Edison's workshop

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Gallery: Edison's Workshop

A tour through Building Number 5, the most important structure at Edison's famed Essex, New Jersey, campus, where the inventor tinkered with audiovisual equipment

Welcome to West Orange in Essex, New Jersey, site of Thomas Edison's famed campus for invention.

The good folks at the Library of Congress took dozens of photos of the site, and thousands of other buildings, in an attempt to preserve our architectural and technological history. What you'll see in the gallery below is a selection of the images from the Built in America collection. The exact date of the photos is unknown, but they were compiled beginning in the late 1960s. While there were nine buildings on Edison's campus, I focused here on Building Number 5, which was built in 1887 and housed the machine shop among other experimental facilities. It's the building you see above on the left.

Library of Congress "View of shop from platform holding two 40-horsepower electric direct-current motors. These provide power for the shop. Left foreground shows a display of Edison storage batteries which had been shown in the entryway of Building No. 6 by the Edison company during the 1930s through 1950s." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-2 Library of Congress Interior of the first floor. Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-3 Library of Congress "Center background shows two forty-horsepower direct-current electric motors installed in 1904 to provide power to two drive shafts for first floor machine shops." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-8 Library of Congress Interior, first floor. Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-13 Library of Congress "Side entry to laboratory from courtyard. Time clock used to record employees' work times." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-15 Library of Congress Interior, first floor. Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-16 Library of Congress Interior, first floor. Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-23 Library of Congress Interior, first floor. Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-29 Library of Congress "To left of center is freight elevator used to move materials to the upper floors of the building. This elevator is also powered via the belts and drive shafts which operate the machine tools. Sign on elevator reads 'For Mr. Edison's Personal Use Only;' according to rumor, Edison was encouraged to use the elevator as he grew older, but refused. The elevator is designed for freight only." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-35 Library of Congress "Unusual large circular planing machine for finishing metal wheels." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-38 Library of Congress "Grinding machine in operating condition and used for public demonstrations." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-40 Library of Congress "Large planer for finishing smooth, flat surfaces of large pieces of metal; in operating condition and used for public demonstrations." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-47 Library of Congress "Stock room, just off the large first floor machine ship. Here were stored various cutting edges and drill bits used on the machines. Some raw materials were stored here as well, along with nuts and bolts, machine screws, etc." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-53 Library of Congress "Large loudspeaker horns and crated Edison radios from 1929 are stored in a side room on the third floor." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-65 Library of Congress "'Music Room' now used for storage of upright, console Edison phonographs, third floor." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-66 Library of Congress "'Music Room,' third floor, is used for storage of Edison phonographs; this room was used during the 1920s to audition recording artists and to listen to prospective pieces of music for release on Edison records." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-70 Library of Congress "Apparatus at right, center is prototype for automatic record changing device for acoustical phonographs." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-68 Library of Congress "Right, center, are several Edison console radios and radio-phonographs from 1929." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-73 Library of Congress "One corner of the third floor has examples of Edison motion picture projectors in rather poor condition. Better preserved examples are in storage in Vault #12." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-74 Library of Congress "Side room of third floor has supply of phonograph parts used to maintain and restore the main collection housed in other areas of the third floor and in Vault #12." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-75 Library of Congress "Miscellaneous artifacts stored on the third floor... center is 'personal equation machine' which measures and records the reflex-response time of individuals using telegraph equipment." Call number: HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-C-83 Read more at www.theatlantic.com

 

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