one end the spectrum, offered investors
shares truly revolutionary new technology, such the
process make electricity directly from coal with his
pyro-magnetic generator.11-16
advantage flexible organization: could move quickly
into "those industries offer the most promising field for
.
Edison's attempts interest investors new technology
reveal his ideas about the role R&D the Second Industrial
Revolution. 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. This invention consisted several
metal armatures within field magnets all positioned over a
furnace. 27
armatures would produce rotation. The lists projects planned undertake at
West Orange throws light the research directions his new
laboratory and shows the enormous scope his inventive
imagination.
. 25
invention and experiment.
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." 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
