A test of success

Thomas A. Edison (picture courtesy the Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas at Austin)

Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931).

American inventor who obtained 1,100 patents in such fields as telegraphy, phonography, electric lighting and photography.

"Edison was the leader of an invention and development group (today it would be labeled research and development), but he was also something more - an inventor-entrepreneur.  Only a few men today attempt to carry such a broad range of responsibilities as designated by the term inventor-entrepreneur. Edison not only presided over invention and development, but he also took part in financing, publicizing, and marketing for the project. His most famous project, the electric light system, serves well to illustrate the point.

"Friends in science and engineering told him that the state of the art in incandescent lighting suggested that practical achievement might be near. Technical periodicals and patents also signaled activity in incandescent lighting. Such information alerted Edison to the possibility that he might solve the remaining critical problems - such as a durable filament - that would make the difference between ingenious tinkering and commercial success.

"Before finally committing himself, he had to define the market and to identify the financial resources...He commissioned a survey of gas lighting use in the thickly populated Wall Street district of New York City. There, the deep, man-made canyons between the office buildings and the thousands of offices within needed artificial light. It was not by coincidence that he focused upon offices owned by men such as J. P. Morgan, who had the funds to finance Edison's project - and did."

(From "Thomas Alva Edison and the Rise of Electricity" by Thomas Parks Hughes, in Technology in America, edited by Carroll W. Pursell, Jr, published by MIT Press.)