The Wilmington morning star., 1947-02-09
MAN OF A THOUSAND IDEAS
Thomas A. Edison Devoted His Life
To Making The World Better Place


basis of most technical progress.
and we owe a great debt to the
man who led the way over 70
years ago.
Many Conveniences
These are things that touch upon
the scientists specific interests,
but people in general are more in
terested in the inventions of Edi-
son that have directly affected
their daily lives. AS Dur most pro-
life inventor, he surrounded US
with many conveniences that now
form an integral part of our lives,
He gave us light, the phonograph,
the motion picture his carbon but
ton transmitter made the modern
telephone possible; and he de-
ueloped, h Horoscope as an
adjunct to photography.
In the twentieth century we take
these things for granted, as we do
also the industries that grew from
Edison's handiwork & industries
that have an estimated value of
$40, 600, 900, 900 and some 1000, 900
employees
In Edison's laboratory at West
Orange, N. j., there stands on a
pedestal a cubic foot of copper.
History tells us that some "a years
ago the members of the copper
industry gave a luncheon for Edi-
son to express their appreciation
of what he had done for their
business. They asked the inventor
what they might give him in ac-
acknowledgements Of his great con-
tributions. Edison thought a mo
ment and then replied that he had
never seen a cubic foot of copper
maybe they could give him one.
That is how this unusual exhibit
came into his possession.
That cube of copper stands to-
day as a symbol of what can hap
pen when an inventor brings from
the limitless storehouse of the I'M
known a new fact. On the day
in October, 1879 when Edison pro-
duced the first commercially prac-
teal incandescent electric lamp
the copper industry went about its
usual daily routine, unaware that
its future history was being writ
ten in a little laboratory in New
Jersey
On the trail of the new electric
light came New York City's Pearl
Street Powerhouse, the first cen
trail station. Copper went into the
dynamo coils and commutators; ii
weht into the switches and the
many miles of transmission cable.
The production of the metal went
from SO, 1000 tons OF the preset
production of approximately 1,000,-
000tons. And the jobs came, too
manufacturing jobs, service jobs
and selling jobs. All because one
man found a way of producing
light by heating a carbon filament
in an evacuated glass bottle.
Not Satisfied
There are few examples that so
clearly show the difference be-
tween a patent and a product as
the development of the incandes-
cent light filament. The first lamp
on which Edison obtained a patent
in 1879 contained a platinum fila
ment, but the inventor was not
satisfied. He tried carbonized cot
ton thread and eventually pro
duced a commercially practical in
%candescent lamp. He felt, how
ever, that this was not the answer,
and further investigation uncov-
cred bamboo as an improvement.
He spent thousands of dollars fl
nancing a search in the jungles OF
South America for the best type
Of bamboo for his purpose. AS we
all know, the search h a S never
ceased-the adventures with 1anta-
lum and osmium the struggle to
make brittle tungsten into filament
threads are too we'll known tc re-
peat here.
With the coming of electric light
and power hundreds of other
nlngs followed - radios, electric
stoves, vacuum cleaners, refriger-
ators New industries were born,
and new jobs we're created by the
thousands.
AS a creator OF jobs Edison has
had few, if any, equals. When in
Ioo1 the idea of the motion picture
occurred to him he again set the
stage for innumerable n e w Jobs
ana occupations that no one at the
tlne could ever imagine. Who
could have predicted that hundreds
OF thousands of miles Of film would
De produced annually and that
ihotlon-picture theatres would be
pulit IN every town in the United
The effect OF the first