Edison vs. Tesla | The Business of Discovery | 4 - American History Tellers

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[00:00]
Lindsey Graham
Hello American Historyteller listeners. I have an exciting announcement. I'm going on tour and coming to a theater near you. This live show is a thrilling evening of history, storytelling and music, with a full band accompanying me as we look back to explore the days that made America. And they aren't the days that you might think. Sure, everyone knows July 4th, 1776. We'll be hearing a lot about that date this year, but there are many other days that are maybe even more influential, so come out to see me live. More shows to be announced soon, so for information on tickets and upcoming dates, go to americanhistorylive.com that's americanhistorylive.com Come see my days that Made America tour live on stage. Go to americanhistorylive.com. From Audible Originals. I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American Historytellers. Our history your story. Few figures in American history reshaped daily life as much as Thomas Edison. The world he was born into in 1847 was lit by candles and oil lamps for most Americans and gas lit for the wealthy few. But by the time he died in 1931, electricity flowed through homes and businesses across the country. Edison and the research teams he organized played a major role in that transformation. Over the course of his life, he was granted more than a thousand US Patents. But his legacy extends beyond invention. Edison helped pioneer the very idea of organized innovation, building some of the first modern research and development laboratories in Menlo park and later West Orange, New Jersey. In the process, he established a model for how the modern world would go about the business of discovery. To help us understand the man behind the myth, I'm joined today by Dr. Paul Israel, Director and general editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University and author of several books about Edison, including A Life of Invention. Our conversation is next.
[02:15]
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[02:20]
Lindsey Graham
Yeah.
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[03:24]
Lindsey Graham
Paul Israel, thanks for joining me today on American Historytellers.
[03:28]
Dr. Paul Israel
My pleasure.
[03:29]
Lindsey Graham
So Thomas Edison was a tinkerer from a young age, but where did his curiosity come from?
[03:34]
Dr. Paul Israel
Well, I think that kids tend to be naturally curious and some retain that and others become less curious over time. So Edison retained his curiosity. I think part of that was in fact, his education and the environment that he was in. So the 19th century, it was easy to be not just curious about technology, but to learn it pretty easily. Since most technology was mechanical, you could literally see how a piece of machinery worked. And then Edison's own education was pretty informal. He was first in a private school when he was about 7 or 8, and then for a variety of reasons, including possibly the family not being able to pay for this private school in Port Huron, where he grew up. He was born in Milo in Ohio, and so his mother began to teach him by focusing on reading and reading a lot of the books in his father's library. That's one of the reasons why Edison was sort of imbued with the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, especially Thomas Paine. And his father was an entrepreneur. So one of the things he began to understand was how entrepreneurship worked. And so between his parents, he developed a love of learning through reading and sort of understanding how one could move from one project to another, not being worried about setbacks, figuring out how to move forward. And I think all those things were really important to his education.
[05:11]
Lindsey Graham
You mentioned Edison's getting used to setbacks. This became integral for his innovative approach, this iteration, this tireless perseverance. How did Thomas Edison get involved in scientific inquiry like this? How did he begin to learn how to innovate?
[05:27]
Dr. Paul Israel
Edison as a child and then as a young boy is surrounded by an environment where there are very exciting technologies happening. So when they move to Port Huron, it's a lumber town, but there's also shipbuilding going on there. So Edison's first experiments were when he was a kid. He briefly attended the new public school in Port Huron, and that's where he encountered his first science book, Parker's Natural Philosophy. There Was a lot in there about electricity and chemistry. In fact, the frontest piece of the book was the telegraph system. And he and a friend experimented with their own telegraph line. Edison began to think about chemistry, since batteries, for example, were chemical batteries, Right. So Edison began to learn about electricity and about the telegraph from this experience. And then he decided that he didn't really enjoy working on his father's truck farm out in the hot sun. And so he got a job on the local rail line. There was a new line, the Grand Trunk Railway, between Port Huron that moved down the line to Detroit, which was south of the town he grew up in. And he sold newspapers and magazines, candy and things like that. And over time, he began to collect a little chemical lab, buying materials in Detroit. The Detroit Free Press editor gave him a little printing press, and he actually printed a little newspaper for a while on the train. And so even as a newsboy on the train, he was beginning to experiment. And then there was this event going on at the same time he was doing this. The Civil War. That was obviously a major concern to all the people living in that area, especially when family members were in battles. And there was one major battle where Edison knew that a lot of the people from the local area were involved in a battalion. And so he got the Detroit Free Press editor to give him extra papers. And as he went down the line and the number of papers dwindled, his price went up, and so he was learning some business values and entrepreneurial values from being on the train.
[07:47]
Lindsey Graham
He also grew even more interested in telegraphy from his time working with the Grand Trunk Railway. He became a telegraph operator in his teens. Why don't you discuss a little bit about the wild world of telegraph operators then and how it might have shaped Edison's life of invention.
[08:03]
Dr. Paul Israel
So the telegraph was still a relatively new technology at this time. The first line was established in the mid-1840s, and the telegraph slowly spread through to the Midwest. By the time Edison was a young boy, the telegraph was something that was also crucial for the trains. Often this is what was alerting stations ahead that there was a train coming and a way to prevent trains from running into each other. If there was a single track and along the way were telegraph operators, Edison would visit their offices and talk to them about telegraphy. And then he got his first job as a telegraph operator in the Port Huron office, which was in a jewelry and clock repair shop. And then shortly thereafter, he got a job as a railway telegrapher on the port. Port Huron railway. And over the next four so years he literally was a itinerant telegrapher moving from place to place in the Midwest. And he became very skilled as a press wire operator. The Associated Press began as a telegraph wire service, and operators like Edison would take the stories down overnight and then deliver them to the newspaper office the next day. And as well, during these years, he experimented with the technology itself.
[09:33]
Lindsey Graham
Let's talk about those experiments. What were some of Edison's first inventions made, I guess, while he was a telegrapher?
[09:40]
Dr. Paul Israel
Right. So probably his first invention was a little practice telegraph, where he could, as the signal came in, he could slow down the message so he could practice his receiving skills. And this particular design he would later adapt to his experiments on what was known as automatic telegraphy, which is a way of recording at very high speed, and then the recording could be played back at a slower speed. One of the main things he experimented on is what were known as repeaters. So the United States is a very big country, and battery power allowed you to send a signal about 250 miles. If the signal had to go further, then an operator had to retransmit it. And so what people began to develop were repeaters. And Edison had a lot of designs for repeaters, including one that was actually featured in a book on telegraphy as a repeater that could be set up in an emergency situation. And then he also was experimenting on things like ways to send more than one message over a single line. And. And Edison moves from the Midwest to Boston, where he begins to work on his first important inventions. In particular a stock printer that was used to report gold prices. This, along with his double transmitter, bring him to New York, where he's involved with the Golden Stock Telegraph Company and develops improvements in stock ticker technology used not just on the stock exchange, but all market exchanges. Gold, silver, produce, oil, cotton. This connects him up to Western Union, in part because he's also working on ways of sending two messages at the same time. And he invents something called the quadruple, which allows four messages, two in each direction. And this and other inventions of the telegraph industry lead Edison to begin to develop a small laboratory in Newark. And by the end of the year 1875, he decides that he wants to get his family out of the city, which is becoming increasingly polluted.
[11:55]
Lindsey Graham
So then, in 1876, Edison graduates to setting up his workshop in Menlo Park, New Jersey, his most famous location. He was only 30 years old. Describe the place for us.
[12:07]
Dr. Paul Israel
So he finds some land just off the rail line between Newark and Philadelphia in central New Jersey. And that's where he sets up this new laboratory. It's a wooden building. It has a machine shop in the bottom half of the building. Upstairs is an electrical and chemical lab. And by this time he is working for Western Union. He convinces the company to provide him with $100 a week to help support the work of the machine shop and the machinists that are there. He only has five people. Three machinists tells you how important the machine shop is for iterating designs. Edison could come up with a design, machine shop, could make it, they could experiment with it and then modify it. And two experimenters. And he's working on additional telegraph technologies. One of those becomes what we know today as a telephone, at that time was called a speaking telegraph. Edison doesn't invent the first telephone. A guy named Alexander Graham Bell does. And in 1876, at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, it becomes one of the big things, right? The demonstration of the telephone there. And Western Union is increasingly interested in having Edison work on this new technology. And one of the things that comes out of his work on the telephone is a way to record telephone messages, because Edison thinks about it like a telegraph and recording and playback would be important. And this becomes an entirely independent invention called the phonograph, the first ever system for recording and playing back sound.
[13:52]
Lindsey Graham
What impact did the phonograph have on Edison's work at Menlo Park?
[13:56]
Dr. Paul Israel
The phonograph changes everything. It's what makes Edison famous. It attracts investors associated with the Bell Company who set up the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. He begins to hire more experimenters and more machinists. And so this is in 1878 that Edison gains this new fame. And by the end of the year, he's beginning to think about something called electric lighting. If the phonograph makes him famous, it's the electric light research and development that transforms Menlo park from what one reporter called an invention factory to really the first industrial research and development laboratory in the United States. In October of 1878, Edison is describing to the press that he thinks he's solved the problem of creating an electric light system and providing small incandescent indoor lights. And people connected with the telegraph industry, especially Western Union, are the first to invest in this. And they set up a company called the Edison Electric Light Company. And one of the things that happens is that Menlo Park Laboratory grows. There had been maybe about a dozen men at Menlo Park. By the end of 1878, he begins to hire new researchers, and he hires a German scientific instrument glassblower and they set up a small little building for the glassblower. There's a carpenter shop, a big brick machine shop, and the number of experimenters expands. He's got 25, then 30, and then as they finally reach a point where they have a basic lamp design and basic generator design by the fall of 1879, Edison exhibits his new lamp and he actually sets up a pilot station in Menlo park on the model of what he wants to build in New York.
[16:05]
Lindsey Graham
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[18:09]
Lindsey Graham
Before the Electric light, the phonograph was Edison's most famous invention. And as I think about it, until the electric light, all of his work was in communications and kind of auditory communications. But he had hearing loss. How might that have influenced his invention and innovation?
[18:26]
Dr. Paul Israel
So, yes, this is one of the ironies of Edison's career is how much someone who had some hearing difficulties, it was progressive, it got worse over time, how much he was involved in technologies that involve sound. So he used to say that he saw his hearing difficulties as an advantage. So when he was a telegraph operator, it allowed him to focus on the dots and dashes of the telegraph instrument because he wasn't hearing other noise in the room. Right. And then as a inventor of the phonograph of improved telephone technology, in some respects, his hearing was treated as a test instrument. His ability to hear something meant that it was both articulated and loud enough that it should work in a commercial setting.
[19:21]
Lindsey Graham
So we know that Edison kept copious records of the work underway at Menlo park and his other lab at West Orange. This wasn't just because he liked to take notes, though, talk a bit about how he was savvy in applying for patents to secure and promote his innovations.
[19:36]
Dr. Paul Israel
One of the things that Edison learned very early in his career as a telegraph inventor, the fellow who was the president of the Golden Stock Telegraph Company, which was the main company using those small printing telegraph stock tickers for various market reports, took Edison to his patent attorney. And the patent attorney had Edison write down all the things he was working on at the time. And the last page of the book has this very interesting notation that he clearly was told by the patent attorney, hereafter, I will keep a complete record of all inventions right in the US System. It's not first defile, which is what it was in many European countries, such as England. In the US it was first to invent. And so part of that was proving that you invented something before a competitor did. And one way to do that was to keep a very good record of your experimental work. And so Edison learned this lesson, and that's why there are about 4,000 notebooks, not just Edison's, but everybody that worked for him kept notebooks. And we don't even have all the notebooks that were kept by all the other researchers. Some of them walked off with theirs. So this is why we have a great record of the experimental work that went on in Newark, in Menlo park, and then at West Orange. Edison understood the value of these records, but he also learned, and in part this was because he was in the telegraph industry, where people like the head of Golden Stock, and then later the president of Western Union began to see controlling the technology through patents was a way to prevent competitors from entering into the industry. Right. Didn't always work, but it gave those companies an advantage. And this is something Edison learned. And so one of the things he did was he patented variations on an invention, realizing that he could use that to protect his patent position and that of his companies.
[21:49]
Lindsey Graham
So after the phonograph, after the light bulb, and with the race to electrify entire cities now underway, this is the introduction of Nikola Tesla. He went to work with Edison Machine Works. And there's this, I guess, popular image of Edison as a savvy businessman who's best at patenting things, as we just described. But Nikola Tesla as a genius who's just overrun by men like Edison. How accurate is this story?
[22:13]
Dr. Paul Israel
Right. So here's how I like to describe the difference between Edison and Tesla. Edison was somebody who was very good at understanding how to move new technology into a commercial phase, how to do the development work, not just the inventive work, but the development work, to move it from the laboratory out into the real world, and how to continue a process of innovation to make it work from the start. Edison is never really a lone inventor. It's always collaborative. Right. So he has experimenters that he works with very closely. They work closely with the machinists to design and improve the instruments, to test them. So it's basic applied research rather than basic scientific research. Design to gain insights into nature, more to gain insights into the technology itself and the sciences around it, like electromagnetism, for example. Tesla was more a kind of idealist inventor. This actually comes out of the work of W. Bernard Carlson at the University of Virginia. Bernie wrote a book about Tesla that was published in 2013, and he points to the way in which Tesla was happy to reach a state where he could demonstrate that his idea could work in the laboratory, but was much less skilled at figuring out how to bring it out of the lab into the real world. And so oftentimes, the technologies that Tesla had, he spent years working on them, but they never reached a commercial phase. The one technology where Tesla was successful was with his alternating current motors and then later, the polyphase alternating current distribution system. Alternating current worked on higher voltages than Edison's direct current. You needed fewer stations. You could distribute electricity over a much greater area with very high voltages and then step those voltages down so they'd be safe once they reached into buildings. The reason that Tesla's work in this area succeeded was because the Westinghouse company employed its own inventors and engineers who were able to take Tesla's ideas and figure out how to make them commercially viable. Tesla told this story about his motor, about how he knew it would work and would wear well over time, because he ran it in his head over and over, imagining the wear and how the motor worked. Edison did that in practice with real devices, and that's what the Westinghouse engineers did as well. So there's this sort of difference between Tesla, the sort of idealist inventor, and someone like Edison, who's really more an inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator.
[25:17]
Lindsey Graham
So it seems the real rivalry then was between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, who backed Tesla. So what was their rivalry like?
[25:25]
Dr. Paul Israel
When Westinghouse established his first alternating current station, he had a number of very skilled inventors and engineers working for him who developed that system. And they drew also on work that was going on in Europe at the same time. So in 1886, the first Westinghouse station appears in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. And Edison begins to pay attention to AC and does some investigation. And there are a couple of things he's very concerned about. One is the AC system works at these very high voltages, and that can be unsafe if not dealt with by the way in which the system is developed and designed. And so Edison writes this memo about AC in which he says, sooner or later, Westinghouse is going to electrocute someone. And one of the things you have to understand at this very moment is that the higher voltage arc light systems that were used for street lighting in American cities were strung along the streets. The wires were strung along the street right next to telegraph and telephone wires. And there were occasional accidental electrocutions of linemen from telegraph and telephone companies whose lines crossed with an arc light. And so this fear of the electrical system was real on the part of many people, and Edison was concerned about this. The other thing was the AC system had these transformers and other elements that Edison thought would add to the cost. Now, what he didn't recognize is that the advantage of AC is that you could build larger central stations that could distribute power over longer distances. And it meant you didn't need a station every couple of miles in a city like New York. So between the Pearl street station that has been built in lower Manhattan, and then another station around 23rd, another station a little farther north of that, in order to power the bottom half of Manhattan, the AC system could build one larger station and distribute that power. And this was especially important as you begin to get the electrification of the suburbs, which are growing at this period. You don't Want central stations if you live in a nice suburb because you have steam engines and the smoke from them and the noise. And so AC had some real advantages. And Edison never really recognized that those advantages would make his DC system less desirable for central stations. It doesn't mean that DC disappeared. In fact, DC was used for what were known as isolated plants for individual buildings. In fact, more people in the 19th century experienced incandescent lighting from a building that had its own power station than from central stations. It's really not till the 1920s that you really begin to get the emergence of what would later become the modern grid. And a lot of those were DC stations. And in fact, the last DC station decommissioned by Con Ed was decommissioned in 2007. It was running motors that drove elevators up and down apartment buildings, because those kind of motors work better as DC than they do ac. And in fact, even today, right, DC is what powers all of our laptops and phones and other small electrical devices. And now increasingly, what they're discovering is high voltage DC is actually better for long distance distribution than high voltage ac. So DC actually still has a place in our electrical system.
[29:22]
Lindsey Graham
But even ultimately, Edison's own company switched over to ac. At the time, that must have been a big deal for him.
[29:29]
Dr. Paul Israel
Yeah, it was. So what happens because the Edison company resists, and it's really Edison, because there are people in the company saying, we need ac. Edison resists that. And there's a second company, Thomson Houston, that is also developing AC technology at this time. And the two companies had discussions about merging at various points. And in 1892, early in the year, the investors in Edison Electric, which had become Edison General Electric, and the Thompson Houston company decide to merge. And what happens is that the people who are running Thompson Houston take over the company. And this new company is called General Electric. The Edison name disappears. Edison is put on the board of directors, but really has nothing to do with the running of the company after that. He goes on to many other projects over the last 40 years of his life. But what's significant is that this marks the transition to AC for central stations. And in 1893, the Chicago Columbian Exposition, both General Electric and Westinghouse compete. Westinghouse wins the award. And then two years later, Westinghouse uses Tesla's polyphase AC distribution system to win the award for a new power station at Niagara Falls, where the electricity is sent down to Buffalo. And suddenly the potential of AC to create a much larger electrical grid that can power a much bigger area becomes evident. And this much marks the transition from small central stations and individual plants for buildings to the growth of the grid that we all use today.
[31:38]
Lindsey Graham
Whether you're exploring your current fascinations or discovering new ones, Audible has all the stories that'll introduce you to your most fascinating self. Tap into a whole new world of heated conversations with a saucy romantasy series, become your friend group sci fi expert on the latest blockbuster book to screen adaptation, or find unexpected reveals through the exclusive episodes of a viral true crime podcast. However you choose to listen, Audible keeps you fascinated so you can be just as fascinating all in one easy app. With plans now starting at $8.99, you'll get access to over 1 million audiobooks and podcasts, including trending bestsellers, the hottest new releases and exclusive podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Sign up now to become a member and get any audiobook every month. Plus exclusive podcasts. Plans now start at $8.99. Audible be fascinated, be fascinating. Whether you're exploring your current fascinations or discovering new ones, Audible has all the stories that'll introduce you to your most fascinating self. Tap into a whole new world of heated conversations with a saucy romantasy series, become your friend group's sci fi expert on the latest blockbuster book to screen adaptation or find unexpected reveals through the exclusive episodes of a viral true crime podcast. However you choose to listen, Audible keeps you fascinated so you can be just as fascinating all in one easy app. With plans now starting at $8.99, you'll get access to over 1 million audiobooks and podcasts, including trending bestsellers, the hottest new releases and exclusive podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Sign up now to become a member and get any audiobook every month. Plus exclusive podcasts. Plans now start at $8.99. Audible be fascinated, be fascinating. So then, here we are. With Edison fundamentally losing the war of the currents, AC is ascendant. His name is removed from his company. He moves to a new workshop facility at West Orange. What is he doing now after this period?
[33:59]
Dr. Paul Israel
Well, he built West Orange in 1887 and opened it in 1888. He was still in the electrical industry at the time and in fact it was the R and D facility for the Edison General Electric Company. But once GE is formed, Edison decides that he's going to move on to other projects. He had some that he was already working on. The biggest one for the period of the 1890s is an effort to use electromagnetic separation to be able to take low grade iron ore from the Played out iron mines of the east coast and produce iron for the steel mills. That project a fully automated mining operation and processing operation tactically successful. It fails because a huge new iron deposit in the Great Lakes region of Lake Superior is discovered, the Mesabi Range. So it fails. He takes the technology that he'd been using for rock crushing and applies it to the production of sand for cement. And investigates the cement industry and designs new technology, including a much improved rotary kiln that becomes the industry standard. He develops an automated plant out in western New Jersey. The original Yankee Stadium is built with Edison Portland Cement. Two other projects of the 1890s, the phonograph became a commercially viable technology. And Edison helps to found the modern sound recording industry. And through the 1890s and into the first three decades of the 20th century, Edison's phonograph is a crucial part of that technology. Now there are competitors such as the Victor Company. Edison competes with his cylinder against the Victor discovery. Eventually, Victor wins out as the shift is made to electric recording with the development of vacuum tube technology and electronics. And then the other technology that he spent a lot of time on, beginning in the 1890s through World War I is the motion picture industry. Edison develops the first commercial camera and viewing system. Later, this becomes a industry that grows. Edison is in the industry until World War I, and then he gives it up. He's never really quite sure what the market is for motion pictures. And so his company kind of fades away in a sense. And then also in the first decade of the 20th century, he develops the first alkaline storage battery for electric automobiles. There were actually more electric automobiles in the first few years of the 20th century than internal combustion cars. And they ultimately lose out as Henry Ford develops his mass production system for automobiles. That drives the cost of internal combustion cars down. But Also World War I, where electric vehicles are not useful on the battlefield. And all the companies shift to production of gas powered automobiles. There are still a few things, like delivery trucks that use batteries. But electric cars don't really reemerge until the 1960s and 1970s. And we're still on the cycle of the development of that industry as it reemerges after more or less disappearing during Edison's time. So these are the technologies Edison continues to work with. He builds a huge factory complex in West Orange, New Jersey, has another one a few miles away that includes his chemical laboratories. And so Edison is both a inventor, entrepreneur, and increasingly a captain of industry.
[37:56]
Lindsey Graham
In this period of losing out to AC and losing his name off, his company was Edison Personally bitter.
[38:03]
Dr. Paul Israel
So the question of whether Edison was bitter is one that I think, you know, there's some uncertainty about what his initial reaction to this was. There are conflicting news reports, some saying Edison favored the merger, others that he opposed it. But in later comments. Right. So the person who was his private secretary at the time, guy named Alfred Tate, later talked about Edison was very embittered and felt like the company no longer had his name associated with it. He says something like, apparently I never knew anything about electricity. And then later on in newspaper reports, you see Edison saying, I'm going to do something even bigger now than the electrical system. That was his process for mining low grade iron ore. He thought that would be his next big project, and it was, even though it failed. But Edison essentially left the electrical industry behind. And so I think there was a way in which he was somewhat bitter about what had happened.
[39:06]
Lindsey Graham
So we've spent a fair amount of time going through Edison's remarkable career, but I wonder what you might personally consider to be his most important invention or innovation.
[39:15]
Dr. Paul Israel
Well, I think ultimately his most important innovation and influence. What came after is the Industrial Research and Development Laboratory. Edison created a model that others took and improved upon so that by the 1910s, increasingly industrial research laboratories are emerging in many industries. And by the end of the 1920s, almost every major industry has its. The companies in them have industrial research laboratories. There are some leading ones like General Electric and Bell Labs, but many other industries have this kind of process for developing the technologies that they're using. You know, if there's one central thing that's sort of most important about Edison's career, it's that. And then I would say next would be the sound recording industry. It's the one that he stayed with the longest. And it clearly changed the way we think about sound as instead of being something that disappears, it's something that can be captured. And then finally the electrical industry, because Edison designs the essential electrical system, most of the elements of it, even before ac, are part of Edison. So those are the big three. If I were to say what, what are the most important things that Edison
[40:36]
Lindsey Graham
worked on throughout his career? Edison was on the vanguard of several very different technologies, but almost always in communications. And he could be compared to what we are experiencing now in Silicon Valley. I wonder what you think of the comparison between entrepreneurial innovators of his age and ours today.
[40:57]
Dr. Paul Israel
So I think there are some very definite parallels. Right. So Silicon Valley in its earlier years was very much a startup place. And that's what happened with Edison and electric light and sound recording and movies. All those things were startups. And lots of other companies emerge that compete. And then what happens is what happens in the electrical industry in the 1890s, after the formation of General Electricity, Westinghouse and General Electric decide that they're just going to cross license each other and they drive every other company out of the business, which is essentially what's happened in Silicon Valley. All those startups get eaten up by the big guys and so we have oligopoly power where there are a few big firms and they eat everybody else up.
[41:50]
Lindsey Graham
Well, Paul Israel, thank you so much for speaking with me today on American history.
[41:54]
Dr. Paul Israel
My pleasure.
[41:55]
Lindsey Graham
That was my conversation with Dr. Paul Israel, Director and General Editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University. He's also the author of A Life of Invention. In our next series, as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we explore the most extraordinary struggle in our nation's history. The American Revolution. In the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, British regulars marched on Lexington and Concord, and the shot heard round the world that day would change everything. For the next eight years, American men and women would fight, suffer and sacrifice in order to forge a new nation, one built on the idea that power lay with the people. Follow American Historytellers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of American Historytellers ad free by joining Audible. And to find out more about me and my other projects, including my live stage show coming to a theater near you, go to NotThatLinseyGraham.com that's NotThatLinseyGraham.com from Audible Originals. This is the fourth and final episode of our series Edison vs. Tesla. American Historytellers is host, edited and produced by me, Lindsey Grant for Airship. This episode was produced by Polly Stryker senior producers Alida Ryazanski and Andy Beckerman Managing Producer Desi Blalock Music by Thrum Sound Design by Molly Bogg Executive Producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, Head of Creative Development at Audible Kate Navin, Head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza Copyright Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Originates LLC.
[44:00]
Leon Naifak
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[44:13]
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[44:27]
Leon Naifak
My journalistic curiosity got the best of me when I found out that my only sister had started an OnlyFans account.
[44:32]
Gracie Kanan
I'm not his sister.
[44:33]
Leon Naifak
Just to clarify, it turns out a lot of what I thought I knew about OnlyFans was wrong.
[44:39]
Dr. Paul Israel
I felt like I wasted 3.5 years
[44:41]
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Summary7 min read

American History Tellers

Episode Title: Edison vs. Tesla | The Business of Discovery | 4
Host: Lindsey Graham
Guest: Dr. Paul Israel, Director/Editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers University
Release Date: May 27, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode marks the conclusion of the Edison vs. Tesla series, focusing on the business and legacy of organized innovation, especially through Thomas Edison’s relentless drive, collaborative research, and rivalry with Tesla and George Westinghouse. Host Lindsey Graham interviews Dr. Paul Israel, shedding light on Edison's journey from a self-taught young experimenter to the architect of America’s first R&D labs and towering figure in the electrification of the nation. The discussion dives into Edison’s upbringing, inventive processes, patent strategies, and the complex interplay of personalities and business during the “War of the Currents.”

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Edison’s Early Life and the Roots of Curiosity

Upbringing & Education (03:28–05:10)
- Edison’s natural curiosity was retained into adulthood, fostered in part by informal home education led by his mother after the family could not afford private school.
- Exposure to his father’s entrepreneurial ventures and a home library filled with works by Enlightenment thinkers, like Thomas Paine, contributed to his independent mindset.
- Quote:
  
  "He developed a love of learning through reading...not being worried about setbacks, figuring out how to move forward."
  (Dr. Paul Israel, 04:30)
First Experiments & Business Lessons (05:10–07:46)
- Edison's first technical curiosity was piqued by exposure to machinery in Port Huron, a region alive with lumber and shipbuilding trades.
- He operated his own chemistry lab and railway newspaper as a youth, learning practical business skills, especially during the Civil War by selling information at a premium to eager customers.
- Quote:
  
  "So even as a newsboy on the train, he was beginning to experiment...he was learning some business values and entrepreneurial values from being on the train."
  (Dr. Paul Israel, 07:30)

Diving into Telegraphy and Early Innovations

Becoming a Telegraph Operator (07:46–09:33)
- The telegraph's role in rail safety introduced Edison to communications technology, eventually landing him jobs as a telegraph operator and allowing deep experimentation with the system.
- He became especially skilled with press wires, relaying Associated Press stories—a vital communication link of the time.
Edison's First Inventions (09:33–11:55)
- Created a practice telegraph to slow down messages, a technique he adapted for “automatic telegraphy.”
- Designed repeaters to boost signal range, and developed methods for sending multiple messages over one line, culminating in the quadruplex telegraph (sending four messages, two in each direction).
- Work on advanced telegraph and stock ticker systems led to recognition and business opportunities in New York.

Menlo Park: The Birth of the Modern Lab

Setting Up at Menlo Park (11:55–13:51)
- At age 30, Edison created his most famous lab in Menlo Park (1876)—a collaborative hub with machine shops and experiment rooms. Initial small team expanded with success.
- Early focus on telephone (after Bell's invention), but while working on message recording, Edison discovers the phonograph, the first sound playback system.
The Phonograph and Shift to Electric Light (13:51–16:05)
- The phonograph made Edison a household name, attracted major investors, and allowed Menlo Park to grow into America’s first industrial R&D center.
- Electric light research rapidly expanded the lab, launching Edison's influential role in modern electricity distribution and organized invention.

Sound Innovations & Personal Adversity

Hearing Loss and Sound Technology (18:08–19:21)
- Despite progressive hearing difficulties, Edison saw his impairment as an asset—it isolated him from distraction and offered a practical test for his sound innovations.
- Quote:
  
  "When he was a telegraph operator, [hearing loss] allowed him to focus...on the dots and dashes...he wasn't hearing other noise in the room."
  (Dr. Paul Israel, 18:48)

Innovation, Documentation, and Patents

Meticulous Record-keeping (19:21–21:48)
- Edison learned the value of thorough documentation for legal and competitive reasons, amassing over 4,000 notebooks from himself and his team for patent defense.
- Patented not just core inventions, but variations, strategically walling off competitors.
- Quote:
  
  “Hereafter, I will keep a complete record of all inventions.”
  (Advice in Edison's early career, per Dr. Paul Israel, 19:51)

Edison versus Tesla and Westinghouse: Myth and Reality

Contrasting Edison and Tesla (21:48–25:16)
- Edison excelled at commercializing innovation and collaborative, applied problem-solving. Tesla was the “idealist” innovator, brilliant but less adept at executing ideas for market.
- Tesla’s technological triumph—the AC motor and system—became practical only when Westinghouse engineers developed his concepts for wide use.
- Quote:
  
  “Tesla was happy to reach a state where he could demonstrate that his idea could work in the laboratory, but was much less skilled at figuring out how to bring it out of the lab into the real world.”
  (Dr. Paul Israel, 23:23)
The Real Rivalry: Edison vs. Westinghouse (25:16–29:22)
- Westinghouse’s AC systems enabled larger-scale, safer, and more economical power distribution, especially key as suburbanization increased.
- Edison, wary of high-voltage dangers, was slow to adapt, focusing instead on DC’s safety and using isolated plant systems.
- Quote:
  
  “Edison never really recognized that [AC's] advantages would make his DC system less desirable for central stations.”
  (Dr. Paul Israel, 27:50)
- DC’s legacy persists (even into modern devices) despite AC's dominance in public power grids.

End of an Era: Edison and General Electric

The Switch to AC and Edison's Exit (29:22–33:58)
- As industry consensus preferred AC, Edison’s own company merged and effectively became General Electric, with Edison sidelined.
- The 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition and success at Niagara Falls cemented AC as standard; Edison then shifted focus to other ventures.

Edison’s Late Career & Lasting Innovations

New Ventures after Electricity (33:58–37:56)
- Attempts at magnetic ore mining (foiled by discovery of richer iron sources in Minnesota), rotary kilns for cement (used in Yankee Stadium), further phonograph and motion picture advancements, and even electric car batteries.
- Continually built industry-shaping facilities, remaining a potent force in invention, business, and manufacturing.
Bitterness & Reflection (37:56–39:05)
- Reports suggest Edison was embittered by the loss of his name and status in the new electrical era, but he continued pursuing breakthrough projects undeterred.
- Quote:
  
  "Apparently I never knew anything about electricity."
  (Attributed to Edison, reflecting on being removed from the electrical business, 38:15)

The Most Important Legacy: The R&D Lab

Dr. Israel’s Assessment (39:05–40:56)
- Edison’s greatest contribution: Creating the model for industrial R&D labs, a transformative approach emulated by companies in the U.S. and worldwide (e.g., General Electric, Bell Labs).
- Sound recording and the integrated electrical system are his next most significant achievements, fundamentally altering human life.
- Quote:
  
  “Ultimately his most important innovation...is the Industrial Research and Development Laboratory. Edison created a model that others took and improved upon.”
  (Dr. Paul Israel, 39:16)

Modern Parallels: Edison and Silicon Valley

On Innovation Today (40:56–41:49)
- Early “startup culture” in Edison's time mirrors Silicon Valley—where entrepreneurial chaos gives way to industry consolidation and dominance by giants.
- Quote:
  
  “What happens is...all those startups get eaten up by the big guys...we have oligopoly power where there are a few big firms and they eat everybody else up.”
  (Dr. Paul Israel, 41:28)

Memorable Quotes (By Time)

“He developed a love of learning through reading...not being worried about setbacks, figuring out how to move forward.”
(Dr. Paul Israel, 04:30)
“So even as a newsboy on the train, he was beginning to experiment...”
(Dr. Paul Israel, 07:30)
“Tesla was happy to...demonstrate that his idea could work in the laboratory, but was much less skilled at figuring out how to bring it out of the lab into the real world.”
(Dr. Paul Israel, 23:23)
“Edison never really recognized that [AC's] advantages would make his DC system less desirable for central stations.”
(Dr. Paul Israel, 27:50)
“Apparently I never knew anything about electricity.”
(Attributed to Edison, 38:15)
“Ultimately his most important innovation...is the Industrial Research and Development Laboratory. Edison created a model that others took and improved upon.”
(Dr. Paul Israel, 39:16)
"All those startups get eaten up by the big guys...we have oligopoly power where there are a few big firms and they eat everybody else up."
(Dr. Paul Israel, 41:28)

Timestamps for Key Segments

03:28–05:10 – Edison’s early curiosity and education
07:46–09:33 – Telegraphy and early experiments
11:55–13:51 – Menlo Park, beginnings of R&D labs
13:51–16:05 – Phonograph and birth of electric lighting research
18:08–19:21 – Edison's hearing loss and its impact
19:21–21:48 – Patent strategies and documentation
21:48–25:16 – Edison vs. Tesla: differences in innovation style
25:16–29:22 – Edison vs. Westinghouse: the War of the Currents
29:22–33:58 – General Electric and Edison’s exit from electricity
33:58–37:56 – Edison’s diverse later projects
37:56–39:05 – Edison’s reaction to losing his company
39:05–40:56 – Dr. Israel’s view on Edison’s legacy
40:56–41:49 – Comparison to Silicon Valley

Conclusion

This final episode offers a thoughtful reconsideration of Edison—not simply as an inventor, but as a builder of systems and organizations whose influence reached deep into the economic and cultural fabric of America and beyond. Rather than a story of lone genius versus romanticized martyr, the episode emphasizes invention as a team sport, shaped by ambition, competition, and the relentless march of technology.

For more, follow American History Tellers on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Transcript57 lines

[00:00]
Lindsey Graham
Hello American Historyteller listeners. I have an exciting announcement. I'm going on tour and coming to a theater near you. This live show is a thrilling evening of history, storytelling and music, with a full band accompanying me as we look back to explore the days that made America. And they aren't the days that you might think. Sure, everyone knows July 4th, 1776. We'll be hearing a lot about that date this year, but there are many other days that are maybe even more influential, so come out to see me live. More shows to be announced soon, so for information on tickets and upcoming dates, go to americanhistorylive.com that's americanhistorylive.com Come see my days that Made America tour live on stage. Go to americanhistorylive.com. From Audible Originals. I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American Historytellers. Our history your story. Few figures in American history reshaped daily life as much as Thomas Edison. The world he was born into in 1847 was lit by candles and oil lamps for most Americans and gas lit for the wealthy few. But by the time he died in 1931, electricity flowed through homes and businesses across the country. Edison and the research teams he organized played a major role in that transformation. Over the course of his life, he was granted more than a thousand US Patents. But his legacy extends beyond invention. Edison helped pioneer the very idea of organized innovation, building some of the first modern research and development laboratories in Menlo park and later West Orange, New Jersey. In the process, he established a model for how the modern world would go about the business of discovery. To help us understand the man behind the myth, I'm joined today by Dr. Paul Israel, Director and general editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University and author of several books about Edison, including A Life of Invention. Our conversation is next.
[02:15]
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[02:20]
Lindsey Graham
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[03:24]
Lindsey Graham
Paul Israel, thanks for joining me today on American Historytellers.
[03:28]
Dr. Paul Israel
My pleasure.
[03:29]
Lindsey Graham
So Thomas Edison was a tinkerer from a young age, but where did his curiosity come from?
[03:34]
Dr. Paul Israel
Well, I think that kids tend to be naturally curious and some retain that and others become less curious over time. So Edison retained his curiosity. I think part of that was in fact, his education and the environment that he was in. So the 19th century, it was easy to be not just curious about technology, but to learn it pretty easily. Since most technology was mechanical, you could literally see how a piece of machinery worked. And then Edison's own education was pretty informal. He was first in a private school when he was about 7 or 8, and then for a variety of reasons, including possibly the family not being able to pay for this private school in Port Huron, where he grew up. He was born in Milo in Ohio, and so his mother began to teach him by focusing on reading and reading a lot of the books in his father's library. That's one of the reasons why Edison was sort of imbued with the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, especially Thomas Paine. And his father was an entrepreneur. So one of the things he began to understand was how entrepreneurship worked. And so between his parents, he developed a love of learning through reading and sort of understanding how one could move from one project to another, not being worried about setbacks, figuring out how to move forward. And I think all those things were really important to his education.
[05:11]
Lindsey Graham
You mentioned Edison's getting used to setbacks. This became integral for his innovative approach, this iteration, this tireless perseverance. How did Thomas Edison get involved in scientific inquiry like this? How did he begin to learn how to innovate?
[05:27]
Dr. Paul Israel
Edison as a child and then as a young boy is surrounded by an environment where there are very exciting technologies happening. So when they move to Port Huron, it's a lumber town, but there's also shipbuilding going on there. So Edison's first experiments were when he was a kid. He briefly attended the new public school in Port Huron, and that's where he encountered his first science book, Parker's Natural Philosophy. There Was a lot in there about electricity and chemistry. In fact, the frontest piece of the book was the telegraph system. And he and a friend experimented with their own telegraph line. Edison began to think about chemistry, since batteries, for example, were chemical batteries, Right. So Edison began to learn about electricity and about the telegraph from this experience. And then he decided that he didn't really enjoy working on his father's truck farm out in the hot sun. And so he got a job on the local rail line. There was a new line, the Grand Trunk Railway, between Port Huron that moved down the line to Detroit, which was south of the town he grew up in. And he sold newspapers and magazines, candy and things like that. And over time, he began to collect a little chemical lab, buying materials in Detroit. The Detroit Free Press editor gave him a little printing press, and he actually printed a little newspaper for a while on the train. And so even as a newsboy on the train, he was beginning to experiment. And then there was this event going on at the same time he was doing this. The Civil War. That was obviously a major concern to all the people living in that area, especially when family members were in battles. And there was one major battle where Edison knew that a lot of the people from the local area were involved in a battalion. And so he got the Detroit Free Press editor to give him extra papers. And as he went down the line and the number of papers dwindled, his price went up, and so he was learning some business values and entrepreneurial values from being on the train.
[07:47]
Lindsey Graham
He also grew even more interested in telegraphy from his time working with the Grand Trunk Railway. He became a telegraph operator in his teens. Why don't you discuss a little bit about the wild world of telegraph operators then and how it might have shaped Edison's life of invention.
[08:03]
Dr. Paul Israel
So the telegraph was still a relatively new technology at this time. The first line was established in the mid-1840s, and the telegraph slowly spread through to the Midwest. By the time Edison was a young boy, the telegraph was something that was also crucial for the trains. Often this is what was alerting stations ahead that there was a train coming and a way to prevent trains from running into each other. If there was a single track and along the way were telegraph operators, Edison would visit their offices and talk to them about telegraphy. And then he got his first job as a telegraph operator in the Port Huron office, which was in a jewelry and clock repair shop. And then shortly thereafter, he got a job as a railway telegrapher on the port. Port Huron railway. And over the next four so years he literally was a itinerant telegrapher moving from place to place in the Midwest. And he became very skilled as a press wire operator. The Associated Press began as a telegraph wire service, and operators like Edison would take the stories down overnight and then deliver them to the newspaper office the next day. And as well, during these years, he experimented with the technology itself.
[09:33]
Lindsey Graham
Let's talk about those experiments. What were some of Edison's first inventions made, I guess, while he was a telegrapher?
[09:40]
Dr. Paul Israel
Right. So probably his first invention was a little practice telegraph, where he could, as the signal came in, he could slow down the message so he could practice his receiving skills. And this particular design he would later adapt to his experiments on what was known as automatic telegraphy, which is a way of recording at very high speed, and then the recording could be played back at a slower speed. One of the main things he experimented on is what were known as repeaters. So the United States is a very big country, and battery power allowed you to send a signal about 250 miles. If the signal had to go further, then an operator had to retransmit it. And so what people began to develop were repeaters. And Edison had a lot of designs for repeaters, including one that was actually featured in a book on telegraphy as a repeater that could be set up in an emergency situation. And then he also was experimenting on things like ways to send more than one message over a single line. And. And Edison moves from the Midwest to Boston, where he begins to work on his first important inventions. In particular a stock printer that was used to report gold prices. This, along with his double transmitter, bring him to New York, where he's involved with the Golden Stock Telegraph Company and develops improvements in stock ticker technology used not just on the stock exchange, but all market exchanges. Gold, silver, produce, oil, cotton. This connects him up to Western Union, in part because he's also working on ways of sending two messages at the same time. And he invents something called the quadruple, which allows four messages, two in each direction. And this and other inventions of the telegraph industry lead Edison to begin to develop a small laboratory in Newark. And by the end of the year 1875, he decides that he wants to get his family out of the city, which is becoming increasingly polluted.
[11:55]
Lindsey Graham
So then, in 1876, Edison graduates to setting up his workshop in Menlo Park, New Jersey, his most famous location. He was only 30 years old. Describe the place for us.
[12:07]
Dr. Paul Israel
So he finds some land just off the rail line between Newark and Philadelphia in central New Jersey. And that's where he sets up this new laboratory. It's a wooden building. It has a machine shop in the bottom half of the building. Upstairs is an electrical and chemical lab. And by this time he is working for Western Union. He convinces the company to provide him with $100 a week to help support the work of the machine shop and the machinists that are there. He only has five people. Three machinists tells you how important the machine shop is for iterating designs. Edison could come up with a design, machine shop, could make it, they could experiment with it and then modify it. And two experimenters. And he's working on additional telegraph technologies. One of those becomes what we know today as a telephone, at that time was called a speaking telegraph. Edison doesn't invent the first telephone. A guy named Alexander Graham Bell does. And in 1876, at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, it becomes one of the big things, right? The demonstration of the telephone there. And Western Union is increasingly interested in having Edison work on this new technology. And one of the things that comes out of his work on the telephone is a way to record telephone messages, because Edison thinks about it like a telegraph and recording and playback would be important. And this becomes an entirely independent invention called the phonograph, the first ever system for recording and playing back sound.
[13:52]
Lindsey Graham
What impact did the phonograph have on Edison's work at Menlo Park?
[13:56]
Dr. Paul Israel
The phonograph changes everything. It's what makes Edison famous. It attracts investors associated with the Bell Company who set up the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. He begins to hire more experimenters and more machinists. And so this is in 1878 that Edison gains this new fame. And by the end of the year, he's beginning to think about something called electric lighting. If the phonograph makes him famous, it's the electric light research and development that transforms Menlo park from what one reporter called an invention factory to really the first industrial research and development laboratory in the United States. In October of 1878, Edison is describing to the press that he thinks he's solved the problem of creating an electric light system and providing small incandescent indoor lights. And people connected with the telegraph industry, especially Western Union, are the first to invest in this. And they set up a company called the Edison Electric Light Company. And one of the things that happens is that Menlo Park Laboratory grows. There had been maybe about a dozen men at Menlo Park. By the end of 1878, he begins to hire new researchers, and he hires a German scientific instrument glassblower and they set up a small little building for the glassblower. There's a carpenter shop, a big brick machine shop, and the number of experimenters expands. He's got 25, then 30, and then as they finally reach a point where they have a basic lamp design and basic generator design by the fall of 1879, Edison exhibits his new lamp and he actually sets up a pilot station in Menlo park on the model of what he wants to build in New York.
[16:05]
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[17:04]
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[17:17]
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[17:31]
Leon Naifak
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[17:36]
Gracie Kanan
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[17:37]
Leon Naifak
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[17:42]
Dr. Paul Israel
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[17:45]
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[17:47]
Gracie Kanan
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[18:09]
Lindsey Graham
Before the Electric light, the phonograph was Edison's most famous invention. And as I think about it, until the electric light, all of his work was in communications and kind of auditory communications. But he had hearing loss. How might that have influenced his invention and innovation?
[18:26]
Dr. Paul Israel
So, yes, this is one of the ironies of Edison's career is how much someone who had some hearing difficulties, it was progressive, it got worse over time, how much he was involved in technologies that involve sound. So he used to say that he saw his hearing difficulties as an advantage. So when he was a telegraph operator, it allowed him to focus on the dots and dashes of the telegraph instrument because he wasn't hearing other noise in the room. Right. And then as a inventor of the phonograph of improved telephone technology, in some respects, his hearing was treated as a test instrument. His ability to hear something meant that it was both articulated and loud enough that it should work in a commercial setting.
[19:21]
Lindsey Graham
So we know that Edison kept copious records of the work underway at Menlo park and his other lab at West Orange. This wasn't just because he liked to take notes, though, talk a bit about how he was savvy in applying for patents to secure and promote his innovations.
[19:36]
Dr. Paul Israel
One of the things that Edison learned very early in his career as a telegraph inventor, the fellow who was the president of the Golden Stock Telegraph Company, which was the main company using those small printing telegraph stock tickers for various market reports, took Edison to his patent attorney. And the patent attorney had Edison write down all the things he was working on at the time. And the last page of the book has this very interesting notation that he clearly was told by the patent attorney, hereafter, I will keep a complete record of all inventions right in the US System. It's not first defile, which is what it was in many European countries, such as England. In the US it was first to invent. And so part of that was proving that you invented something before a competitor did. And one way to do that was to keep a very good record of your experimental work. And so Edison learned this lesson, and that's why there are about 4,000 notebooks, not just Edison's, but everybody that worked for him kept notebooks. And we don't even have all the notebooks that were kept by all the other researchers. Some of them walked off with theirs. So this is why we have a great record of the experimental work that went on in Newark, in Menlo park, and then at West Orange. Edison understood the value of these records, but he also learned, and in part this was because he was in the telegraph industry, where people like the head of Golden Stock, and then later the president of Western Union began to see controlling the technology through patents was a way to prevent competitors from entering into the industry. Right. Didn't always work, but it gave those companies an advantage. And this is something Edison learned. And so one of the things he did was he patented variations on an invention, realizing that he could use that to protect his patent position and that of his companies.
[21:49]
Lindsey Graham
So after the phonograph, after the light bulb, and with the race to electrify entire cities now underway, this is the introduction of Nikola Tesla. He went to work with Edison Machine Works. And there's this, I guess, popular image of Edison as a savvy businessman who's best at patenting things, as we just described. But Nikola Tesla as a genius who's just overrun by men like Edison. How accurate is this story?
[22:13]
Dr. Paul Israel
Right. So here's how I like to describe the difference between Edison and Tesla. Edison was somebody who was very good at understanding how to move new technology into a commercial phase, how to do the development work, not just the inventive work, but the development work, to move it from the laboratory out into the real world, and how to continue a process of innovation to make it work from the start. Edison is never really a lone inventor. It's always collaborative. Right. So he has experimenters that he works with very closely. They work closely with the machinists to design and improve the instruments, to test them. So it's basic applied research rather than basic scientific research. Design to gain insights into nature, more to gain insights into the technology itself and the sciences around it, like electromagnetism, for example. Tesla was more a kind of idealist inventor. This actually comes out of the work of W. Bernard Carlson at the University of Virginia. Bernie wrote a book about Tesla that was published in 2013, and he points to the way in which Tesla was happy to reach a state where he could demonstrate that his idea could work in the laboratory, but was much less skilled at figuring out how to bring it out of the lab into the real world. And so oftentimes, the technologies that Tesla had, he spent years working on them, but they never reached a commercial phase. The one technology where Tesla was successful was with his alternating current motors and then later, the polyphase alternating current distribution system. Alternating current worked on higher voltages than Edison's direct current. You needed fewer stations. You could distribute electricity over a much greater area with very high voltages and then step those voltages down so they'd be safe once they reached into buildings. The reason that Tesla's work in this area succeeded was because the Westinghouse company employed its own inventors and engineers who were able to take Tesla's ideas and figure out how to make them commercially viable. Tesla told this story about his motor, about how he knew it would work and would wear well over time, because he ran it in his head over and over, imagining the wear and how the motor worked. Edison did that in practice with real devices, and that's what the Westinghouse engineers did as well. So there's this sort of difference between Tesla, the sort of idealist inventor, and someone like Edison, who's really more an inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator.
[25:17]
Lindsey Graham
So it seems the real rivalry then was between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, who backed Tesla. So what was their rivalry like?
[25:25]
Dr. Paul Israel
When Westinghouse established his first alternating current station, he had a number of very skilled inventors and engineers working for him who developed that system. And they drew also on work that was going on in Europe at the same time. So in 1886, the first Westinghouse station appears in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. And Edison begins to pay attention to AC and does some investigation. And there are a couple of things he's very concerned about. One is the AC system works at these very high voltages, and that can be unsafe if not dealt with by the way in which the system is developed and designed. And so Edison writes this memo about AC in which he says, sooner or later, Westinghouse is going to electrocute someone. And one of the things you have to understand at this very moment is that the higher voltage arc light systems that were used for street lighting in American cities were strung along the streets. The wires were strung along the street right next to telegraph and telephone wires. And there were occasional accidental electrocutions of linemen from telegraph and telephone companies whose lines crossed with an arc light. And so this fear of the electrical system was real on the part of many people, and Edison was concerned about this. The other thing was the AC system had these transformers and other elements that Edison thought would add to the cost. Now, what he didn't recognize is that the advantage of AC is that you could build larger central stations that could distribute power over longer distances. And it meant you didn't need a station every couple of miles in a city like New York. So between the Pearl street station that has been built in lower Manhattan, and then another station around 23rd, another station a little farther north of that, in order to power the bottom half of Manhattan, the AC system could build one larger station and distribute that power. And this was especially important as you begin to get the electrification of the suburbs, which are growing at this period. You don't Want central stations if you live in a nice suburb because you have steam engines and the smoke from them and the noise. And so AC had some real advantages. And Edison never really recognized that those advantages would make his DC system less desirable for central stations. It doesn't mean that DC disappeared. In fact, DC was used for what were known as isolated plants for individual buildings. In fact, more people in the 19th century experienced incandescent lighting from a building that had its own power station than from central stations. It's really not till the 1920s that you really begin to get the emergence of what would later become the modern grid. And a lot of those were DC stations. And in fact, the last DC station decommissioned by Con Ed was decommissioned in 2007. It was running motors that drove elevators up and down apartment buildings, because those kind of motors work better as DC than they do ac. And in fact, even today, right, DC is what powers all of our laptops and phones and other small electrical devices. And now increasingly, what they're discovering is high voltage DC is actually better for long distance distribution than high voltage ac. So DC actually still has a place in our electrical system.
[29:22]
Lindsey Graham
But even ultimately, Edison's own company switched over to ac. At the time, that must have been a big deal for him.
[29:29]
Dr. Paul Israel
Yeah, it was. So what happens because the Edison company resists, and it's really Edison, because there are people in the company saying, we need ac. Edison resists that. And there's a second company, Thomson Houston, that is also developing AC technology at this time. And the two companies had discussions about merging at various points. And in 1892, early in the year, the investors in Edison Electric, which had become Edison General Electric, and the Thompson Houston company decide to merge. And what happens is that the people who are running Thompson Houston take over the company. And this new company is called General Electric. The Edison name disappears. Edison is put on the board of directors, but really has nothing to do with the running of the company after that. He goes on to many other projects over the last 40 years of his life. But what's significant is that this marks the transition to AC for central stations. And in 1893, the Chicago Columbian Exposition, both General Electric and Westinghouse compete. Westinghouse wins the award. And then two years later, Westinghouse uses Tesla's polyphase AC distribution system to win the award for a new power station at Niagara Falls, where the electricity is sent down to Buffalo. And suddenly the potential of AC to create a much larger electrical grid that can power a much bigger area becomes evident. And this much marks the transition from small central stations and individual plants for buildings to the growth of the grid that we all use today.
[31:38]
Lindsey Graham
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[33:59]
Dr. Paul Israel
Well, he built West Orange in 1887 and opened it in 1888. He was still in the electrical industry at the time and in fact it was the R and D facility for the Edison General Electric Company. But once GE is formed, Edison decides that he's going to move on to other projects. He had some that he was already working on. The biggest one for the period of the 1890s is an effort to use electromagnetic separation to be able to take low grade iron ore from the Played out iron mines of the east coast and produce iron for the steel mills. That project a fully automated mining operation and processing operation tactically successful. It fails because a huge new iron deposit in the Great Lakes region of Lake Superior is discovered, the Mesabi Range. So it fails. He takes the technology that he'd been using for rock crushing and applies it to the production of sand for cement. And investigates the cement industry and designs new technology, including a much improved rotary kiln that becomes the industry standard. He develops an automated plant out in western New Jersey. The original Yankee Stadium is built with Edison Portland Cement. Two other projects of the 1890s, the phonograph became a commercially viable technology. And Edison helps to found the modern sound recording industry. And through the 1890s and into the first three decades of the 20th century, Edison's phonograph is a crucial part of that technology. Now there are competitors such as the Victor Company. Edison competes with his cylinder against the Victor discovery. Eventually, Victor wins out as the shift is made to electric recording with the development of vacuum tube technology and electronics. And then the other technology that he spent a lot of time on, beginning in the 1890s through World War I is the motion picture industry. Edison develops the first commercial camera and viewing system. Later, this becomes a industry that grows. Edison is in the industry until World War I, and then he gives it up. He's never really quite sure what the market is for motion pictures. And so his company kind of fades away in a sense. And then also in the first decade of the 20th century, he develops the first alkaline storage battery for electric automobiles. There were actually more electric automobiles in the first few years of the 20th century than internal combustion cars. And they ultimately lose out as Henry Ford develops his mass production system for automobiles. That drives the cost of internal combustion cars down. But Also World War I, where electric vehicles are not useful on the battlefield. And all the companies shift to production of gas powered automobiles. There are still a few things, like delivery trucks that use batteries. But electric cars don't really reemerge until the 1960s and 1970s. And we're still on the cycle of the development of that industry as it reemerges after more or less disappearing during Edison's time. So these are the technologies Edison continues to work with. He builds a huge factory complex in West Orange, New Jersey, has another one a few miles away that includes his chemical laboratories. And so Edison is both a inventor, entrepreneur, and increasingly a captain of industry.
[37:56]
Lindsey Graham
In this period of losing out to AC and losing his name off, his company was Edison Personally bitter.
[38:03]
Dr. Paul Israel
So the question of whether Edison was bitter is one that I think, you know, there's some uncertainty about what his initial reaction to this was. There are conflicting news reports, some saying Edison favored the merger, others that he opposed it. But in later comments. Right. So the person who was his private secretary at the time, guy named Alfred Tate, later talked about Edison was very embittered and felt like the company no longer had his name associated with it. He says something like, apparently I never knew anything about electricity. And then later on in newspaper reports, you see Edison saying, I'm going to do something even bigger now than the electrical system. That was his process for mining low grade iron ore. He thought that would be his next big project, and it was, even though it failed. But Edison essentially left the electrical industry behind. And so I think there was a way in which he was somewhat bitter about what had happened.
[39:06]
Lindsey Graham
So we've spent a fair amount of time going through Edison's remarkable career, but I wonder what you might personally consider to be his most important invention or innovation.
[39:15]
Dr. Paul Israel
Well, I think ultimately his most important innovation and influence. What came after is the Industrial Research and Development Laboratory. Edison created a model that others took and improved upon so that by the 1910s, increasingly industrial research laboratories are emerging in many industries. And by the end of the 1920s, almost every major industry has its. The companies in them have industrial research laboratories. There are some leading ones like General Electric and Bell Labs, but many other industries have this kind of process for developing the technologies that they're using. You know, if there's one central thing that's sort of most important about Edison's career, it's that. And then I would say next would be the sound recording industry. It's the one that he stayed with the longest. And it clearly changed the way we think about sound as instead of being something that disappears, it's something that can be captured. And then finally the electrical industry, because Edison designs the essential electrical system, most of the elements of it, even before ac, are part of Edison. So those are the big three. If I were to say what, what are the most important things that Edison
[40:36]
Lindsey Graham
worked on throughout his career? Edison was on the vanguard of several very different technologies, but almost always in communications. And he could be compared to what we are experiencing now in Silicon Valley. I wonder what you think of the comparison between entrepreneurial innovators of his age and ours today.
[40:57]
Dr. Paul Israel
So I think there are some very definite parallels. Right. So Silicon Valley in its earlier years was very much a startup place. And that's what happened with Edison and electric light and sound recording and movies. All those things were startups. And lots of other companies emerge that compete. And then what happens is what happens in the electrical industry in the 1890s, after the formation of General Electricity, Westinghouse and General Electric decide that they're just going to cross license each other and they drive every other company out of the business, which is essentially what's happened in Silicon Valley. All those startups get eaten up by the big guys and so we have oligopoly power where there are a few big firms and they eat everybody else up.
[41:50]
Lindsey Graham
Well, Paul Israel, thank you so much for speaking with me today on American history.
[41:54]
Dr. Paul Israel
My pleasure.
[41:55]
Lindsey Graham
That was my conversation with Dr. Paul Israel, Director and General Editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University. He's also the author of A Life of Invention. In our next series, as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we explore the most extraordinary struggle in our nation's history. The American Revolution. In the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, British regulars marched on Lexington and Concord, and the shot heard round the world that day would change everything. For the next eight years, American men and women would fight, suffer and sacrifice in order to forge a new nation, one built on the idea that power lay with the people. Follow American Historytellers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of American Historytellers ad free by joining Audible. And to find out more about me and my other projects, including my live stage show coming to a theater near you, go to NotThatLinseyGraham.com that's NotThatLinseyGraham.com from Audible Originals. This is the fourth and final episode of our series Edison vs. Tesla. American Historytellers is host, edited and produced by me, Lindsey Grant for Airship. This episode was produced by Polly Stryker senior producers Alida Ryazanski and Andy Beckerman Managing Producer Desi Blalock Music by Thrum Sound Design by Molly Bogg Executive Producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, Head of Creative Development at Audible Kate Navin, Head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza Copyright Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Originates LLC.
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