The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

These documents, which cover the years 1869-1878, consist of selections from five minute books: (1) Gold and Stock Telegraph Co. (G&S) Directors and Stockholders Minute Book, 1867-1870; (2) G&S Directors Minute Book, 1870-1879; (3) G&S Executive and Financial Committee Minute Book, 1871-1878; (4) G&S Stockholders Minute Book, 1868-1881; and (5) American Speaking Telephone Co. Minutes of Directors, Stockholders, and Executive Committee, 1877-1883.

Included are items pertaining to the acquisition by G&S of the patents of Edison and Samuel S. Laws; the relationship of G&S to the private-line telegraph business of Pope, Edison & Co.; the purchase by G&S of a controlling interest in the American Printing Telegraph Co., a company owned by Edison and Franklin L. Pope; and Edison's five-year contract as consulting electrician to G&S. Also included are copies of two agreements from May 1871, according to which Western Union acquired a controlling interest in G&S. The selected items from the American Speaking Telephone Co. minute book relate to the acquisition of the patent rights to Edison's telephone, the inventor's seventeen-year contract with Western Union, and competition with the Bell Telephone Co.