Summary
Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin trace Edison’s life and the development of his inventions, including telegraph equipment, electric lighting, the phonograph, motion pictures, and storage batteries. Written with Edison’s help, the biography uses his recollections and contributions from colleagues to explain both his experiments and the work behind them.
Why read it Our view
Read it for detailed accounts of how Edison worked through technical problems with colleagues. The vote-recorder episode is useful when thinking about whether a faster product solves a problem its intended users actually want solved.
Decisions from the book
A faster vote met a different need
- Decision: Edison wanted to make legislative voting faster.
- Action: He built an automatic vote recorder and took it to Washington to demonstrate it to a committee.
- Outcome: The committee rejected it because slow voting helped legislators delay proceedings. The authors say Edison then resolved to invent things for which there was genuine demand.
Written about
- Thomas EdisonBiography subjectDyer and Martin wrote this biography with Edison’s cooperation, drawing on his statements and accounts from colleagues.Source