The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This minute book covers the period October 1887-February 1908. Included are the minutes of directors' and stockholders' meetings, a copy of the certificate of organization (filed with the State of New Jersey on October 8, 1887), and the bylaws of the company as adopted at the first stockholders' meeting on October 17, 1887. The minutes deal with the election and resignation of directors and officers and include copies of agreements involving Edison, the Edison Phonograph Works, and Jesse H. Lippincott, who purchased the Edison Phonograph Co. in 1888 and marketed the phonograph under the auspices of the North American Phonograph Co. Additional entries pertain to the appointment of Ezra T. Gilliland as the company's first general agent; the termination of his contract after an unauthorized attempt to transfer the agency to Lippincott; and relations with the Edison Phonograph Toy Manufacturing Co., Metropolitan Phonograph Co., New England Phonograph Co., New Jersey Phonograph Co., and Ott Manufacturing Co. Some of the entries relate to the National Phonograph Co., which formally reacquired Edison's patent rights from the Edison Phonograph Co. in April 1900. Also mentioned is the death of director and treasurer John F. Randolph in 1908. The book contains 85 numbered pages.