all his plans for the laboratory Edison indicated that wanted his
own "private" experimental space."46
Room 12. The shop orders are listed some laboratory
notebooks.*3
Each experimental room could fitted with equipment required.
45 Dyer, Martin, and Meadowcroft, Edison: His Life and Inventions, pp. images plans these two rooms have been found. They note
that the precision shop "the realm presided over lovingly John Ott.
Rooms and 11. Room was established Edison’s personal
experimental room.places there 1889 when complains about the elevator making too much
noise for him work experiments room ô. 647-48.
Dyer and Martin locate both John and Fred Ott the second floor. stood the top the stairs that came from the library
on the first floor and the windows looked out onto the courtyard surrounded by
the five experimental buildings--this was the ideal place for the supervision his
experimenters’ work. Each was given a
number which expenses could allocated account.[who]
oversees the work the mechanics [Edison’s] productions are wrought into
concrete shape.. The
divisions between rooms were made thin wood panelling which could be
removed without too much effort.44 was Edison’s practice change the rooms around he
embarked new projects, although very little known the specific changes." Fred Ott placed "in one the many experimental-rooms lining
the sides the second floor. For example, shop order number 2140 was for taking down the partitions
in room ô. The
two rooms situated between Edison’s room and the precision machine shop
might have been the glass blowing and vacuum pump rooms.
44 The shop orders were requests for work carried out the laboratory staff.
Multiple doors opening into the hallway and scars the ceiling planks suggest
that the large room the south side the second floor was once several smaller
rooms numbered and The row rooms the south side the precision
machine shop could also have been altered, for there evidence the ceiling of
several partitions. Number 2140 comes from Notebook N-09-01-21 and dates from around 1909.
43 "Deposition Charles Brown," from Thomas Edison American Mutoscope Company and
Benjamin Keith, 157.. Although the
experimental rooms were primarily spaces customized for the job hand,
Edison’s plans for the laboratory show that some functions, such glass blowing
and vacuum pumping, were permanently assigned experimental rooms. These "partitions" could used create new
spaces the need arose, enlarging reducing the floor space experimental
rooms.
23
