The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This folder contains correspondence and other documents relating to employees in Edison's laboratory and factories, as well as prospective employees and individuals who had been worked for Edison in the past. There are occasional references to demobilization and the problems of postwar unemployment. Many of the items for 1919 pertain to Edison's search for practical chemists and mechanical engineers. Included is correspondence with the Bureau of Employment of the Chemists Club and with trade journals such as Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering regarding advertisements for chemists. In addition, there are draft copies of technical questionnaires prepared by Edison for prospective chemists and mechanical engineers along with completed or partially completed questionnaires submitted by the candidates. Representative samples by William J. Gross (49-question chemist's exam) and George W. Speirs (78-question engineer's exam)have been selected; both contain comments by Edison. There are remarks on some of the documents indicating the candidates' frustration with Edison's method of hiring. Several applicants refused to answer the questions, one calling them a "waste of time" for a man with his practical experience and another stating that he "would not attempt to answer them without looking them up at home with his books."

The correspondents who were offered jobs in 1919 include mechanical engineer J. B. Brennan; chemists Elmer E. Dougherty, Frank Detlef, Jr., Charles U. Moore; and Chinese college student Gan C. Yee. In addition, chemists Harry Trask and C. G. Williamson and laboratory assistant Cecil H. Harris were offered jobs and then dismissed after a few weeks. Other employees and former employees who appear in the documents include laboratory assistants George S. Andrews, George E. Hart, Robert Noguera, and Charles Norris, Jr.; Edison Portland Cement Co. official Edward S. Bixler; experimenters Peter C. Christensen, Absalom M. Kennedy, William H. Knierim, Paul D. Payne, and Henry G. Wolfe; former managers Wilfred S. Dowling (imprisoned for larceny in 1918), William H. Mason, and William F. Nehr; chemical sales manager Frederick D. Lockwood; chemist Y. Nakamigawa; phonograph demonstrator John J. Riley; and M. Arthur Wolf, chief draftsman in the Construction Dept.

Other correspondents include Col. Thurman H. Bane of Bureau of Aircraft Production; pianists Seymour Furth and Herbert A. Malino; U.S. Shipping Board president Edward N. Hurley; Prof. L. E. Jenks of the University of Buffalo; glassblower Andrew H. Kuhn; John H. Phipps of the Newark Lodge of International Association of Machinists; and Cmdr. Frederick A. Traut of the U.S. Navy.

Approximately 20 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected items include numerous responses to Edison's advertisements (some enclosing additional documents such as letters of reference), which were ranked by Edison from one to five. The higher-ranked applicants were invited for interviews, while the others received replies stating that the position had been filled or that their experience was not of the type required. Also unselected are nineteen copies of Edison's chemist's questionnaire and sixteen copies of his mechanical engineer's exam, which were at least partially completed by the candidates and which bear numerous marginal comments by Edison, such as "wrong," "poor ans," and "Holy Gee."

Other categories of unselected documents include Edison's requests to prospective chemists for a photograph and a statement of their desired salary; responses to his advertisement for an improvisational piano player; company business records not pertaining to Edison personally; reference letters and requests; and items duplicating the information in the selected documents, including copies of letters sent to applicants based on Edison's marginalia. In addition, there are unsolicited requests for various kinds of jobs, which received routine replies stating that the Ediso