" The industries conceived were supply
small items commerce— "useful things that every man, woman
and child wants"— that would sold through network of
jobbers. Edison hoped that rapidly heating and cooling these
.
. one end the spectrum, offered investors
shares truly revolutionary new technology, such the
process make electricity directly from coal with his
pyro-magnetic generator. planned develop small products with high
profit potential and low capital requirements; the enormous
costs introducing the electric light were still fresh his
mind and wanted avoid "cumbersome inventions like the
electric light. 25
invention and experiment.11-16
advantage flexible organization: could move quickly
into "those industries offer the most promising field for
. This invention consisted several
metal armatures within field magnets all positioned over a
furnace. The lists projects planned undertake at
West Orange throws light the research directions his new
laboratory and shows the enormous scope his inventive
imagination. 27
armatures would produce rotation.
Edison's attempts interest investors new technology
reveal his ideas about the role R&D the Second Industrial
Revolution.
It significant that the future innovation, seen
by Edison from his vantage point 1887, was not the great
systems electrical technology, but consumer durables for
a mass market
