A trip to Thomas Edison’s laboratory & home

The day we were left absolutely inspired by Thomas Edison, inventor & true entrepreneur.

All photos in this article are taken by Janelle

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.“ — Thomas Edison

As busy interns in a busy city filled with endless things to discover and explore, we finally had a free weekend and so, we decided to take a trip to the nearby New Jersey to explore the Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

Thomas Edison National Historical Park: We took the NJ Transit to Orange Station

We didn’t know what to expect even as we were on the NJ Transit Train to New Jersey. Thomas Edison? Well, we all know he invented the light bulb 💡. So what exactly did we see and experience in the West Orange laboratories that managed to inspire us so greatly?

We were literally in awe as we stepped into the laboratories.

We simply couldn’t believe that we were now standing in the place where Thomas Edison manufactured the filament lamp that he famously did 10,000 iterations on! The scale of the place was simply mind blowing— over 10,000 people were employed at the West Orange Lab and factory complex.

Many work stations with heavy machinery for building prototypes and actual products!

Entering the Heavy Machine Shop which was an entire floor within the Main Laboratory

The Heavy Machine Shop which was left exactly how it was when it was still functional in the 1900s

A really interesting hand painted sign

The Drafting Room: This is where employees would sketch out highly precise prototypes for the engineers to build them.

We even found a vintage fan in the laboratory which we thought was really pretty

Yes, we all know that Edison invented the first incandescent lightbulb.

So what else did Thomas Edison invent?

We didn’t take pictures of everything within the laboratories, but we can assure you that there were so many, we started to think that this guy was simply crazy about inventing. In fact, many had seemingly no link to each other e.g. from cement to waffle makers.

Here are some of the interesting ones:

A prototype of the Teletypewriter — which allowed the sending and receiving of typed messages from point to point.

A prototype of his invention of a Desk Calculator

Can you ever imagine yourself using such a huge calculator during A Levels?

Kinetoscope – An early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device (source)

Edison wasn’t just an inventor, he was a genius entrepreneur too.

A particular quote by Edison resonated with us greatly:

“Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.”

While on our entrepreneurial journey here in NYC, we’ve been working on developing our business ideas for one of our modules, New Venture Creation. Often, we found it difficult to sieve out the best ideas and then the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Edison’s quote clearly exudes his entrepreneurial side of being an inventor.

From his library office in the lab, Edison managed some 30 companies under the main company Thomas A. Edison Industries. That was how successful he was as an entrepreneur.

The Phonograph — the evidence of Edison’s genius entrepreneurship

Thomas Edison created many inventions, but his favorite was the phonograph. This was invented based off two of his other inventions–the telegraph and the telephone ☎️. The phonograph was able to record sound, and play it back 📢.

In fact, Edison only invented “things for which there was a surefire demand”. His phonograph sold extremely well due its novelty. However, even so, he easily made the decision to stop making dictating machines and quickly switched to selling recordings as he knew that was where the money was at.

The very first phonograph he successfully created — it was such a honour to see this

We were simply impressed with how much of a business person Edison was. He was even concerned with how his inventions could become a successful product, where he even planned advertising in order to reach the masses 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👨‍👩‍👧‍👨‍👩‍👧‍👦!

Various advertisements Edison’s company did up for their dictating machine

What was Edison’s method of inventing and managing entrepreneurship simultaneously?

“The way to do it is to organize a gang of one good experimenter and two or three assistants, appropriate a definite sum yearly to keep it going.”

Did you know that you can become a Junior Ranger while visiting a National Park?

We completed a series of activities in the laboratories, shared our answers with a park ranger. We not only got to learn so much from visiting the original laboratories, we received an official Junior Ranger badge and Junior Ranger certificate! What a day! 🎉🙌🏻

“Junior Rangers are typically between the ages of 5 to 13, although people of all ages can participate.”

^ Well, we were indeed the “people of ages” — and we had so much fun. You can find more information about the Junior Ranger programmes here!

Happy faces as we got our Junior Ranger badge from the Park Ranger herself!

Coincidentally, it happened to be the National Park Service’s 100th birthday celebrations, and we got the 100th year limited edition version of the badge! #thrills

A private visit to Thomas Edison’s house that was probably the highlight of the trip!

We made our way to Edison’s house about 1 mile away from the labs, in the gated community, Glenmont Estate.

Entering the closed gated estate that Thomas Edison’s house is situated is. He and his wife Mina Edison are buried here.

The walk up into Edison’s house was filled with lush trees–simply scenic!

Going into his house for a private tour by the Park Ranger! This was such an exciting moment for us!!

Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside the home, so we won’t be able to share any of what we saw.

It wasn’t just a home, it was a MANSION, filled with the grandest of furniture (with even a lion, cheetah and tiger carpet with its head still on) from different eras. What we learnt from the tour guide: The home has 29 and 1/2 rooms, including 7 & 1/2 bathrooms.

Edison’s home had a beautiful backyard of just a grass plain extending out — it was so therapeutic

Nothing much, just chilling and hanging out at the backyard of Thomas Edison’s house

Glenmont’s Garage — Thomas Edison’s private garage which showcases all his automobile related inventions.

One of the many Fords we found in Edison’s Garage! It has New Jersey number plates.

Wait what? Edison created electric charging stations, and even charged his neigbours for it! He is clearly an entrepreneur.

That’s all for now folks!

With that, we’ve come to the end of the photo blog entry about our visit to Thomas Edison’s labs and home! We certainly hope you found it interesting, and learnt a thing or two about Thomas Edison and his spirit of inventing and entrepreneurship ⚗☎️📽⚙🛠!

And all of these is only possible because we have the absolute privilege of being on the NUS Overseas Colleges New York programme. During the 4 months that we have left here, we will definitely be treasuring each and every day even more.

I guess the best quote to describe today’s experience is:

“It’s jarring to go from one amazing experience to another that feels ordinary. I don’t quite know how to explain it. You see the uniqueness of what you’ve been doing, and disassociating yourself from it and going back to the ‘normal’ life is tough.” — Nat Wolff

And that’s definitely a good thing 💯

And if you’re reading this line, thanks for sticking it through the very lengthy post! 🙆🏼🙆🏼🙆🏼 We simply HAD to share this wonderful experience with you.