BY MAURA DOWGIN
Staff Writer
One of the many phonographs on display at the Edison Memorial Tower and Menlo Park Museum.
Visiting the Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Menlo Park Museum is truly an educational experience.
The museum and tower are located on the spot where Edison had his laboratory at 37 Christie St. in the Menlo Park section of the township, said Jack Stanley, director of the museum.
"This is where Edison and his staff worked from 1876 through 1884," he said.
Edison worked at the site with a staff of about 100 employees at a time when most inventors worked by themselves, Stanley said.
PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT staff Edison historian Jack Stanley stands with an 1881 bust of Edison and a C250 Edison Diamond Disk Machine from 1918 in the Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Menlo Park Museum on Christie Street.
"Edison was smart enough to know that he wasn’t smart enough," Stanley said. The inventor surrounded himself with experts and creative-thinking people, he added.
"These were highly imaginative, creative, weird people. The square pegs of society," Stanley said.
Their way of thinking and their inventions were ahead of their time.
During their time working at the laboratory, Edison and his staff invented the phonograph and the electric train, and perfected the light bulb and telephone. Edison even worked on wireless sound transmissions well before the radio was invented.
Edison and his staff obtained 400 patents for their inventions within the seven and a half years he worked in Menlo Park.
Although the inventor is most well-known for his work on the light bulb, the invention he was most proud of was the phonograph, Stanley said.
"The phonograph is the apex of Edison’s life," Stanley said. "The world went nuts because he did the impossible and recorded sound."
The museum boasts many of Edison’s early prototypes, including phonographs, light bulbs, telephone mouthpieces, and original notebooks with early sketches of inventions.
Stanley treats most visitors to phonograph demonstrations.
The phonograph at the door of the museum records sound on tin foil. After wrapping the foil around a cylinder, Stanley rubs oil on the foil to cut down on the friction between the foil and the phonograph. Then he spins the cylinder around and yells into the machine.
The machine picks up the vibration of his voice and records the sound. He can then immediately play back the sound, proving the sound was recorded on tin foil.
There is an exhibit on the light bulb that Edison and his staff perfected in the Menlo Park laboratory. Exhibits on the microphone Edison invented for use in the telephone mouthpiece and original mouthpieces invented at the site are in display cases at the museum.
The carbon-based microphone Edison invented was used in telephones until the 1990s. There is even an exhibit on the electric pen. The electric pen is now used in tattoo parlors everywhere, Stanley said.
All of the artifacts came from various collectors that lend the treasures to the museum in hopes that people will be intrigued and educated about the life and inventions of Edison.
However, there are boxes of artifacts that cannot be displayed because of the lack of space in the small museum.
Stanley hopes to tear down the museum, which has been at that site since the early 1940s, and build a larger building that can hold more artifacts, he said.
The museum stands next to the memorial tower that was built in 1937 and dedicated to Edison on Feb. 11, 1938. The tower has a large light bulb on top which lights up at night.
"History has to be fun," said Stanley, who is unable to hide his excitement when he speaks about the inventor and the history that was made right here.
"If it’s not fun, you’re not going to remember it," he added.
Stanley shares his knowledge of Edison the inventor and Edison Township with people from all over the world. The guest sign-in book near the front door of the museum lists the names of people who came to the museum from as far as New Zealand, Poland, Korea, Ireland and China.
The museum is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.