Thomas Edison was a man of broad and wide-ranging interests. During his lifetime, he developed inventions for consumers, busines
ses, and industries in fields ranging from sound reproduction to iron ore mining. Edison never limited his curiosity or his work. The one restriction he put upon his work was that a project had to have a practical commercial application. That meant his inventions had to have a market, so that the profits could fund new inventions.
Edison had previously built laboratories in Newark and in Menlo Park, New Jersey–indeed, he had already won the nickname of the "Wizard of Menlo Park"–when he moved to West Orange in 1886. When he began to build his new laboratory complex, Edison's goal was to have on hand everything needed to quickly and cheaply perfect inventions and ready them for mass production. All the necessary tools, machines, materials, and skilled personnel would be housed within the complex.
To assist him in his invention work, Edison employed a large and diverse staff of more than 200 machinists, scientists, craftsmen, and laborers. This staff was divided by Edison into as many as 10 to 20 small teams, each working simultaneously for as long as necessary to turn an idea into a perfected finished prototype or model. Edison himself would move from team to team advising and cajoling efforts as necessary. When a particular invention was perfected, Edison quickly patented the device. With such extensive facilities and his large staff, Edison was able to turn out new products on an unprecedented scale and with unprecedented speed. From the West Orange complex came improved phonographs, a perfected alkaline storage battery, the movie camera, and the fluoroscope (a diagnostic tool widely used before X-rays were perfected).
Long experience as an inventor had taught Edison that money was made not from selling patent rights or from royalties, but from the direct sale of the products to the public. In 1888, Edison began building factories next to his laboratory complex to manufacture the finished products based on his inventions. The finished products were distributed and sold around the country and abroad.
This process is most clearly shown by Edison's work on the phonograph. He was the original inventor of the product, which first used foil cylinders to record sound. Shortly after he opened his new laboratory, Edison heard that the rival inventors had been awarded patents for improvements to the machine. Rather than suing these rivals for infringement of his original patent, Edison set out to develop his own "perfected" phonograph. For nearly two years, he and his team dedicated themselves to that goal.
The diversity of Edison's inventive interests and industries helped the financial stability of his complex. The profits from older, successful inventions and companies provided the needed financial support for Edison's new ideas and companies. For example, during the long, difficult, and very expensive struggle to develop the alkaline storage battery, Edison's already successful phonograph business provided the necessary financial support.
By uniting the resources of the laboratories and factories, Edison was able to accomplish far more than would have otherwise been possible. Edison and other inventors had previously been constrained by the small size of both their laboratories and their financial resources. By creating a large, diverse laboratory and factory complex, Edison could undertake more inventive projects with greater resources, both technological and financial, than had ever been possible before.
Edison worked at this laboratory complex for 44 years. With his modern research and development laboratory, Edison had the space, tools, and flexibility to work on any promising new idea that came to mind. With Edison's genius, the impossible became possible.
Directions: Using specific evidence from the text, write a well-developed paragraph responding to the following question.
How does the author support his claim that “Edison never limited his curiosity or his work” (para. 1)?
