The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

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These documents, which cover the years 1885-1899 and 1910, consist primarily of items written by or addressed to Edison's second wife, Mina Miller Edison (1865-1947). Included are two letters by Stephen A. Emery of the New England Conservatory of Music, with whom Mina studied music while she was living in Boston before her marriage to Edison. One letter pertains to the shipment of a pianoforte to Akron; the other congratulates Mina on her engagement and impending marriage. Other items include a telegram from Akron, sent to Thomas and Mina while they were visiting France in 1889, informing them that one-year-old Madeleine, who was left in the care of her grandparents, was doing well; an 1894 letter from Mina to her father, Lewis Miller; an 1898 letter to Mina from Wendell Phillips Garrison, editor of The Nation and son of the abolitionist newspaper editor; and an 1899 invitation to attend a lecture by Rev. Charles Cuthburt Hall, Margaret E. Sangster, and Ruth Rouse at the Llewellyn Park home of Mrs. Richard M. Colgate. In addition, there are two pages of notes about books read or acquired by Mina, possibly written while she was attending school in Boston; a pocket notebook from 1890 with two pages of entries recording the receipt of stock dividend checks; an 1891 letter, written in French, to the Au Bon Marche department store in Paris; and a humorous newspaper article about Mina, possibly from 1919.

There is also a 1910 letter by Thomas Edison's uncle, Simeon Ogden Edison, which presents an account of the Edison family history that differs significantly from traditional accounts. According to Simeon, "My Great Grand Father came from Amsterdam to New Jersey about two hundred and fifty years ago a single man and married in New Jersey and had one son my Grand Father." If that statement is correct, the first male Edison in America was not Thomas Edison's great-grandfather John Edison, as most biographers have claimed, but rather John's father.