Thomas A. Edison Papers documents the life, work, and vision of Thomas Edison in laboratory notebooks, diaries, business records, correspondence, and related materials. Inventor, businessman, scientist, industrialist, entrepreneur, engineer, Thomas Alva Edison developed many of the technologies that have shaped the modem world. Perhaps more than anyone else, Edison integrated the worlds of science, technology, business, and finance; and his work laid the foundation for the age of electricity, recorded sound, and motion pictures. In addition, he used team research and development with such great success at his Menlo Park and, West Orange, New Jersey, laboratories that he helped introduce the era of modem industrial research.
Content Types: books and reports, financial accounts, legal documents, notebooks, patents, periodicals, personal correspondence, phonograph and phonograph records, professional correspondence, specifications and drawings, telegraphs, and more.
Subjects: film, manufacturing and industry, mineral resources, science and technology, and more.
Keyword Search Examples: battery, cement, Charles Batchelor, chemicals, electric power, film, lighting, phonograph, talking machine, telephone.
Motion Picture Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors, 1894-1908
This collection consists of 6,000 pages of American motion picture catalogs published between 1894 and 1908. The earliest documents were those printed in 1894 by sales agents for Thomas Edison's kinetoscope. Their appearance coincided with the advent of commercial moving pictures. By the end of 1908, when the Motion Picture Patents Company was formed under Edison's auspices, motion picture catalogs were playing a less prominent role in the industry because trade journals had proliferated and were offering synopses, reviews, and advertisements. The catalogs that were distributed between 1894 and 1908 advertised films, equipment, and related posters, slides, lectures, and phonographs. They ranged from complete multi-page listings of a distributor's stock to one-page synopses of a production company's latest product. After more than a century, a comparatively small number of such catalogs remain. Some are fragmentary or incomplete; most are unique; and all are fragile. In a few cases only photocopies of the originals survive. This collection includes all known catalogs distributed in the United States by U.S. producers, by European producers through their U.S. offices, and by domestic agents for U.S. and European films, and focuses on films that received significant distribution in the United States.
Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, 1850-1878
This collection constitutes Part I of ProQuest's five-part series of Thomas A. Edison's papers, and includes correspondence, laboratory notebooks, and other papers. All of the documents are from the archive at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park (ENHP) in West Orange, New Jersey.
Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, 1879-1886
This collection constitutes Part II of ProQuest's five-part series of Thomas A. Edison's papers, and includes correspondence, laboratory notebooks, and other papers. All of the documents are from the archive at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park (ENHP) in West Orange, New Jersey. Part II begins with the year 1879 when Edison initiated extensive work on the incandescent lamp, and it concludes with the year 1886 when he returned to New Jersey from New York City to live with his new wife, Mina Miller Edison. Many historians regard these eight years of invention and entrepreneurship to be among Edison's most fertile and influential ones.
Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part III, 1887-1898
This collection constitutes Part III of ProQuest's five-part series of Thomas A. Edison's papers, and includes correspondence, laboratory notebooks, and other papers. All of the documents are from the archive at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park (ENHP) in West Orange, New Jersey. Part III begins with the year 1887 when a forty-year-old Edison opened his new laboratory complex in West Orange, New Jersey. It concludes with the year 1898 when he temporarily shut down his ambitious ore milling operations at Ogden, New Jersey, and began preparations to visit Portland Cement plants in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. During the period documented by Part III, Edison's West Orange laboratory emerged as an early research and development center and became the nucleus of his varied manufacturing and commercial interests. At the same time, numerous new companies were established to exploit his diverse inventions. The laboratory notebooks, correspondence, company records, and other primary sources presented in this collection not only reveal Edison's role as inventor and entrepreneur, but also document the parts played by his numerous laboratory and business associates in his affairs as well as in the larger technical and business communities.
Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part IV, 1899-1910
This collection constitutes Part IV of ProQuest's five-part series of Thomas A. Edison's papers, and includes correspondence, laboratory notebooks, and other papers. All of the documents are from the archive at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park (ENHP) in West Orange, New Jersey. Part IV begins with the year 1899 when Thomas A. Edison, then in his early fifties, abandoned his ambitious iron concentration plant in the mountains of western New Jersey and returned full-time to his laboratory in West Orange. It concludes with the year 1910--shortly before his National Phonograph Company consolidated with several other Edison companies to become Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part V, 1911-1919
This collection constitutes Part V of ProQuest's five-part series of Thomas A. Edison's papers, and includes correspondence, laboratory notebooks, and other papers. All of the documents are from the archive at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, New Jersey. Part V begins with the year 1911 when the sixty-four-year-old inventor consolidated his National Phonograph Company with several other Edison companies to form Thomas A. Edison, Inc. It concludes with the year 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles finally put an end to the long years of war and enabled Edison and other Americans to turn again to peacetime pursuits.
