Edison and the business of innovation / André Millard.
By: Millard, A. J
.
Material type: 
BookSeries: Johns Hopkins studies in the history of technology, new series.Publisher: Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, c1990Description: xiv, 387 p. : ill., ports., facsim. ; 23 cm. + pbk.ISBN: 0801847303 .Subject(s): Edison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva), 1847-1931 | Inventors -- United States -- Biography | Businessmen -- United States -- BiographyDDC classification: 338.476213 | Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Lending | MTU Bishopstown Library Lending | 338.476213 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 00013111 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
This is the story of the "other" Thomas Edison--not the heroic lone inventor, but Edison the businessman, industrialist, and successful manager of one of the world's largest industrial research laboratories. Tracing his career from his boyhood to his death in 1931, Edison and the Business of Innovation reveals Edison to be an entrepreneur of extraordinary vision. From extensive research in the Edison archives at West Orange, New Jersey, Andre Millard presents new information about Edison the businessman and provides new interpretations of old issues.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-380) and index.
The largest laboratory extant -- The machine shop culture -- The business of innovation -- The phonography: a case study in research and development -- Edison's laboratory and the electrical industry -- Diversification in the 1890s -- Moving pictures -- An industrial empire -- Thomas A. Edison, incorporated -- The diamond disc -- The rise of the organization -- Business and technology: the dictating machine -- The impending conflict -- The end of an era -- The last years.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
CHOICE Review
A chronicle of Thomas A. Edison's later triumphs and failures as he developed his ideal "invention factory" at West Orange, New Jersey (after his more famous--but less revealing--pioneering work at Menlo Park). The West Orange industrial complex (involving the transiently successful sound recording, movie making, and battery manufacture enterprises, among many others) was founded by Edison in the 1880s, but eventually overwhelmed him in the 1920s, so that his innovations (especially in industrial management, according to Millard) eventually flourished (or equally often faded away) in other more modern phases of the "second industrial revolution." Millard participated extensively in the ambitious "Edison Papers Project" organized by the National Park Service at the West Orange site as a model for future regional history projects, and this splendidly detailed study is a portent of illuminating works to be expected from that remarkable project. (See, e.g., Edison, Papers, v.1, CH, Oct'89.) The focus of the work is divided between Edison's (incredible) personal effort of technological innovation and the institutional development of his prototype for the modern ("divisional") industrial research laboratory. This book is of special interest to academic libraries serving all levels of readers in the history of technology, industrial engineering management, and the newly popular "science studies." -P. D. Skiff, Bard CollegeAuthor notes provided by Syndetics
André Millard is a professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of Beatlemania: Technology, Business, and Teen Culture in Cold War America and Equipping James Bond: Guns, Gadgets, and Technological Enthusiasm .