Any Thomas Edison fans out there?

357magster

357magster

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Henry Ford was a BIG fan of Thomas Edison. So much so that Ford moved Edison's Menlo Park, NJ laboratory to his Greenfield Village museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

In 1929, the 50th anniversary of Edison's invention/perfection of the incandescent light bulb, Henry Ford, President Hoover, and Thomas Edison gathered in the laboratory and Edison recreated the invention of the light bulb. The newsreel cameras were rolling. Grabbed this screen shot. Edison is sitting in the chair:




Henry Ford was so enamored with Thomas Edison that, after the event, he ordered the chair to be nailed to the floor and never moved. It remains there to this day. Notice how the floor around the chair has been replaced, but the chair remains exactly where it was in 1929. I think that's pretty darn cool.




Ford also had Edison come to Michigan the year before for the groundbreaking of the museum. Ford had Edison stick a shovel into a large block of wet cement and sign his name. It, too, remains in place.






Now, every time I see that block of cement I can't help but think how cool that would look in my man cave ... and I am reminded of the time Lucy stole John Wayne's concrete footprints from Grauman's Chinese Theater ... :D
 
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Edison grew up in Port Huron, Michigan- my home town. The train station where he sold newspapers and sundries, and ran experiments on the way to Detroit still stands near the St. Clair River.

It's reported that Edison was not a big fan of the city. A lot of his family is buried there and there are pictures of him visiting

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A fan? No. Edison was responsible for many things, but he was also known to steal or take credit for other inventors ideas, and if he had his way, we would have had DC power today instead of much more efficient AC. Do some research on the fight he put up on that as well as other aspects of his life and it will open your eyes.

Regardless, the Ford exhibit is very cool from a historical prospective, as is the rest of the HF Museum and Greenfield Village.
 
Edison did do a lot. He didn't really invent the light bulb though. Electric light was around for about 70 years before he invented a practical light bulb. Some of his early concepts were wrong. He worked himself and his assistants hard, often misrepresenting himself and his progress. He was also a big supporter of DC. Telsa was a real genius, who sent us down the workable AC path. No way DC would have worked out in large applications because of the difficulties transforming it form low amperage high voltage to higher amperage lower voltages. With DC you would need absolutely huge conductors to transfer large amounts of power.

Once the ball way really rolling Edison showed his genius in making it all come together and light up and change the world. Telsa just kept experimenting and Edison did something with it all.

The light bulb seems so simple yet the telephone preceded the pracctical light bulb by about 20 years.
 
I've been to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village twice and would recommend anyone visit it if your in the area. Leave yourself plenty of time to visit.
 
steelslaver said:
Once the ball was really rolling Edison showed his genius in making it all come together and light up and change the world. Telsa just kept experimenting and Edison did something with it all.
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Well put. I doubt many of us can appreciate the hurdles he jumped in combining science, manufacturing, and marketing to revolutionize life for a skeptical society.

I love the way Ford preserved Menlo Park at his museum, and that setting of Edison's lab, machine shop, and the rooming house with exposed wiring is a tableau that sums up his genius.
 
Not sure if I'm exactly a fan of his but I do enjoy being able to see things after the sun goes down.
 
Appreciative of the things he (along with Tesla) and others helped advance so we today enjoy the luxury of flicking a switch for light.

I dont go around in an Edison T shirt or Tesla cap.


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Tom S. said:
A fan? No. Edison was responsible for many things, but he was also known to steal or take credit for other inventors ideas, and if he had his way, we would have had DC power today instead of much more efficient AC.
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Henry Ford wasn't exactly a pillar of society, either.
 
I've been to the Edison and Ford winter homes and museum in Ft Myers, FL many times back when I was in high school in the early 60's. Very interesting.
 
One of the best Edison things I've seen was an ad during the "86 (I think) Super Bowl. A young guy was showing an old guy his new invention in an old time lab. When the bulb lit, the old guy said "But Tom, I wanted a Bud light".
 
...I've seen his lab at Greenfield Village...I would like to see his shops at West Orange New Jersey...but I'm not too sure I ever want to go back to New Jersey...

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Edison's greatest accomplishment was industrializing the research and development process, not the electric light bulb, phonograph, or movies (none of which he personally invented). Figure out what things people want and need and then come up with a way to provide it to them in a scientific and efficiently structured way. The products that resulted from the process are mainly advertising for the success of the process itself. Just as Henry Ford's greatest accomplishment wasn't the invention of the automobile (which he didn't invent) but rather development of the methods of manufacturing it quickly and efficiently in large numbers so it could be sold to the masses cheaply. The two men were much alike, maybe that's why they were buddies.

Sam Colt didn't invent the revolver either. He merely improved upon the design.
 
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