Where modern America was invented. Discover where America’s greatest inventor changed our world forever.
At the corner of Main Street and Lakeside Avenue in West Orange, New Jersey stands a group of red brick buildings. To the passing motorist the buildings betray little evidence of their glory days and of the people who worked inside. A short distance away is Glenmont, Thomas Edison's estate. Together, the laboratory and residence preserve the work and character of America's foremost inventor, Thomas Edison and the family, friends and business associates who played a key role in his success.
Mission
Our mission is to promote an international understanding and appreciation of the life and extraordinary achievements of Thomas Alva Edison by preserving, protecting and interpreting the park’s extensive historic artifact and archive collections at the Laboratory Complex and Glenmont, the Edison family estate.
Description
Thomas Edison National Historical Park is located in West Orange, New Jersey, a township approximately six miles from Newark, NJ, and fifteen miles from Manhattan. The park encompasses two sites – the Laboratory Complex and the Glenmont Estate, former home to Thomas and Mina Edison.
Thomas A. Edison embodied the spirit of invention that gripped America in the late nineteenth century. With his team of scientists and technicians, Edison earned 1,093 U.S. patents in his lifetime, most for inventions that originated in the West Orange labs. The park is a memorial to the man and a place where the roots of American inspiration and innovation can be discovered.
Today, Edison’s brick and concrete laboratories are well integrated into West Orange’s urban landscape but these solidly built Victorian buildings still retain a sense of their former prominence as the core of Thomas Edison’s “invention factory”. For forty-four years, from 1887 to 1931, the site served as the inventor’s research and development center.
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