Edison's Electric Light: The Art of Invention

Robert Friedel, Paul B. Israel

JHU Press, Jul 19, 2010 - Technology & Engineering - 248 pages

In September 1878, Thomas Alva Edison brashly—and prematurely—proclaimed his breakthrough invention of a workable electric light. That announcement was followed by many months of intense experimentation that led to the successful completion of his Pearl Street station four years later. Edison was not alone—nor was he first—in developing an incandescent light bulb, but his was the most successful of all competing inventions. Drawing from the documents in the Edison archives, Robert Friedel and Paul Israel explain how this came to be. They explore the process of invention through the Menlo Park notes, discussing the full range of experiments, including the testing of a host of materials, the development of such crucial tools as the world's best vacuum pump, and the construction of the first large-scale electrical generators and power distribution systems. The result is a fascinating story of excitement, risk, and competition.

Revised and updated from the original 1986 edition, this definitive study of the most famous invention of America's most famous inventor is completely keyed to the printed and electronic versions of the Edison Papers, inviting the reader to explore further the remarkable original sources.

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Edison's electric light: biography of an invention

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So encrusted with folklore has Edison's invention of the electric light become that we may be hard-pressed to recognize its significance. This account, unlike others, focuses on the invention rather ...

Contents

• 1 A Big Bonanza: 1
• 2 The Throes of Invention: 24
• 3 Some Difficult Requirements: 48
• 4 The Triumph of Carbon: 69
• 5 Business and Science: 94
• 6 A System Complete: 121
• 7 Promises Fulfilled: 155
• Afterword: 189
• A Note from the Authors with Acknowledgments: 201
• Notes: 205
• Recommended Additional Reading: 221
• Index: 225

About the author

Robert Friedel is a professor of history of technology and science at the University of Maryland, College Park. His most recent book is A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium. Paul Israel is the director and general editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He is the author of Edison: A Life of Invention and the coeditor of the multivolume The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, also published by Johns Hopkins.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Edison's Electric Light: The Art of Invention; Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Technology
• Authors: Robert Friedel, Paul B. Israel
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: JHU Press, 2010
• ISBN: 0801899443, 9780801899447
• Length: 248 pages
• Subjects: Technology & Engineering / History; Technology & Engineering / Inventions