" The Menlo Park complex was the largest private
laboratory the United States the 1870s; now Edison
planned build even bigger facility that would enable him to
carry out industrial research unprecedented scale and
reflect his new status the preeminent American inventor. was still the peak his inventive
powers and the flow ideas had not ceased during the years of
perfecting his lighting system. The plan reproduced from notebook Illus 1. Glenmont came fully furnished and gave Edison
instant social substance; his biographers note that was now
settling down lifestyle far removed from his Bohemian
existence itinerant telegrapher. addition, his honeymoon in
Fort Myers, Florida 1886 and convalescence from sickness
in early 1887 gave him two long breaks contemplate future
inventions. His
idea making this laboratory "inventions factory" had been
great success and now was going one better: "the best
equipped and largest laboratory extant, and the facilities
superior any other for rapid and cheap development an
invention.
The first ideas committed paper about the new lab
indicate the grandeur his plans and something his method
of inventing. 1886 his mind turned building new
laboratory replace the one had left Menlo Park.2
.
An ordinary mortal might have taken time off savour
the pleasures married life and business success, but Edison
was ordinary man.5
example the American romanticism that was popular during the
# C
Gilded Age
