Charles Edison Charles Edison ( August 3 , 1890 – July 31 , 1969 ) was a son of Thomas Edison and Mina Miller . He was a businessman , who became Assistant and then United States Secretary of the Navy , and served as the 42nd Governor of New Jersey . Biography . Born at his parents ' home , Glenmont , in West Orange , New Jersey , he attended the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville , Connecticut . In 1915 - 1916 he operated the 100 - seat " Little Thimble Theater " with Guido Bruno . There they played the works of George Bernard Shaw and August Strindberg while Charles contributed verse to " Brunos Weekly " under the pseudonym " Tom Sleeper " . Late in 1915 , he brought his players to Ellis Island to perform for Chief Clerk Augustus Sherman and more than four hundred detained immigrants . These avant - garde activities came to a halt when his father put him to work . He married Carolyn Hawkins on March 27 , 1918 . They had no children . For a number of years Charles Edison ran Edison Records . Charles became president of his father ' s company Thomas A . Edison , Inc . in 1927 , and ran it until it was sold in 1957 , when it merged with the McGraw Electric Company to form the McGraw - Edison Electric Company . Edison was board chairman of the merged company until he retired in 1961 . On January 18 , 1937 , President Roosevelt appointed Charles Edison as Assistant Secretary of the Navy , then as Secretary on January 2 , 1940 , Claude A . Swanson having died several months previously . Edison himself only kept the job until June 24 , resigning to run his gubernatorial campaign . During his time in the Navy department , he advocated construction of the large s , and that one of them be built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard , which secured votes for Roosevelt in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the 1940 presidential election ; in return , Roosevelt had BB - 62 named the . In 1940 , he won election as Governor of New Jersey , running in reaction to the political machine run by Frank Hague , but broke with family tradition by declaring himself a Democrat . As governor , he proposed updating the New Jersey State Constitution . Although it failed in a referendum and nothing was changed during his tenure , state legislators did reform the constitution later . In 1948 , he established a charitable foundation , originally called " The Brook Foundation " , now the Charles Edison Fund . Between 1951 and 1969 , he lived in the Waldorf - Astoria Hotel , where he struck up a friendship with Herbert Hoover , who also lived there . In 1962 , Edison was one of the founders of the Conservative Party of New York State . In 1967 , Edison hosted a meeting at the Waldorf - Astoria in New York that led to the founding of the Charles Edison Youth Fund , later the Charles Edison Memorial Youth Fund . Attending the meeting were Rep . Walter Judd ( R - Mn ) , author William F . Buckley , organizer David R . Jones , and Edison ' s political advisor Marvin Liebman . The name of the organization was changed in 1985 to The Fund for American Studies , in keeping with Edison ' s request to drop his name after 20 years of use . His personal mascot was the owl , and he collected objects depicting owls . Charles Edison died on July 31 , 1969 in New York City . He is buried in Rosedale Cemetery in Orange , New Jersey .