Edison Institute in Dearborn, Michigan

WB8AXI writes "The Edison Institute in Dearborn, Michigan was dedicated in 1929 by Henry Ford to honor the Golden anniversary of Thomas Alva Edison's successful completion of his quest for an incandescent lamp or light bulb, [circa] 1879.


Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. Located on the shores of Lake Erie. He was an intinerant telegrapher in his early adult years. Later Edison settled in his laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. In the decades following the Civil War: Edison and his associates scoured the world for materials to utilize for a long life filament for his proposed incandescent lamp:


He conducted over ten thousand experiments in the search for better lamp filaments. Carbonized bamboo performed quite well as a lamp filament but he discovered that carbonized tailor's thread out-performed other materials at that moment in time. Tungsten of course was later substituted as more suitable for a long life filament.


The Edison Institute comprizes the Henry Ford Museum and the famous Greenfield Village, where Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, workshops, record stamping shop and office buildings from his Menlo Park and West Orange New Jersey facilities were reconstructed after shipment from their original locations.



The Henry Ford Museum features many original models of commercially produced crystal sets, early battery radios, tube-type radios and TV sets. Many telegraph instruments, radio test equipment and a myriad of electrical devices are of interest to amateur radio operators as well as the general public.



This great museum and learning center is open daily except for major holidays. When you are in the area, pay a visit to Edison Institute and on the same site visit Greenfield Village and the transplanted original homes and factories of great Americans.


WB8AXI
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