, John Kruesi and

later by foreman Thomas Logan, measured approximately 135 feet long by 25 feet wide

and contained an office for the foreman, a workroom, and engine and boiler rooms.15 An

electric dynamo generating room was added later. A series of windows along the north

and south walls of the shop let in sufficient light to illuminate the building. The shop

floor was filled with an array of lathes, milling, and grinding machines, powered by a

steam engine, and operated by machinists, tool makers, and mechanics.

Edison’s machine shop was utilized exclusively for the fabrication and

modification of parts and tools specifically designed for his inventions and patent models.

The work conducted in the shop was of a generalized nature, different from the

specialized machine shops, like the telegraph machine shops, where many inventors

conducted their work.16 Experimental machine work necessitated greater skill and

competency. The machinists in Edison’s shop were continuously required to create a

variety of new parts and tools from sketches, an essential aspect of the invention process,

provided to them by Edison and his experimental assistants.17 Typically, Edison, his

chief assistant, Batchelor, and other assistants provided the machine shop staff with

written, drawn, or verbal instructions for new devices, tools, or

adjustments/improvements for machined objects. The shop staff produced the requested

objects and offered advice on mechanical improvements. The machinists’ goal was to

create working patent models of the inventions. Due to the variation in and generalized

nature of the work and their close association with the experiments, many of the shop

15 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 177; Charles Clarke to Francis Jehl, 10 November 1928, Edison Pioneers Biography Files, Box 27-4, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan. 16 Brook Hindle, Emulations and Invention (New York: New York University Press, 1981), 98; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 144; Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 83. 17 Brook Hindle, Emulation and Invention, 93.

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workers considered their work experimental in nature. For example, machine shop

foreman John Kruesi considered “drawing, machine work, blacksmith work, or carpenter

work” experimental work when conducted in association with an invention. 18

For tasks that required duplication or precision work, Edison employed a system

of inside contracting typical to that used in other small machine shops. This work,

commonly contracted by Kruesi to one of his machinists, such as Charles Dean or James

Egan, required highly skilled competent machinists to machine parts, make new tools,

and perform difficult tasks at crucial stages in the production and invention process.19

The shop foreman was usually given the power to chose the contractor for the job.20 The

inside contractor then selected apprentices and other machinists from the shop to help

conduct the work. Once the contract was completed, the contractor and his assistants re-

assumed their previous role in the shop. To conduct work in the machine shop, the

foremen and staff were composed of highly skilled and talented mechanical engineers,

machinists, tool and pattern makers, contract workers, and apprentices. A total of 44 men

worked in the machine shop during its operation. Some individuals were of German,

Swiss, and English origin, and brought with them traditional artisan practices from their

native countries. Many were experience-trained, having learned as apprentices and

eventually became journeymen and master machinists and mechanics. Some, however,

such as civil engineers Charles Clarke and John Kelly, were university educated.

18 Edison versus Stiemens versus Field: John Kruesi, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, 1878-1886 , ed. Jenkins, et al. (Fredrick, 1987), microfilm, 46:37. 19 Daniel Nelson, Managers and Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States 1880-1920 (Madison, 1995), 37; Thomas Leary, “Industrial Ecology and the Labor Process: The Redefinition of Craft in New England Textile Machinery Shops, 1820-1860,” in Life and Labor: Dimensions of American Working-Class History, Charles Stephenson and Robert Asher, ed. (Albany, 1986), 47-49. 20 Daniel Nelson, Managers and Workers, 37.

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In addition to the expansion of the machine shop, Edison’s laboratory facility

expanded elsewhere. During November, Edison had a two-story, lavishly furnished brick

office building constructed to house his books, journals, and newspapers. A small

underground vault was also erected behind the office to safeguard and store his company

documents. The office was furnished and organized to appear more professional and

refined than the other facility structures. There, Edison attempted to create a place for

distinguished gentlemen and ladies, financiers, reporters, and inventors to visit, converse,

and conduct business with him. The building also offered space for his bookkeepers,

patent draft smen, secretaries, and other office helpers. To staff the office and manage his

finances, correspondence, and patent application preparation, Edison had to hire a

competent white-collar workforce. Approximately sixteen men worked in the office.

They were occasionally assisted by a small number of laboratory assistants.

The new structures provided Edison with the means and resources to focus his

attention on producing an efficient incandescent lamp that could compete with the gas

and arc lighting industries. Edison staffed his new departments with a variety of

additional assistants, chemists, mechanical and civil engineers, glass blowers, machinists,

tool makers, carpenters, and office workers. By the end of 1879, Edison’s workforce had

doubled to a total of eighty-one workers. The expanded workforce required to staff the

enlarged facility caused a minor problem for the inventor, that is, lack of housing for his

workers. During its first two years in operation, housing had not been a problem; the

workforce was small and most lived in the local community or moved there from Newark

and resided in nearby boarding houses and inns.21

21 Francis Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1, 39.

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To accommodate a portion of the additional employees, Edison asked his sister-

in- law, Sarah Jordan, to open and operate a boarding house in Menlo Park (Figure 7).22

Sarah rented one of two newly constructed, identical, neighboring duplexes across the

street from the lab.23 To staff the boarding house, Sarah employed her daughter, Ida, and

a servant, Kate Williams. The second duplex was rented as a tenement by tool makers

Charles Dean and William Wright, who lived there with their families. The duplexes

provided living quarters for some of his men between 1878 to1881. In fact, during their

occupation, six of Edison’s workers lived in the tenement and approximately seventeen

of his men received room and board at the Jordan boarding house, which also served as

the community lunchroom and center for after-work social activity.24 The proximity of

the two homes to the lab facility allowed their inhabitants to easily travel to work,

especially when their services were required well into the night as Edison was fond of

doing.25 Although neither the boarding house nor the tenement were owned by Edison,

the community, nevertheless, had the atmosphere and appearance of a small, close-knit,

company village.26

22 Sarah Jordan to Thomas Edison, 11 October 1878, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 16:225 23 William and Ann Prodgers to Edward Dexter, 1 August 1877, Deed Book 172, Page 91, Middlesex County Clerks Office, New Jersey. Both houses were built between 1876 and 1877. 24 Francis Jehl to Frank Campbell, 24 December 1928, Edison Pioneers, Box 43, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan. In 1880 only twelve men roomed at the Jordan boarding house, but Francis Jehl indicates that the number of men rooming at the boarding house constantly shifted as men came and went. 25 Francis Jehl indicates that an electric bell connected to the laboratory was installed on local carpenter and pattern makers, Charles Moffat’s bedroom window. Edison used this bell to summon Moffat late into the night if he had a new pattern idea for the carpenter to make. Francis Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2 (Dearborn: Edison Institute, 1938), 688. 26 William Pretzer, “Introduction: The Meanings of the Two Menlo Parks,” in Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience , ed., William Pretzer, (Baltimore and London, 2002), 18; Robert Gordon and Patrick Malone, The Texture of Industry: An Archaeological View of the Industrialization of North America (New York, 1994), 95.

Figure7: SarahJordanBoardingHouse. Thetwosignsthathangfromtheporch,whichread,“ParkHouse”and“LunchRoom”indicatethatthehousewas thecenterforafter-worksocialactivityinMenloPark. Imagefrom theCollectionsof theHenryFordMuseumandGreenfield Village. ImageP.B.14337.

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In 1879, Edison prepared the laboratory for experimental work on the

incandescent lamp. By March, the laboratory was equipped to carry out experimental

apparatus glass blowing. To facilitate the creation of glass vacuum pumps and bulbs for

the incandescent lamp experiments, Edison first hired master experimental glass blower

William Baetz as a part time employee. Glass instruments were blown in the lab with the

use of gas jets fueled by a Combination Gas Machine, a system commonly used by

experimental glass blowers. By August, after he created a successful vacuum pump,

Baetz ended his part-time employment at the facility. German master glass blower

Ludwig Boehm was then hired in his place to duplicate and improve upon the vacuum

pumps Baetz created. Soon after Boehm arrived, the glass blowing operation was moved

from the laboratory into the old photographer’s shed within the complex, the attic of

which became Boehm’s home.27 Boehm continued to produce vacuum pumps, as well as

incandescent lamp bulbs in this shed until late 1880 when he left Edison’s employment

due to bad relations with Edison and other employees. Boehm was replaced by master

glass blower William Holzer, who was assisted by apprentices Matthew Hankins and

Charles Stillwell.28

The lamps blown in the old shed and assembled in the laboratory were used in the

experimental work and for first significant incandescent lighting demonstrations along

the streets, and in the houses and lab buildings in Menlo Park. The first demonstration

occurred on New Years Eve 1879, and the second, which used bulbs made in the Edison

Lamp Works, in the latter part of 1880.29 The demonstrations served a number of

purposes. First, to test the efficiency of and improve the lamp and its associated

27 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1, 326-327. 28 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 495. 29 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 722

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electrical generating and subdividing system by turning the community and landscape of

Menlo Park into, what historian David Hounshell terms, “a mini-electric lighting system”

(see Figure 6).30 The second reason was to reassure investors that progress was being

made in the creation of a marketable and efficient incandescent lamp and electrical

system, capable of competing with the gas and arc lighting industries. Finally, Edison

would use the display as a form of advertisement to both notify the public of a new

lighting device and to display to his peers in the scientific community his skills and

knowledge in electrical engineering. By testing his system with this small, affordable,

and temporary model, Edison was able to easily identify and quickly fix problems

associated with the system. The resulting improvements fostered Edison’s establishment

of an incandescent lamp manufactory to create and sell his newly invented lamp.

1880

In 1880, Edison purchased a license for manufacturing rights from the Edison

Electric Lighting Company and converted the former electric pen and press factory

building into an incandescent lamp manufactory. 31 This factory was initially called the

Edison Lamp Works, and was in operation from October 1880 until May 1882.32

Approximately 30,000 incandescent lamps were produced annually at the works until it

was relocated to a much larger manufacturing facility in East Newark, later known as

Harrison, New Jersey. Edison established the works in a new facility because:

it would have been impossible for [him] to have had the lamps made in any 30 David Hounshell, “The Modernity of Menlo Park,” in Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience, William Pretzer, ed. (Baltimore and London, 2002), 126. 31 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 789. 32 W.S. Andrews, No date. William J. Hammer Collection. Series 2, Box. 25. In early 1881, just a few months after the operation of the Edison Lamp Works began, the company changed its name to the Edison Electric Lamp Company, and in May of that year changed its name again to the Edison Lamp Company. For the purpose of clarity, the lamp works at Menlo Park will continue to be called the Edison Lamp Works.

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established factory, nor was there any skilled class of labor which would have made such lamps without [his] personal instruction or the instruction of [his] assistants.33

Although numerous glass manufactories existed throughout the country prior to 1880s, no

single facility or industry existed for the complex process of incandescent lamp

manufacture.

Documentary evidence, although sparse, indicates that between thirty and one

hundred men worked at the lamp works during its operation, some of whom occasionally

included laboratory workers.34 These employees comprised a few managers, a master

and numerous apprentice glass blowers, and a number of local unskilled and semi-skilled

young boys. To coordinate and manage the production process a number of departments

were created that specialized and subdivided production tasks. These departments

included glass blowing and annealing, carbonizing, exhausting, lamp socket installation,

mercury cleaning, testing, and packing.

Although a separate operation, the lamp works was connected to and greatly

dependent on the laboratory for a number of reasons. First, for financial reasons, until

mid-November 1880, the lamp works workers were initially paid through the

laboratory. 35 Thereafter, the works paid its own employees. Second, numerous

laboratory workers and machinists periodically labored at the works installing and

modifying production machinery to refine and improve the production process.36 Third,

33 Thomas Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, Sawyer and Man versus Edison, Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 2:73. 34 Matthew Hankins to Edison Family Member, August 20, 1944, Edison Pioneers Biography Files, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, Box 9; Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Statement and Testimony, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al, microfilm, 48:3016. 35 Bernard Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” in. Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience, ed. William Pretzer (Baltimore and London, 2002), 35. 36 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 200; Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” 35.

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until March 1881, lamps produced at the works were tested at the laboratory. This

changed once a testing department was established at the factory. 37 In turn, the

laboratory also depended upon works. Edison realized that the sale of patents alone did

not generate enough money for his laboratory to remain in business. Edison needed to

manufacture and sell his inventions as well. One of the principal reasons Edison

established the works was to use a portion of its sales profits to fund inventions geared

toward reducing production and operating costs, as well as to create more efficient

products. Edison’s use of manufacturing to fund invention and utilize invention to

sustain manufacturing was itself an experiment that needed to be developed and

improved. This combination was essential to support the expansion of his laboratory

facility.

Edison’s workforce continued to experience exceptional growth once experiments

on the lamp and its electrical system moved toward completion. In 1880, approximately

146 men worked in the laboratory, machine shop, office, glass shed, and other buildings,

and as part-time day laborers.38 The true number of lab facility and lamp works

personnel is difficult to ascertain due to missing time sheets and constant fluctuations in

employment levels during the 1880s.39 Turnover rates are also difficult to identify for the

same reason. Nevertheless, documentary evidence from letters and reminiscences would

37 Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” 35. 38 This estimate is based on numerous sources including: an electronic database of Menlo Park laboratory facility time sheets housed at the Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey; Francis Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences (Dearborn: Edison Institute, 1937-1941); William Hamme r Collection, Series 2:Edisonia, Boxes 25, 27, 40-41, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Washington, D. C.; Edison Pioneers Files, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan; and patent litigation legal testimonies and statements. This estimate also represents the total number of workers present during that year, but not the greatest number present at any given time during that year. 39 Reminiscences of H. A. Campbell’s Early Connections with Mr. Thomas A. Edison at Menlo Park, No Date, Edison Pioneers, Box 26-46, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan,.

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indicate that roughly half of those who worked at Menlo Park in 1879 had left by the end

of 1880.40 Historian Bernard Finn suggests that the primary reason for turnover was that

once employees were educated in electrical science, they sought employment

elsewhere.41 Many workers may have also filled undocumented positions at the Edison

Lamp Works for which time sheets are absent. A number of employees, however,

continued to work under Edison in some capacity well after the Menlo Park facility shut

down. Despite the turnover rate, historical documents clearly indicate that the facility

experienced rapid growth during its first four years in operation.

1881 and 1882

As a result of its great success, the laboratory facility and lamp works slowly shut

down between 1881 and 1882.42 The success of the lamp necessitated the creation of

larger facilities related to the manufacture and installation of incandescent lamps and

electrical generating systems in urban centers. Edison’s next goal was to illuminate New

York City with an electric incandescent lighting system. Edison, however, realized that

the lamp works and machine shop at Menlo Park were too limited for large-scale

incandescent lamp manufacture and the production of electrical equipment for central and

isolated power stations.43 New facilities were created, including the Edison Tube Works,

Edison Machine Works, and the Pearl Street Generating Station in New York City, and

the Edison Lamp Company in East Newark, New Jersey. The establishment of a machine

and tube works and power generating station in New York City, rather than in Menlo

Park, was also necessary in order to be in closer proximity to supplies, commerce, and

40 Finn, “Working at Inventing,” 41. 41 Finn, “Working at Inventing,” 41. 42 David Hounshell, “The Modernity of Menlo Park,” 126. 43 W.S. Andrews, November 10, 1914, William J. Hammer Collection. Series 2, Box. 27.

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investors in the urban center. There, Edison would attempt to use the city as a staging

ground for his incandescent lighting system.

The process of decline began within the first months of 1881. By March of that

year, most of the machine shop hands and equipment moved to the Edison Machine

Works on Goerck Street in New York City. Some, however, remained to continue the

production of machined parts for incandescent lamp manufacture. As Edison established

offices in New York City and testing departments in his Machine Works and other

manufacturing facilities, the laboratory’s use waned as it began to shut down. In July,

1881, Edison gave the order for the dismissal of most, but not all, laboratory and machine

shop hands.44 Less than one year later, in May 1882, the Edison Lamp Works officially

shut down, and the operation was transferred to East Newark, New Jersey. There, a

ready supply of labor was available from Newark, the nearby urban center. In October

1882, Edison gave the final order for the laboratory to officially shut down. 45 The few

remaining workers joined other employees in the numerous companies Edison created.

44 Edison to John Lawson, July 15, 1881, Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 59:105. 45 Samuel Insull to John Randolph, October 12, 1882, Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 63:205.

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Chapter 4: Artisan Management Strategies and the Craft of Invention

In order to efficiently manage the processes of invention at Menlo Park, Edison

selectively adopted artisan traditions learned from the telegraph and metal working trades

into a laboratory setting where traditionally none had previously existed.1 To establish a

successful invention operation, Edison needed to create a work atmosphere that

encouraged free thought and education. An elite portion of his workforce, most

specifically, those intimately connected to the processes of invention (excluding

temporary and part time day laborers and manufactory workers) retained artisan

traditions, which included worker autonomy, bonds of mutuality, occupational mobility,

promotion of learning, and the development of shop culture.2 Edison also taught most of

his assistants the nascent craft of invention and electrical engineering. This strategy was

likely a byproduct of his past experiences as an inventor/entrepreneur in Boston, New

York, and Newark machine shops where artisan traditions, referred to by the historian

Andre Millard as “machine shop culture,” were an essential part of the production and

invention process.3 His use of these traditions to efficiently conduct the processes of

invention was the foundation of his management strategy while at Menlo Park.

Workers

Edison employed skilled and semi-skilled individuals eager to follow and learn

from him as a master in the art of invention. Some individuals applied simply to attain

steady, annual work and decent wages during the economically devastating Panic of

1 Andre Milliard, “Machine Shop Culture and Menlo Park,” 48-64. 2 Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 22-42; Millard, “Machine Shop Culture and Menlo Park,” 48-66; Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 193. 3 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 90-94; Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 25-34.

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1873.4 Edison’s use of steam and electricity to power the mechanized portions of his

operation enabled the facility to operate continuously rather than seasonally. Others who

applied desperately hoped to work under Edison to learn and gain experience in

inventing, chemistry, and mechanical and electrical engineering. In fact, instruction from

Edison was as valuable as a university or technical school education. A positive

reference from the “Wizard of Menlo Park” would have guaranteed any young

burgeoning electrical engineer a professional position. The applicants often viewed

Edison as a master in the art or craft of invention and sought to become his student or

apprentice. For example, Alex Craig, Jr., March 16, 1878, wrote Edison:

There is no other study I like as well as electricity and I wish most intently if possible to become an electrician like yourself. Of course I do not think I shall ever be so great as you, but if perseverance and study will do it I shall endeavor to accomplish it. I would like extremely to obtain a position in some manufactory like yours, yours if possible, and under such an experienced man as yourself. But to cut it short, is there any chance of getting work with you?… If I could but obtain anything to do under you. It is not to make money, but to learn that I wish to get there.5 In a similar vein, on January 6, 1879, John Lawson requested:

Can you not help me? Is there not some kind of work that I can get to do connected with science, with chemistry? I care not what the work is if I can only have a chance to study. I wish to become a chemist. Had I the means I would devote myself to chemistry. If you only knew how the device consumes me I am sure that you would help me if you could... I am willing to do anything, dirty work- become anything, almost a slave, only give me a chance to pursue the studies that I

4 Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” 36; Laurie, Artisans into Workers, 127, 129; Alexander Keyssar, Out of Work: The First Century of Unemployment in Massachusetts (Cambridge, London, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 49; Ross A. Eckler, “A Measure of the Severity of Depressions, 1873-1932,” in The Review of Economic Statistics, vol. 15, no. 2, May 15, 1933, 75-81. Unemployment during this depression, lasting from 1873 to 1879, affected most. It was the second most severe depression between 1873 and 1932. At any given time during the panic, one in five workers was out of work, unemployment frequency was at 30 percent, and individuals were commonly unemployed for periods lasting not weeks but months. Workers commonly experienced wage cuts and shortened work hours as companies attempted to remain in business. 5 Alex Craig, Jr. to Thomas Edison, 16 March 1878, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 17:470-474. Despite Craig’s exuberance to work with Edison, his employment at the facility lasted only a few weeks as he proved to be too lazy.

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love.6

Most of the skilled technicians Edison employed, such as master glass blowers,

physicists, chemists, engineers, machinists, and mechanics, had earned degrees from

colleges and universities.7 Other workers had learned their trade through the apprentice

system. Nevertheless, despite their experience level, most of these applicants wanted to

work at Menlo Park for the same reason as Lawson and Craig; to have the privilege of

working with Edison. Given the labor pool, Edison was able to establish a cooperative

shop practice and quasi-apprentice system. 8 Edison used the craft and technical skills of

some of his more knowledgeable employees to improve his concepts into working

mechanical inventions. In return, he instructed his most competent employees in the craft

of invention and the science of electrical engineering. This cooperative shop atmosphere

enabled Edison to establish a competent workforce, capable of conducting the invention

process for innovative electro-mechanical apparatus.

Wages and Hours

Whenever possible, Edison hired eager individuals, like Lawson and Craig, who,

because of their desire to attain the necessary knowledge to become skilled in the art of

invention, were willing to work for little pay. Available finances were often limited.

Money saved on payroll left more funds to be had to stock his facility with scientific

equipment and complete experiments. In some ways, the wage determination was similar

to that practiced in pre- industrial artisan trades, where apprentices received little or no

6 John Lawson to Thomas Edison, 6 January 1879, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 49:865-866. 7 Finn, “Working at Menlo Park” 36. 8 Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 20-23. Israel and other historians, such as Bernard Finn, Andre Millard, and W. Bernard Carlson highlight the fact that invention was not simple the result of a spark of individual genius, but rather the culmination of cooperative efforts between inventors, machinists, mechanics, and other craftsmen and scientists.

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monetary compensation for their work, while more experienced workers or journeymen

received wages.9 The wage differential encouraged upward mobility by offering a

monetary incentive to learn the skills of a trade.

At Menlo Park, Edison never developed a standardized formula for setting wages.

However, he did follow some general guidelines. First, he typically avoided hiring

individuals who requested high wages, regardless of their skill, unless he was in

desperate need of an artisan of a particular craft.10 When possible, he employed

individuals who were willing to volunteer in order to learn the craft of invention and

electrical science.11 Experimental assistant Wilson Howell states, “Upon my agreement

to work without compensation for the privilege of standing at the feet of the master [i.e.

Edison], I was told to take off my coat and get to work.”12

Individuals with little experience and those who desperately sought to work with

and learn from Edison commonly received lower wages than those with university

credentials or artisan skills. Their wages remained low until they could learn and

demonstrate their skills and competence in such a way that their knowledge and

experience aided the success of the laboratory facility. Most of the unskilled or semi-

skilled workers did work of a general nature, assisting on project tasks that required less

skill. They slowly received greater responsibilities and more complicated tasks as their

9 W. J. Rorabaugh, The Craft Apprentice: From Franklin to the Machine Age in America (New York and Oxford, 1986), 67. 10 One example includes Edison’s employment of experimental glass blower Ludwig Boehm, who received a weekly wage of twenty dollars in late 1879 and thirty dollars in 1880. Boehm was hired because Edison was in desperate need of a full-time glass blower after temporary, part -time glass blower William Baetz left Edison’s employ to his primary, secondary job. 11 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 553, 725; Edison Pioneers Biography Files, William J. Hammer Collection No. 69, Series 2, Box 40, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Washington, D. C.; Ludwig K. Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison: Thomas Edison’s Legal Statement and Testimony, 1881, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18, U.S. Patent Office Records, RG-241, Washington National Records Center, College Park, MD, 41. 12 Quoted in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1, 405.

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skills and competency increased. College trained technicians and artisans, however,

typically received higher wages and performed more skill-demanding work from the

outset.

At times, even skilled individuals, such as university-trained mathematician

Francis Upton, were required to work for low wages or for free for a limited period until

Edison had the financial means to pay for their services. For instance, Edison postponed

Upton’s wages until the mathematician could prove the value of his skills toward the

success of Edison’s incandescent lamp. Upton had been initially hired to conduct a

patent search on previously invented incandescent lamps. However, Edison quickly

began utilizing Upton’s knowledge of mathematics in order to calculate cost estimates for

the installation and operation of incandescent lamps and electrical power-generating

central stations. As a result, in March 1879, Upton began receiving wages. In a letter to

his father, Upton commented, “The strangest thing to me is the $12 I get every Saturday,

for my labor does not seem like work but like study and I enjoy it.”13

Despite the irregularity in wage determination, wages for the different trades

employed at Menlo Park coincided with the average in 1880 for similar trades in New

Jersey, but were usually higher than those within the local community.14 Table 1

compares the average wages of workers employed at Menlo Park with the average wages

of similar workers in New Jersey. 15 These figures, however, do not take into account the

13 Francis Upton to Elijah Wood Upton, 2 March 1879, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 95:513. 14 Theodore A. Wood, “Products of Industry in Raritan Township, in the County of Middlesex, State of New Jersey, during the twelve months beginning June 1, 1879, and May 31, 1880, as enumerated by me,” in Federal Census of Manufacturers, July 22, 1880. 15 Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries, Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries in New Jersey For the Year Ending October 31, 1880 (Somerville, 1880), 31, Table 4. The information on Menlo Park workers is based only on completed time sheets that contain their wage information. Numerous individuals lack completed time sheets.

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incalculable bonuses, stock options, or overtime earned by some of the more experienced

assistants.

Table 1: Wage Comparison

In recognition of Upton’s intelligence and skill, Edison offered him stock options

in the Edison Electric Lighting Company, and in October 1880 made him superintendent

of the Edison Lamp Works in Menlo Park. For their assistance with the invention of his

carbon telephone transmitter, Edison gave chief experimental assistants James Adams

and Charles Batchelor a percentage of the $6,000 in royalties he received from Western

16 These calculations are based on information provided in workers’ time sheets. Due to the numerous missing time sheets and time sheets with incomplete information, the information provided in this column is only based on those time sheets that contained weekly and/or hourly wages as well as hours worked. As a result the hourly wages for many individuals could not be calculated and, therefore, are not represented by these numbers. 17 This number was calculated from information provided about skilled workmen in miscellaneous trades from the New Jersey Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries, Third Annual Report, 31. Because of the absence of laboratory assistants as a reported trade in the Third Annual Report, an accurate comparison could not be conducted.

Occupation Average Hourly Wage at

Menlo Park 16

Average Hourly Wage for

Similar Occupation In

New Jersey

Machinists $0.22 $0.245

Carpenters $0.168 $0.153

Glass Blowers $0.33 (Non-Edison Lamp

Works Glass Blowers)

$0.25

Laboratory Assistants $0.14 $0.17917

General Day Laborers $0.13 $0.11

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Union for the invention. 18 Stock options and royalties were offered to some of Edison’s

more experienced key assistants, a form of reciprocity he had employed in his Newark

shops. Some individuals even received bonuses for completing difficult tasks, but most,

however, simply received wages.19 Edison looked to reward employees who provided

exceptional and notable assistance, and supply them with an incentive to work hard, as

well as to retain their services and secure their loyalty.

Like the wage comparison, the average hours worked per week at Menlo Park and

those worked by men in those or similar trades in the state (shown in Table 2) were also

alike.20 Overall, Edison’s employees worked an average of 60 hours per week or ten

hours per day for six days throughout the year. This corresponds with the state and

national average for 1880 of similar non-seasonal trades.21 Unfortunately, the

calculations do not accurately reflect the time worked by all employees as a result of

incomplete employee time sheet records, missing data, part-time workers, and periodic

short workdays before labor intensive research and development on the incandescent

lamp began. 22 For example, in June and October 1879, as the development of the

incandescent lamp neared completion, roughly two-thirds of Edison’s employees worked

about 80 hours per week.23

18 Agreement with James Adams, 1 June 1878, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, volume 3, ed. Rosenberg, et al., 3:326, Doc. 1345. 19 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 549. 20 These numbers were calculated from time sheets between 1876 and 1880 that contained hours worked and are based on an average of six workdays per week. Some individuals could not be represented in these calculations due to lost or incomplete time sheets. 21 Jeremy Atack and Fred Bateman, “How Long Was the Workday in 1880?,” The Journal of Economic History Vol. 52, No. 1. (March, 1992), 141; New Jersey Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries, Third Annual Report, 31. 22 Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” 41. 23 Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” 41.

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Table 2: Work Hour Comparison

Edison’s own work hours could not be calculated due to an absence of his time

sheets. Nevertheless, he likely worked over one hundred hours per week. He labored

and toiled for the success of his inventions more than any of his assistants. Like other

inventor-entrepreneurs, such as Elihu Thomson, Edison worked night and day, and spent

most of his time at the lab facility. His friends even grew fearful that he might exhaust

himself to the point of physical breakdown. Concerns about overexertion are implied in a

series of leisure guidelines suggested by his friend and former fellow telegrapher James

MacKenzie in a November 27, 1877 letter to Edison. In the letter, MacKenzie advices

Edison:

you owe to your family & yourself a duty which is to preserve your bodily & intellectual health to the best of your ability which can best be done by being temperate in all things in your case particularly I would ask you to get to work as early as you please quit for meals regularly on the stroke of the clock take enjoyable conversation with the members of your family shunning business topics if possible and devote your evenings to domestic pleasure and enjoyment—never

Occupation Average Weekly Hours

Worked Per Occupation

at Menlo Park

Average Weekly Hours

Worked Per Occupation

in New Jersey

Machinists 66.9 60

Carpenters 51.55 60

Glass Blowers 58.3 (Non-Edison Lamp

Works Glass Blowers)

53

Laboratory Assistants 59.9 61

General Day Laborers 47.5 62

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work on Sunday! 24

After September 1878, as work on the incandescent lamp gained momentum,

many individuals worked extremely long workdays. Some noteworthy examples include

laboratory assistant, George Crosby, who worked 105 hours in one week, as did Martin

Force and John Knight, who once worked a full 24-hour day. In addition, chief

experimental assistant Charles Batchelor and laboratory assistant Francis Jehl commonly

worked 100 hours per week. Most of the workers followed Edison’s irregular routine and

worked well into the night to finish tasks and slept in the morning. Francis Upton

elaborates on the long workdays in a letter to his father, stating, “[Edison] has been

working night and day, and I have been up two nights and parts of four.”25 A review of

time sheets during 1879 and 1880 indicates that numerous other examples exist. Edison

clearly pushed himself and his staff of assistants to work toward fulfilling his goals.

In most industrially-based occupations during the nineteenth-century, irregular

work hours would have interrupted the systematic processes of mass production. The

work routine at Menlo Park suited an efficient process of invention for the laboratory.

Once Edison conceived an idea for a new technology or mechanism, tasks were assigned

to different individuals to work and experiment on that concept. Their work hours varied

depending on the progress they made. When a concept or invention reached the final

stages of development, work hours were increased to retain the staff’s successful

momentum toward the completion of the invention. This occurred in December 1878

when hours worked per week increased from sixty to eighty once experiments on

24 James MacKenzie to Thomas Edison, 27 November 1877, in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, volume 3, ed. Rosenberg, et al., 3:643-644, Doc. 1126. 25 Francis Upton to Elijah Wood Upton, 22 June 1879, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 95:536.

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incandescent lighting had begun. 26 The momentum and unconventionality of the work

routine is vividly described in a January 1879 New York Herald article:

The ordinary rules of industry seem to be reversed at Menlo Park. Edison and his numerous assistants turn night into day and day into night. At six o’clock in the evening the machinists and electricians assemble in the laboratory. Edison is already present, attired in a suit of blue flannel, with hair uncombed and straggling over his eyes, a silk handkerchief around his neck, his hands and face somewhat begrimed and his whole air that of a man with a purpose and indifferent to everything save that purpose. By a quarter past six the quiet laboratory has become transformed into a hive of industry. The hum of machinery drowns all other sounds and each man is at his particular post… Everyman seems to be engaged at something different from that occupying the attention of his fellow workman. Edison himself flits about, first to one bench, then to another, examining here, instructing there; at one place drawing out new fancied designs, at another earnestly watching the progress of some experiment.27

An irregular work pace was more common in pre-industrial artisan shops, where,

like much of the work at the laboratory facility, projects were task and not time-oriented.

Typical of artisan shops, no time table for production was set and workers’ controlled the

irregular production pace.28 Although employed at the laboratory facility, where

experiments took time to work out, this routine was not employed at the lamp works due

to the need to enforce time restrictions on production tasks to reduce operation and

production costs. Edison also employed and promoted a variety of other artisan

traditions, such as the encouragement of education and self- improvement through

apprenticeships and reading, limited worker autonomy, and employer/employee bonds of

mutuality. Such benefits were necessary for the efficient management of and

engagement in the processes of invention.

26 Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” 41. 27 Anonymous “Electric Light,” New York Herald, January 17, 1879. 28 Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 33; Bruce Laurie and Mark Schmitz, “Manufacture and Productivity: The Making of an Industrial Base, Philadelphia, 1850-1880,” in Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience in the Nineteenth Century, Essays Toward an Interdisciplinary History of the City, ed. Theodore Hersberg (Oxford and New York, 1981), 64.

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Traditional Craft Elements and Shop Culture

The employment of craft traditions was mutually advantageous for both Edison

and his workforce. At the lab, Edison established a cooperative work atmosphere. There,

he taught members of his staff skills in inventing and electrical engineering, while at the

same time used their craft skills in metal working and glass blowing and knowledge in

both science and mathematics to create patentable inventions. Edison worked alongside

his men, developing close, personal relationships with staff members, which facilitated

the development of an artisan shop culture at the lab. The historian Andre Millard

attributes this development to Edison’s acquaintance with shop cultures in the telegraph

offices and machine shops in numerous cities across the country. 29 In reciprocation for

their education, limited autonomy, and control of the production pace, Edison’s workers

at the lab industriously labored to complete his goals for invention.

Much more is known about the craft traditions and shop culture employed at the

laboratory than at any other department at the facility. This is due to the lack of personal

accounts from non- laboratory workers. It is likely, however, that these craft elements

were present throughout much of the facility, except at the associated Edison Lamp

Works. Nonetheless, the wealth of information known about the lab’s shop culture

illustrates Edison’s desire to utilize old traditions where and when they proved most

useful to his inventive endeavors.

The first among these artisan traditions was the promotion of education. The

laboratory facility acted as a quasi-college, or a leaning center for an emerging generation

29 Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 22-25.

65

of inventors and electrical and mechanical engineers.30 David Noble, author of America

By Design, indicates that the electrical trade formed out of scientific rather than craft

knowledge.31 Menlo Park is an example of Noble’s concept. Edison supports this

notion, stating, “The art [of electrical engineering] was new and men had to be educated

and I had to educate them.”32 In fact, Edison even established a small “school” to train

employees in the science of telephone engineering prior to sending them to London to

assist in the development of his European telephone companies.33 In acknowledgment of

Edison’s instruction, experimental assistant Wilson Howell referred to the lab as the

“little college on the hill at Menlo Park,” where he was taught electrical engineering.34

Francis Jehl made a similar inference when he called the lab facility the “Alma Mater” of

men connected with the invention of incandescent lighting.35 The laboratory acted as a

learning institute for many individuals, especially laboratory personnel; Edison served as

their professor. Edison’s role as a capitalist, owner of the lab facility, and employer, as

well as a master to his apprentices supports Marx’s notion of the duality in social

relations present in the artisan workshop.36 In spite of the references to the lab’s role as a

learning institute, Edison expected his workers to remain under his employ after having

invested in their training. Although some did leave his employment to pursue

professional entrepreneurial careers or occupations with and/or as his competitors, many

30 Edison versus Stiemens versus Field: Julius Horning, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 46:15 31 David Noble, America By Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York, 1977), 5. 32 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:74. 33 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 185. 34 Quoted in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 719. 35 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 719. 36 Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 (Oxford, 1984), 4-5.

66

others remained with Edison well after he moved his operation to New York City and

West Orange, New Jersey.

In recognition of his scientific knowledge, leadership qualities, and ingenuity,

many of his assistants referred to Edison by the endearing and respectful term “Old

Man.”37 This term was commonly used during the early to mid-nineteenth century to

refer to the master and proprietor of an artisan shop.38 Historian Philip Scranton indicates

that, aside from its paternalistic connotation, this term represented the institutional bond

between an experienced elder and his adult son. 39 Yet, Edison was not a graying old man

when he came to Menlo Park, but was only 29 years of age (Figure 8). Nevertheless, his

technical experiences and ingenious innovativeness cast him, in the words of one

assistant, in the role of a “prophet,” and his assistants, his “disciples.”40 He worked

closely with his men in their tasks, observing, tinkering, experimenting, and offering

guidance. He was viewed by some as “one of the boys” because of his intimate

involvement with his staff and his work, toiling alongside them day and night. In fact, as

pictures reveal, he was almost undistinguishable from his fellow workers (Figures 9 and

10). He was often unshaven, with disheveled hair, dirt and grime under his fingernails,

and donning dirty, grease-smeared clothes. He had the appearance of a machinist or

common workman. One local resident compared his attire to that of a “rag picker.”41

Despite his appearance, however, all recognized his role, and respected his authority.

37 William J. Hammer, 30 April 1925, William J. Hammer Collection, No. 69, Series 2, Box 27. 38 Philip Scranton, Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization (Princeton, 1997), 73. 39 Scranton, Endless Novelty, 73. 40 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 719. 41 David Trumbull Marshall, Recollections of Edison (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1931), 112.

Figure8:1879PortraitofThomasA.Edison.ImagefromtheCollections oftheHenryFordMuseumandGreenfieldVillage. ImageP.188.21533

67

Figure 9: Edison and his principal assistants at Menlo Park, 1878.

68

Figure 10: Edison and crew in front of the laboratory, ca. 1880 Edison is seated in the center. Image from the Collections of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.

69

70

Edison regularly met with his staff to check the status of their work and advised

them through problems, working closely on each invention from its conception to its

eventual patent. Charles Batchelor referred to Edison’s oversight and guidance over the

invention process stating, “Mr. Edison [gave] me the original instructions to make [lamp

experiments], and was keeping constant watch over me all the time. He would frequently

sit down with me and help me for hours.”42 Edison’s tutelage was often necessary and

was instrumental to the intellectual growth of his men. In addition to teaching his

assistants, he expected and encouraged them to improve their own scientific knowledge

by spending time during work hours and their leisure reading and studying various

scientific journals and books.

Edison believed that promoting education made his staff more competent. His

staff’s ability to comprehend his scientific and innovative objectives was paramount for

the success of his inventions and his lab facility. Education and self- improvement,

however, took time. Industrialists visiting Edison’s facility would have been appalled at

the time his workforce “wasted” reading, tinkering, talking, and conducting practical

mind games, but Edison recognized that time was essential to the invention process.

Edison fostered a learning environment by encouraging his men to participate in

practical mind games, often with a reward in the form of money or cigars for the

winner.43 The games employed were related to specific experimental projects. In one

mind game, Edison and a group of assistants, including, Jehl, Upton, Force, Batchelor,

and Kruesi, tried to identify the correct way to wind an electric dynamo armature with

42 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Charles Batchelor, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:115. 43 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1, 295.

71

wire by using a wooden drum and string as a model.44 The person to correctly wind the

mock dynamo in the shortest period of time received the reward. Upton won the game

and Edison presented him with a cigar. Edison’s use of games and competition such as

this were devices employed to promote learning through experience, to make learning

pleasurable, and to convert theory into practice.45

Edison also encouraged his workforce to read, both at work and at home, to

increase their scientific knowledge in order to attain better experimental results. Edison

facilitated this by creating a library in his new office that housed hundreds of scientific

books, journals, and numerous newspapers written in a variety of languages. The foreign

texts were often translated by a number of bi- and multilingual speakers on his staff such

as Batchelor, Upton, Kruesi, and Charles Clarke. This well-stocked scientific library was

long desired by Edison as a place where he could engross himself in scientific literature

to become a more prolific inventor.

Beyond his own desires, Edison’s creation of a company library may have also

been influenced by his observation of small libraries in machine shops. Verbal or printed

communication of shared knowledge in the metalworking trades was a central traditional

craft practice. Instituted to ensure that craftsmen continued learning new technical

knowledge throughout their career, a lifelong endeavor, and to encourage the

dissemination of shared technical knowledge, shop foremen constructed small libraries in

their offices. There, shop hands gathered to read and learn about advances in their trade.

The open nature of shared information in the technical and trade journals enabled

44 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1, 292-293. 45 Edison, The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison, 112.

72

metalworking community members to remain technically proficient. 46 Edison first

adopted this machine shop model in his Newark shops. In fact, because of the free flow

of technical information, his Newark Ward Street shop was referred to as a “kind of

public place.”47 This model of shared and accessible knowledge was la ter employed at

Menlo Park. Here, his workforce commonly perused the library for their own edification

and a number of business reasons.

By becoming aware of similar inventions by other inventors, Edison and his staff

avoided unintended patent infringements and lawsuits. The library material was used to

study and identify ways to significantly improve other inventors’ inventions. Duplication

of another inventor’s patented invention was not permitted for legal reasons, but the

literature often provided Edison and his workforce starting points from which to engage

in refining older technologies into new inventions, a process the historian Brooke Hindle

refers to as “Strategic Invention.”48 Familiarity with the scientific literature also enabled

his workforce to acquire information about current mechanical, electrical, and chemical

theory and technology for use in the development process of invention. This community

of information permitted his workforce to remain at the forefront of and apply cutting-

edge technical knowledge to their experiments and inventions.

Edison’s men commonly used the library to research appropriate experimental

approaches, methods, or materials. Regarding his research on insulation compounds for

underground electrical wires used in the incandescent lighting system, Wilson Howell

recalled,

46 Monte Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910 (Baltimore, 1967), 5, 7. 47 Telephone Interference: Thomas A. Edison Legal Statement and Testimony, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 11:26. 48 Hindle, Emulation and Invention, 127-128.

73

Mr. Edison sent me to his library and instructed me to read up on the subject of insulation, offering me the services of Dr. [Otto] Moses to translate any French or German authorities which I wished to consult. After two weeks search, I came out of the library with a list of materials which we might try. I was given carte blanche to order these materials… and, within ten days, I had Dr. Moses’ [chemical] laboratory49 entirely taken up with small kettles in which I boiled up a variety of insulating compounds.50 As Howell indicates, the knowledge he learned was put to immediate use. In addition to

displaying his use of the newly acquired knowledge, Howell’s statement also points out

that Edison provided him with limited autonomy to complete the complicated task. In

fact, Edison generally gave limited autonomy to assistants among his workforce whom he

considered skilled and competent.

Autonomy, though limited, was a privilege Edison awarded only a select portion

of his workforce. All final decisions regarding the experiments and development work

were made by Edison, though the inventor did give many of his assistants the liberty they

needed to accomplish tasks assigned to them. 51 For example, Edison once stated,

I generally instructed [the staff] on the general idea of what I wanted carried out, and when I came across an assistant who was in any way ingenious, I sometimes refused to help him out in his experiments, telling him to see if he could not work it out himself, so as to encourage him.52 Edison especially encouraged autonomy among his top- level assistants, including shop

foreman Kruesi, chief experimental assistant Batchelor, and Upton, his mathematician,

mechanical engineer Charles Clarke, chemist Dr. Alfred Haid, and glass blowers Ludwig

Boehm and William Holzer, who later became project leaders and managers. Autonomy

enabled his workers to improve their skills in mechanical and electrical engineering, glass

49 Edison’s chemist, Dr. Otto Moses, had his chemical laboratory in a small room on the first floor of the main laboratory building. 50 Quoted in Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention , 192. 51 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 553. Note, autonomy was not given to day-laborers or low-level manufactory workers. 52 Cited in Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 192.

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blowing, and chemistry, which, at times, led to their promotion to higher, better-paid

positions. Also, by late-1880, Edison had begun spending increasing amounts of time in

New York City. In his absence, he permitted his top- level assistants to conduct their

tasks with greater autonomy.

In addition to autonomy and education, Edison established close

employer/employee relationships to promote high morale, worker loyalty, and efficient

execution of the invention process. Edison believed that it was important to establish a

sense of camaraderie with his staff and he wanted his workers to know that he recognized

their importance to his inventive endeavors. He often engaged in intimate conversations

with them, sharing long stories about his journeys as an itinerant telegrapher and his ideas

concerning potential inventions. On occasion, he even invited some members of his

workforce to lavish parties at his nearby home. Much like the workers, Edison fondly

assigned nicknames to his men. Charles Batchelor was commonly referred to as “Batch,”

Francis Upton as “Culture,” and John Lawson as “Basic.”53 Others had nicknames as

well. Edison’s workers revered his attempts to attain this close personal relationship.

One of his assistants, Rene Thury, later commented about Edison’s relationship with his

staff:

I recall the intimacy of Edison with his personnel. The liberties that he gave each of his men to accomplish the tasks assigned to them and the harmony that reigned among all so impressed me that I had the passionate desire some day to become a member of this family.54 The “family” Thury refers to was, of course, the close bond between Edison and his men.

Because of this bond, Edison usually knew when his workers were unhappy. To

maintain high morale and prevent turnover, Edison sought to relieve the tensions of work 53 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1, 263. 54 Quoted in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 553.

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through breaks, company sponsored outings, midnight dinners in the lab for late night

work sessions, and much more.55 Breaks and work schedule changes were necessary to

Edison’s policy of conducting long workdays. For example, Edison temporarily

suspended night work at the laboratory after chief experimental assistant Charles

Batchelor complained that his vision was deteriorating on account of sleeping days and

working nights.56 In most other instances, breaks were simply provided to retain high

morale. For their hard work, Edison encouraged short breaks to relax and days off for

national holidays like July 4th or occasionally sponsored fishing expeditions in the nearby

Raritan Bay with is men. 57 At Menlo Park, apprentice glass blower Matthew Hankins

followed a traditional artisan custom by going on beer runs for fellow glass blowers for

their drinking breaks.58 Short breaks at the lab facility were often filled with pranks,

jokes, singing, instrument playing, tobacco smoking and chewing, and much more.59

Edison commonly engaged in activities similar to those he had experienced as an

itinerant telegrapher.60

At Menlo Park, Edison recognized that hard work must be augmented by periods

of laxity. Commenting about break periods and story telling, John Kruesi states, “it was

generally done at times when everybody was too tired to keep on working, which helped

55 Laurie, Artisans into Workers, 37-38. 56 Menlo Park Notebook 53: Charles Mott Entry, March 21, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 33:694. 57 Charles Batchelor, Diary Entry, September 11-13, 1877, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 90:180-181; Menlo Park Notebook 53: Charles Mott Entry, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 33:808. 58 Matthew Hankins to George Osborn, June 26, 1929, Edison Pioneers Files, Box 9, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan. 59 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1, 286; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 530. 60 Conot, A Streak of Luck , 146.

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to cheer up the men to go to work again.”61 Francis Jehl also noted that activities such as

this helped to relieve the tension faced by Edison’s workforce during the high-pressure

days of 1879 and 1880 while work on the incandescent lamp was fully underway. 62

Edison augmented work with laxity to make work more enjoyable. In reminiscence

about the laboratory work, Charles Clarke states, “laboratory life with Edison was a

strenuous but joyous life for all, physically, mentally, and emotionally. We worked long

night hours during the week, frequently to the limit of human endurance,” and all were

“enthusiastic about their work, expectant of great results; moreover, often loudly

explosive in word, emphatic in joke and rigorous in action.”63

During late night laboratory work sessions, Edison typically ordered and paid for

supper or snacks for his assistants. Other inventors, such as Elihu Thomson, also

conducted night work, taking breaks for night meals, which allowed them to retain good

relations with their workers.64 While breaking, Edison commonly played a popular tune

on the organ situated in the back of the lab, while glass blower Ludwig Boehm played his

zither.65 At the sound of a tune all would commence singing. Reminiscing about these

late night breaks, civil engineer and assistant Charles Clarke states,

There on the second floor away back near the pipe organ sat Edison, and scattered about were the night-working assistants and helpers—all, however, within convenient reaching distance of a hamper basket loaded with good things to eat that had been brought from Woodward’s—not a cold lunch, mind you, but a hot dinner of flesh or fowl with vegetables, dessert and coffee! Hilarity increased with the filling of stomachs, bantering and story telling were interlarded. At length Edison stood up, stretched, took a hitch at his waistband in sailor fashion and began 61 Edison versus Stiemens versus Field: John Kruesi, Legal Statement and Testimony, 1881, Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 46:29. 62 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 1, 284-285. 63 Quoted in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 858. 64 Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 171. 65 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 515-516; Dyer, et al., Edison: His Life and Inventions, 280; George Parsons Lathrop, “Talks with Edison” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine Vol. 80, Number 477 (May 1890), 426.

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to saunter away—the signal that dinner was over, and work would be resumed. This my first night meal in the laboratory was the occasion for testing my fitness to join the brotherhood. I passed examination and was initiated with a few happy remarks by the great master himself.66 The brotherhood Clarke refers to is the close relationship and bonds of mutuality Edison

had with his workforce. This does not suggest, however, that all were equals at the lab

facility. A hierarchy, described in more detail below, existed, which held Edison at the

top and his key assistants below him, who were followed by low level assistants, and

finally day laborers. Despite the hierarchy, Edison attempted to treat all with mutual

respect.

Edison created a pre- industrial atmosphere at the lab facility, such as

apprenticeships and education, irregular work hours and wages, breaks, bonds of

mutuality, and limited autonomy, which was instrumental to an efficient process of

invention. Invention entailed concept creation, planning and drafting, parts and tools

fabrication, experimentation, development, testing, refinement, patent model

manufacture, and patent application. Such a process required a malleable, skilled, and

competent workforce capable of conducting a variety of tasks under Edison’s leadership

and guidance. The presence of these skilled workers, managed with a strategy that

incorporated pre- industrial artisan traditions, inevitably led to a close employer and

employee relationship and the creation of an artisan shop culture. This shop culture was

an essential part of the fabric of Edison’s management strategy and the success of his

invention operation. Creating a loyal, industrious, skilled, and competent workforce

capable of assisting in the invention process enabled Edison to quickly develop a number

of patentable technological innovations ranging from telegraphy to an electrical lighting

66 Quoted in Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 857.

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system. Despite Edison’s use of artisan traditions, where and when they were best

applicable to the invention process, the growth of the facility and the later addition of a

manufacturing operation would necessitate the selective introduction of industrial

management tactics.

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Chapter 5: Industrial Management Strategies

Between 1878 and 1880 the laboratory facility and its workforce significant ly

expanded, in size, workforce, and projects undertaken. With the creation of an efficient

patented incandescent lamp and an associated electrical generation and distribution

system, by autumn 1880, Edison established an affiliated, but separate incandescent lamp

manufactory in Menlo Park, the Edison Lamp Works. Edison intended to use a portion

of this factory’s profits to fund further inventive activity at the laboratory. The expansion

made it impossible for Edison to directly manage all of the projects undertaken by his

staff. Consequently, Edison increasingly utilized industrial management tactics in order

to better control the process of invention and manufacture.

Edison’s modernized manageria l style included the creation of a worker

hierarchy, as well as moderate task subdivision and specialization. At the lamp works,

Edison and his managers also began to simplify and mechanize production, and to hire

cheap and expendable labor. As a response to increased patent interference lawsuits and

to protect his intellectual capital from infringement, Edison also instituted elaborate

procedures to fully document the processes of invention. 1 By 1877, Edison had begun a

process of more efficient document retention, organization, and management .2 Like the

owners of later research and development labs, Edison owned all original ideas, concepts,

experiments, and patent caveats, models, and applications related to his inventions.3

1 Telephone Interference: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 11:38, 51. 2 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 102-103; Telephone Interference: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 11:38, 51. This process was similar to that later used by industrial research and development laboratories such as General Electric. 3 Thomas Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18, 39; Mather versus Edison versus Scribner: Martin Force, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1883, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 46:189.

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These tactics, among others, were selectively utilized in varying ways and in certain

aspects of the invention and manufacturing operations at Menlo Park.

Ultimately, Edison’s introduction of industria l management tactics modernized

the process of invention. Inventive tasks were subdivided into projects, in which staff

members specialized in certain aspects of an invention’s development. For example, the

invention of an efficient incandescent lamp required numerous teams, which specialized

in dynamo and vacuum pump construction, filament experiments, and wire insulation

experiments. These teams, led or managed by team leaders, created detailed logs of their

activities, which were often later used as evidence in patent interference cases.

Consequently, Edison was among the first inventors to incorporate industrial

management tactics into the experimental process and established a foundation for the

management strategies used by later industrial research and development laboratory

directors.4

Management

Historians Alfred Chandler, Jr. and James Soltow indicate that the limited size

and workforce of small firms enables the entrepreneur, in this case Edison, the ability to

operate his facility through a process of direct management, also known as “personal

enterprise.”5 During its first two years in operation, the Menlo Park laboratory facility

and its workforce was of small enough size that Edison could efficiently manage the lab’s

experiments and personnel directly. 6 Edison’s actual presence and oversight in the

4 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 45. 5 Soltow, “Origins of Small Business and the Relationships Between Large and Small Firms: Metal Fabricating and Machinery Making in New England, 1890-1957”, 194; Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge and London, 1977), 9. 6 Other contemporary inventors, such as Elihu Thomson, also oversaw and coordinated projects in their facilities, though much smaller than Edison’s, with the help of one or two assistants through a process of direct management. See Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 158, 203-205.

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invention process was so important that in his absence, work would occasionally be

suspended. Francis Upton, Edison’s mathematician, commented, “One thing is quite

noticeable here that the work is only a few days behind Mr. Edison, for when he was sick

the shop was shut evenings as the work was wanting to keep the men busy.”7 As the sole

directing mind, Edison controlled the experimental direction of each invention,

permitting certain avenues of approach and refusing others. Managing his facility as a

personal enterprise, Edison assumed the triple role of owner, manager, and experimenter

(Chart 1). This role, however, was short lived, and Edison found it necessary to rely on

his most competent and skilled assistants, including Batchelor and Kruesi, to help oversee

projects.8

Once work began on the incandescent lamp in September 1878, Edison could not

possibly be physically involved in each step of the invention process. The multitude of

new concepts and projects simultaneously undertaken by the facility became

overwhelming. Not only did an efficient incandescent lamp have to be invented, but also

a complete associated system of electric generation and subdivision. This system

included, among other things, electric dynamos, sockets, lamp fixtures, insulated wires,

fuses, circuit breakers, switches, and meters.9 So much work was required that in 1881

Edison postponed important patent-infringement suits until he had sufficient time to

devote his attention to them.10

7 Francis Upton to Elijah Wood Upton, April 27, 1879, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm 95:527. 8 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 167. 9 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 168-190, 197. 10 Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875-1900: A Study in Competition, Entrepreneurship, Technical Change, and Economic Growth (Cambridge, 1953), 100.

Thomas A. Edison

Chief Experimental Assistants

Experimental Assistants

Draftsman

Accountant and Bookkeeper

Machine Shop Foreman

Carpenters

Machinists and Mechanics

Inside Contractors

Apprentices

Chart 1: Laboratory Facility Hierarchy Before 1878

Lamp Shed Carbonizers

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As the facility and the workforce expanded, Edison’s oversight and management

was spread thin across the facility. In Autumn 1878, Edison received sufficient funding

to expand his laboratory from a single building, containing an experiment room, office,

and machine shop, to a moderate-sized compound. Before the end of the year, the facility

had grown to include an office/library, laboratory, and machine shop, as well as a carbon

production, and glass-blower and carpenter sheds (see Figure 6). Two years later, in

October 1880, an incandescent lamp manufactory was added. As the facility expanded,

so too did the workforce.11 For example, 10 assistants were employed by Edison during

1876, and during 1880, that number had risen to approximately 146, which included a

full-time and a temporary, part-time workforce.

By the early 1880s, the Menlo Park laboratory facility was larger than any other

privately-owned laboratory at the time. Operations in each of the new buildings required

Edison’s attention. So to did eager reporters seeking interviews, curious inventors who

wanted to converse with Edison on electrical matters, and investors who demanded

constant updates on the progress of the lamp. Beginning in late 1880, Edison had also

begun spending increasing amounts of time in New York City, where he purchased a

house and concentrated on establishing manufactories to produce electrical components

for his urban central generating station and incandescent illumination ventures. Between

1881 and 1882, Edison also began spending more time at the manufactories he created

and their experimental departments. Unless complications in the experimental process

11 In his article, “Working at Menlo Park,” Bernard Finn details the workforce expansion in a graph. Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” 34.

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arose that required his attention, Edison seldom visited Menlo Park during the years 1881

and 1882.12

As the size of the operation became more complex, Edison’s time he allocated to

each project was significantly reduced. Pressure from investors to quickly make

significant advances toward his goal for incandescent lighting, forced the inventor to

modernize his management strategy to more efficiently coordinate the tasks of invention,

and oversee business operations. Consequently, Edison developed a new structure of

administration (Chart 2).13 Edison now depended upon his knowledgeable and competent

core group of skilled assistants to carry out his orders, oversee projects, and assign tasks

to assistants- in-training. Each of the new buildings in the facility comprised a distinct

department responsible for specific tasks.14 All departments were staffed by a manager

or general overseer, who efficiently coordinated the small teams of workers and their

projects (Chart 3). Tasks conducted within each department, especially in the laboratory,

were subdivided among small groups or teams.15 Each team “specialized” in different

aspects related to the incandescent lamp experiments, but some individuals such as the

day laborers and unskilled assistants still conducted general work and assisted where they

were best needed.16

Team projects included analysis of various materials for use as lamp filaments,

the creation and improvement of simple vacuum pump apparatus, tests on chemical

compounds for use in insulating electrical wires, glass blowing, and metal working. The 12 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 199, 204. 13 Soltow, “Origins of Small Business and the Relationships Between Large and Small Firms,” 194; Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand, 9-10. 14 The term “department” is not found in the primary documents to describe different activity centers in the complex except at the Edison Lamp Work. However, for the purposes of this essay the term “department” will be used to designate different activity centers within the facility. 15 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 192. 16 Finn, “Working at Menlo Park,” 41.

Thomas A. Edison

Chief Experimental Assistants

Experimental Assistants

Assistants and Day Laborers

Chemists

Assistants

Glass Blowers

Apprentices

Draftsman Accountant and Bookkeeper

Office Hands

Machine Shop Foreman

Carpenters

Machinists, Mechanics, and Engineers

Inside Contractors Assistants and Apprentices

Assistants and Day Laborers

Apprentices and Day Laborers

Chart 2: Laboratory Facility Hierarchy Post 1878

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Prospectors and Solicitors

Thomas Edison

Packers

Testers

Master Glass Blower

ApprenticeGlass Blowers

Carbonizing Manager

Vacuum Apparatus Manager

Socket Installing Manager

Superintendent Master Mechanic

Dynamo Operators

Chart 3: Edison Lamp Works Hierarchy

MasterElectrician

Secretary

Packing Manager

TestingManager

SocketInstallers

Carbonizers

Vacuum Apparatus Workers

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use of team research set Edison’s invention factory apart from most other inventor’s

operations.17 At this time, as historian Paul Israel observes, the process of invention was

considered by the scientists, universities, and the general public as an individual act, and

was not yet viewed as the product of a coordinated team effort headed by a research

director.18

In general, Edison and Charles Batchelor, directed and managed projects

conducted in the laboratory. Yet Edison made the final decision on all experimental

work. Chemical work was performed by Alfred Haid and Dr. Otto Moses in the chemical

department along with the help of assistants. The development of a cheap, rapid, and

easily operated vacuum pump apparatus was conducted by Francis Jehl, who was assisted

by George Hill, Alfred Herrick, and others working in conjunction with the glass

blowers.19 Requests from the laboratory for experimental glass objects, such as vacuum

pumps and lamp bulbs, were given by Edison and his assistants to master glass blowers

Ludwig Boehm and William Holzer.20 Boehm and Holzer were assisted by apprentices.

Accounting, supply purchasing, drafting, secretarial work, and file organization were

conducted in the office building by bookkeeper William Carman, purchasing agent

George Carman, patent draftsman Samuel Mott, and secretary Stockton Griffin. These

men were assisted by office boys, and, during work lulls at the lab, unskilled and semi-

skilled laboratory assistants.

17 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 44. 18 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 195. 19 Francis Jehl, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18, 9, 15; Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18, 34-35. 20 Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18, 27.

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Requests for tools, metal parts, mechanisms, and patent models were typically

transferred by Edison and Batchelor to machine shop foreman John Kruesi. Kruesi

divided these projects among his most capable machinists and mechanics. A small

number of apprentices and day laborers assisted the shop men. Duplication work and

special orders were handled by experienced inside contractors selected by Kruesi and/or

Edison. Kruesi also managed the tasks conducted by carpenters and pattern makers in the

carpenters’ shed, such as Henry Campbell, Milo Andrus, and Charles Moffett.21

Campbell, however, managed a team of carpenters and day laborers for large tasks such

as the construction of buildings and the tracks and trestle bridge for Edison’s

experimental electric locomotive.22 Work conducted on the locomotive was managed by

mechanical and civil engineer Julius Hornig. Under Hornig worked a number of

machinists, mechanics, and day laborers.

A more visible managerial hierarchy was also developed at the Edison Lamp

Works in Menlo Park (Chart 3). At the lamp works, departments were clearly delineated

and separately managed. The general manager or superintendent of the Lamp Works was

Edison’s mathematician, Francis Upton, who contributed some of the initial funding for

establishing the manufactory. Upton was responsible for general oversight and

management of all the operations conducted at the works. The elimination of production

problems, production efficiency, and profit increase were among his main concerns.

Beyond functioning primarily as a manufactory, the lamp works at Menlo Park also

served an experimental purpose, as a place where Edison could work out production

problems surrounding incandescent lamp manufacture prior to relocating the operation to

21 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 686, 688. 22 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 686-687.

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a larger manufacturing facility. 23 Under Upton were several competent technicians who

managed the individual manufacturing departments. These managers included chief

electrician William Hammer, master mechanic James Bradley, lamp testing managers Dr.

Edward Nichols and, later, John Howell, master glass blower William Holzer, and Philip

Dyer, who served as the secretary. 24 David Hickman was placed in charge of the

socketing department and Alexander Welsh in charge of the carbonizing department.25

The manager of the vacuum pump department is unknown. Each of these managers

coordinated a team of individuals to efficiently conduct the production tasks required for

incandescent lamp manufacture.

Mechanization and Task Simplification

With a new management structure in place, Edison’s next step was to develop

ways to make lamp production more efficient. Edison’s lamp works competed with the

established gas, kerosene, and nascent arc lighting industries that already dominated the

lighting market.26 To make significant inroads into this market, electric incandescent

lighting had to be cheaper, more efficient and easy to use, and readily available to

costumers. Edison’s goal was to “produce a lamp so cheap that it could be thrown away

23 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 814. 24 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 815; William J. Hammer, “Early Edison Men, Mainly Menlo Park, New Jersey,” William J. Hammer Collection, No. 69, Series 2, Box 27. 25 Matthew Hankins to Unknown Edison Family Member, August 20, 1944, Edison Pioneers Files, Box 9, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village; Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: John Howell, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:239. 26 Alfred Lief, Metering for America: 125 Years of the Gas Industry and American Meter Company (New York, 1961), 1-21; Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875-1900, 16-21, 195-196.

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when its life was exhausted.”27 This was accomplished by industrializing the process of

lamp manufacture, which reduced lamp costs from $1.21 in 1880 to $0.30 in 1883.28

To do this, he had to “systematize the process of making incandescent lamps from

the laboratory method,” which relied on highly skilled artisans and laboratory personnel,

“into one of commercial manufacture,” whereby the production process was

industrialized and work was conducted by cheap unskilled and semi-skilled labor.29 In

this way, Edison sharply broke from his traditional use of artisan elements in his

managerial strategy. Production efficiency at the manufactory was paramount and

Edison employed a variety of modernized managerial tactics to attain this goal, which

presents a vivid contrast to his management of laboratory activities. This dichotomy

displays Edison’s differential treatment of varying aspects of the business of innovation,

which would continue later at his West Orange laboratory and associated companies.30

Beginning in January 1880, after the lamp was invented, Edison and his assistants

conducted numerous experiments to reduce production costs and increase the length of

lamp life.31 Part of this work entailed devising production equipment that reduced skills

needed for the production process. Certain mechanized apparatus were utilized at the

lamp works to make the process of production more efficient. Electric saws were

constructed, powered by dynamo generators in the machine shop, to cut bamboo strips

for use as incandescent filaments. The electric dynamos also supplied power to rotate

27 John Vail, “Experiences in Pioneer Electrical Engineering,” Lecture given April 28, 1916 before the Rochester, New York section of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Edison Pioneers Files, Box 42, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. 28 Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 89. 29 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 787. 30 Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 22-87. 31 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:15, 22. 31 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 45.

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glass annealing racks, bellows for the glass blowers and carbonizing furnace, and an

Archimedes screw for raising mercury into the vacuum pumps.32 Simplified vacuum

pumps were developed by the master glass blowers and experimental assistants that could

be, as Francis Jehl stated, “operated by a boy having two or three weeks practice in glass

blowing which was easily prepared and took a good deal less now than the combination

[pumps].”33 Edison’s machinists also created molds for the bamboo carbonization

process, whereby thin strips of bamboo filaments were cut and placed in nickel molds,

which allowed the filament to retain its shape while being carbonized in the furnace.34

Molds were also made for the plaster sockets, within which the finished bulbs were

mounted.35 Use of these molds permitted the employment of unskilled labor, who

required minimal training.

One area of concern was the production of the glass bulbs, which Edison intended

to reduce from a skilled to a semi-skilled process. The glass blowers did not use the

conventional large furnaces typical in glass blowing shops. Rather, they utilized pre-

made glass tubing from the Corning Glass Works.36 The tubing was heated over a flame

produced by a gas jet, the type used by experimental glass blowers.37 It was necessary,

however, for the tubing to be evenly heated in order for the blown glass bulbs to be of

equal thickness. Equal thickness, achieved by semi-automating the glass blowing

32 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 789. 33 Francis Jehl, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18, 45. The vacuum pump apparatus workers heated the connection between the mercury pump and the bulb into a molten state, thus sealing the connection. 34 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 792. 35 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 808. 36 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, October 12, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:999. 37 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 812.

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process, prevented breakage during the vacuum process caused by weak points in the

glass.

Initially, Charles Batchelor envisioned a semi-automated heating process and, in

December 1879, he sketched plans to use a conveyor belt system for glass blowing. In

this system, shown in Figure 11, air would be pumped into one end of a rotating glass

tube, while the opposite end was heated by a gas jet flame. The majority of the tube

would remain in place while the heated end would be manually pulled to create a tapering

effect and thus sealing off the tube. Once sealed, air would continue to be pumped in to

create the desired bulb shape. Figure 12 depicts the series of stages of proposed bulb

manufacture. An illustration of lamp manufacture steps arranged by master glass blower

John Howell in Francis Jehl’s Menlo Park Reminiscences: Volume Two indicates,

however, that at least 14 steps were involved.38 This particular system was probably not

used at the lamp works, but is indicative of the semi-automated system that was required

to cheaply and quickly produce bulbs.

A second devise for semi-automating the glass blowing process, that was

probably implemented, was sketched on May 20, 1880 by John Kruesi (Figure 13).39

Machinist William Andrews constructed this machine on May 28 and it was refined

shortly thereafter.40 Like the earlier semi-automated process, the glass blowing machine

utilized a conveyor belt system. In this system, the glass tubing was held in place by

38 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 808. 39 John Kruesi, Menlo Park Notebook Number 56, May 20, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 35: 576; Charles Mott, Menlo Park Notebook Number 53, May 28, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 35: 782. It was not until 1894 that a semiautomatic machine for glass bulb production was patented by Michael J. Owens. Arthur Bright, Jr., The Electric-Lamp Industry: Technological Change and Economic Development from 1800 to 1947 (New York, 1949), 133. 40 Charles Mott, Menlo Park Notebook Number 53, May 28, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 35: 782.

Figure 11: Charles Batchelor's conception for Semi-automated lamp manufacture, December 19, 1879. (A- Glass Tube; B- Air sump; C-Gas Jet Flame).Image from the Thomas A. Edison Papers.

A

B

C

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Figure 12: Drawing by Charles Batchelor of proposed steps in lamp bulb manufacture.Image from The Thomas A. Edison Papers.

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Figure 13: John Kruesi's conception for semi-automated lamp manufacture, May 20, 1880.(A- Glass Tube; B- Conveyor Belt; C- Gas Jet Flame). Image from the Thomas A.Edison Papers.

A

B

C

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open-ended brackets while it also rested on a conveyor belt. The belt rotated the glass at

a constant speed, enabling it to be evenly heated by a gas jet flame. Once heated the tube

could be quickly taken off the machine, while another was put in its place, and blown to

create a bulb of uniform thickness. The bulb would then be placed on the automated

rotating annealing rack. Once cooled, the filament was inserted and the bulb was taken to

the vacuum pump department. After the gasses were removed, the open tip of the bulb

which connected it to the vacuum pump was heated and sealed, probably by the pump

workers, and then taken to the socket department for socket application.

The reduction of glass blowing from skilled to semi-skilled work due to its

conversion into a semi-automated process, however, did not alone reduce the costs of

manufacture. To staff this operation, Edison hired a number of unskilled, cheap, and

expendable young boys from the surrounding countryside for the new works (Figure

14).41 However, due to the low population density of the ne ighboring rural Middlesex

County communities, men, who probably demanded higher wages, were also employed.

As Upton commented in March 1881, “We can never make the lamp cheap until we can

have plenty of boys and girls at low wages,” who could be found in abundance in urban

centers42 By 1881, the shortage of cheap labor made the lamp works vulnerable to

competition, which, in 1881, consisted of two incandescent lamp manufactories, the

United States Electric Lighting Company and the Western Electric Lighting Company. 43

To remain competitive by further reducing production costs, in September 1881, Upton

41 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 517, 812. 42 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, March 7, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Reese Jenkins, et al, microfilm, 57:793-794. It is unknown if any girls also worked at the lamp works. 43 Bright, Jr., The Electric-Lamp Industry, 71.

Figure 14: Edison Lamp Works employees. Master glass blower William Holzer issituated in the center background and his apprentice glass blowers and vacuum apparatus workers are in the mid-ground with their vacuum pumps and bulbs. Image from the William J. Hammer Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History,Behring Center, Smithsonian Institution.

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began cutting wages.44 The wage cut percentage, however, is unknown due to

insufficient documentation.

To keep costs down, Upton also had to ensure that workers used their time

efficiently. The craft tradition of task-oriented production, or rather experimentation, at

the laboratory was at odds with the systematic, industrialized, and time-oriented work at

the lamp works, where tasks were expected to be completed in a specified time period.

Artisans who were transferred from the laboratory facility to work at the lamp works,

however, found it difficult to adjust to the industrialized work atmosphere, which caused

struggles between management and some workers over the control of production. 45 The

most noteworthy example involved master glass blower William Holzer, who did not

acclimate to the new factory setting as quickly as Upton and Edison anticipated.

Like most artisans, Holzer, who formerly worked in the lab facility’s glass shed,

was accustomed to controlling his production pace and breaking for beer and

conversation. He attempted to continue such practice at the lamp works, engaging with

his apprentice glass blowers in long smoking breaks, sometimes lasting hours.46 Upton

complained to Edison, stating that he demanded Holzer to stop smoking and resume

work, but Holzer continued.47 In response, Upton requested from Edison more authority

as the superintendent if a managerial hierarchy was to exist.48 Upton was granted the

44 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, September 25, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Reese Jenkins, et al, microfilm, 57:968. 45 David Montgomery has detailed this struggle between labor and management as it applied to the late-nineteenth-century railroad industry. David Montgomery, “The Struggle for Control of Production,” in Industrial Revolution in America, ed. Gary Kornblith (Boston and New York, 1998), 173-179. 46 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, February 18, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:776. 47 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, February 18, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:776. 48 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, May 28, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al, microfilm, 57:895.

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authority, and Holzer soon deferred. Others, however, were fired for their laziness, such

as the firemen in the carbonizing department.49 Firing employees, however, was not

always an option at the lamp works or the lab. For instance, Upton and Edison both

recognized that some of the employees had already learned too much of the

manufacturing and invention process, and firing them might incite the unwanted spread

of Edison’s trade secrets and intellectual property to competitors.

Ownership of Ideas and Safeguarding Intellectual Property

Beside the products sold from his manufacturing endeavors, Edison’s main

product was the patents he created for new technologies and electro-mechanical devices.

Until his ideas were worked out, developed, made into patent models, and finally

patented, the process of safeguarding his intellectual property from being stolen became a

major operation. To succeed as an inventor and manufacturer it was of utmost

importance to curtail, and if possible prevent, the unwanted spread of his ideas to

competitors, which required changes in his management strategy. By 1877 Edison

recognized that the spread of his intellectual property, resulting in patent infringement by

other inventors, created more competition to his business ventures and compromised both

his position as an inventor and his claims of original patent creation.

Edison also recognized that the craft methods and open information policy used to

educate his workers in the field of electrical engineering and the process of invention

proved to be a liability.50 In order to prevent the spread of his intellectual property,

Edison was forced to modify his management strategy and even construct a secret vault

49 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, February 18, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:776. 50 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:74.

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to protect his only asset-- ideas, concepts, experimental records, and patent caveats,

models, and applications-- before his inventions were finally patented. Consequently,

Edison had to meticulously document the invention process, and prevent assistants,

except for Batchelor, his chief assistant, from attaining knowledge of all the aspects of an

invention’s development, which was done through worker specialization. The policies,

however, were slow to be instituted.

In 1876 and 1877, Edison was increasingly involved in patent infringement suits.

Based on his experience with these suits, former documentation practices, and the advice

provided by his patent attorney, Grosvenor Lowery, in 1877 Edison and his assistants

began to meticulously document the processes of invention in a series of laboratory

notebooks.51 This was done to create a written evidential record to contrast patent

infringement suits. Edison explained that laboratory notebooks,

Were scattered all over the laboratory, so that if I wished to express an idea, or explain a movement or design to an assistant, I would pick up a book nearest by, write the title, date it, put my name down, and make the drawings. When the book was full, they were collected together and fresh books scattered around the laboratory. We had been taught by numerous interferences the value of these records, and the necessity of figuring in books, in place of separate scraps of paper, which were very liable to be lost.52 The record encapsulated in the notebooks was often pivotal in proving Edison’s original

creation and ownership of the intellectual property and patent under suit.

Edison’s staff members were also responsible for recording and documenting

their work, experiments, ideas, and drawings. Drawings and new ideas were always

dated and signed by one or more witnesses. Between 1876 and 1882, over 250 laboratory

51 Telephone Interference: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 11:30. 52 Telephone Interference: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 11:51.

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notebooks were produced. Charles Batchelor also kept a personal notebook, and in 1880

Charles Mott was instructed to document activities throughout the facility within six

pocket notebooks and two large notebooks. Other inventors did not use such an elaborate

and meticulous process of documentation. For example, Alexander Graham Bell relied

on correspondence letters between him and his wife and some personal notebooks in

order to fix dates to his telephone experiments for a series of telephone patent

interferences in 1878.53

Prior to the construction of the office/library in November 1878, Edison’ s lab

notebooks were probably stored in the office room on the first floor of the laboratory.

Once the new office/library was erected, the notebooks and all other important company

documents were stored in a secret, underground, fireproof chamber or vault, specifically

designed to store Edison’s “most important papers and other valuables,” (Figure 15).54

This vault was located immediately behind and only accessible from within the

office/library building.55 Unlike other inventors, such as Alexander Graham Bell in late

1875, who could quickly and easily move from their one room facility to a nearby,

undisclosed location, to prevent spies from attaining their intellectual property, Edison’s

facility was too large to permit an uncostly relocation. 56 The inability to relocate with

ease, therefore, necessitated the creation of the vault. It is not known which workers or

53 Robert Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (Boston, 1973), 267-268. 54 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 3 (Dearborn, 1941), 1124. 55 Letter from Charles Clarke to E. J. Cutler on March 16, 1929, Filed at Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Box 27-18; Richard Veit and Michael J. Gall, “An Illuminating Discovery: Finding Thomas Edison’s Patent Vault,” in Archaeological Society of New Jersey Newsletter 198 (May 2002), 1-2; Michael J. Gall and Richard Veit, Archaeological Investigations at the Thomas A. Edison Menlo Park Laboratory Complex: Sarah Jordan Boarding House Site (28-Mi-219), Charles Dean House Site (28-Mi-218), and the Thomas A. Edison Menlo Park Laboratory Site (28-Mi-226), Block 677, Lots 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, and Block 662, Lots 3, 25, and 26. Pending Completion and Submission to the State Historic Preservation Office, Trenton, New Jersey. 56 Bruce, Bell, 162.

Figure 15: Overview of the vault’s interior as it currently appears. Photographtaken by the author on July 3, 2004.

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how many were aware of the vault, as the structure is not directly mentioned in any of the

contemporary documents, and is only referred to in passing, decades later during the

1920s, by former employees.57 The lack of references suggests that the vault’s existence

was likely kept secret from most of the workforce. Edison’s top assistants, however,

were probably aware of the subterranean structure.58

Edison retained and archived these documents in the locked vault for three

primary reasons. The first was to keep them safe from fire or water damage. The second

reason was to archive documents, such as daily scientific notebooks, that could later be

utilized as court evidence for patent infringement suits. The third, and final reason, was

to guard them against theft from spies hired by competing inventors and industries who

were engaged in industrial espionage and sabotage. The creation of the vault, however,

only curtailed, but did not prevent, the spread of Edison’s intellectual property. In fact,

his intellectual property was obtained by his competitors in a number of ways.

The first resulted from Edison’s inability to keep his affairs secret. He commonly

graced visitors, peers, and reporters with information by boasting about his experiments,

accomplishments, and his plans for new inventions. Throughout most of the facility’s

operation, Edison enjoyed and promoted an open information policy with his workforce,

as well as with members of the press, the general public, other scientists, and his

investors. Visitors typically wandered through Menlo Park, talking to Edison and his

workers about the experiments and future inventions. After the invention of the

phonograph, the press increasingly frequented the lab facility, eagerly conversing with

57 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 3, 1124; Charles Clarke to E. J. Cutler, March 16, 1929, Edison Pioneers Biography Files, Box 27, File 18. 58 John Kruesi’s testimony, Edison vs. Stiemens vs. Field in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, Reel 46, Frame29

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anyone on the workforce who could provide information about exciting upcoming

inventions. Edison initially welcomed these visitors and the press, as he felt they

provided free advertisement for him, his facility, and his inventions. He soon recognized,

however, that the problems caused by the spread of his intellectual property outweighed

the advantages of free advertisement. By 1880, Edison stopped discussing his ideas and

plans for future inventions with the press and general public until his inventions had been

successfully patented in both the United States and abroad. In 1881 Edison commented,

“I never concealed my ideas, but talked freely about them, no matter who was present- a

practice which I have already changed.”59

Edison was given advice, at least as early as 1878, not to admit visitors into the

laboratory or discuss experiments and future inventions publicly until he had received

patents for them. 60 Unfortunately, he did not heed the advice until it was too late. For

example, in December 1879 Edison allowed Edwin Fox, a telegrapher friend and reporter

from the New York Herald, to gather information for a full account of the invention of the

incandescent lamp and the associated electrical generating system. Edison intended the

reporter to keep the information secret until the lamp was displayed on December 31,

1879 and patents for the lamp were received abroad. The reporter disregarded Edison’s

request and on December 21, 1879 published a full, detailed account, with illustrations,

of the incandescent lamp and the generating system. 61 Edison, exclaimed Francis Upton,

“was very much provoked and is working off his surplus energy today.”

59 Thomas A. Edison versus Werner Siemens versus George Field: Julius Horning, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 46:60. 60 Hounshell, “The Modernity of Menlo Park,” 121. 61 Anonymous, “Edison’s Light.”

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The article was published before Edison could patent his lamp and electrical

system in London, at which point Edison wrote to his patent agents in Europe, “Hurry

forward on continent [London] last two lamp patents as Herald publishes description

today.”62 He was also still refining the lamp and the associated system of electric

generation and distribution. The article provided significant information for inventors

working in the field of power generation, subdivision, and incandescent lighting, and

enabled them to develop incandescent lighting systems and electric generating central

stations soon after Edison invented his.63 In fact, Edison knew the consequences of this

publication and less than two months later, on February 19, 1880 he issued a general

order to his workforce, which read:

“Employees will treat visitors courteously but under no circumstances will they leave their work or give information of any kind to visitors. No information will be furnished except by myself or Messrs. Batchelor, Upton, Kruesi, and Carman. You will regard this as a positive order.64 This order, however, did not solve the problem of information dissemination.

Information was also attained by Edison’s competitors by hiring former Edison

employees. Working in competitor’s laboratories, or seeking extra money, Edison’s

former employees began spreading his experimental results, ideas, and incandescent lamp

manufacturing methods. For example, in October 1880, master glass blower Ludwig

Boehm left Edison’s employ to work for his competitor, Hiram Maxim, owner of the

United States Electric Lighting Company. There, Boehm provided Maxim with

information on the construction of Edison’s vacuum pump apparatus, an essential

62 Thomas A. Edison to Brewer and Jensen, December 21, 1879, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 15:620. 63 By 1883, eleven electric lighting companies were established. Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 194. 64 Thomas A. Edison, February 19, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 54:368.

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instrument in incandescent lamp manufacture, which Boehm claimed as his own design.65

Other employees, including Thomas Platt, George Crosby, and Alexander Welsh who

were intimately acquainted with the process of incandescent lamp manufacture left

Edison’s employ to work for Edison’s new rival, the United States Electric Lighting

Company. 66 Some individuals, like Welsh for instance, even attempted to recruit

Edison’s employees into the competing company.67 Edison realized that the craft

methods and open information policy he used at the laboratory facility to educate his

workers in the field of electrical engineering proved to be a liability. 68 Edison dealt with

this devastating problem in two ways.

First, like gun powder manufacture Lammot Du Pont, Edison isolated most, but

not all, of his workforce to their specific departments.69 Forcing them to specialize in

particular inventive tasks limited their knowledge of the entire research and development

process of an invention. To prevent laboratory personnel from learning an invention’s

manufacturing process, they were not allowed to visit the lamp manufactory unless on

company business. Lamp manufactory workers were also affected as they were not

permitted into the laboratory except when granted permission. 70

65 Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18. 66 William Andrews, no date, William J. Hammer Collection, No. 69, Series 2, Box 25. 67 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:135. 68 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:74. 69 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:136; Norman Wilkinson, Lammot Du Pont and the American Explosives Industry, 1850-1884 (Charlottesville, 1984), 168. 70 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:136.

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Second, Edison dealt with the problem of intellectual property dissemination by

attempting to retain the employment of men who acquired sufficient knowledge of

invention processes or manufacturing methods to pose a threat to the company. To retain

his top level assistants, such as Upton, Batchelor, and Kruesi, Edison offered them well-

paid managerial positions, stock options, and, in some cases, patent co-ownership rights.

In reciprocation, these men loyally served under Edison well into the future. Others,

however, were problematic.

One example in particular involved Alexander Welsh. Welsh worked in the

carbonizing department at the lamp works, but was noticeably lazy. Upton initially did

not discharge Welsh for his laziness because he worried that Welsh would “go to the

opposition [as] he has had his eyes quite wide open since he has been [at the lamp

works].”71 Edison and Upton agreed to solve the problem by isolating Welsh from the

rest of the workforce and gave him the responsibility to conduct various experiments on

the incandescent lamp, a position he greatly desired. Welsh, however, was subsequently

fired for misreporting experimental results.72 Although he was discharged, Edison still

worried he would spread secrets about the lamp manufacturing process and attempts were

made to persuade Welsh to attain a position at one of Edison’s isolated power station

companies.73 Welsh refused and joined a rival company just as Edison and Upton feared.

The final way Edison’s competitors attained information about his experiments

and inventions was through industrial espionage. During the eighteenth and early- 71 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, August 1, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:938-939. 72 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:135. 73 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:135.

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nineteenth century, Americans were actively engaged in government-sponsored

technology piracy oversees against Britain, the then technological superpower.74 By the

mid to late-nineteenth-century, however, Americans and American companies became

increasingly engaged in domestic industrial espionage for technology-based

information. 75 Commonly large companies sponsored such illicit activity, but individual

inventors and entrepreneurs also took part in espionage. Numerous inventors, including

Edison and Bell, were victims of industrial espionage. For instance, in December 1875,

after suspecting continued espionage attempts by competitors such as Western Union,

Bell moved his small laboratory from his attic workshop in Charles Williams’s Boston

machine shop to a room in a building a short distance away.76 Edison, who faced a much

larger barrage of spies, did not have the luxury of moving his large facility. He had to

face the problem directly.

Competing industries used spies to gain information about Edison’s experiments

and inventions.77 Firms in industries such as the gas, arc, and kerosene lighting industries

suffered economically as a result of Edison’s invention of a marketable and efficient

incandescent lamp and electrical generating system. Historian Matthew Josephson stated

that after Edison announced that he could create a successful distribution of electrical

lighting, gaslight securities lost twelve percent of their value.78 The response to avert and

deter industrial espionage included limiting, restricting, and chaperoning visitors, general

orders to workforce personnel to refrain from disclosing company information, the

74 Donor Ben-Atar, Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power (New Haven and London, 2004), 156-171. 75 Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875-1900, 318-319. 76 Bruce, Bell, 162. 77 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 492. 78 Josephson, Edison: A Biography , 187.

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construction of a secret, underground vault to store to secure all valuable documentation,

and the use of employees to keep-watch over the facility and report any mischievous

activity.79 The methods and tactics Edison employed to prevent the spread of his

intellectual property was later adopted by scientific research and development

laboratories.80

Ultimately, Edison responded to the growth of his facility and the addition of

manufacturing operations by incorporating industrial management tactics into his pre-

industrial management strategy. This was most evident at the lamp works, where

manufacturing was the basis of operations, but was also present in simpler forms at the

lab facility. There, industrial management tactics took the form of a new management

bureaucracy, task specialization and subdivision, task and concept documentation, and

attempts to prevent the spread of intellectual property. Aware of the necessity to institute

these changes, they were selectively and carefully employed to encourage efficient work,

and to better manage and coordinate the invention and manufacturing process.

Conclusion

Between 1876 and 1882, the managerial practices Edison employed at his Menlo

Park laboratory facility and later lamp manufactory underwent an organic evolution.

Influenced by a variety of factors, this strategy evolved from one that heavily utilized

artisan traditions to one that selectively combined artisan and industrial elements to

coordinate the invention and manufacturing activities of his laboratory and lamp works.

This evolution displayed Edison’s mastery of the craft of invention, which united trade

skill, science, innovation, management, and corporate capitalism. This mastery enabled

79 Josephson, Edison: A Biography , 225-226. 80 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 110. Edison also constructed an enormo us vault at his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory to safely store important documents.

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him to efficiently and effectively conduct the process of invention and turn technological

innovation into a marketable commodity.

By the lab’s closure in 1882, Edison successfully established himself as a

prominent inventor/entrepreneur, and fully developed and mastered the craft of invention.

He acknowledged that the invention process was not an individual endeavor. Rather, it

required the cooperative efforts, skills, technical expertise, and assistance of a variety of

competent assistants. For the process to be successful, assistants needed to work together

under the direction of a team leader or manager. Assistants required limited autonomy in

their decision-making capability, have the ability to expand their knowledge-base, enjoy

their work, and have the tools necessary to complete experimental tasks. Edison also

realized that as an employer, he must ensure that assistants work diligently and loyally

toward his goals, as well as concede all authority to him. This was done by making work

with the inventor advantageous. Edison worked alongside his assistants, promoting

education, providing a friendly work atmosphere, reciprocating favors, and upholding

bonds of mutuality. Edison also coveted his assistants’ trade skill and competency, and

rewarded his best assistants with bonuses and the prospect of upward mobility. By

utilizing the craft-based managerial strategy he adopted from past experiences in the

telegraph and metal working trades, and by instructing lab personnel in the science of

electrical engineering and the craft of invention, Edison ensured that his staff could

complete the inventive tasks given to them.

Edison’s achievement as a prominent inventor was also accomplished because of

his successful marriage of craft- and industrially-based management strategies. By 1882,

Edison had recognized where and when to most efficiently institute selective industrially-

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based managerial strategies to modernize the process of invention. In his increasing

absence and to better coordinate the invention process for simultaneous work on multiple

projects, Edison established a management hierarchy, whereby the most competent and

loyal assistants presided in the upper levels of management. These managers oversaw

work in newly created departments. More importantly, however, together, Edison and his

managers coordinated a team approach to the invention process. Edison subdivided the

inventive tasks of research and development, and teams of assistants specialized in

certain aspects of an invention’s development. This approach also limited the number of

assistants who became knowledgeable in all aspects of an invention’s research and

development, decreasing the threat of posed by intellectual property dissemination.

With an efficient system of invention in place, Edison was able to divert from

financially depending solely on contract work, for which he created inventions and sold

his patent rights to corporations. Edison acknowledged that to remain in business as an

inventor, he must create his own industry, manufacture his inventions in his own

factories, and use the sale profits to fund further inventive endeavors. Most notably, this

was accomplished with his creation of the incandescent lamp and electrical generation

industry and the Edison Lamp Works. In contrast to the laboratory facility, at his lamp

works, Edison primarily utilized industrially-based management tactics to reduce the

costs of production. He used his laboratory to develop a semi-automated production

process, which enabled him to hire unskilled and semi-skilled, cheap, and expendable

labor, whose production tasks were time oriented. With low wages, task specialization,

and an industrialized work process, workers were granted few opportunities for upward

mobility.

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In all, Edison not only mastered the craft of invention, but established the

foundation for management strategies adopted by later industrial research and

development facilities, such as his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory facility, founded

in 1887, and General Electric. Edison learned how to most appropriately combine

aspects of pre- industrial craft traditions and industrialization to enable large-scale

invention, without bastardizing the craft of invention. By utilizing and marrying craft-

and industrially-based managerial strategies, Edison was ultimately able to make

invention a regular and predicable, factory- like process.

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