Edison Lamp Works Hierarchy Edison Lamp Works Hierarchy
Chart 3: Edison Lamp Works Hierarchy Chart 3: Edison Lamp Works Hierarchy
considered by the scientists, universities, and the general public as an individual act, and was not yet viewed as the product of a coordinated team effort headed by a research
director. 18 In general, Edison and Charles Batchelor, directed and managed projects conducted in the laboratory. Yet Edison made the final decision on all experimental work. Chemical work was performed by Alfred Haid and Dr. Otto Moses in the chemical department along with the help of assistants. The development of a cheap, rapid, and easily operated vacuum pump apparatus was conducted by Francis Jehl, who was assisted by George Hill, Alfred Herrick, and others working in conjunction with the glass
blowers. 19 Requests from the laboratory for experimental glass objects, such as vacuum pumps and lamp bulbs, were given by Edison and his assistants to master glass blowers
Ludwig Boehm and William Holzer. 20 Boehm and Holzer were assisted by apprentices. Accounting, supply purchasing, drafting, secretarial work, and file organization were conducted in the office building by bookkeeper William Carman, purchasing agent George Carman, patent draftsman Samuel Mott, and secretary Stockton Griffin. These men were assisted by office boys, and, during work lulls at the lab, unskilled and semi- skilled laboratory assistants.
17 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 44. 18 Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, 195. 19 Francis Jehl, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943,
File 18, 9, 15; Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison , Pat. Int. 7943, File 18, 34-35. 20
Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18, 27.
Requests for tools, metal parts, mechanisms, and patent models were typically transferred by Edison and Batchelor to machine shop foreman John Kruesi. Kruesi divided these projects among his most capable machinists and mechanics. A small number of apprentices and day laborers assisted the shop men. Duplication work and special orders were handled by experienced inside contractors selected by Kruesi and/or Edison. Kruesi also managed the tasks conducted by carpenters and pattern makers in the
carpenters’ shed, such as Henry Campbell, Milo Andrus, and Charles Moffett. 21 Campbell, however, managed a team of carpenters and day laborers for large tasks such
as the construction of buildings and the tracks and trestle bridge for Edison’s experimental electric locomotive. 22 Work conducted on the locomotive was managed by mechanical and civil engineer Julius Hornig. Under Hornig worked a number of machinists, mechanics, and day laborers.
A more visible managerial hierarchy was also developed at the Edison Lamp Works in Menlo Park (Chart 3). At the lamp works, departments were clearly delineated and separately managed. The general manager or superintendent of the Lamp Works was Edison’s mathematician, Francis Upton, who contributed some of the initial funding for establishing the manufactory. Upton was responsible for general oversight and management of all the operations conducted at the works. The elimination of production problems, production efficiency, and profit increase were among his main concerns. Beyond functioning primarily as a manufactory, the lamp works at Menlo Park also served an experimental purpose, as a place where Edison could work out production problems surrounding incandescent lamp manufacture prior to relocating the operation to
21 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 686, 688. 22 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 686-687.
a larger manufacturing facility. 23 Under Upton were several competent technicians who managed the individual manufacturing departments. These managers included chief
electrician William Hammer, master mechanic James Bradley, lamp testing mana gers Dr. Edward Nichols and, later, John Howell, master glass blower William Holzer, and Philip
Dyer, who served as the secretary. 24 David Hickman was placed in charge of the socketing department and Alexander Welsh in charge of the carbonizing department. 25
The manager of the vacuum pump department is unknown. Each of these managers coordinated a team of individuals to efficiently conduct the production tasks required for incandescent lamp manufacture.
Mechanization and Task Simplification
With a new management structure in place, Edison’s next step was to develop ways to make lamp production more efficient. Edison’s lamp works competed with the established gas, kerosene, and nascent arc lighting industries that already dominated the
lighting market. 26 To make significant inroads into this market, electric incandescent lighting had to be cheaper, more efficient and easy to use, and readily available to costumers. Edison’s goal was to “produce a lamp so cheap that it could be thrown away
23 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 814. 24 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 815; William J. Hammer, “Early Edison Men, Mainly Menlo
Park, New Jersey,” William J. Hammer Collection, No. 69, Series 2, Box 27.
25 Matthew Hankins to Unknown Edison Family Member, August 20, 1944, Edison Pioneers Files, Box 9, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village; Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric
Lighting Company: John Howell, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:239. 26
Alfred Lief, Metering for America: 125 Years of the Gas Industry and American Meter Company (New York, 1961), 1-21; Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875-1900, 16-21, 195-196.
when its life was exhausted.” 27 This was accomplished by industrializing the process of lamp manufacture, which reduced lamp costs from $1.21 in 1880 to $0.30 in 1883. 28
To do this, he had to “systematize the process of making incandescent lamps from the laboratory method,” which relied on highly skilled artisans and laboratory personnel, “into one of commercial manufacture,” whereby the production process was
industrialized and work was conducted by cheap unskilled and semi-skilled labor. 29 In this way, Edison sharply broke from his traditional use of artisan elements in his
managerial strategy. Production efficiency at the manufactory was paramount and Edison employed a variety of modernized managerial tactics to attain this goal, which presents a vivid contrast to his mana gement of laboratory activities. This dichotomy displays Edison’s differential treatment of varying aspects of the business of innovation,
which would continue later at his West Orange laboratory and associated companies. 30 Beginning in January 1880, after the lamp was invented, Edison and his assistants
conducted numerous experiments to reduce production costs and increase the length of lamp life. 31 Part of this work entailed devising production equipment that reduced skills needed for the production process. Certain mechanized apparatus were utilized at the lamp works to make the process of production more efficient. Electric saws were constructed, powered by dynamo generators in the machine shop, to cut bamboo strips for use as incandescent filaments. The electric dynamos also supplied power to rotate
27 John Vail, “Experiences in Pioneer Electrical Engineering,” Lecture given April 28, 1916 before the Rochester, New York section of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Edison Pioneers Files, Box
42, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. 28 Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 89.
29 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 787. 30 Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 22-87. 31 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Thomas A. Edison,
Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:15, 22.
31 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 45.
glass annealing racks, bellows for the glass blowers and carbonizing furnace, and an Archimedes screw for raising mercury into the vacuum pumps. 32 Simplified vacuum
pumps were developed by the master glass blowers and experimental assistants that could
be, as Francis Jehl stated, “operated by a boy having two or three weeks practice in glass blowing which was easily prepared and took a good deal less now than the combination
[pumps].” 33 Edison’s machinists also created molds for the bamboo carbonization process, whereby thin strips of bamboo filaments were cut and placed in nickel molds,
which allowed the filament to retain its shape while being carbonized in the furnace. 34 Molds were also made for the plaster sockets, within which the finished bulbs were mounted. 35 Use of these molds permitted the employment of unskilled labor, who required minimal training. One area of concern was the production of the glass bulbs, which Edison intended to reduce from a skilled to a semi-skilled process. The glass blowers did not use the conventional large furnaces typical in glass blowing shops. Rather, they utilized pre-
made glass tubing from the Corning Glass Works. 36 The tubing was heated over a flame produced by a gas jet, the type used by experimental glass blowers. 37 It was necessary,
however, for the tubing to be evenly heated in order for the blown glass bulbs to be of equal thickness. Equal thickness, achieved by semi-automating the glass blowing
32 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 789. 33 Francis Jehl, Legal Testimony and Statement, Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943,
File 18, 45. The vacuum pump apparatus workers heated the connection between the mercury pump and the bulb into a molten state, thus sealing the connection.
34 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 792. 35 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 808. 36 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, October 12, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed.
Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:999. 37 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 812.
process, prevented breakage during the vacuum process caused by weak points in the glass.
Initially, Charles Batchelor envisioned a semi-automated heating process and, in December 1879, he sketched plans to use a conveyor belt system for glass blowing. In this system, shown in Figure 11, air would be pumped into one end of a rotating glass tube, while the opposite end was heated by a gas jet flame. The majority of the tube would remain in place while the heated end would be manually pulled to create a tapering effect and thus sealing off the tube. Once sealed, air would continue to be pumped in to create the desired bulb shape. Figure 12 depicts the series of stages of proposed bulb manufacture. An illustration of lamp manufacture steps arranged by master glass blower John Howell in Francis Jehl’s Menlo Park Reminiscences: Volume Two indicates,
however, that at least 14 steps were involved. 38 This particular system was probably not used at the lamp works, but is indicative of the semi-automated system that was required
to cheaply and quickly produce bulbs.
A second devise for semi-automating the glass blowing process, that was
probably implemented, was sketched on May 20, 1880 by John Kruesi (Figure 13). 39 Machinist William Andrews constructed this machine on May 28 and it was refined
shortly thereafter. 40 Like the earlier semi-automated process, the glass blowing machine utilized a conveyor belt system. In this system, the glass tubing was held in place by
38 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 808. 39 John Kruesi, Menlo Park Notebook Number 56, May 20, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed.
Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 35: 576; Charles Mott, Menlo Park Notebook Number 53, May 28, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 35: 782. It was not until 1894 that a semiautomatic machine for glass bulb production was patented by Michael J. Owens. Arthur Bright, Jr., The Electric-Lamp Industry: Technological Change and Economic Development from 1800 to 1947 (New York, 1949), 133.
40 Charles Mott, Menlo Park Notebook Number 53, May 28, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II,
ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 35: 782.
Figure 11: Charles Batchelor's conception for Semi-automated lamp manufacture, December 19, 1879. (A- Glass Tube; B- Air sump; C-Gas Jet Flame). Image from the Thomas A. Edison Papers.
Figure 12: Drawing by Charles Batchelor of proposed steps in lamp bulb manufacture. Image from The Thomas A. Edison Papers.
Figure 13: John Kruesi's conception for semi-automated lamp manufacture, May 20, 1880. (A- Glass Tube; B- Conveyor Belt; C- Gas Jet Flame). Image from the Thomas A. Edison Papers.
open-ended brackets while it also rested on a conveyor belt. The belt rotated the glass at
a constant speed, enabling it to be evenly heated by a gas jet flame. Once heated the tube could be quickly taken off the machine, while another was put in its place, and blown to create a bulb of uniform thickness. The bulb would then be placed on the automated rotating annealing rack. Once cooled, the filament was inserted and the bulb was taken to the vacuum pump department. After the gasses were removed, the open tip of the bulb which connected it to the vacuum pump was heated and sealed, probably by the pump workers, and then taken to the socket department for socket application.
The reduction of glass blowing from skilled to semi-skilled work due to its conversion into a semi-automated process, however, did not alone reduce the costs of manufacture. To staff this operation, Edison hired a number of unskilled, cheap, and expendable young boys from the surrounding countryside for the new works (Figure
14). 41 However, due to the low population density of the ne ighboring rural Middlesex County communities, men, who probably demanded higher wages, were also employed. As Upton commented in March 1881, “We can never make the lamp cheap until we can have plenty of boys and girls at low wages,” who could be found in abundance in urban
centers 42 By 1881, the shortage of cheap labor made the lamp works vulnerable to competition, which, in 1881, consisted of two incandescent lamp manufactories, the
United States Electric Lighting Company and the Western Electric Lighting Company. 43 To remain competitive by further reducing production costs, in September 1881, Upton
41 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 517, 812. 42 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, March 7, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Reese
Jenkins, et al, microfilm, 57:793-794. It is unknown if any girls also worked at the lamp works. 43 Bright, Jr., The Electric-Lamp Industry, 71.
Figure 14: Edison Lamp Works employees. Master glass blower William Holzer is situated in the center background and his apprentice glass blowers and vacuum apparatus workers are in the mid-ground with their vacuum pumps and bulbs. Image from the William J. Hammer Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Behring Center, Smithsonian Institution.
began cutting wages. 44 The wage cut percentage, however, is unknown due to insufficient documentation.
To keep costs down, Upton also had to ensure that workers used their time efficiently. The craft tradition of task-oriented production, or rather experimentation, at the laboratory was at odds with the systematic, industrialized, and time-oriented work at the lamp works, where tasks were expected to be completed in a specified time period. Artisans who were transferred from the laboratory facility to work at the lamp works, however, found it difficult to adjust to the industrialized work atmosphere, which caused
struggles between management and some workers over the control of production. 45 The most noteworthy example involved master glass blower William Holzer, who did not acclimate to the new factory setting as quickly as Upton and Edison anticipated.
Like most artisans, Holzer, who formerly worked in the lab facility’s glass shed, was accustomed to controlling his production pace and breaking for beer and conversation. He attempted to continue such practice at the lamp works, engaging with
his apprentice glass blowers in long smoking breaks, sometimes lasting hours. 46 Upton complained to Edison, stating that he demanded Holzer to stop smoking and resume
work, but Holzer continued. 47 In response, Upton requested from Edison more authority as the superintendent if a managerial hierarchy was to exist. 48 Upton was granted the
44 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, September 25, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Reese Jenkins, et al, microfilm, 57:968.
45 David Montgomery has detailed this struggle between labor and management as it applied to the late- nineteenth-century railroad industry. David Montgomery, “The Struggle for Control of Production,” in
Industrial Revolution in America , ed. Gary Kornblith (Boston and New York, 1998), 173-179. 46 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, February 18, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed.
Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:776. 47 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, February 18, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed.
Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:776.
48 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, May 28, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al, microfilm, 57:895.
authority, and Holzer soon deferred. Others, however, were fired for their laziness, such as the firemen in the carbonizing department. 49 Firing employees, however, was not
always an option at the lamp works or the lab. For instance, Upton and Edison both recognized that some of the employees had already learned too much of the manufacturing and invention process, and firing them might incite the unwanted spread of Edison’s trade secrets and intellectual property to competitors.
Ownership of Ideas and Safeguarding Intellectual Property
Beside the products sold from his manufacturing endeavors, Edison’s main product was the patents he created for new technologies and electro- mechanical devices. Until his ideas were worked out, developed, made into patent models, and finally patented, the process of safeguarding his intellectual property from being stolen became a major operation. To succeed as an inventor and manufacturer it was of utmost importance to curtail, and if possible prevent, the unwanted spread of his ideas to competitors, which required changes in his management strategy. By 1877 Edison recognized that the spread of his intellectual property, resulting in patent infringement by other inventors, created more competition to his business ventures and compromised both his position as an inventor and his claims of original patent creation.
Edison also recognized that the craft methods and open information policy used to educate his workers in the field of electrical engineering and the process of invention proved to be a liability. 50 In order to prevent the spread of his intellectual property, Edison was forced to modify his management strategy and even construct a secret vault
49 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, February 18, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:776.
50 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm,
to protect his only asset-- ideas, concepts, experimental records, and patent caveats, models, and applications-- before his inventions were finally patented. Consequently, Edison had to meticulously document the invention process, and prevent assistants, except for Batchelor, his chief assistant, from attaining knowledge of all the aspects of an invention’s development, which was done through worker specialization. The policies, however, were slow to be instituted.
In 1876 and 1877, Edison was increasingly involved in patent infringement suits. Based on his experience with these suits, former documentation practices, and the advice provided by his patent attorney, Grosvenor Lowery, in 1877 Edison and his assistants began to meticulously document the processes of invention in a series of laboratory
notebooks. 51 This was done to create a written evidential record to contrast patent infringement suits. Edison explained that laboratory notebooks,
Were scattered all over the laboratory, so that if I wished to express an idea, or explain a movement or design to an assistant, I would pick up a book nearest by, write the title, date it, put my name down, and make the drawings. When the book was full, they were collected together and fresh books scattered around the laboratory. We had been taught by numerous interferences the value of these records, and the necessity of figuring in books, in place of separate scraps of
paper, which were very liable to be lost. 52
The record encapsulated in the notebooks was often pivotal in proving Edison’s original creation and ownership of the intellectual property and patent under suit.
Edison’s staff members were also responsible for recording and documenting their work, experiments, ideas, and drawings. Drawings and new ideas were always dated and signed by one or more witnesses. Between 1876 and 1882, over 250 laboratory
51 Telephone Interference: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison
Papers: Part I , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 11:30. 52
Telephone Interference: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II , ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 11:51.
notebooks were produced. Charles Batchelor also kept a personal notebook, and in 1880 Charles Mott was instructed to document activities throughout the facility within six pocket notebooks and two large notebooks. Other inventors did not use such an elaborate and meticulous process of documentation. For example, Alexander Graham Bell relied on correspondence letters between him and his wife and some personal notebooks in order to fix dates to his telephone experiments for a series of telephone patent
interferences in 1878. 53 Prior to the construction of the office/library in November 1878, Edison’ s lab
notebooks were probably stored in the office room on the first floor of the laboratory. Once the new office/library was erected, the notebooks and all other important company documents were stored in a secret, underground, fireproof chamber or vault, specifically
designed to store Edison’s “most important papers and other valuables,” (Figure 15). 54 This vault was located immediately behind and only accessible from within the
office/library building. 55 Unlike other inventors, such as Alexander Graham Bell in late 1875, who could quickly and easily move from their one room facility to a nearby, undisclosed location, to prevent spies from attaining their intellectual property, Edison’s
facility was too large to permit an uncostly relocation. 56 The inability to relocate with ease, therefore, necessitated the creation of the vault. It is not known which workers or
53 Robert Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (Boston, 1973), 267-268. 54 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 3 (Dearborn, 1941), 1124. 55 Letter from Charles Clarke to E. J. Cutler on March 16, 1929, Filed at Henry Ford Museum and
Greenfield Village, Box 27-18; Richard Veit and Michael J. Gall, “An Illuminating Discovery: Finding Thomas Edison’s Patent Vault,” in Archaeological Society of New Jersey Newsletter 198 (May 2002), 1-2; Michael J. Gall and Richard Veit, Archaeological Investigations at the Thomas A. Edison Menlo Park Laboratory Complex: Sarah Jordan Boarding House Site (28-Mi-219), Charles Dean House Site (28-M i- 218), and the Thomas A. Edison Menlo Park Laboratory Site (28-M i-226), Block 677, Lots 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
12, 13, and 14, and Block 662, Lots 3, 25, and 26. Pending Completion and Submission to the State Historic Preservation Office, Trenton, New Jersey.
56 Bruce, Bell, 162.
Figure 15: Overview of the vault’s interior as it currently appears. Photograph taken by the author on July 3, 2004.
how many were aware of the vault, as the structure is not directly mentioned in any of the contemporary documents, and is only referred to in passing, decades later during the
1920s, by former employees. 57 The lack of references suggests that the vault’s existence was likely kept secret from most of the workforce. Edison’s top assistants, however,
were probably aware of the subterranean structure. 58 Edison retained and archived these documents in the locked vault for three primary reasons. The first was to keep them safe from fire or water damage. The second reason was to archive documents, such as daily scientific notebooks, that could later be utilized as court evidence for patent infringement suits. The third, and final reason, was to guard them against theft from spies hired by competing inventors and industries who were engaged in industrial espionage and sabotage. The creation of the vault, however, only curtailed, but did not prevent, the spread of Edison’s intellectual property. In fact, his intellectual property was obtained by his competitors in a number of ways.
The first resulted from Edison’s inability to keep his affairs secret. He commonly graced visitors, peers, and reporters with information by boasting about his experiments, accomplishments, and his plans for new inventions. Throughout most of the facility’s operation, Edison enjoyed and promoted an open information policy with his workforce, as well as with members of the press, the general public, other scientists, and his investors. Visitors typically wandered through Menlo Park, talking to Edison and his workers about the experiments and future inventions. After the invention of the phonograph, the press increasingly frequented the lab facility, eagerly conversing with
57 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 3, 1124; Charles Clarke to E. J. Cutler, March 16, 1929, Edison Pioneers Biography Files, Box 27, File 18.
58 John Kruesi’s testimony, Edison vs. Stiemens vs. Field in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, Reel 46, Frame29 58 John Kruesi’s testimony, Edison vs. Stiemens vs. Field in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, Reel 46, Frame29
practice which I have already changed.” 59
Edison was given advice, at least as early as 1878, not to admit visitors into the laboratory or discuss experiments and future inventions publicly until he had received
patents for them. 60 Unfortunately, he did not heed the advice until it was too late. For example, in December 1879 Edison allowed Edwin Fox, a telegrapher friend and reporter
from the New York Herald, to gather information for a full account of the invention of the incandescent lamp and the associated electrical generating system. Edison intended the reporter to keep the information secret until the lamp was displayed on December 31, 1879 and patents for the lamp were received abroad. The reporter disregarded Edison’s request and on December 21, 1879 published a full, detailed account, with illustrations,
of the incandescent lamp and the generating system. 61 Edison, exclaimed Francis Upton, “was very much provoked and is working off his surplus energy today.”
59 Thomas A. Edison versus Werner Siemens versus George Field: Julius Horning, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 46:60.
60 Hounshell, “The Modernity of Menlo Park,” 121. 61 Anonymous, “Edison’s Light.”
The article was published before Edison could patent his lamp and electrical system in London, at which point Edison wrote to his patent agents in Europe, “Hurry forward on continent [London] last two lamp patents as Herald publishes description
today.” 62 He was also still refining the lamp and the associated system of electric generation and distribution. The article provided significant information for inventors working in the field of power generation, subdivision, and incandescent lighting, and enabled them to develop incandescent lighting systems and electric generating central
stations soon after Edison invented his. 63 In fact, Edison knew the consequences of this publication and less than two months later, on February 19, 1880 he issued a general order to his workforce, which read:
“Employees will treat visitors courteously but under no circumstances will they leave their work or give information of any kind to visitors. No information will be
furnished except by myself or Messrs. Batchelor, Upton, Kruesi, and Carman. You
will regard this as a positive order. 64
This order, however, did not solve the problem of information dissemination. Information was also attained by Edison’s competitors by hiring former Edison employees. Working in competitor’s laboratories, or seeking extra money, Edison’s former employees began spreading his experimental results, ideas, and incandescent lamp manufacturing methods. For example, in October 1880, master glass blower Ludwig Boehm left Edison’s employ to work for his competitor, Hiram Maxim, owner of the United States Electric Lighting Company. There, Boehm provided Maxim with information on the construction of Edison’s vacuum pump apparatus, an essential
62 Thomas A. Edison to Brewer and Jensen, December 21, 1879, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part I, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 15:620.
63 By 1883, eleven electric lighting companies were established. Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 194.
64 Thomas A. Edison, February 19, 1880, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 54:368.
instrument in incandescent lamp manufacture, which Boehm claimed as his own design. 65 Other employees, including Thomas Platt, George Crosby, and Alexander Welsh who
were intimately acquainted with the process of incandescent lamp manufacture left Edison’s employ to work for Edison’s new rival, the United States Electric Lighting
Company. 66 Some individuals, like Welsh for instance, even attempted to recruit Edison’s employees into the competing company. 67 Edison realized that the craft
methods and open information policy he used at the laboratory facility to educate his workers in the field of electrical engineering proved to be a liability. 68 Edison dealt with this devastating problem in two ways. First, like gun powder manufacture Lammot Du Pont, Edison isolated most, but
not all, of his workforce to their specific departments. 69 Forcing them to specialize in particular inventive tasks limited their knowledge of the entire research and development
process of an invention. To prevent laboratory personnel from learning an invention’s manufacturing process, they were not allowed to visit the lamp manufactory unless on company business. Lamp manufactory workers were also affected as they were not
permitted into the laboratory except when granted permission. 70
65 Ludwig Boehm versus Thomas A. Edison, Pat. Int. 7943, File 18. 66 William Andrews, no date, William J. Hammer Collection, No. 69, Series 2, Box 25. 67 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal
Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 48:135.
68 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Thomas A. Edison, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm,
69 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm,
48:136; Norman Wilkinson, Lammot Du Pont and the American Explosives Industry, 1850-1884 (Charlottesville, 1984), 168.
70 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm,
Second, Edison dealt with the problem of intellectual property dissemination by attempting to retain the employment of men who acquired sufficient knowledge of invention processes or manufacturing methods to pose a threat to the company. To retain his top level assistants, such as Upton, Batchelor, and Kruesi, Edison offered them well- paid managerial positions, stock options, and, in some cases, patent co-ownership rights. In reciprocation, these men loyally served under Edison well into the future. Others, however, were problematic.
One example in particular involved Alexander Welsh. Welsh worked in the carbonizing department at the lamp works, but was noticeably lazy. Upton initially did not discharge Welsh for his laziness because he worried that Welsh would “go to the opposition [as] he has had his eyes quite wide open since he has been [at the lamp
works].” 71 Edison and Upton agreed to solve the problem by isolating Welsh from the rest of the workforce and gave him the responsibility to conduct various experiments on
the incandescent lamp, a position he greatly desired. Welsh, however, was subsequently fired for misreporting experimental results. 72 Although he was discharged, Edison still worried he would spread secrets about the lamp manufacturing process and attempts were made to persuade Welsh to attain a position at one of Edison’s isolated power station
companies. 73 Welsh refused and joined a rival company just as Edison and Upton feared. The final way Edison’s competitors attained information about his experiments and inventions was through industrial espionage. During the eighteenth and early-
71 Francis Upton to Thomas A. Edison, August 1, 1881, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm, 57:938-939.
72 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm,
73 Edison Electric Light Company versus United States Electric Lighting Company: Francis Upton, Legal Testimony and Statement, 1889, in Thomas A. Edison Papers: Part II, ed. Jenkins, et al., microfilm,
nineteenth century, Americans were actively engaged in government-sponsored technology piracy oversees against Britain, the then technological superpower. 74 By the
mid to late- nineteenth-century, however, Americans and American companies became increasingly engaged in domestic industrial espionage for technology-based
information. 75 Commonly large companies sponsored such illicit activity, but individual inventors and entrepreneurs also took part in espionage. Numerous inventors, including Edison and Bell, were victims of industrial espionage. For instance, in December 1875, after suspecting continued espionage attempts by competitors such as Western Union, Bell moved his small laboratory from his attic workshop in Charles Williams’s Boston
machine shop to a room in a building a short distance away. 76 Edison, who faced a much larger barrage of spies, did not have the luxury of moving his large facility. He had to face the problem directly.
Competing industries used spies to gain information about Edison’s experiments and inventions. 77 Firms in industries suc h as the gas, arc, and kerosene lighting industries suffered economically as a result of Edison’s invention of a marketable and efficient incandescent lamp and electrical generating system. Historian Matthew Josephson stated that after Edison announced that he could create a successful distribution of electrical
lighting, gaslight securities lost twelve percent of their value. 78 The response to avert and deter industrial espionage included limiting, restricting, and chaperoning visitors, general orders to workforce personnel to refrain from disclosing company information, the
74 Donor Ben-Atar, Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power (New Haven and London, 2004), 156-171.
75 Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875-1900, 318-319. 76 Bruce, Bell, 162. 77 Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. 2, 492. 78 Josephson, Edison: A Biography, 187.
construction of a secret, underground vault to store to secure all valuable documentation, and the use of employees to keep-watch over the facility and report any mischievous
activity. 79 The methods and tactics Edison employed to prevent the spread of his intellectual property was later adopted by scientific research and development laboratories. 80 Ultimately, Edison responded to the growth of his facility and the addition of manufacturing operations by incorporating industrial management tactics into his pre- industrial management strategy. This was most evident at the lamp works, where manufacturing was the basis of operations, but was also present in simpler forms at the lab facility. There, industrial management tactics took the form of a new management bureaucracy, task specialization and subdivision, task and concept documentation, and attempts to prevent the spread of intellectual property. Aware of the necessity to institute these changes, they were selectively and carefully employed to encourage efficient work, and to better manage and coordinate the invention and manufacturing process. Conclusion
Between 1876 and 1882, the managerial practices Edison employed at his Menlo Park laboratory facility and later lamp manufactory underwent an organic evolution. Influenced by a variety of factors, this strategy evolved from one that heavily utilized artisan traditions to one that selectively combined artisan and industrial elements to coordinate the invention and manufacturing activities of his laboratory and lamp works. This evolution displayed Edison’s mastery of the craft of invention, which united trade skill, science, innovation, management, and corporate capitalism. This mastery enabled
79 Josephson, Edison: A Biography, 225-226. 80 Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 110. Edison also constructed an enormo us vault at
his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory to safely store important documents.
him to efficiently and effectively conduct the process of invention and turn technological innovation into a marketable commodity.
By the lab’s closure in 1882, Edison successfully established himself as a prominent inventor/entrepreneur, and fully developed and mastered the craft of invention. He acknowledged that the invention process was not an individual endeavor. Rather, it required the cooperative efforts, skills, technical expertise, and assistance of a variety of competent assistants. For the process to be successful, assistants needed to work together under the direction of a team leader or manager. Assistants required limited autonomy in their decision-making capability, have the ability to expand their knowledge-base, enjoy their work, and have the tools necessary to complete experimental tasks. Edison also realized that as an employer, he must ensure that assistants work diligently and loyally toward his goals, as well as concede all authority to him. This was done by making work with the inventor advantageous. Edison worked alongside his assistants, promoting education, providing a friendly work atmosphere, reciprocating favors, and upholding bonds of mutuality. Edison also coveted his assistants’ trade skill and competency, and rewarded his best assistants with bonuses and the prospect of upward mobility. By utilizing the craft-based managerial strategy he adopted from past experiences in the telegraph and metal working trades, and by instructing lab personnel in the science of electrical engineering and the craft of invention, Edison ensured that his staff could complete the inventive tasks given to them.
Edison’s achievement as a prominent inventor was also accomplished because of his successful marriage of craft- and industrially-based management strategies. By 1882, Edison had recognized where and when to most efficiently institute selective industrially- Edison’s achievement as a prominent inventor was also accomplished because of his successful marriage of craft- and industrially-based management strategies. By 1882, Edison had recognized where and when to most efficiently institute selective industrially-
With an efficient system of invention in place, Edison was able to divert from financially depending solely on contract work, for which he created inventions and sold his patent rights to corporations. Edison acknowledged that to remain in business as an inventor, he must create his own industry, manufacture his inventions in his own factories, and use the sale profits to fund further inventive endeavors. Most notably, this was accomplished with his creation of the incandescent lamp and electrical generation industry and the Edison Lamp Works. In contrast to the laboratory facility, at his lamp works, Edison primarily utilized industrially-based management tactics to reduce the costs of production. He used his laboratory to develop a semi-automated production process, which enabled him to hire unskilled and semi-skilled, cheap, and expendable labor, whose production tasks were time oriented. With low wages, task specialization, and an industrialized work process, workers were granted few opportunities for upward mobility.
In all, Edison not only mastered the craft of invention, but established the foundation for management strategies adopted by later industrial research and development facilities, such as his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory facility, founded in 1887, and General Electric. Edison learned how to most appropriately combine aspects of pre- industrial craft traditions and industrialization to enable large-scale invention, without bastardizing the craft of invention. By utilizing and marrying craft- and industrially-based managerial strategies, Edison was ultimately able to make invention a regular and predicable, factory- like process.
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