Part Of: Notebook Series -- Pocket Notebooks

[NP100-F] PN-14-07-24 (1914)

The dated entries in this pocket notebook cover the period July-December 1914. The book was used by Edison to record ideas about business matters, experiments to be tried, and other tasks to be performed. Some of the entries have been crossed out. Others appear to repeat entries from earlier books. Included are experimental notes on disc records and reproducers, kinetoscopes, batteries and chemicals, miner's lamps, locomotive headlights, and automobile starters. The business-related entries include notes regarding the sale of Amberola machines, numbers of disc records ordered daily, market share in motion picture projectors, the cost of Edison battery use in automobiles, and the cost of regenerating battery cells. There are also notes on music and recording artists, including lists of Edison records and comments on the talent of singers recording for Victor Records. An undated entry made shortly after the outbreak of World War I in August indicates Edison's intention to "shut up London office, send British music here, [and] close it up tight." In addition, there is a list of religious, civic, and Masonic organizations, possibly prepared in connection with the tone test recitals that were conducted beginning in September.

Among the numerous Edison employees mentioned in the book are master machinist Robert A. Bachman; Harry T. Leeming, head of the Purchasing Dept.; Walter H. Miller, head of the Recording Dept.; machinist and longtime Edison associate Frederick P. Ott; and Harold H. Smith, chief of the Battery Research Dept. There are also several references to industrialist Henry Ford. The flyleaf is inscribed "Ent final Apl 28 1919." The pages are unnumbered. Approximately 100 pages have been used.

Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

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