[The following note has no documents attached to it. For that reason, a "no Documents found" message will appear if the "List Documents" button at the bottom of the note is used. The documents described by this note have been integrated into their appropriate places in the digital edition. The bound volumes from the Supplement can be easily identified in the Series Notes for Parts II and III, since they all have reel number 227 associated with them. Individually indexed correspondence and other loose items from the Supplement that have been integrated into a particular folder can be identified by the designation "(227:[frame number])" next to the date in the document list for that folder. Since these images have not yet been digitized, the documents will not be displayed when the "Show Documents" button is used.]
The one document from the 1870s is an agreement of December 31, 1878, involving Edison, Egisto P. Fabbri, Grosvenor P. Lowrey, and the firm of Drexel, Morgan & Co. This agreement gave Drexel, Morgan & Co. authority to obtain patents in Great Britain and Ireland for inventions by Edison pertaining to electric lighting and power. Four documents from March 1, 1881, are related to this agreement. Two assign power of attorney to Drexel, Morgan & Co. to secure patents in Great Britain and Ireland for Edison's inventions; the others appoint Fabbri and Lowrey as trustees of his inventions in those countries.
Several other agreements date from the 1880s. An agreement of March 23, 1881, between the Edison Electric Light Co. and the Edison Electric Illuminating Co. of New York provides the local company with exclusive use of two electrical power stations in New York City. There is also an agreement of April 30, 1881, between the Edison Electric Light Co. and Miller F. Moore appointing Moore as head of the Edison Co. for Isolated Lighting at a salary of six thousand dollars plus five percent of the profits. Additional items from February and April 1882 relate to the assignment of Edison's British patents to the Edison Electric Light Co., Ltd. All of the agreements from the 1870s and 1880s have been integrated into the Document File Series of the digital edition.
In addition, there is an exhibit from an 1888 agreement between Edison and financier Henry Villard. That agreement, which appears in the Legal Series of Thomas A. Edison Papers, Part III (1887-1898), gave Villard an interest in twenty-three of Edison's proposed inventions. The inventions are listed and described in the exhibit [HX88036A].
Among the technical material from the 1880s is an undated pocket notebook by Edison containing notes regarding chemical compounds and their reaction to heat [NP022B]. An 1881 unbound drawing of a reciprocating dynamo [NS81AAW1] is also by Edison.
The correspondence from the 1880s in the Document File Series deals primarily with experimental and business matters at the West Orange laboratory. There is also a letter to Edison from Dr. Richard D. Owen, a son of Robert Owen, the British utopian, social reformer, and founder of the New Harmony commune in Indiana. An 1885 book order by Edison, drawn from the Publishers' Trade List Annual, includes works on composition and grammar, philosophy, psycholory, mythology, and economics. An additional item from the 1880s can be found in the Scrapbook Series [SB021]. This scrapbook contains typewritten transcriptions of local newspaper reports, illustrations, and other material relating to the exhibition of Edison's inventions at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts, in May 1884.
Two notebooks [NA054B and NA054C] and one pocket notebook [CJ073B] are from the 1890s and early 1900s. The two mostly undated notebooks, which were used by Edison from the late 1890s through 1902, provide information about experiments on electric lights, filaments, x-ray machines, and storage batteries. They also include notes and drawings of railroad cars, conveyor systems, and rock crushers relating to either the ore milling plant at Ogden or the cement plant at Stewartsville. The pocket notebook, which has been integrated into the Company Records Series: New Jersey and Pennsylvania Concentrating Works -- Plant Operations Records, was used by Edison during the period 1898-1900. It contains notes regarding the performance of equipment at the Ogden plant.
Much of the correspondence from the 1890s, included in the Document File Series, concerns personal and family matters. An 1891 letter to Edison from Friedrich A. Krupp of the Krupp Munition Works describes an arrangement of writing table implements that Krupp had sent as a gift to Edison. Two letters from 1898 pertain to Thomas A. Edison, Jr., and his business activities. Other correspondence from 1898 relates to Mina Miller Edison's brother Theodore and his death while serving with the Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. In addition, there is an 1898 earnings report for the Edison Electric Illuminating Co.
Among the other items from the 1890s are unbound clippings from the Century Magazine and from the Weekly Tribune of Port Huron, Michigan. "Edison's Invention of the Kineto-Phonograph" by William K. L. Dickson and Antonia Dickson, published in the July 1894 issue of Century Magazine, traces Edison's early efforts to record and reproduce motion and sound simultaneously. The Weekly Tribune article, written by George P. Lathrop in February 1895, is an account of the life of Edison's father, Samuel Edison, Jr.
Three scrapbooks kept by Edison associate Charles Batchelor have been added to the Special Collections Series in Part II. Included are newspaper profiles and interviews with Edison, along with clippings about electric lighting, ore separation, x-ray experiments, aerial navigation, high-speed locomotives, new uses for the automobile, and a variety of other subjects. Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.