Study Questions and Essay Topics
Study Questions
Discuss the significance of the American
tycoons (such as Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and Carnegie) on Edison's approach
to the marketplace.
Like these powerful men, Edison built a conglomerate
of invention factories, all joined together under his name. Later
in his life, all of these factories and product lines were joined
under the umbrella of Thomas Edison, Inc.. By focusing on his name,
celebrity, and emphasizing marketing in his distribution, Edison
became an industrialist much the same as these men.
How did Edison incorporate the business
ideas of the day into his invention factories at Menlo Park and
West Orange?
Edison avoided making any inventions for
which he could not find a market. And if it appeared that an invention
would not make money, he neglected it–often until a competitor
showed him how profitable it could be. In this way he mimicked
the business philosophies of the day, which disdained unprofitable
creativity and focused on the bottom line.
How did Edison's invention strategy change
as he got older?
He focused less on inventions and more on
manufacturing and marketing. With his forays into the motion picture
business, for example, Edison did not even make most of the inventions
that were marketed under his name. Instead, the Kinetoscope was
made by an inventor at the West Orange facility, and the Vitascope,
another movie projection camera that Edison marketed, was created
by a realtor in Washington, D.C.
Essay Topics
How did technology affect the young Thomas Edison, even
before he became an inventor?
How did Edison's behavior as a student and as a young
telegraph operator foreshadow his approach to invention and the business
world?
Why did Edison initially neglect one of his most important inventions,
the phonograph?
How did competition among inventors (for example, the
battles between Alexander Graham Bell and Edison) spur new inventions?
Why did many of Edison's young inventors in the Menlo
Park and West Orange facilities leave?
Discuss the importance of failures-such as the battle
over AC systems or ore-milling–in Edison's career.
Which image fits Edison better: the image of the lone
inventor, or the image of the business magnate?