This folder contains correspondence and other documents relating to rebuilding efforts after the fire on December 9, 1914, which destroyed or damaged more than half of the buildings in the West Orange laboratory complex. Several items concern the work of the committee, chaired by architect Cass Gilbert, that investigated the fire on behalf of the American Concrete Institute. Also included is a 20-page typewritten draft of a paper by structural engineer Theodore L. Condron that was presented to the American Society of Civil Engineers in April 1915. Other correspondents include William Andrews, who once worked for Edison as a steam fitter at the Edison Machine Works and the Pearl Street station, and New Jersey Commissioner of Labor Lewis T. Bryant.
Approximately 60 percent of the documents have been selected, including all of the documents written by Edison or bearing substantive marginalia by him.
Two scrapbooks of newspaper and journal clippings pertaining to the fire (Cat. 44,509 and Cat. 44,510) can be found in the Scrapbook Series. Additional documents regarding the fire and its aftermath can be found in the archival record group, Edison Phonograph Works. A finding aid is available from the Edison National Historical Park. Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.