The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

[This note covers all of the notebooks in Group 1: Battery Test Books.]

The fifty-five notebooks in this group (Nos. 1-54; the first book has no number) cover the period November 1900-March 1902. The entries in the first six books are by Edison, while the remaining books are by unidentified experimenters. The books contain records of storage battery tests, numbered from 1 through 1777. The early entries record tests on a variety of metals and alloys for use as electrodes, as well as tests of various electrolytic solutions. By the second book, Edison established a standard format for indicating the results of the endurance tests that were run on individual cells, recording the time, current, voltage, and capacity during charge and discharge. The later books by Edison also reflect his narrowed focus on a nickel-iron composition. Labels on the front covers of some of the books contain notations by Edison regarding the importance of the data contained therein.