The development of the storage battery was based in part on a nostalgic desire for the glory days of Menlo Park. Edison poured quite a bit of his energy into the project, and he refused to listen to detractors who labeled it a folly like his ore-milling project. And he was correct in that the battery did become important to industries and consumers, it was just not in the way that he had anticipated or perhaps desired. Because they were known for their long life and reliability, they were most often used as stand-bys for power plants, railways, miners' lights, and military equipment.

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