They
were dangerously overextended and increasingly vulnerable to
shifts money markets.
Finance R&D became issue because Edison and the
electrical companies were both running short cash. A
financial crisis hit them the winter 1888/1889 and they
recalled many their employees from the West Orange
30
laboratory, closing down several experimental projects. The
individual Edison Illuminating companies did not have the money
to buy the lighting system outright, and consequently the
Edison Electric Light Company, and the various manufacturing
companies, often had accept stock payment for equipment
and patent rights. The companies remembered the astronomical costs
of developing the first electrical systems and they wanted to
know exactly how much was going cost before they
committed themselves experimental campaign. When their finances were under
pressure they immediately cut back R&D expenditure.V-17
wary the ambitious experimental projects springing into
Edison's mind. The financial burden introducing the Edison
lighting system had left the companies heavily debt. Edison
had put all his money into perfecting the phonograph. Pushing the system depended much the
credit arrangements the technology, and only the
financially strong could successfully market lighting system
in the 1880s.
Edison had little respect for the management the
Edison companies, claiming that "All these people are
amateurs." resented their caution, which argued was
