Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Thomas Edison’s West Orange, New Jersey laboratory is where one of history’s most famous inventors built far more than machines—he built a complete system for innovation.
Edison is remembered for electric light, the phonograph, and motion pictures. But Thomas Edison National Historical Park reveals how he actually worked. Its 10,000-volume library, carefully organized stockroom, heavy and precision machine shops, drafting room, music room, photography studio, and archives were all assembled around one goal: allowing Edison to spend as much time as possible doing what he loved most—solving problems.
Subscribe for more TDC Places youtube.com/TheDailyConversation
▶ Visit Thomas Edison National Historical Park: nps.gov/edis/index.htm
▶Special thanks to Leonard DeGraaf, Park Archivist, and the staff of Thomas Edison National Historical Park
▶Lenny's book on Edison https://a.co/d/0co4Z5Zl
▶ Explore Edison archival material: npgallery.nps.gov/EDIS/SearchResults/d86139fe-d28b-41b3-be77-b0169c3ade3a?page=90&view=grid&sort=default
▶ Explore the complete TDC Places playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmSQiOQJmbZ7TU39cyx7gizM9i8nOuZXy&si=v94Bt_2kc7qczf8p
▶ Support this work, become a channel member: youtube.com/channel/UCWQ9ZFFhEqUZ0r1IspnBm6Q/join
Filmed at Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, New Jersey.
Additional information:
Thomas Edison: Lighting Up the World | Historical Documentary | Lucasfilm youtu.be/GoOrWZiZ9Bo?si=RWXGGRs2HRLkltKv
The Tinfoil Phonograph, a timeline cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1jpeHaf9p-psnkkSeuiLA8a5e7UWc5u_wY8kzV7TovVc&font=Lustria-Lato&lang=en&initial_zoom=2
Edison's light bulb turns 135 https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/edisons-light-bulb-turns-135
Rutgers: Thomas A. Edison Papers https://edison.rutgers.edu/life-of-edison/digital-exhibits
Library of Congress, Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and South Recordings of the Edison Companies loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/?st=list&c=150
The Early History of Motion Pictures pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pickford-early-history-motion-pictures
Music licensed through Artlist:
Arc of Innovation - Creative Cut - Reverbed by Lance Conrad artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/arc-of-innovation-creative-cut-reverbed/6000414
Springtale by Angelika Conrad artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/springtale/6000415
Revelations - No Pads by Tristan Barton artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/revelations-no-pads/3009
On a day when the park was closed to visitors, Park Archivist Leonard DeGraaf gave me a special, in-depth tour of this extraordinary complex.
We explore why Edison called his books his “tools”; how ideas moved from research and rough sketches to prototypes, manufactured products, and the marketplace; and how he financed years of experimentation through a diverse portfolio of businesses.
Along the way, Leonard tells the stories of Edison’s failed iron-ore operation and successful Portland cement business; his remarkably forward-looking work on storage batteries and electric vehicles; the tinfoil phonograph and the birth of recorded sound and home entertainment; and the work of William Kennedy Dickson on Edison’s motion-picture camera and Kinetoscope.
But while Edison built the system, the tour shows how invention depended on accumulated scientific knowledge and the work of machinists, draftsmen, photographers, performers, experimenters, and many others. And as Leonard explains, even the popular Edison-versus-Tesla rivalry is much less simple than it is often portrayed.
This is both a tour of one of America’s most important historic laboratories and a lesson in how ideas become systems—and how those systems can change the world.
Watch and learn more
00:00 How Edison Built an Invention System
01:12 Inside Edison’s Library and Office
02:08 Curiosity, Deafness, and Relentless Work
02:59 The Laboratory Edison Designed for Himself
03:14 Edison’s Stockroom and “Big Junk Pile”
04:25 The Heavy Machine Shop and Iron Ore Failure
05:40 From Sketches to Working Products
06:18 Storage Batteries and Electric Vehicles
07:02 Edison’s Tinfoil Phonograph
07:50 The Birth of Home Entertainment
08:25 Edison’s Music Room
09:08 How West Orange Improved on Menlo Park
10:42 Edison and the Birth of Motion Pictures
12:15 Photography, Archives, and Lizzie Carr
13:43 Edison vs. Tesla: Myth and Reality
#ThomasEdison #IndustrialHistory #TDCPlaces
Thomas Edison’s West Orange, New Jersey laboratory is where one of history’s most famous inventors built far more than machines—he built a complete system for innovation.
Edison is remembered for electric light, the phonograph, and motion pictures. But Thomas Edison National Historical Park reveals how he actually worked. Its 10,000-volume library, carefully organized stockroom, heavy and precision machine shops, drafting room, music room, photography studio, and archives were all assembled around one goal: allowing Edison to spend as much time as possible doing what he loved most—solving problems.
Subscribe for more TDC Places youtube.com/TheDailyConversation
▶ Visit Thomas Edison National Historical Park: nps.gov/edis/index.htm
▶Special thanks to Leonard DeGraaf, Park Archivist, and the staff of Thomas Edison National Historical Park
▶Lenny's book on Edison https://a.co/d/0co4Z5Zl
▶ Explore Edison archival material: npgallery.nps.gov/EDIS/SearchResults/d86139fe-d28b-41b3-be77-b0169c3ade3a?page=90&view=grid&sort=default
▶ Explore the complete TDC Places playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmSQiOQJmbZ7TU39cyx7gizM9i8nOuZXy&si=v94Bt_2kc7qczf8p
▶ Support this work, become a channel member: youtube.com/channel/UCWQ9ZFFhEqUZ0r1IspnBm6Q/join
Filmed at Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, New Jersey.
Additional information:
Thomas Edison: Lighting Up the World | Historical Documentary | Lucasfilm youtu.be/GoOrWZiZ9Bo?si=RWXGGRs2HRLkltKv
The Tinfoil Phonograph, a timeline cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1jpeHaf9p-psnkkSeuiLA8a5e7UWc5u_wY8kzV7TovVc&font=Lustria-Lato&lang=en&initial_zoom=2
Edison's light bulb turns 135 https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/edisons-light-bulb-turns-135
Rutgers: Thomas A. Edison Papers https://edison.rutgers.edu/life-of-edison/digital-exhibits
Library of Congress, Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and South Recordings of the Edison Companies loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/?st=list&c=150
The Early History of Motion Pictures pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pickford-early-history-motion-pictures
Music licensed through Artlist:
Arc of Innovation - Creative Cut - Reverbed by Lance Conrad artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/arc-of-innovation-creative-cut-reverbed/6000414
Springtale by Angelika Conrad artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/springtale/6000415
Revelations - No Pads by Tristan Barton artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/revelations-no-pads/3009
On a day when the park was closed to visitors, Park Archivist Leonard DeGraaf gave me a special, in-depth tour of this extraordinary complex.
We explore why Edison called his books his “tools”; how ideas moved from research and rough sketches to prototypes, manufactured products, and the marketplace; and how he financed years of experimentation through a diverse portfolio of businesses.
Along the way, Leonard tells the stories of Edison’s failed iron-ore operation and successful Portland cement business; his remarkably forward-looking work on storage batteries and electric vehicles; the tinfoil phonograph and the birth of recorded sound and home entertainment; and the work of William Kennedy Dickson on Edison’s motion-picture camera and Kinetoscope.
But while Edison built the system, the tour shows how invention depended on accumulated scientific knowledge and the work of machinists, draftsmen, photographers, performers, experimenters, and many others. And as Leonard explains, even the popular Edison-versus-Tesla rivalry is much less simple than it is often portrayed.
This is both a tour of one of America’s most important historic laboratories and a lesson in how ideas become systems—and how those systems can change the world.
Watch and learn more
00:00 How Edison Built an Invention System
01:12 Inside Edison’s Library and Office
02:08 Curiosity, Deafness, and Relentless Work
02:59 The Laboratory Edison Designed for Himself
03:14 Edison’s Stockroom and “Big Junk Pile”
04:25 The Heavy Machine Shop and Iron Ore Failure
05:40 From Sketches to Working Products
06:18 Storage Batteries and Electric Vehicles
07:02 Edison’s Tinfoil Phonograph
07:50 The Birth of Home Entertainment
08:25 Edison’s Music Room
09:08 How West Orange Improved on Menlo Park
10:42 Edison and the Birth of Motion Pictures
12:15 Photography, Archives, and Lizzie Carr
13:43 Edison vs. Tesla: Myth and Reality
#ThomasEdison #IndustrialHistory #TDCPlaces
![How America Changed Under Obama [A Data Analysis]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/y3uuX8Jtqxw/mqdefault.jpg "How America Changed Under Obama [A Data Analysis]
A data-driven look at how the U.S. changed under the presidency of Barack Obama.
FB for daily news: http://www.facebook.com/thedailyconversation
http://www.twitter.com/thedailyconvo
Subscribe to TDC: https://www.youtube.com/TheDailyConversation/
Data courtesy of Pew Research Center: http://pewrsr.ch/2jzFOHy
Researched, written, narrated and produced by Bryce Plank
Video edited by Robin West
Music: Particles Unfolding by Glimpse: https://soundcloud.com/glimpse_official/particles_unfolding
Electro Sketch by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/?keywords=electro+sketch&Search=Search
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Script:
In 2008, Barack Obama was the change candidate. This is a data-driven look at how much America transformed during his eight years as our President. Pause or rewind the video if you need more time with any of the data.
After spiking during the Great Recession, the unemployment rate is below 5% today.
And the stock market has more than doubled.
Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, plunged the percentage of adults without health insurance to the lowest level in history.
While the share of income going to the top 1% has continued to increase, average Americans saw the biggest jump in their household income ever in 2015, and the biggest drop in poverty since the great society programs of the 1960’s.
The violent crime rate is down almost 20% from when Obama took office.
America’s image abroad was lifted as President Obama turned away from the policies of George W. Bush and toward a more active pursuit of diplomacy to solve problems.
Today, there are less than 15,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to the 175,000 when he took office.
But this was coupled with Americans themselves becoming more wary of international engagement.
On energy, the Obama administration has reduced carbon emissions by 9.4%, greatly expanded wind and solar power, and cut America’s dependence on foreign oil by more than half.
In 2015, for the first time since at least 1980, the number of inmates in federal prisons actually declined.
8 states have now legalized marijuana and - for first time - a majority of Americans overall support legalization.
A majority of Americans also favor the Supreme Court’s ruling that essentially legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Culturally, the biggest change came when Apple released the first iPhone during Obama’s campaign for the democratic nomination in 2007. In the decade since, smartphone use has exploded and about half of all Americans now own a tablet too.
But all that technology has led to a constant stream of stories and images of violence and victimization, especially at the hands of police, seen all over the social media feeds of many Americans, that’s led to a widespread perception that race relations have deteriorated.
Millennials are now the nation’s largest living generation and the biggest potential voting block.
For the first time in 2013, the majority of newborn babies were racial or ethnic minorities, and a record-high 12% of newlyweds married someone of a different race.
Despite some people’s perception, the past seven years has seen little change in the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, there was actually a net loss of over 100,000 immigrants who went back to Mexico.
The biggest religious trend during Obama’s presidency is the rise of those claiming no religion at all a group now making up a quarter of the population, and 35% of millennials.
As you can see from President Obama’s approval ratings among democrats and republicans, modern America has never been so divided along partisan lines.
Far more democrats than republicans now say immigrants strengthen the country; and when it comes to guns, far more republicans now think we should prioritize gun rights over gun control.
For various reasons, both democrats and republicans have much less faith in government. Most Americans didn’t think the government’s actions after the financial crisis helped them.
On national security, after the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, for the first time since 9/11, the government’s job rating on terrorism turned negative.
And, driven by the campaign of Donald Trump, Republicans have suddenly become anti-free trade and globalization. As you can see, Democrats’ views have remained roughly the same.
Only one-third of Americans used social media in 2008, but by 2015 that rate was 75%.
Obama was also the first Internet video president, as this media genre came of age during his time in office. YouTube now has over a billion users.
In 2016, more American adults learned about the presidential election through social media than through print newspapers, with seven-in-ten getting their news through a mobile device.")
