Thomas Edison NHP: Laboratory Complex

On By nationalparkswithtIn New Jersey
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Welcome back to National Parks and other public lands with T!
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The Thomas Edison National Historical Park preserves the home and laboratories of the prolific inventor. The mansion in Llewellyn Park and the laboratory in West Orange were two separate NPS sites in the 1950s. The two units combined into one park, restored and re-opened in 2009.

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Laboratory Complex➤

I arrived at the visitor center on Edison Day! The good thing about visiting on Edison Day was that there were rangers and docents in every room of the laboratory buildings giving tours or demonstrations. The not-so-good: no tours of the nearby mansion because all rangers were needed in the lab complex.

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Over one thousand inventions came out of Edison’s New Jersey laboratories, including the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, batteries and motion picture cameras. It was the invention of the stock market ticker that made Edison wealthy and provided him the means to open his laboratories. Science!

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Location: 211 Main St, West Orange, NJ
Designation: National Historical Park
Date designated/established: March 30, 2009
Date of my visit: June 2, 2018

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A movie camera in Edison’s library/office
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The machine shop on the 1st floor of the laboratory
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A mold created in the machine shop for phonograph records. Edison put this into use at the factories in the complex.
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Edison forever changed the world with the invention of the electric light bulb in his Menlo Park lab in 1879.
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Edison’s three-story library and office in the laboratory building
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Edison actually preferred working in this less fancy office/lab to his ornate library
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Batteries?
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The tape-recorder’s predecessor…this machine stored voice recordings on wax cylinders.
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A recording studio on the third floor.
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This is the chem lab in a smaller building next to the main lab building. A fire started in a lab like this in 1914 and burned down 13 factory buildings.
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The Black Maria is on the left of this photo. Edison designed this building for recording motion pictures.
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12 thoughts on “Thomas Edison NHP: Laboratory Complex”

  3. That would be a great tour, T. I’ve always loved his quote about how many times it took him to make his first successful lightbulb: ‘I have not failed, but found 1000 ways to not make a light bulb’

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  5. Although not a National Park, you might also be interested in seeing Edison’s winter home and laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida and his lab at Henry Fords’ Greenfield Village in Detroit.

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    1. Should I find myself in either of those cities I would visit. His original lab in Edison NJ is tiny and is a state park but is still interesting to visit. They mentioned the site in Detroit there

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