312) Edison understood that he was promoting a new industry that would require workers to learn new, highly technical skills. As Louis Carlat and Daniel Weeks wrote, “concerns about the capability of local skilled and semiskilled labor to operate the machinery with only a few weeks of training would haunt experience not only at Sunbury but in a number of other plants.” (p. Edison’s team had learned lessons the hard way but few others understood the nuances of how to run their system. Steam engineering and gas lighting were mature technologies by then but electric lighting and bulk power generation were still in their infancy. When Edison and his team first came to Sunbury, they needed to teach others how to operate the new equipment. Fourth St.” The motor seems far too basic for Edison’s level of technical knowledge in 1883 so it may have served another purpose. Used in early experimenting at Edison’s Sunbury Plant. Did Edison give the motor to him when Keefer, then a high school student, visited the West Orange laboratory around 1916? (Keefer, 196) Might Edison have made a gift of the motor during a visit to celebrate Sunbury’s sesquicentennial in 1922? Or did Edison perhaps send the motor to Sunbury earlier? A cardboard label accompanying the motor may give a clue: “Electric motor. The question remains of how Keefer came by the motor. Built this way, the armature could produce little power but like a good teaching tool would clearly show the principle of winding. The armature on this motor could hardly be simpler, a single coil wrapped lengthwise around the drum. We have a variety of early armatures in the collections that show ways engineers learned to coax more power out of their designs. ![]() For example, armature construction is a science of its own with drums of various cross-sectional shapes and coils wound in complex configurations. This motor is indeed a rudimentary example. Late in life, Keefer gave him the motor “because he knew I was interested in such things.” Later, Weber looked at the old motor and thought of the Smithsonian. Weber stayed in touch with his teacher after graduation. He could not remember precisely how Keefer obtained the motor but believed that Edison sent it for classroom use. Francis Jehl, in Menlo Park Reminiscences, referred to Keefer as “the Edison Historian of Sunbury.” (p.1101) An article in the Sunbury Daily Item reported that Keefer had “organize the Edison Science Club of Sunbury High School.” Weber assisted Keefer in class demonstrations and recalled that Keefer used the motor as a non-functioning model for classroom demonstrations. Keefer (1902-1978), his former science teacher at Sunbury High School. ![]() ![]() Weber’s story about the motor suggested that this small device might have something to teach us about Edison’s fledgling electric utility business. The photos Weber subsequently sent showed a small, almost miniature, version of an early bi-polar direct current motor that had obviously seen much use. Edison’s first 3-wire station began powering Sunbury’s electric lighting system in 1883. Weber of York, Pennsylvania who offered to donate “an old motor made by Thomas Edison.” My initial reaction was skepticism but then Weber told me he went to high school in Sunbury, PA and the motor was used at that school. I learned of one such piece in 1999 while talking to James O. We also preserve failures like the talking doll since even Edison struck out on occasion.Īs one might expect given Edison’s many projects, every now and then something unexpected turns up. The national collections include objects related to famous successes like incandescent lamps, phonographs and motion picture equipment as well as lesser known inventions such as electric pens, alkali batteries and Edison-effect lamps. We preserve quite a bit of material related to Thomas Edison here at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
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