The Wizard of Menlo Park (45 page)

Reading a headline:
“John Roach Embarrassed,”
NYT,
19 July 1885.

Just a year before:
TAE to John Roach, 25 June 1884,
PTAED,
LBCD7013.

William Croffut, the reporter:
W. A. Croffut, “Edison’s Latest Invention,”
Omaha Bee,
20 June 1885,
PTAED,
SB017010a.

a director of the company:
“Overhead Wires,”
Philadelphia Press,
31 May 1885,
PTAED,
SB017083b and SB017014a.

let go of the captain’s chair:
In the summer and fall of 1884, Edison’s twenty-two-year-old assistant Samuel Insull had conducted a brilliant and successful proxy fight that bested J. P. Morgan and secured his employer’s control of the board. Forrest McDonald,
Insull
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 31–32.

he asked his old friend:
Israel,
Edison,
234.

the two men founded:
Ibid., 237.

William Croffut obligingly offered:
“The Wizard Edison,”
Chicago Tribune,
30 April 1885,
PTAED,
SM062040. This wireless technology is more interesting today perhaps than it would have been then. The technology relied upon the principle of induction, so cannot be said to be a direct antecedent of today’s cell phones or wireless broadband. But it does offer an early instance of the quest to employ electricity to communicate while on the move.

Edison directed Samuel Insull:
TAE to Samuel Insull, n.d. [early May 1885],
PTAED,
D8503ZEX.

In his note of thanks:
William Croffut to Samuel Insull, 15 May 1885,
PTAED,
D8541M.

Edison had sent the shares:
TAE to Samuel Insull, n.d. [early May 1885],
PTAED,
D8503ZEX.

Insull soon concluded:
Samuel Insull to TAE, 29 March 1886,
PTAED,
LB021464.

Edison met:
New Orleans Picayune,
8 February 1886,
PTAED,
SB017124d. The clipping is untitled.

Edison invited Insull:
TAE to Samuel Insull, 27 June 1885,
PTAED,
D8503ZBD. Edison failed to make his verb agree with the plural subject; he also omitted “of” after “lots.”

entertainment of the group:
Edison refers at one point to the guests sitting around a table while making individual entries. Sharing must have begun before the ink was dry; Edison declared another’s efforts “very witty.” Runes,
Diary,
20.

The first entry:
Ibid., 3.

a later entry:
Ibid., 22.

Edison reported:
Ibid., 6–7, 8.

he submitted out of fear:
Ibid., 14. On p. 29 he again refers to the shirts: “Donned a boiled and starched emblem of respectability.”

a book by Hawthorne:
Ibid., 4.

two suicides:
Ibid., 10.

his description of a clerk:
Ibid., 31–32.

Edison’s trip into town:
Ibid., 17.

When Marion showed her father:
Ibid., 6–7.

Edison thinks Marion’s jealousy:
Ibid., 22.

Edison had noticed:
Ibid., 16.

A contemporary newspaper:
New Orleans Picayune,
8 February 1886.

The first meeting:
The two men could not have gotten to know each other very well, or Miller would not have had so much to tell his daughter two years later, after a stay with Edison that afforded “a better opportunity to get acquainted with him.” Lewis Miller to Mina Miller Edison, 26 April 1887,
PTAED,
FH001AAA.

traveled farther upstate:
Israel,
Edison,
247.

Looking back on the trip:
“Autobiographical,” in Runes,
Diary,
54–55.

story from family lore:
Lillian P. Warren, interview transcript, 2 July 1973, ENHS, 3. Warren was the niece of Lillian Gilliland, Ezra T. Gilliland’s wife.

Edison said that Miller tapped back:
“Autobiographical,” in Runes,
Diary,
54–55.

Edison formally wrote:
TAE to Lewis Miller, 30 September 1885,
PTAED,
B037AA. Paul Israel points out the possibility that Insull helped with the letter. Insull was a skilled writer and Edison was not. Insull’s role would explain how the letter was polished to a high gloss. Israel,
Edison,
247.

Reporters were present:
“Mr. Edison’s Wedding,”
NYT,
25 February 1886. Edison was accompanied by his closest colleagues, including Insull, Edward Johnson, Charles Batchelor, and Sigmund Bergmann.

train trip south:
“Edison to Invent a Cotton-Picker,”
NYW,
27 February 1886,
PTAED,
SB017119c.

each entry dated:
For an example, see the entry about incandescent bulbs for 18 March 1886 in
PTAED,
N314003.

she commuted daily:
Norman Speiden, transcript of ENHS tour, 8 January 1971, ENHS, 24.

after almost forty years:
Martha Coman and Hugh Weir, “The Most Difficult Husband in America,”
Collier’s,
18 July 1925.

She weighed the advantages:
Ibid.

planned suburban community:
Samuel Swift, “Llewellyn Park: The First American Suburban Community,”
House and Garden,
June 1903,327. Llewellyn Haskell, the community’s founder, belonged to a religious group self-named the Perfectionists. For an early contemporaneous account of the community’s founding, see “Llewellyn Park,”
NYT,
23 April 1865.

Henry Pedder:
“Mr. Pedder’s Luxurious Habits,”
NYT,
19 July 1884. Pedder was a longtime employee of the Arnold, Constable & Company department store (“Everything from Cradle to Grave”). He was a clerk, not a principal, but by dint of his seniority, he was privy to all the financial details of the business. The New York newspapers savored the story, but did not explain why no one at Arnold, Constable had wondered before then how a clerk earning $30,000 a year had managed to pay cash for a home that cost at least $200,000.

The real estate agent:
Edward P. Hamilton & Co. to TAE, 12 January 1886,
PTAED,
D8603L.

So eager was the department store:
W. A. Croffut, Interview with TAE,
New York Mail and Express,
8 October 1887, cited in Nerney,
Edison,
277. The price of $125,000 is the amount listed in the county records. See Kristin S. Herron,
The House at Glenmont: Historic Furnishings Report I
(West Orange, N.J.: National Park Service, Edison National Historic Site, 1998), 14n16.

exhibition space:
In the 1990s, Bill Gates, uneasy about the expense of his own budget-busting family home, wanted the public to know that its Tomorrowland furnishings would help Microsoft show company guests the way to the future. Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, and Peter Rinearson,
The Road Ahead: Completely Revised and Up to Date
(New York: Penguin, 1996), 249–258.

Chandeliers had gas burners:
Charles Edison, Oral History, 14 April 1953, ENHS.

Speaking tubes:
Theodore M. Edison, Oral History, 26 July 1970, ENHS.

He wrote in his diary:
Runes,
Diary,
8.

The three-story main building:
TAE to James Hood Wright, August 1887 [conjectured],
PTAED,
NA011005.

When his fund-raising efforts petered out:
Andre Millard,
Edison and the Business of Invention
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 46, 54–55.

About this time she directed:
Herron,
House at Glenmont,
18, 19. The list of household staff members is based on a note written in September 1892, which also included mention of a nurse, a position that was likely added after the birth of Madeleine.

Earlier, in 1887:
Lewis Miller to Mina Miller Edison, 26 April 1887,
PTAED,
FH001AAA,

After spending about $180,000:
TAE to Henry Villard, 19 January 1888,
PTAED,
D8805AAI.

When Edison subsequently revised:
Israel,
Edison,
269.

In 1884:
Fiske,
Off-Hand Portraits,
113.

After reviewing the legal issues:
TAE to Edward H. Johnson [conjectured], 22 November 1887,
PTAED,
D8750AAK.

The Graphophone Company, for its part:
Tate,
Edison’s Open Door,
135–136, 139.

Company officials tried:
George Gouraud to TAE, 2 July 1887,
PTAED,
D8751AAA.

He fired off a tart note:
TAE to George Gouraud, 21 July 1887,
PTAED,
D8751AAB.

Gouraud congratulated Edison:
George Gouraud to TAE, 1 August 1887,
PTAED,
D8751AAC,

Alfred Tate, a senior manager:
Tate,
Edison’s Open Door,
136.

Edison spoke dismissively:
Ibid., 138.

A story made the rounds:
Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of Local Phonograph Companies
(Nashville, Tenn.: Country Music Foundation Press, 1890 [reprint 1974]), 110–112. A business magazine,
Manufacturer and Builder,
attempted to sort out the conflicting claims of the two sides. After reviewing the relevant patents, it declared unequivocally that it was indeed Tainter, not Edison, who deserved the credit for the principal improvement, which was successfully using wax as the recording medium. “The Graphophone,”
Manufacturer and Builder,
August 1888, 177.

Tate described the scene:
Tate,
Edison’s Open Door,
155. The two men referred to in the quoted passage were Thomas Dolan and Thomas Cochrane.

The Edison phonographs that were produced:
Ezra Gilliland to TAE, 16 December 1887,
PTAED,
D8750AAU.

When the press heard:
“Edison Was Out $250,000,”
New York News,
18 January 1889,
PTAED,
SB019002E. The actual amount would have been half that reported, or $125,000.

Edison was shocked:
Tate,
Edison’s Open Door,
172.

Even though Edison announced:
“Perfected Phonograph,”
Manufacturer and Builder,
June 1888, 128.

he continued to tinker:
Alfred Tate to Frank McGowan, 2 July 1888,
PTAED,
D8818AOH.

Edison privately told Batchelor:
TAE to Charles Batchelor, 7 May 1889,
PTAED,
LB029325.

The governor of Wyoming:
Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of Local Phonograph Companies,
73.

A distributor in New York:
Ibid., 191–192.

The
Atlantic Monthly:
Philip G. Hubert Jr., “The New Talking-Machines,”
Atlantic Monthly,
February 1889, 258.

Edison, however, was exasperated:
TAE to Charles Batchelor, 7 May 1889,
PTAED,
LB029325.

“I was the ‘dog’”:
Tate,
Edison’s Open Door,
161. The same image would reappear in the contemporary software industry, when employees at Microsoft, for example, would “eat our own dog food,” using the prerelease version of their software for their own regular work, not just in artificial tests.

He noticed that acids:
Ibid., 161–162.

Eight thousand Edison machines:
Ibid., 247–248.

Quality problems:
Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of Local Phonograph Companies,
36, 39.

At the first convention:
Ibid., 195.

did not give the business issues as much attention:
Millard,
Edison and the Business of Invention,
81.

Tate speculated:
Tate,
Edison’s Open Door,
302.

talking doll:
“Dolls That Really Talk,”
New York Evening Sun,
22 November 1888,
PTAED,
SC88130a.

In the spring of 1890:
“Edison’s Phonographic Doll,”
Scientific American,
26 April 1890, 263.

He and toy distributors:
“A Boom That Collapsed,”
Philadelphia Times,
2 January 1891,
PTAED,
SC91001A.

On a parallel track:
Tate,
Edison’s Open Door,
247–248.

Edison had declared publicly:
“Wizard Edison at Home,”
NYW,
17 November 1889,
PTAED,
MBSB62500.

CHAPTER 8. BATTLE LOST

Edison had earned a reputation:
Josephson,
Edison,
428. Josephson does not provide a source for the quotation and suggests that he himself relied on a secondary source when he wrote, “Ford…was reported to have said of Edison…”

attributed to Henry Ford:
The full quotation is the following: “Edison is easily the world’s greatest scientist. I am not sure that he is not also the world’s worst business man. He knows almost nothing of business.” Henry Ford, in collaboration with Samuel Crowther,
My Life and Work
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, 1922), 235.

He spoke well:
Forrest McDonald,
Insull
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 35–36.

Technically gifted individuals:
Tesla came up with many ingenious electrical devices, including a brilliant design for an electric motor; Sprague designed, and then commercialized, electric streetcars.

the cocky lad:
Samuel Insull,
The Memoirs of Samuel Insull: An Autobiography
, ed. Larry Plachno (Polo, Ill.: Transportation Trails, 1992), 25, 31.

One evening:
Ibid., 38–39.

The financial reports:
Edison Electric Illuminating Company, Monthly Reports, 1886, HFM & GVRC, Box 16, Folders 16–2, 16–3, 16–6, 16–7.

One wag wrote:
William D. MacQuesten, “The Edison United Manufacturing Co.,” typescript, 1886,
PTAED,
D8629E.

the two hunched over the books:
Insull,
Memoirs,
43–45.