This folder contains correspondence and other documents relating to the commercial and technical development of Edison's alkaline storage battery and its use in electric vehicles. Several documents are written by Edison or contain his marginalia. Included are reports of tests and experiments pertaining to the longevity of commercial vehicle batteries. There is also correspondence with vehicle manufacturers and electric power suppliers, including longtime Edison associate Samuel Insull. Some of the items concern work done on behalf of Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Co. Several undated documents by Edison and others can be found at the end of the folder. Among the correspondents are Edison's chief engineer Miller Reese Hutchison, William G. Bee and Isidor (Jerry) Chesler of the Edison Storage Battery Co., former ESBCo employee Walter E. Holland, and Robert Saville, chief of the Testing Department of the West Orange laboratory.
Approximately 60 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected material consists primarily of invitations, unsolicited correspondence, letters of transmittal, and duplicates or variants of selected documents. Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.