The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

[The first paragraph of this note covers all of the Unbound Notes and Drawings for Part I.]

The loose technical notes and drawings constituting this collection cover the years 1873-1878. They relate to a variety of subjects, including telegraphy, electric lighting and power, the electric pen and duplicating press, the telephone, and the phonograph. There are also documents pertaining to various other subjects, such as carbon rheostats, acoustic devices, the tasimeter, and the voltameter. The unbound notes and drawings are organized by year and within each year by subject. Undated notes and drawings, organized by subject, follow the dated material.

This folder contains more than 100 pages of notes and drawings relating to a variety of subjects. The names of Edison, Charles Batchelor, Martin N. Force, and John Kruesi appear on some of the documents as authors or witnesses. One item is initialed "L.W.S." [Lemuel W. Serrell, Edison's patent attorney]. Included are fragments of caveats or patent applications, such as the application for an "etheric telegraph" at the beginning of the folder. There is also a list of patents issued in the United States for dental pluggers, as well as a note bearing the inscription "Dental Pluggers & other devices which bear any resemblance to the electric pen." Numerous other items in the folder appear to be related to the electric pen or duplicating press.

Several additional documents (images 17-20, 93-106) were discovered after the microfilm edition of Thomas A. Edison Papers, Part I (1850-1878) was published and were filmed in the Supplement Series of Thomas A. Edison Papers, Part III (1887-1898).

The following notes and drawings were published in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, Vols. 2 and 3:

1. Doc. 735: image 1
2. Doc. 988: images 2-4