Edison's West Orange Laboratory

Building 1 was the galvanometer room which contained equipment for electrical research and testing. A galvanometer is an instrument that measures electric current. This room reflected Edison's continued interest in electric light research at West Orange.

Vault 8 was constructed in 1912-1913 for fireproof storage of films produced by Edison's Educational Motion Picture Department.

Building 11 was constructed around 1898 as a temporary work space. Edison and his staff used it for different projects, changing the interior as their research needs changed. To make room for Vault 12, an underground storage facility constructed by the Edison Co. to store artifacts and documents, Building 11 was dismantled and donated to the Henry Ford Museum in 1940.
In 2003 The Henry Ford Museum returned the building to the park.

This is a reconstruction of the Black Maria, a building constructed in 1893 as an experimental motion picture studio. This odd-shaped structure was designed to keep sunlight on the stage while Edison's film pioneers made kinetoscope films.

The Courtyard - This open space between the laboratory buildings served many purposes: delivery area, test site, motion picture set, photograph backdrop, greeting area, and parking lot.

Building 2, the Chemistry Laboratory

Chemistry Laboratory - In 1888 this building was one of the best-equipped chemistry laboratories in the world. Within its walls, Thomas Edison and his chemists experimented on everything from phonograph records to rubber.

Building 3 - The front area of this building was used for chemical storage. The back area housed the pattern shop.

Pattern Shop (right) - Within this building carpenters shaped wood models, or patterns. From these wooden pieces, Edison and his employees made the parts for working models, specialized machinery, and other devices.

Workers forged metal parts for inventions and laboratory machinery in Blacksmith shop, the fourth constructed at the lab, (Building 7, to the left). It was built in 1919.

In the metallurgical laboratory, workers collected, and analyzed minerals for Edison's ore milling project in the 1890s, and metals used in the storage battery. Later, researchers experimented on sound recording and phonograph record duplication. By 1912, much of the experimental work focused on the diamond disc phonograph.

Modern view of Building 5, the main laboratory building, as seen from outside the lab gates at the intersection of Main St and Lakeside Ave.

The library was Edison's office and was a resource of scientific and technical information for Edison's workers. The grandeur of the library, which contains mementos from his long career, reflected Edison's status as America's most famous inventor.

Stock Room - Edison filled this room from floor to ceiling with supplies for his experiments - everything from common objects like nuts and bolts to more exotic materials like elephant hide or rhinoceros horn.

Skilled machinists in the heavy machine shop used these tools to cut and shape the metal parts to construct models of Edison's inventions.

Workers in the precision machine shop used these tools to build prototypes for smaller inventions like the phonograph and the storage battery. They built working models and explored ways to improve existing Edison products. The rooms open layout allowed workers to modify the floor plan as their needs changed.

Edison used Room 12 as a private research space. During the labs construction in 1887, Edison asked builders to set aside a room for "sub rosa" or secret projects.

In this room, draftsmen took the rough sketches produced by Edison's experimenters and turned them into the precise measured drawings that machinists used to construct invention prototypes.

In the music room staff made experimental recordings on wax cylinders to discover the best sound recording techniques. In the early 20th century this room became what today's music industry calls an Artist & Repertoire department, where Edison selected songs and artists for his record catalog.

Many of the images of Edison and his inventions were photographed in this room, the photo department. Edison used these photographs to promote his products and his public image.

The park's museum collection includes more than 400,000 artifacts, five million documents, 60,000 historic photographs, and 35,000 sound recordings. The cabinets and shelves in this room display some of these artifacts.