My Science School

From mines to movies – that is the story of William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. He was among Edison’s crew at the West Orange Laboratory, and mainly worked on the iron ore mine in western New Jersey which later failed. Dickson was highly skilled as a photographer, and this led him to work with Edison on motion pictures. His contribution was so great that historians sometimes wonder who played a more important role in the development of cinema, Dickson or Edison.

Dickson’s relationship with Edison had a sad ending, though. The fast pace of work at the laboratory affected Dickson and he had a nervous breakdown in 1893. By the next year, he started to work for a rival company, while remaining on Edison’s staff. After a year, Dickson had to leave Edison on bitter terms.

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Everybody knows Henry Ford as the person who revolutionized the automobile industry. It was when he introduced the inexpensive Model T that cars first became affordable to most people.

This legendary car-maker had a close association with Edison. The Edison Illuminating Company hired Henry Ford in 1891 to work as an engineer, and that is how he began his career. Edison was quick to see the young engineer’s brilliance, and Ford quickly rose through the ranks. In just two years, he became a chief engineer. While working with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, Ford built his first oil-driven vehicle in the shed behind his home. Edison was happy to encourage such efforts, and said, “Keep at it!” Edison and Henry Ford became quite close, and their friendship lasted the rest of their lives.

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Jonas Walter Aylsworth was a brilliant chemist, and a pioneer in the field of plastics. He joined the West Orange Laboratory when it was opened in 1887. He was mostly involved in testing materials for making phonograph records.

Aylsworth made a material called ‘condensite’, mixing phenol and formaldehyde for use in disc records. It was a plastic on which recordings could be made. This led the way to the vinyl records.

Jonas left West Orange four years after joining, but returned ten years later to work for Edison, at the same time working in his own laboratory, too.

John Ott was another brilliant worker of Edison, who also became a close friend. John and his younger brother Fred started to work with Edison in Newark in the 1870’s, and moved to Menlo Park with Edison in 1876. At Menlo Park, John was the main maker of models and instruments.

When the West Orange Laboratory was started, John served as the superintendent of the machine shop. But in 1895, he was severely injured in a terrible fall. He had acquired 22 patents, some of them shared with Edison.

John Ott died just a day after Edison. He was so valued by the family that Mrs. Edison made a special request to place his crutches and wheelchair by Edison’s coffin.

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The Edison Portland Cement Company was started by Edison in 1899. It was established to make use of Edison’s process and patents for manufacturing cement in the U.S. and Canada. The manufacturing was done at the mill at Stewartsville, New Jersey, and the company had sales offices at several places.

The Edison Portland Cement Company stopped functioning in December 1931, and the Edison Cement Corporation took its place.

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Edison had an unusual knack to identify talent in others. When he moved to Menlo Park in 1876, he had recruited some highly talented people to work with him. Many of them remained with him for the rest of their lives. Those hardworking youngsters were often fresh out of studies. Edison called them ‘muckers’, as none of them would hesitate to get their hands dirty with hard work. Working with Edison was a great learning experience for them, as Edison involved them in building prototypes and testing out his ideas.

By the time the laboratory complex at West Orange was built, Edison had become very famous; technical people from different places in the U.S. and Europe came, hoping to work with the legendary inventor. If Edison had a bright idea, work at the laboratory would extend late into the night. The muckers sometimes had to face their boss’s sarcasm and ridicule.

However, they did not mind. Most of them felt as electrician Arthur Kennelly said, “The privilege which I had being with this great man for six years was the greatest inspiration of my life.”

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The West Orange Laboratory is now preserved as a monument, looked after by the National Park Service. This includes the chemistry lab, machine shop, library and also a replica of the Black Maria, the first motion picture studio. The laboratory and Edison’s home were together designated as the Edison National Historic Site, in 1962.

The Edison home, which is called Glenmont, is a 29-room mansion that stands on a fifteen-acre estate. It contains the original furnishings and other items used by the Edisons.

As we have already seen, Edison did not stop with making the electric bulb; he also came up with a whole system to reach electric power to homes. That is how the Edison Illuminating Company of New York came to be, in 1880. The company constructed generating stations in New York City, and its first central station started to function in Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan on September 4, 1882. The other local illuminating companies that came up in the United States at that time were modelled after it. In 1901, the Edison Illuminating Company joined with the New York Gas & Electric Light, Heat & Power Company, forming the New York Edison Company. It was later renamed as Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.

The Edison General Electric Company was founded in 1889. It was formed by merging three companies of Edison that made electric light, with the Edison Electric Light Company. Later, it acquired the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company, and then merged with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, and ultimately became the General Electric Company – one of the most famous names in the electrical industry.

 

The Edison Manufacturing Company was formed in 1889, as a personal business of Edison. Its original purpose was to manufacture and market batteries to be used for telegraph, telephone systems, phonographs, medical instruments etc. The company also produced kinetoscope films, kinetoscopes, the wax used for phonograph cylinders, X-ray equipment, medical instruments and electric fans. It ceased to exist in 1926, and all the assets and property rights of this company were taken over by Thomas A. Edison Inc.

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