The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

These documents cover the years 1876-1921. Included are several letters, written by Edison while at Menlo Park, concerning topics such as the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, and the incandescent lamp. They are addressed to Western Union president William Orton, physics professor George F. Barker, and journalist José Carlos Rodrigues. The letters to Orton and Barker are from the Simon Gratz Autograph Collection. The letter to Rodrigues, which pertains to a phonograph to be sent to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, is from the Ferdinand Julius Dreer Collection. Also included is a letter from the Claude W. Unger Collection by Andrew Dickson White, president of Cornell University and U.S. minister to Germany, which mentions the Paris Exposition of 1878 and the speech of former premier Jules Simon praising the accomplishments of Edison. In addition, there are two 1921 letters from George Horace Lorimer Collection in which Edison and Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post, discuss the anti-Bolshevik campaign of the Better America Federation of California.