laboratory, and especially important visitors-Edison’s friends others found
interesting-stopped the library for conversation sometimes photo session.
Dyer and Martin describe some the various groups and individuals who visited
Edison West Orange:
It the common experience any visitor the laboratory that there are usually
several persons ahead him, matter what the hour the day, and some whose
business has been sufficiently vital get them inside the porter’s gate, even into
the big library and lounging-room. The payroll from the next week recorded only men. Nor are these groups
and delegations limited this country, for even large parties English, Dutch,
Italian, Japanese visitors come from time time, and are greeted with the same
ready hospitality.
65
., pp. Both
had clocked the same clocks and been paid the same payrolls..
207 Millard, Edison and the Business ofInnovation, 337, footnote 69. Henry Ford and Harvey
Firestone were close Edison his later years, and frequently met with Edison
at Glenmont the library the laboratory. Celebrities all kinds and distinguished
foreigners are numerous-princes, noblemen, ambassadors, artists, litterateurs,
scientists, financiers, women, very large part the visiting done scientific
bodies and societies; and then the whole place will turned over hundreds of
eager, well-dressed men and women, anxious see everything and be
photographed the big courtyard around the central hero. Edison’s
bookkeepers kept careful notes the individual time cards the employees and
distributed labor costs over the various experimental projects.
206 Roderic Peters interview, and Edward Daly interview, 28, both from Oral History Project;
Josephson, Edison: Biography, 478; New York Times, March 24, 1911. payroll for the
week September 1889, shows machinists work the first floor machine
shop.
Edison himself gave Tolstoy’s son tour the laboratory, and 1926 the Crown
Prince Sweden paid visit Edison the library.. An
analysis laboratory employees Period (1887-1900) found that craft skills
were well rewarded the laboratory and often machinists could make more than
experimenters. 658-59..205
205 Ibid.206
Building Heavy Machine Shop
The old work culture the Edison laboratory had brought machinist and
experimenter together the process innovation and valued each equally.207
Many payroll records the laboratory from this time period survive
