Edison National Historic Site

The Edison National Historic Site preserves Thomas Edison's laboratory and residence, Glenmont, in West Orange, New Jersey. For more than forty years, the laboratory had a major impact on the lives people worldwide. Out of the West Orange laboratories came the motion picture camera, improved phonographs, sound recordings, silent and sound movies and the nickel-iron alkaline electric storage battery.

The area was designated as Edison Home National Historic Site on December 6, 1955 and was redesignated as Edison Laboratory National Monument on July 14, 1956. On September 5, 1962, the 21 acre site once again became a United States National Historic Site overseen by the National Park Service. In 2002, the group They Might Be Giants released a song called "The Edison Museum" about this site.

Except for Glenmont, the Edison National Historic Site is currently closed to visitors due to major rehabilitation work on buildings within the site. This project was expected to be completed sometime in 2007, but as of August 2008 the laboratory is still closed. The site is located about 5 miles (8 kilometers) west of Newark, New Jersey, just off of Interstate 280 on Main Street.

See also

• Edison's Black Maria

External links

• Glenmont, Llewellyn Park, West Orange, Essex County, NJ

31 photos, 13 drawings, 12 data pages, at Historic American Building Survey. Note numberous other HABS photo sets available for outbuildings and Edison's laboratories, also (Search HABS here).

• Edison National Historic Site
• The Invention Factory: Thomas Edison's Laboratories, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
• Maps & Weather - Unearthed Outdoors