The Papers of Thomas A. Edison

A comprehensive chronicle of Edison's industrial, technological, and electrical pursuits from 1890 to 1892.

Thomas A. Edison started the 1890s as one of the most famous people in the Western world, with his name celebrated in small-town newspapers and imperial courts. However, the changing technological and corporate environments of this decade raised obstacles that Edison could only partially overcome while reorienting his career away from his signature electrical technologies.

The tenth volume of the widely acclaimed series The Papers of Thomas A. Edison chronicles the end of the "Battle of the Currents," the contest over the development of US electric utility infrastructure. Edison struggled to adapt his direct-current system to overcome the advantages of the Westinghouse Electric alternating-current system and to outpace Thomson-Houston Electric's development of motors for industry and electric traction. The forced merger with Thomson-Houston that created General Electric in 1892 ended Edison's dozen years of leadership in the electrical business.

Edison remained prolific in other fields documented in this volume—sound recording, motion pictures, and batteries. But all these projects were overshadowed by his efforts to revitalize uncompetitive eastern iron mines by concentrating low-grade iron ores. Edison opened a massive ore-concentrating works in Ogdensburg, New Jersey, in 1890. The operation, improvement, and expansion of that plant consumed much of his energy and wealth for the rest of the decade.