The Papers of Thomas A. Edison. Vol. 5: Research to Development at Menlo Park, January 1879-March 1881 (review)

The fifth volume of The Papers of Thomas A. Edisonhas now appeared, some fifteen years after publication of the first. In those fifteen years, at least a dozen books relying heavily on research in the Edison Papers have been published. These range from biographies to monographs informed by poststructuralism and symbolic interaction theory to guidebooks on entrepreneurialism and childrearing to synthetic cultural histories of Gilded Age–era life and death. In the process, the sources of creativity, the impact of technology, and the role of research and development have attained greater significance and been treated with greater sophistication in the scholarly literature. Further, Edison and his associates have become more recognizably human, the integration of technological and social history has become more intellectually robust, and the cost of a single volume has risen from $65 to $90.

Volume 5 deals with the time between Edison's beginning to work in earnest on the electric lighting system and his leaving Menlo Park to work primarily from offices in New York City. The editors have subtitled this volume "Research to Development at Menlo Park" in order to highlight the change in Edison's activities as he moved to oversee the installation of the first commercial lighting system. This major shift in Edison's career has come to exemplify a critical stage in the process of technological innovation.

Here is Edison, arguably at the height of his intellectual powers—seeking solutions to technological problems through scientific investigations, experimenting with multiple ways of technical problem solving, calculating costs and pricing, establishing methods of production, speculating on the character of potential business partners, negotiating contracts and business partnerships one day and racing back to the lab to scrutinize technical details the next. Like invention and commercialization, the development of central-station lighting systems was a multifaceted and diffuse, but recognizable, process that focused the energy of Edison and his closest associates for months on end.

This volume, the second produced under the editorship of Paul Israel, the project's third director, represents no major changes in editorial practice or scholarly quality. The time period and subject matter have already been covered in several monographs and, while these documents add detail and nuance, there are no "smoking gun" documents or blockbuster reinterpretations proffered. In fact, consistent with their previous policies, the editors have been careful not to offer interpretations, allowing access to information but insisting that meanings be constructed by the reader.

As with the preceding volumes, the editorial standards are high, the contextual headnotes short yet enlightening, and the annotations detailed, thorough, and useful. The editors have wisely continued to include drawings and photographs of artifacts. While earlier volumes never singlemindedly concentrated on scientific and technical detail, this volume ventures even further into Edison's economic thinking and the business relationships that increasingly consumed his attention.

What is the value of reviewing one volume in a series of published papers? First, editors deserve to have their accomplishments acknowledged and potential readers deserve notice that initial standards have been maintained. Second, a published review serves in part as a tease, a come-on to encourage further attention, much as the book version of the papers serves to encourage deeper investigation in the microfilm and Web versions. Third, as the books in this series line up on the bookshelf, each succeeding volume attests to the unfolding of a quintessentially American approach to technological history, not just to a segment of Edison's career. Professional historians may benefit by periodically being reminded of this.

Publication of the first volume was highly anticipated by readers of Technology and Cultureand received with great enthusiasm in the popular press. With five published volumes, 227 reels of microfilm, and now a highly useful online digital edition of over 180,000 document images, we can still...