Menlo Park Carbon Shed
01
Artifact Overview
Edison's invention of the carbon telephone transmitter in 1877 is what made the telephone commercially practical. This small wooden shed housed a battery of kerosene lamps, kept lit and set to produce carbon soot. The soot was collected and compressed into carbon tablets for telephone transmitters. Edison also used the carbon produced in this shed for various other experiments.
Artifact Details
Artifact
Shed (Storage structure)
Subject Date
circa 1879
Place of Creation
Creator Notes
Built in Greenfield Village in 1929. Replica of the original 19th century building.
Location
at Greenfield Village in Edison at Work District
Object ID
29.3048.5
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Material
Wood (Plant material)
Keywords |
|---|
02
Related Content
SetGreenfield Village Buildings
- 84 Artifacts
As America was taking its first steps towards industrialization, the Hanks family of Mansfield, Connecticut, made early attempts to mechanize the production of silk thread. Rodney Hanks and his nephew Horatio Hanks built this mill in 1810. It was the first silk mill in America, producing some of the first silk with machines that were powered by a waterwheel.
articleThomas Edison: Inventor AND Chemist
This weekend, members of the American Chemical Society will be joining staff from The Henry Ford to designate Thomas Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory in Greenfield Village a National Historic Chemical Landmark.