The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This notebook covers the period July 1880-January 1881 and contains 283 numbered pages (page 1 is blank). It is the second of two journals kept by Charles P. Mott, which record daily activities at the Menlo Park laboratory (see also Menlo Park Notebook #53). There are also six pocket notebooks that were probably used to record these daily activities prior to their being entered, sometimes in expanded form, into the larger notebooks (see Pocket Notebooks). The first journal begins approximately one month before the earliest extant pocket notebook. However, the last pocket notebook contains entries for the period January-March 1881, which are not found in the journals. Some of the entries in the journals are cross-referenced to the experimental notebooks. Together, these books provide a narrative record of the last active year of the Menlo Park laboratory up to the time that Edison moved to New York City.