Video biography questions
Randall Stross, Biographer : He liked the idea of not being too old to handle rough conditions. Throwing out all of the comforts of modern life and living as a roughneck. Maybe it was a reaction to his having to keep Wall Street happy. There were no investors anywhere near that mine. Narrator : No matter the difficulty, Edison kept at it year after year -- so seemingly unconcerned with the bottom line that many took to calling the Ogden "Edison's Folly.
Edison finally admitted defeat in It was a technical challenge that Edison really enjoyed taking on. In fact, he later says, you know, he he's talking to his assistant in the ore milling venture, at the end of it, and they're looking at where they've dug out all this ore, and big hole in the ground and this guy says, "Well you, you sure wasted a lot of money on that," and Edison says, "yeah but we sure had fun doing it.
Narrator : In the quest for commercial iron ore, the inventor had instead found fresh inspiration. Nancy Koehn, Historian : There's something very interesting about how he literally lets go of what most of the people around him would call failure.
And then moves forward without a huge amount of reflection, soul searching. He's thinking, he's seeing, he's observing, he's filing, but he's moving. This was a man who really didn't spend a lot of time looking backward. Narrator : They called it the "Black Maria," for its resemblance to a police wagon. Built in the winter of , just outside the main laboratory at West Orange, the tar-papered structure had been positioned atop an enormous Lazy Susan so that it could be rotated to follow the sun, and outfitted with a retractable roof to maximize available light.
It was from this curious building, on November 1st, , that the shots suddenly rang out. Inside, America's beloved sharpshooter Annie Oakley -- Little Sure Shot -- was performing her act, firing away at tiny glass balls as Edison's latest invention captured the action in real time. The device -- an electrically-powered camera capable of recording motion — was the first of its kind in the United States, and a mechanical monument to Edison's unparalleled gift for synthesis.
The idea had come to him nearly six years before -- sparked by a conversation he'd had with British photographer Eadward Muybridge. Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers : Eadward Muybridge, who was very well known for these animal motion studies had developed this device, it was a, revolving disk with these images on it and as it revolved with a light shining through it, it looked like motion pictures.
Personal video biography
And he gave a lecture in West Orange, which Edison attended, and afterwards they were talking. And Edison said, you know we ought to combine my phonograph with your machine and we can produce you know talking pictures. And then Edison got to thinking a little bit more about that, and he said "you know what, I can do that myself. Narrator : Within months, Edison had drawn up a patent application for an optical recording device called a "kinetograph" -- from the ancient Greek, meaning "writer of motion.
Neil Baldwin, Biographer : It makes the transition sound so effortless and truly brilliant. There's something God-like about it.
Thomas edison video biography of queens and manhattan
I have solved the problem of the ear and that sensory, and now I will move to the other way that we perceive the world. Narrator : Further inspiration had been found during a visit to Paris in , where Edison had met French scientist Etienne-Jules Marey, whose "chronophotography" captured 12 consecutive images per second on a long, continuous piece of film.
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers : Marey, who had been filming birds by converting a gun into a camera, so that as you pulled the trigger, he was actually taking rapid pictures of them, with strip film. This influenced Edison to go back and experiment with roll film. You have to have film that stops, gets the image, advances, stops, gets the next image.
And it has to do that times a second. So you need film that can take the beating. You need film that's sensitive enough to do it. And Edison worked with George Eastman to develop the film with the sprocket holes, figuring out how the machinery's going to advance the film, stop it, advance the film, stop it. And he developed a really terrific camera, and that was his contribution.
Narrator : Throughout, Edison had worked closely with his assistant in the mining operation, a sometime-photographer named William Dickson, who was largely responsible for the optics of the device. Now, Dickson had begun to produce the first films in what eventually would be the Edison Company's extensive catalogue -- a collection of short features meant to be shown, one at a time, on a coin-operated, peephole viewing cabinet called a kinetoscope.
Randall Stross, Biographer : The first motion picture entertainment device was an ingenious contraption that allowed you to see a loop of film, a very short loop. Narrator : The inaugural batch of kinetoscopes were shipped from West Orange in April -- five to Atlantic City, 10 to Chicago, and 10 to a small storefront in Manhattan, a former shoe shop near Herald Square soon to become the world's first commercial "kinetoscope parlor.
Randall Stross, Biographer : They were setting up the machines getting ready to open and curiosity seekers had gathered, and they decided to let them in, to give the machines a try and it turned out to overwhelm them. The public poured in. The novelty of the thing was incredibly attractive. Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers : The kinetoscope, it's a lot like the original tin foil phonograph.
It's an astounding invention. People are enthralled by it, they want to see it, they want to experience it, but pretty soon it doesn't go anywhere, right. These short films, you pay a nickel, you see something, and all of a sudden, there's nothing magic about it. Narrator : Convinced that the constant interruption of having to move from one machine to another detracted from the viewing experience, Dickson and others on Edison's team urged him to develop a projection device.
But the inventor was reluctant. Let's not kill the goose that lays the golden egg. In early , French inventors Auguste and Louis Lumiere introduced their projection system to wild acclaim in Paris. Later that year, yet another system, called the phantascope, was unveiled at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.
And that was the future of motion pictures. Very rapidly, projection becomes something that people expect. Narrator : With no projector of their own to market, Edison's sales agents approached the phantoscope's inventor, Thomas Armat, and convinced him to sell the patent rights in his device to Edison. Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers : They essentially say: you know that everybody's waiting for Edison, so why don't you just sell out to him, you'll do much better than trying to compete with him.
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers : I think in Edison's own mind, he could just slap his name on what became known as the Edison Vitascope, because by that time Edison is both the individual and he's the corporate Edison. He could be one or the other, depending on the circumstance. And in this case it was the corporate Edison that was the Vitascope.
Narrator : Billed by the press as "the ingenious inventor's latest toy," the Vitascope made its public debut on April 23rd, , at New York City's Koster and Bials' Music Hall -- throwing hand-tinted images across a by foot screen, and effectively launching the American motion picture industry in Edison's name. Nancy Koehn, Historian : The more you peel back the layers of Edison's work, the more you realize that part of his genius was about seeing how other people's achievements, thoughts, failures, small successes could be connected to push forward what he was working on in a big way.
For Edison it was about taking all these ideas, all those different river streams, which were initiated or fed by all kinds of other people. And then building the aqueduct to channel the river. Narrator : On a Saturday afternoon in January, , year-old Thomas Edison welcomed a new man to the chemical research department at West Orange with a few choice words of advice: " As one acquaintance put it, "Edison pronounces the words 'work' and 'working' as some do 'prayer' or 'religion.
Already, fewer than five years after he'd abandoned the Ogden mine, the inventor had a half-dozen new projects on the wire, and was routinely putting in hour weeks at the lab. From the wreckage of Ogden, using much of the same machinery and techniques, he'd spun a manufactory for cement which one day would be used in the building of Yankee Stadium and give rise to a grand plan to build low-cost housing with poured concrete.
He'd immersed himself in the development of a storage battery, believing that the future of transportation lay in automobiles powered by electricity, and had once again revived the phonograph, this time for home entertainment. Gradually, the West Orange complex expanded to include a city block's worth of new buildings, where a thousand men and women were put to work making recordings and manufacturing cylinder records.
Also vying for the inventor's attention was motion picture production -- now expanding into longer, narrative films; the manufacture of bulbs, fan motors, medical equipment, and other assorted devices; and the myriad details of overseeing the business empire that by operated under the umbrella of "Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated" -- now a worldwide brand.
Randall Stross, Biographer : In their advertising, the Edison Companies would make much of the Edison name, as if the inventor stood literally over the loading dock and gave his blessing to every box that went out of the factory. Lisa Gitelman, Historian : His face was all over these products, his name was all over it, his signature was all over them.
This is really the beginning of American trademark consciousness.
Narrator : So valuable did the Edison name become that the inventor increasingly would find himself fending off its unauthorized use. And when his son, Tom, sold his famous surname to a fraudulent homeopathic medicine company, Edison offered to pay him a regular allowance if he would change it. Lisa Gitelman, Historian : The weird thing is that he went after his son whose name was Edison because he was Edison.
So I'm certain he was very aware of himself as a brand in really almost a modern sense. Narrator : It proved a savvy strategy. As technology wove itself ever more tightly into the fabric of American life -- with more and more households boasting a telephone in the hallway, and all manner of gadgets in the kitchen, and an automobile parked outside in the drive -- Edison continued to loom large in the public mind as the nation's foremost inventor.
All these things were being developed that were just literally transforming people's lives. And the public really identified Edison with this new modern electrical age, so it translates also over into Edison sometimes getting credit for things that he didn't invent. Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur : If I'm at a cocktail party, and I tell someone that I'm an inventor, there's exactly two people they think of.
They think of Thomas Edison, and the crazy guy in the Back to the Future movies, which is kind of an Edison lampoon. Edison single-handedly created the image of an inventor. Narrator : "Please accept the thanks, Mr. Edison, of one truly appreciative woman," a Kansas housewife wrote him, after extolling the virtues of her pressure cooker and her washing machine and her Victrola.
Narrator : It began in the early evening of December 9th, Sparked by an explosion in the film-finishing building, the massive fire leapt from structure to structure at West Orange, gathering force and momentum from the chemicals used in the manufacture of phonograph recordings, as well the records themselves.
The flames could be seen from Newark, seven miles away. Throughout the evening Edison stood watching, as a constellation of local fire companies struggled to douse the blaze, which soon engulfed four city blocks. By 10 p. Although the main laboratory was untouched, by morning, most of the rest of the West Orange complex was molten rubble.
Edison was undaunted. Narrator : The years to come would see Edison winding down: spending less and less of his time at his West Orange complex -- which eventually was rebuilt -- and more occupying a new role as a full-fledged celebrity.
Thomas edison video biography of queens
Thomas Edison archival audio : Mary Had a Little Lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. Narrator : He was often seen now gallivanting about the country with fellow American hero Henry Ford, who, as a young man, had worked briefly for the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit -- and had idolized the great inventor ever since.
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers : As Ford tells it, he talked to Edison about his ideas for the automobile and after Edison took a look at-at his plans, he said "go for it -- I think you've got the answer here. And they began to become friends. Narrator : Calling themselves "the vagabonds," the two men hit the road each summer, together with naturalist John Burroughs and tire magnate Harvey Firestone -- Edison, usually in the lead of a caravan that included a field kitchen, dining tent, laundry service, and a contingent of cameramen from Ford's publicity department.
By the second annual sortie, which also included wives, the press was bringing up the rear. John Staudenmaier, Historian : They were media extravaganzas of the first order. But it was nostalgia for them four guys out there in the woods, cooking and making their coffee, and it was a nostalgia for the people that loved to see those stories. The old guys still got it, look at that.
Narrator : Fueled by extensive publicity, the details of the Vagabonds' adventures circulated through the national conversation: the rib-eye steaks that were served for dinner; the campfire debates about Mozart and Shakespeare; the fact that one year, the Firestones even brought along their butler. Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers : There is a story, they were out and the car was having trouble.
They pull in to a small town and the guy says, "Oh, well it looks like the electrical system. And looks at the car a little more and says, "Oh I see, it's in the fuel here. Narrator : Almost mythic in stature now, Edison could barely turn around without being honored. One poll named him "the Greatest Living American;" in another, he beat out Theodore Roosevelt and William Shakespeare as the "greatest man in history.
Nancy Koehn, Historian : Journalists, politicians, individuals, other inventors, pour their ideas about what constitutes invention into a file folder called Thomas Alva Edison. And that's not his doing. A lot of it is just where he was at the time and the kind of impact he had that doesn't ever right in some sense get balanced against the failures or the people that fed the river of those inventions.
He gets to end up holding it, right, and stands atop the mountaintop as this great, great inventor. When you want a great quote, you ask him, even if there's absolutely no reason why he should know anything about it. Neil Baldwin, Biographer : In his last years he actually looks halfway relaxed, if you can imagine Edison being relaxed. And so people would come to his house and they would have these interviews where they would ask him his views on everything and anything you could think of.
Thomas Edison archival : I don't think anything of Einstein's theory because I can't understand it. Narrator : In , at the age of 79, Edison officially retired from Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated -- passing the reigns on to his and Mina's eldest son, Charles, and taking up more or less permanent residence at his home in Fort Myers. Not content to rest on the laurels of the more than 1, patents registered in his name, he busied himself with yet another inventive campaign -- to discover and cultivate a domestic source of rubber.
Almost completely deaf, suffering from kidney disease and a persistent digestive ailment, Edison had, in a sort of medical experiment, eliminated food entirely, limiting his diet to several daily cigars and a pint of milk every three hours. Returning to West Orange in , after a winter in Florida, he was in such a debilitated state that he was virtually unable to work.
Early in September, his kidneys began to fail; by the end of the month, he was confined to his bed. They took over the garage and made it a press office. This went on for weeks. The attention that it received with the most minute change or word from a doctor being sent out around the world as news shows a kind of fame that it's hard to imagine today.
Narrator : The news of Edison's passing, on October 18th, , brought forth an outpouring rarely afforded mere mortals. Condolences arrived from all over the world -- from heads of state, civic organizations, schoolchildren. Newspapers from coast to coast ran special features, recounting not only the inventor's death -- but also the by-now-familiar story of his life.
Newsreel archival audio : Workers at his Orange, New Jersey plant paid respects to the genius that freed the world from darkness. Narrator : For two days and nights, Edison's body lay in state in the library of his West Orange laboratory, as more than 50, people passed to pay their respects. And on the third night, in response to a request from President Herbert Hoover, radio listeners across the country switched off their lights in unison, the darkness meant as "a reminder of what life would have been like" had Edison never lived.
Neil Baldwin, Biographer : It was almost like a biblical catastrophic thing. Like, the inventor of the light -- his light has gone out, kind of thing. Cause he created this technology that was now part of everybody's daily life. Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur : They didn't have to have directly owned a phonograph to have heard it and be influenced by it.
They didn't all have to have electric light, but they soon would. Thomas Edison was born into a world that wasn't industrialized. Indoor lighting was candles or kerosene lamp. We couldn't record voices or sounds or motions. What Edison left by the end of his life, was a world that was well on its way to becoming the world that we know today.
Narrator : "It is impossible to measure the importance of Edison by adding up the specific inventions with which his name is associated," the journalist Walter Lippmann wrote in the days after the inventor's death. The light bulb goes off, we have this great idea. That's invention. But for Edison that was the starting point.
Cause he didn't just have ideas and build devices that worked in the laboratory, he actually took them into the marketplace. And he did it over and over again. He came up with a modern process of innovation. Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur : There was a dynamism and an acceptance of new ideas that made America the world's inventor.
And within America the guy who really practiced invention as a business, as an end unto itself the most was Thomas Edison. Neil Baldwin, Biographer : His imagination was insatiable -- had insatiable need to think of things that were interesting. You know I think we're still all about that being the first to do things and being innovative.
It's ingrained in our way of life. Thomas Edison embodies the entrepreneurial spirit of this culture. Nancy Koehn, Historian : We love inventiveness. I think part of it is that you know America in many ways has invented itself. And so I think we love people who can take something out of the ether, which is a dream or you know a kind of you know glint in your eye.
You bring it out of the ether into something concrete.
Thomas edison video biography of queens new york
That changes all of our lives. Thomas Edison achieved glory as the genius behind such revolutionary inventions as sound recording, motion pictures, and electric light. With over a thousand U. On December 7, , Edison demonstrated his phonograph at the New York City offices of the nation's leading technical weekly publication, Scientific American.
In the s, Thomas Edison worked with his assistant and part-time photographer, William Dickson to create a motion picture camera. Throughout his life, Thomas Edison kept "idea books" filled with to-do lists, sketches and other notes on current and future projects. Menu Edison Credits Transcript. Aired January 27, Edison. Film Description By the time he died in , Thomas Edison was one of the most famous men in the world.
The inventor therefore holds the record of being the first to accomplish the feat. With a well-equipped and well-resourced lab, Edison and his qualified group of scientists embarked on numerous experiments and research. Among those workers of his was the Pennsylvania-born electrical engineer William Joseph Hammer , who later went on to lead an organization called Edison Pioneers.
Edison and his team of scientists carried out research in several areas, including phonography, electric railway, electric lighting, telephone, and among others. Following the commercial success of the incandescent bulbs, Edison expanded the laboratory in not just size but also scope. Edison wanted to experiment on every subject. After raking in quite a significant amount of profit from the sale of his very successful electric light bulbs, Edison channeled some of those monies into the establishing of the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City.
His company received financial backing from very powerful individuals and financiers, including J. Morgan and Spencer Trask. Edison made his first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, The bulbs were fixed in May The merger was carried out by J. Today, after more than years, GE is a massive multinational conglomerate which is headquartered in the U.
In addition to electricity, GE has its tentacles in a number of industries, including aviation, healthcare, digital industry, locomotives, and weapons manufacturing. It consistently makes it into Fortune , a list of the largest corporations in terms of total revenue in the United States. In , the federal government tasked Edison to provide scientific advice to the U.
As a naval consultant, he worked on defensive weapons. Edison would later state the immense pride he felt because his work never came out with a weapon that could be used to kill. For example, he chose not to sell the industrial chemicals like phenol that he produced at the Silver Lake facility to the military.
The inventor, like his rival Tesla, was a big admirer of non-violence. A big admirer of non-violence, Thomas Edison was very proud that none of his inventions were weaponized to kill during World War I. Having captured the electric bulb market, Thomas Edison and his business associates needed to make electricity available across the nation in order to make the gains against gas and oil-based lighting more permanent.
To achieve this objective, he set up the Edison Illuminating Company in In the years that followed, he and his team of engineers worked on building a robust electricity supply network that would deliver power to the homes of Americans. With about volts direct current generated, the plant was able to deliver electricity to almost 60 customers in lower Manhattan.
His well-equipped and resourced large studio played a role in helping him become the successful inventor that he was. It was in the studios that he worked diligently to improve many of his designs, particularly those in electricity distribution. With the help of Nikola Tesla, American entrepreneur and engineer George Westinghouse came out with a rival AC-based power distribution network in Edison and Tesla wrestled for dominance, with both trying very hard to convince investors and the American public of the superiority of their systems.
In the end, AC came out top as it was relatively cheaper and could deliver electricity over longer distances. Popularly dubbed as the battle of the titans in the electricity power generation and distribution — DC direct current versus AC alternating current — Thomas Edison locked horns with fellow inventor and brilliant engineer Nikola Tesla.
By the early s, AC had started gaining popularity due to its susceptibility to be transferred over long distances. This meant that AC was the preferred choice, especially for lighting up streets and other domestic purposes. As a result, the famous electric manufacturing company the Westinghouse Electric Corporation preferred AC.
Tesla had worked with Edison for about two years; however, the two men parted ways because of a dispute over remuneration. As a result, his financiers forced him out of the company. Myers, Florida, February 11, The two businessmen lived in the same neighborhood in Fort Myers in Florida. Beacon Press. June 30, Archived from the original on September 23, Retrieved February 1, He spent hours blowing glass tubes, which were laced with calcium tungstate, for an early model fluoroscope.
Archived from the original on January 26, Archived from the original on February 13, Retrieved March 10, Retrieved December 14, Archived from the original on December 8, Retrieved October 14, Archived from the original on December 2, Universitaire Pers Leuven. Leuven: Gaudreault, R. Pearson eds , Cinema at the Turn of the Century.
Retrieved August 20, Archived August 25, , at the Wayback Machine , Memory. Archived from the original on October 8, Greater Sudbury Heritage Museums. Archived from the original on September 10, New York: Alfred A. The Saturday Evening Post. Atlas Obscura. Archived from the original on December 10, Retrieved December 10, The Civitan Story.
Birmingham, AL: Ebsco Media. Classic American Railroad Terminals. May 24, The Thomas Edison Birthplace Museum. Archived from the original on August 4, Retrieved May 31, Herben Dead at 75". Plainfield Courier-News. Plainfield, New Jersey. February 23, Archived from the original on March 16, Retrieved March 19, — via Newspapers.
The New York Times. October 18, Thomas Alva Edison died at o'clock this morning at his home, Glenmont, in the Llewellyn Park section of this city. The great inventor, the fruits of whose genius so magically transformed the everyday world, was 84 years and 8 months old. Where are they buried? How did they die? October 31, The will of Thomas A.
Edison, second son of the first wife, who announced at the same time that he would sue to break it. Retrieved March 3, December 16, Archived from the original on October 16, Retrieved June 30, Inventor's Daughter Married to J. Sloan by Mgr. June 18, January 10, Aide, Is Dead". August August 21, August 26, American Antiquarian Society.
Retrieved February 29, Edison, Junior". Archived from the original on January 4, Retrieved October 8, Collected Writings, Vol. October 2, Edison in the following interview for the first time speaks to the public on the vital subjects of the human soul and immortality. It will be bound to be a most fascinating, an amazing statement, from one of the most notable and interesting men of the age GE Reports.
October 28, Archived from the original on November 11, Archived from the original on September 24, Retrieved November 11, Passaic Daily News. October 7, Archived from the original on August 2, Retrieved August 2, — via Newspapers.
Video life story: Through a video and primary source activities, students will learn about Edison’s remarkable business of innovation and some of his 1, patented devices. View the Lesson Plan.
Gelb, p. Archived from the original on April 13, Retrieved April 5, America Magazine. April 24, Archived from the original on August 31, Retrieved August 31, December 6, Archived PDF from the original on March 14, Journal of the History of Economic Thought. S2CID Mahler Publishing. July 13, Archived from the original on July 9, Retrieved June 7, National Academy of Sciences.
Archived PDF from the original on May 12, Retrieved April 2, Retrieved March 7, Franklin Institute. Archived from the original on February 22, Retrieved November 18, Archived from the original on January 7, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Archived from the original on April 10, Archived from the original on April 6, Edison Issue".
Post office; Smithsonian National Postal Museum. New York: Scotts Publishing Company. Archived from the original on October 15, Retrieved October 15, Albion, Michele Wehrwein. The Florida Life of Thomas Edison. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Angel, Ernst Sein Leben und Erfinden. Berlin: Ernst Angel Verlag. Baldwin, Neil Clark, Ronald William Edison: The man who made the future.
Conot, Robert A Streak of Luck. New York: Seaview Books. Davis, L. New York: Doubleday. Essig, Mark Edison and the Electric Chair. Stroud: Sutton. Israel, Paul New York: Wiley. Jonnes, Jill New York: Random House. Josephson, Matthew McGraw Hill. Koenigsberg, Allen Edison Cylinder Records, — APM Press. Pretzer, William S.
Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience. Stross, Randall E. Thomas Edison at Wikipedia's sister projects. Thomas Edison. Edison, Inc. Charles Edison son Theodore Miller Edison son. Edisonade Edisonian approach. General Electric. Charles A. Coffin Thomas Edison Edwin J. Houston J. Morgan Elihu Thomson.
James Cash Jr. John L. Flannery Ann M. Warner III. Carousel of Progress —65, —73, —85 Horizons at Epcot — Chakrabarty United States v. General Electric Co. Watson Charles Wheatstone Vladimir K. Coaxial cable Fiber-optic communication optical fiber Free-space optical communication Molecular communication Radio waves wireless Transmission line telecommunication circuit.
Bandwidth Links Nodes terminal Network switching circuit packet Telephone exchange. Space-division Frequency-division Time-division Polarization-division Orbital angular-momentum Code-division. Communication protocol Computer network Data transmission Store and forward Telecommunications equipment. Telecommunication portal Category Outline Commons.
Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees. Gibbs William C. Gorgas Ulysses S. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Morse William T. West Orange, NJ, Edison works here. Iron ore is where Edison goes next. He files patents. He shows pictures moving as his next project Kinetoscope parlors where one can pay a nickel to see moving photographs. Images from movies, a couple kisses, a man flexes his muscles.
Moving pictures are put on a screen for large audiences. His mining project is not going well. Edison's ore plant is useless. Near bankruptcy, Edison has failed at his ore project Edison's Kinetoscope becomes very popular. Charlie Chaplin in a movie. Cowboys shoot. Edison meets Navy men. Edison still works full days at 70 Edison sits at a desk.
Edison enters an electrical plant. Women make light bulbs. Edison visits Charles Steinmetz. The two look over things. Edison visits Henry Ford. Edison walks around. He relaxes in a hammock Edison searches for a domestic source of rubber. Edison speaks Edison stands near cameras. People applaud. Edison speaks for her husband as he gets older.
A replica of the train in which Edison served as a newsboy seventy years before.