Excerpt:
When Edison built his laboratory in 1887 he planned to make it "the best equipped and largest laboratory extant, [its] facilities incomparably superior to any other for rapid and cheap development of an invention...." We're using the latest 21st-century technology to preserve these historic buildings for you and future generations of visitors. Check our Construction Update web page to watch the work as it progresses. We expect the Site will reopen in 2005
Annotation:
The National Park Service's online presence for the Edison National Historic Site is a repository for a large amount of Edisonia. This site is geared to be accessible to children, a resource for students, and also an engaging experience for adults. It makes available several of Edison's early sound and motion picture recordings, as well as hundreds of images, both personal and professional. A biography about Edison, and essays about his laboratory, inventions, and life away from science, written by NHS staff, provide compelling secondary material. A bibliography is posted for those interested in further research, and the site contains a list of Edison's astonishing 1,093 patents. A fun and interesting activity is a recreation of the "Edison Mental Fitness Test," which anyone hoping to be a manager in Edison's lab had to pass. An excellent site, useful for a variety of people and purposes.