The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This folder contains correspondence and other documents relating to the telephone business in the United States. The Gold & Stock Telegraph Co. owned the rights to Edison's telephone, which was manufactured by the Western Electric Manufacturing Co. and by the firm of S. Bergmann. The correspondents for 1878 include Edison associates James Adams, George H. Bliss, Thomas B. A. David, Edward H. Johnson, Uriah H. Painter, Josiah C. Reiff, and Frank J. Sprague. There is also correspondence with Henry Bentley, a newspaperman and telegraph inventor who made a series of tests of Edison's telephone that demonstrated its practicality and enabled Edison to produce important improvements. Other correspondents include Enos M. Barton of Western Electric; Henry J. Davies of the Ansonia Clock Co.; rival telephone inventors Amos E. Dolbear and George M. Phelps; George S. Ladd, president of the Gold & Stock Co. of California; Edison's former business partner Joseph T. Murray; Western Union president William Orton; and Gold & Stock Telegraph Co. superintendent George B. Scott and vice president George Walker. In addition to the correspondence there are memoranda, agreements, orders, circulars, and clippings.

All of the documents have been selected except for duplicate copies of correspondence and duplicate circulars.