The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This collection contains documents by and about inventor and Edison employee Meyer Strell (1875-1966). Born Meyer Strelezky (he legally changed his name in 1914) in Vilnius, Russia (now Lithuania), he emigrated to Germany in 1903, where he was trained as a machinist. He came to the United States in 1907 and worked for the Edison company in West Orange, New Jersey, until 1911, when he was transferred to the laboratory. He worked directly with Edison for another four years on a number of projects, including a submarine storage battery, a phonograph speaker, and the miner's safety lamp. The items selected for publication consist of an 1962 article in the Jewish News in which Strell reminiscences about his association with Edison and an obituary in the Newark News. The collection also contains a U.S. patent that Strell received in 1909 for a safety handle for gas stove controls and a long piece of fabric with drawings and text in a foreign language, possibly Lithuanian.