World War I: Thomas Edison Secret Navy Experiments Documents

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World War I: Thomas Edison Secret Navy Experiments Documents
1,550 pages of documents related to Thomas Edison's World War I era experiments for devices and techniques to aid the war effort, archived on CD-ROM
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an outspoken advocate of military and industrial preparedness during World War I (1914-1918). In May 1915, he outlined a preparedness plan based on the idea that military training and equipment procurement should be organized along industrial lines. He called for the stockpiling of airplanes, battleships and munitions and for the recruitment of a large army of reservists trained by private industry. He recommended that to develop new inventions quickly, the creation of military research laboratories.
Edison’s views on military preparedness attracted the attention of U.S. Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels. In July 1915, Daniels asked Edison to head an advisory board to evaluate technical ideas submitted to the navy by the public. Edison agreed, provided that he would not have to handle administrative matters and would be free to pursue his own war-related research.
In an interview with the New York Times several weeks later, Edison remarked, “Science is going to make war a terrible thing – too terrible to contemplate. Pretty soon we can be mowing men down by the thousands or even millions almost by pressing a button.”
Edison encouraged the Navy to establish a permanent research laboratory. modelled after his own West Orange, New Jersey research facility, Edison’s proposal called for a well-equipped laboratory capable of producing new invention rapidly. As Edison told the New York Times, “The laboratory should be of complete equipment to enable working models to be made and tested... there should be a pattern shop, foundries for brass, cast iron and steel, and machine shops for large and small work.”
In a letter to Edison, Daniels wrote "One of the imperative needs of the navy, in my judgment, is machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet the conditions of warfare as shown abroad…"
Most of Edison’s research in 1917 focused on protecting surface ships from submarine attack. He studied camouflage methods and recommended that cargo ships burn anthracite coal, which would lessen smoke emissions. He also investigated ways to quickly turn ships under torpedo attack and equipped the USS Sachem, a private yacht outfitted by the U.S. Navy for Edison and his employees, with electrical instruments to detect submarines by sight, sound and magnetic field.
However, despite his various experiments and innovations, Edison nevertheless grew increasingly agitated with the Navy for failing to implement any of his ideas. Of the forty-eight new inventions and improvements he proposed, the Navy failed to develop any of them beyond the prototype stage. This later caused Edison to accuse them of lacking the imagination or the foresight to see the usefulness of his work. As he wrote in 1918, "Nobody in Naval will do anything on the account of taking risks that an innovation will bring in… no training at Annapolis to cultivate the imagination."
Documents include:
Edison Wartime Research Reports
413 pages of reports received from Thomas A. Edison, 1917 - 1919 by the Department of the Navy, Office of Inventions. This series contains numbered reports of experiments submitted by  Edison to Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy. Included in each file is correspondence and the report; some include photographs, blueprints, or other supporting materials.
Highlights include:
Report 2: Range Finder - Report on works relating to increasing the sensitiveness of the vision of range finders, spotters, gun pointers and aviators, along with related correspondence.
Report 5: Experiments to Render Ships Invisible - This file contains experiments to render ships invisible, and related correspondence. There are also pieces of colored cloth used in the experiment.
Report 6: Phonographic Sound Range Finder - This file relates to a phonographic sound-range-finder which could locate the position of big guns by their sound, and related correspondence. There are also photographs of the device.
Report 9: Wireless Boats to Combat Submarines
Report 16: Torpedo Experiments - This file contains Report No. 16, relating to torpedo experiments, so as to permit the use of a larger amount of explosives, and related correspondence.
Report 24: Inquiry Regarding Bombs Dropped from Airplanes - This file contains Report No. 24, relating to a possible device for use in dropping bombs from airplanes with accuracy, and related correspondence.
Report 37: Experiments on Device for Protecting Merchant Ships from Torpedos - This file contains Report No. 37, relating to experiments on a device for protecting merchant ships from submarine torpedos, and related correspondence.
Report 39: Apparatus for Locating Airplanes - This file contains Report No. 39, relating to an apparatus for locating airplanes (aeroplanes), and related correspondence. There are six photographs of the apparatus.
Report 44-D: Listening Device for Torpedoes - This file contains Report No. 44-D, relating to a listening device for detecting torpedoes, and related correspondence including a letter from Edison to Acting Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. There are photographs and a blueprint that shows the listening device. There are also photographs of the U.S.S. Hauoli, which contained the listening device.
Edison, Thomas Alva -- Reminiscences on Navy Experiments
Twenty pages of a typed and hand corrected and noted draft of Edison's reminiscences about his Navy experiments.
Thomas A. Edison Correspondence and Records about Navy Experiments
This section contains 131 pages of records and correspondence with Thomas A. Edison and the Edison Laboratory in Orange, New Jersey concerning government experiments. Included are letters signed by Edison, his assistant William H. Meadowcroft, and others; telegrams; copies of letters sent by the Department of the Navy; and notes. Arranged in three parts (personnel, finances, and miscellaneous correspondences).
The first section contains records concerning personnel working in connection with Edison. This file contains correspondence authorizing Thomas A. Edison to hire additional personnel to work on U.S. government experiment and invention projects at his laboratory, as well as information on the qualifications, loyalty, and work being done by particular employees.
The second contains financial records containing bills for expenses for equipment and personnel employed by Thomas A. Edison's laboratory in connection with experimental work for the U.S. Navy, and related correspondence.
The third section contains miscellaneous correspondences from 1916 to 1920 concerning experiments conducted including a submarine detector, a sound range finder, secret wireless,  a potential visit to his laboratory by Rear Admiral W. Strother Smith,
Source: Record Group 80: General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1804 - 1983, Office of Inventions; Miscellaneous Correspondence With Thomas A. Edison, 1916-1920, National Archives at Washington, DC.
Josephus Daniels Papers -- Thomas A. Edison Correspondence
166 pages of correspondences from the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. Josephus Daniels Papers: Thomas A. Edison Correspondence.
Josephus Daniels (1862-1948) was a diplomat, journalist, and secretary of the United States Navy. The letters primarily cover the years 1917-1920. This collection consists primarily of letters exchanged between Edison and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, along with related correspondence. Many of the typewritten letters are accompanied by drafts in Edison's hand. The first item in this folder is a letter from Edison to Daniels dated July 20, 1917. It contains various ideas about how to conceal merchant ships from enemy submarines. In addition, there are blueprint drawings relating to camouflage experiments by Edison employee Henry G. Wolfe.
Josephus Daniels Papers: Miller R. Hutchison Correspondences
226 pages of correspondence dating between 1914 to 1941. Composed chiefly of correspondences between Thomas Edison's chief engineer, Miller Reese Hutchison, and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels from the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. Josephus Daniels Papers: Miller R. Hutchison Correspondence.
Several letters are by Edison, including one in his hand, as well as other documents with marginal notations by Edison. The subject of many of the letters is the attempt to sell Edison storage batteries to the Navy Department for submarines, ship lighting, and other military applications. There are also items regarding the explosion aboard the E-2 submarine, which had recently been equipped with Edison storage batteries, in January 1916.  The correspondences after Edison's death consists of reminiscences by Hutchison and Daniels of Edison and his wartime research.
Lloyd N. Scott's Naval Consulting Board of the United States
This official history of the Naval Consulting Board was published by the Government Printing Office in 1920.  Thomas A. Edison related material can be found in the (1) front matter, including title page, table of contents, preface by Josephus Daniels, and photographs of Daniels and the Naval Consulting Board; (2) Chapter 11, "Inventive Accomplishments of Members," which discusses Edison's wartime research projects and includes extracts from several of his letters to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, as well as his letter of November 21, 1917, to Sir Eric Geddes, head of the British Admiralty; (3) Appendix: Naval Laboratory, which contains the majority report signed by Frank J. Sprague and Lawrence Addicks recommending Annapolis as the site of the proposed laboratory and the minority report signed by Edison recommending Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Another appendix contains thirty maps of shipping routes along the coasts of Europe and North America, prepared by Edison and included in his letter to Geddes.
The following is a list of research projects discussed in Chapter 11:
Detecting Submarine by Sound from Moving Vessel (pp.161-164)
Quick Turning of Ships [Sea Anchor] (pp.164-165)
Strategic Plans for Saving Cargo Boats from Submarines (pp.165-170)
Collision Mats (p.170)
Taking Merchant Ships out of Mined Harbors (pp.170-171)
Camouflaging Ships and Burning Anthracite (pp.171-172)
Coast Patrol by Submarine Buoys (pp.172-174)
Cartridge for Taking Soundings (pp.174-175)
Sailing Lights for Convoys (pp.175-176)
Smudging Sky Line (p.176)
Obstructing Torpedoes with Nets (pp.176-177)
Underwater Searchlight (p.177)
Oleum Cloud Shells (pp.177-178)
High Speed Signaling with Searchlights (p.178)
Water-Penetrating Projectile (pp.178-179)
Observing Periscopes in Silhouette (pp.179-180)
Steamship Decoys (p.180)
Zigzagging (p.180)
Reducing Rolling of Warships (pp.180-181)
Obtaining Nitrogen from the Air (pp.181-182)
Stability of Submerged Submarines (p.182)
Hydrogen Detector for Submarines (p.182)
Induction Balance for Submarine Detection (p.182)
Protecting Observers from Smokestack Gas (p.183)
Turbine Head for Projectile (p.183)
Mining Zeebrugge Harbor (p.184)
Mirror Reflection System for Warships (pp.184-185)
Device for Lookout Men (p.185)
Blinding Submarines and Smudging Periscopes (pp.185-186)
Extinguishing Fires in Coal Bunkers (p.186)
Direction Finder for Hostile Airplanes (pp.186-187)
Sound Ranging (pp.187-189)
Telephone System on Ships (pp.189-190)
Extension Ladder for Spotting Top (p.190)
Reacting Shell (pp.190-191)
Night Glass (pp.191-192)
Smudging Periscopes (p.192)
Freeing Range Finder from Spray (p.192)
Preserving Submarine and Other Guns from Rust (p.192)
New Eye for the Navy: The Origin of Radar at the Naval Research Laboratory (1981)
A 1981 research study by Naval Research Laboratory historian David Kite Allison. Report coverage includes Edison's role in the development of the Naval Research Laboratory and industrial research.
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