The inventor believed that the patent system
could not fully protect his work and subsequently carried out experiments in
highly competitive areas, such electric lighting and motion pictures, an
atmosphere secrecy. the north side the precision shop took half the floor
space and the rooms ran from the head the stairs (from the library) point
midway along the length the building. the south side the rooms ran the length the floor and overlooked
Lakeside Avenue. Room was
on the south side the building, adjacent the elevator. These rooms
-their equipment, their location, and their proximity the precision machine
shop-are the embodiment Edison’s method inventing. Each room housed a
different experimental project and the experimenters and helpers assigned that
job.
42 Charles Batchelor diary, catalog 1337, November 10, 1887.
Building Second Floor Experimental Rooms
In November 1887, Charles Batchelor noted his diary that the "small rooms"
were finished the laboratory except for the locks the doors.
The rooms were numbered one through nine the south side and ten through
twelve the north. 293-95." In
general its workers were highly skilled tool and instrument makers who could
command higher wages than the average machinist. know that room was the north side near the stairs
because the room numbers remain the doors rooms and 12.4- was located directly
above the heavy machine shop the first floor and looked out onto the courtyard
on the north side Building Belts brought power from the steam engine the
shop below.
The locks the doors may indication the secrecy which had become part
of Edison’s experimental method.42 These were
probably the experimental rooms the second floor Building the heart the
laboratory where the intellectual effort inventing was carried out. This shop occupied about half the floor space the present shop; a
line experimental rooms took the south side the space. Dickson and Antonia Dickson, The Life and Inventions Thomas Alua Edison (London: Chatto
and Windus, 1894), pp.
The experimental rooms ran along both sides central hallway the second
floor.
41 W.Building Precision Machine Shop
This machine shop contained the smaller and more precise machine tools and
consequently was called the "precision shop" the "precision department.L. Charles Brown
22
.K
