Initial planning for museum was underway early 1932,
but the project floundered until 1935. The main focus this
plan was the library. wrote potential donor Edisonia:
156
. The delay troubled Edison’s youngest son,
Theodore, who worried about the masses material stored the old, possibly
unsafe laboratory buildings. Edison, Inc."616 Even Edison’s
time cards did not last long the rack next the time clock outside the library—
they were prized souvenirs.617
516 Laboratory Labor and Material Ledger Pages [unbound], 1918-1931, July 14, 1924, Account Books
Records. fact the conversion the laboratory into museinn
had begun before Thomas Edison died. 1938 the laboratory was compared "jackdaw’s nest"
where valuable artifacts were mixed with "paint pots, old cigar boxes. The space underneath
experimental tables and the floor between machine tools was convenient site
for quick disposal.
The work this group Edison employees and family the 1930s did result a
plan preserve the laboratory and turn into museum.
The impulse preserve, create shrine the great inventor, ran
simultaneously with the more pressing problem cleaning the site. was the middle serious depression and had cut back. The great problem facing the people caring for the laboratory
from the 1930s through the 1970s was deal with the great mass material
they inherited and separate the valuable from the valueless-a problem they did
not have time resolve.
617 Norman Speiden interview, January 1971, Oral History Project, 41. Edward Hughes, Charles and Theodore Edison, December 15, 1938, Historical
Research Dept... The
half empty laboratory became place dump the unwanted material and
equipment, well junk, that might needed sometime the future when
times were flush. The
placing useless machinery and empty containers the heavy machine shop of
Building and Building for example, evidence process that probably
began the 1930s and continued through the 1960s. Williams Mrs.and a
general hodge-podge that sickening look at.process preserving historically significant artifacts and documents had begun as
soon Edison arrived West Orange, for such important inventions the vote
recorder and the automatic telegraph had been deposited Building and shown
on occasional special tours. Thomas
A.S.
518 C."618
The laboratory reflects both these forces; when acquired the National Park
Service the 1950s contained both precious artifacts and valueless junk. the 1920s Charles Edison began a
program clean and preserve "articles Historical Value
