The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This folder contains documents, primarily correspondence, relating to the business of ESBCo. Included are letters pertaining to the construction of the ESBCo works, corporate finance, real estate, chemical production, the supply and performance of "E" cells, and relations with manufacturers of electric vehicles. Correspondents include Edison, Walter S. Mallory, and William G. Bee of ESBCo; investors J. Wesley Allison, Arthur I. Clymer, and James Gaunt; and John Jacob Astor, Herman E. Dick, James Gayley, and Willis N. Stewart. Most of the outgoing letters are tissue copies of correspondence authored by Allan H. Whiting, sales manager of ESBCo. Some of the items deal with supplies available from the United States Steel Corp., the North American Rubber Co., the American Briquetting Machinery Co., and Edison's own New Jersey and Pennsylvania Concentrating Works. Other letters relate to the electric vehicles sold by the Pope, Baker, and Studebaker companies and to Edison's search for an inexpensive supply of cobalt ore. Also included is a 1903 paper entitled "The Edison Accumulator for Automobiles," delivered by W. Hibbert to the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London.

Less than 10 percent of the documents have been selected. The items not selected include routine exchanges regarding the supply of equipment and materials for ESBCo, the payment or deferral of accounts, individual employment decisions, and delays in production. Also not selected are letters of transmittal and acknowledgment and items that duplicate information in selected material.