We all know Thomas Edison as the inventor of the light bulb who went through a thousand iterations till he found the right material to act as a filament and his quote about success being 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.
But he was successful and is lodged in the minds of many engineers, inventors, and entrepreneurs because of his diverse interests, his ambition, and his development of products in a multitude of different fields.
Yet none of this would be possible if he had not invented the commercial research laboratory.
Edison Laboratories, in Menlo Park, New Jersey was built in 1876 using money Edison earned by selling the rights of the quadruplex telegraph to Western Union.
The new facility he envisioned, an “invention factory” combined the specialties of chemistry, physics, and metallurgy along with machine shops, the main laboratory, and a research library, all on one campus.
Building 1 served as the Physical and Electrical Lab, Number 2 was the chemistry lab, number 3 was a supply room for the chemistry lab with a small wood-working shop in the rear. Building 4 was for mining and metallurgy research and later for phonographic record experiments. Building 5 was the main laboratory, which included the library, machine shop, Edison’s office, and demo rooms. Building 6 was for the plant’s boilers and power generation. Building 7 was for blacksmithing and foundry work. Building 8 and 12 housed company records in vaults. Additionally, there was a storage battery building and a water tower.
His on-campus library, with a 30-foot high ceiling and a collection of 10,000 books doubled as his nap room with his cot, still on display at what is now a museum made in his honor.
Teams were headed up by 20 assistant researchers and combined the efforts of machinists, scientists, craftsmen, and laborers all working simultaneously to turn ideas into inventions and then into prototypes and lastly products to be sold.
Edison led the effort with a very decentralized command structure. He either gave general direction or accepted the team leader’s suggestions and left them to work out the details. His goal however was to be product-oriented, with the goals of manufacturing and selling products rather than licensing patents. And it all worked extremely well.
Then in December of 1914, around 5:30 pm, the unexpected happened. An explosion occurred, and the resulting fire spread to the surrounding building rapidly. A number of his factories were up in smoke amid the raging fire.
What was Edison’s reaction to this? Rather remarkably, he simply told his son, "Go get your mother and all her friends. They'll never see a fire like this again." Almost as if it were an impromptu fireworks show. To those worried about the loss Edison simply replied, "It's all right. We've just got rid of a lot of rubbish." The New York Times, captured Edison’s feeling with the quote, “Although I am over 67 years old, I'll start all over again tomorrow.”
After the 8-alarm fire, losses were projected at $919k ($23 million today). Yet he pressed on, vowing to rebuild and succeeding in three short weeks later, with a loan from a friend, Henry Ford, a man with whom he would have wheelchair races with toward the latter end of their lives.
His laboratory was the first model for commercial research and likely served as an inspiration to those developed much later by AT&T and Xerox.
Edison’s laboratories gave birth to the practical phonograph, the storage battery, the movie camera, the fluoroscope, and synthetic rubber, just to name a few.
And his name is still on manhole covers and electric company logos today.
All of this, from a man with little formal education, but an insatiable curiosity, starting work at age 12 and running experiments in his time off at his job in the baggage car of the train he sold concessions on between Port Huron and Detriot.
Sources:
· Bolger, Benjamin. The Invention Factory: Thomas Edison's Laboratories. National Park Service. April 1999
· HAER NJ-70. Buerlunger, Robert. Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service. July 1988
· Thomas A. Edison Laboratories, Main Street & Lakeside Avenue, West Orange, Essex County, NJ. https://www.loc.gov/item/nj1219/
ความคิดเห็น