He earned half his 1,093 patents during those four decades. Here he perfected the phonograph, the movie projector, and the fluoroscope. But perhaps his most important invention was the industrial research and design lab. Here, for the first time, engineers, technicians, and inventors devoted their working hours to collaborative research. Edison's widow left the complex and their house to the Parks Department.
Papers are in danger of mildewing and flaking, wax recordings of melting away.
The top two floors of the main lab building, now closed to the public, will be repaired and opened. It still smells like a darkroom. She also hopes to display the contents of the horn room, where Edison's early speakers line up like gigantic, curly witches' hats. Visitors follow friendly rangers in Smokey the Bear hats through Edison's three-tiered library, with its statue of the Genius of Electricity holding aloft a lightbulb while he crushes a gas lamp underfoot. They marvel at the stockroom, filled with natural materials like elephant skin, whale baleen, and human hair.