the greatest industrial research facility the
United States, the laboratory was the breeding ground for new
generation technology and the starting point some
important new industries the twentieth century. Edison perfected the phonograph this
. The new industries the 1870s and
1880s not have the same familiar symbols. Edison's Pearl
Street station— the architectural relic the electrical
industry— longer standing downtown Manhattan. Edison's laboratory West Orange, the other
hand, both accessible and appropriate symbol the
Second Industrial Revolution.
The complex buildings West Orange was erected in
the late 1880s, when the Second Industrial Revolution was just
beginning.2
Revolution does not have the same powerful images the First;
the steam engine and textile mill are universally recognized as
the symbols for that great movement which began Great
Britain and spread the United States the second decade of
the nineteenth century. The
Bessemer steel and synthetic chemical industries have left no
structure that the general public immediately associates with a
period rapid economic growth which the United States led
the world. Here Edison
worked spreading his electrical lighting systems all over
the industrialized West and lowering the price electricity
until was available everyone. The motion picture camera
was invented the laboratory, along with host other
important products such the Edison storage battery and
dictating machine
