[D8704AGM], Letter from Robert Henry Thurston, Cornell University to Thomas Alva Edison, December 31st, 1887
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Title
[D8704AGM], Letter from Robert Henry Thurston, Cornell University to Thomas Alva Edison, December 31st, 1887
Editor's Notes
Happy New Year; your invitation to visit me stands open and will remain so until you come and see the university and Sibley College and what we are doing and planning to do; once you come, you will repeat the visit, especially if your bring Mrs. Edison as Mrs. Thurston expects you to do.###Our electrical engineering work progresses well; "Thanks, no doubt largely to the example of intelligent and practical interest shown by you in starting our collections of systems and plant so promptly and thoroughly well, all the better companies are putting in sample plants here for me . . ."; In addition to the Edison plant at Sibley College, we have the Western lighting the grounds; a Westinghouse Alternation Current machine of 650 lamps for the far side of the campus (half a mile away); a Mather "machine of 60 lights for the outside seminary rooms or other experimental works, &c., given us by the company with which our old friend Professor Anthony has connected himself"; I wish you could get him, for I think he is the most reliable and solidly prepared, practically and theoretically, of his class; we also have an old Gramme machine, the new machines, and still others, such as [?] both incandescent and are machines from the Thomson-Houston Co. ". . . I feel confident that we must thank you for assisting very effectively in making Cornell the great center of this kind of instruction for this country. No other institution in the world can probably now compete with us, either in the United States or Europe"; we also hope to get some of the first new phonographs for our instruction departments.###am collecting all our machines into one end of the machine shop until we can put up, with the aid of benefactors, a new building especially for the purpose; will try to remember to send you a photograph of this "very interesting collection"; projected "John Doe Laboratory of Electrical Engineering" "will not, I presume, equal yours in magnitude; but we will at least try to make it thoroughly satisfactory for the purposes of instruction of our classes, now approaching fifty per year and 150, all told, in the classes Freshman to Senior inclusive."###The Edison is working beautifully, and has been found of real service. We are short of power; but we contrive to drive that, even when other machines must stand, at times."; it will prove more useful when we have it in a permanent home with ample power and steam. [TAE Marg.: "Tate=Write pleasant letter say that am very busy fitting up lab but 1st op hope to go When he or himself & wife are are in this way to call & see Laboratory & come to house--Let me see Letter E"]
Recipient
Date
1887-12-31
Type
Folder/Volume ID
D8704-F
Microfilm ID
119:364
Document ID
D8704AGM
Publisher
Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University