Part Of: Edison General File Series -- 1917

[E1787-F] (E-17-87) West Orange Laboratory

This folder contains administrative and experimental records relating to Edison's principal research facilities in West Orange, New Jersey. Among the items for 1917 are technical notes by experimenter Absalom M. Kennedy regarding improvements in music recording; a memorandum by C. E. Fairbanks of the Edison Phonograph Works expressing concern about the employment of Germans and other unnaturalized workers of doubtful loyalty; and a notice from chief engineer John P. Constable pertaining to new security measures to be implemented at the laboratory, with instructions to replace J. Melzer, the night watchman, with "a good man . . . preferably Irish."

In addition, there are items relating to the internal billing of experimental work done for Edison personally; a directive prohibiting the use of laboratory letterhead for business correspondence; and an exchange between Edison's assistant William H. Meadowcroft and Richard W. Kellow of Thomas A. Edison, Personal in regard to a new filing system for Edison's correspondence. Undated technical notes by Edison and experimenter William H. Knierim, possibly from 1917, appear at the end of the folder.

Approximately 40 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected items include routine administrative communications on matters such as passes, letterhead, and library circulation; routine documents dealing with operations, policies, and procedures; copies of a list of design hints for draftsmen; and reports on boiler tests conducted by Zachariah P. Halpin.

Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

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