The Empire That Erased His Name

Name: The Empire That Erased His Name
Genre: Documentary

As the electric company moves beyond him, Edison builds a much larger laboratory where invention can proceed on an industrial scale.

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Transcript

In 1892, the company with Edison's name folded into General Electric.
Though companies bore Edison’s name, they merged into Edison General Electric, which he never controlled.
It began at Edison’s West Orange lab, a five-building complex opened November 1887.
The five buildings supported simultaneous work at West Orange.
Inside: a power plant, machine shops, stock rooms, experimental rooms, and a large library.
A power plant kept West Orange running as projects multiplied.
John Ott was a machinist employed at Edison’s laboratory.
West Orange allowed Edison to work on as many as 10 or 20 projects at once.
Before West Orange opened, Edison married Mina Miller in February 1886.
Edison and Mina lived at Glenmont until his death in West Orange in 1931.
The National Archives says Edison used mass production and large-scale teamwork to invent.
Business and invention now followed separate paths through Edison’s story.
Now, the story shifts from corporate control to invention at West Orange.
Assistants passed tools and components along one continuous work line.
Thomas Edison once said these words, and the room fell quiet. I never quit until I get what I’m after.

West Orange could run twenty projects at once, but that scale made the truth unavoidable: the Wizard’s inventions now depended on an army.

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