Inventing industrial research: Thomas Edison and the Menlo Park Laboratory

Paul B. Israel

Endeavour 2002, 26:48-54

In the 1870s, American inventor Thomas Edison forged the first industrial research. At his laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison merged the machine shop with sophisticated electrical and chemical laboratories and employed teams of researchers who could experiment on all aspects of his inventions and move them rapidly from research to development and commercialization.

Thomas Edison's death in October 1931 seemed to many to mark the passing of an era. At the end of his life Edison seemed a figure from a bygone era, an untutored genius whose cut-and-try method of invention had given way to organized scientific research. This view of the inventor was certainly evident in an issue of Science that appeared shortly after his death, in which some of the country's leading directors of industrial research appraised his work. As historian Thomas Hughes notes, by the time Edison died 'the words ''invention'' and ''inventor'' had fallen into disuse and '', ''development'' and ''industrial scientist'' ' seemed to signify a new style. In his own appraisal, Hughes suggests that these directors of industrial research should not have 'compared him to the industrial scientist of the 1920s; they should have compared him to themselves' ¹.

It had been more than 50 years since Edison had created the first industrial research laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, USA, and some 20 years since he had developed a significant invention at his later, larger laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. During the intervening years, 19th century inventions had come to be seen as the work of lone geniuses drawing on some kind of innate Yankee ingenuity. In fact, most were the product of what we might term 'shop invention'. In shop invention, manufacturing and experimental machine shops served as the central institutions for the development of new technology. Furthermore, rather than being a lone enterprise, shop invention was a cooperative venture in which skilled operatives, superintendents, machinists and manufacturers in various industries forged technological communities that drew on practical experience to design, build and refine new technology. Finally, shop invention went well beyond the simple method of cut-and-try experimentation that is often attributed to 19th century inventors, who often kept abreast of scientific and technical research that might contribute to their work, and sometimes undertook experiments designed to give them more general knowledge that might prove crucial to their success ².

It was out of this tradition that Edison forged the first industrial research laboratory. When Edison set up his Menlo Park Laboratory in 1876 he was seeking to extend, not replace, this shop tradition. Nonetheless, Menlo Park prefigured a new model of research, as Edison merged the shop tradition with sophisticated laboratory research into basic scientific and technical principles. In addition, Edison increasingly turned to teams of researchers in order to develop all aspects of his inventions and move them rapidly from research to development and commercialization. By the early 1880s Edison transformed his 'invention factory' into a true research and development laboratory, and, by doing so, he laid the cornerstone of modern industrial research.

Edison began his career as an inventor in the late-1860s while working as a telegraph operator, and by the early 1870s he had achieved a reputation as one of the industry's leading 'electromechanicians'. This term encapsulated both the mechanical character of much 19th century electrical technology and the role that machine shops and skilled machinists played in the inventive process. Most of Edison's early success had come from his great skill in manipulating the mechanical elements of stock tickers and other telegraph instruments. Edison also learned early the advantage of having a machine shop devoted to his own inventive work, and took advantage of his success as an inventor to open a telegraph manufacturing shop that provided not only another source of income for himself but steady work for the skilled machinists who assisted him with his inventions ( Fig. 1).

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31st July - 13th August 2002

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