486 Dickson and Dickson, The Life and Inventions Thomas Alva Edison, pp.
This room was also the site experiments the phonograph the late 1890s.Building Third. Recording could therefore carried out in
this large open room where there was also space for lectures and performances. The room was filled
with large rack with connections for numerous lamps: "aggregation shining
bulbs" Dickson described it.
Efforts devise aJong playing record, cylinder six inch diameter, were made
on the north side this floor the music room.
Building Third Floor, Recording Studio."487 Note that experimental rooms probably existed both the second
and third floors.
487 The New Orleans Picayune, July 22, 1888.Floor, Period 1887-1900
Little evidence available about the configuration and uses the third floor of
Building during Edison’s first years the West Orange laboratory.489
Building Third Floor, Period II: 1901-1914 and Period III: 1915-1931
A survey the third floor found evidence numerous partitioned rooms and
other changes the layout offices. Dickson
mentions the lamp test room, the exhibit hall, and the lecture hall, which was
formerly room "in use for musical experiments connection with the
phonograph.
The first recording machines were not sensitive enough require sound proofing
of the studio with drapes fabric. The large open space the west
end this floor was devoted experiments with recording during this period. Although located the 1914 Document File, the memorandum was
written much later there are references 1920’s experiments. 295-98. newspaper report described score of
smaller apartments the building, each which fitted for some special
object. This room was set carry out
duration and efficiency tests Edison incandescent bulbs.488
Building Third Floor, Lamp Test Room. Photographic evidence indicates that the
144
."486 There were several experimenting rooms this floor: some
devoted chemical experiments find better waxes for records and others
concerned with electrical experiments.
489 Dickson and Dickson, The Life and Inventions Thomas Alva Edison, 295; see also "Edison’s New
Laboratory," Scientific American, September 17, 1887, 184.
488 Memorandum, "Long-Playing Records," William Hayes Harold Bowen, undated (in 1914,
Phonograph, Record, Manufacture)
