Part 1 - Edison's Lab - West Orange, NJ
Statue in Edison's West Orange Library celebrating electric lighting.
Edison's desk in library with items replaced as it was when he used it.
Chemistry lab.
Large machine shop press.
Lathes in large machine shop powered from overhead shafts run initially by steam engines, later converted to electric motors.
Desk in Edison's personal chemistry lab as it was when he used it.
Reagent shelf in Edison's personal chemistry lab.
The first phonograph, 1877.
The first time anyone recorded sound and played it back was when Edison used this machine to record
Mary Had a Little Lamb.
It recorded sound waves as indentations on a sheet of tinfoil.
Stroh violin and viola, c. 1901.
Because stringed instruments did not record well, inventor Augustus Stroh designed these specifically for phonograph recording.
Prototype of record-changing phonograph.
See stack of records at left, and turntable at top.
Large horn at lower right amplifies sound.