- Discovers phenomenon which is later
termed the "Edison Effect".
1881
- Creates the Edison Electric Lamp Co.,
the Edison Machine Works and other companies to produce his electric lighting
system.
1882
- Opens a commercial electric station
in New York City with approximately 85 customers.
- The Menlo Park laboratory is closed,
and another instituted in New York City.
1884
- Edison's wife, Mary, dies on August
9.
1886
- Patent awarded to Chichester A. Bell
and Charles Sumner Tainter for their wax cylinder graphophone; Edison later
refuses to collaborate with them on the invention.
- Marries Mina Miller on February 24.
- Moves his laboratory to East Newark,
New Jersey.
1887
- Develops the New Phonograph,
using a wax cylinder.
- Edison Phonograph Co. formed in October.
- Moves to a larger and more modern
laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey.
1888
- Meets Eadweard
Muybridge, who shows
him his zoopraxiscope; Edison sets William K. L. Dickson and other assistants
to work to make a Kinetoscope, "an instrument which does for the Eye what
the phonograph does for the Ear".
- Improved Phonograph introduced, followed
by the Perfected Phonograph.
- Daughter, Madeleine, is born on May
31.
- Jesse H. Lippincott assumes control
of phonograph companies by forming the North American Phonograph Co. on
July 14; leases phonographs as dictation machines.
- Files his first caveat (a Patent Office
document in which one declares his work on a particular invention in anticipation
of filing a patent application) on the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph on October
8; William Kennedy Laurie Dickson assigned to work on project.
1889
- Produces dolls with tiny cylinders
inside to make them talk for the Edison Phonograph Toy Manufacturing Co.;
project ceases in March 1891.
- Lippincott becomes ill and loses control
of North American Phonograph Co. to Edison, its principal creditor.
- Son, Charles, is born on August 3.
1891
- A peep-hole viewing machine shown
by Edison on May 20 to participants from the National Federation of Women's
Clubs.
1892
- Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston
merge into General Electric.
1893
- Construction on a film studio known
as the "Black Maria" completed in February; earliest Edison motion
pictures were filmed there.
- First public demonstration of 1 1/2"
system of Kinetoscope at the Brooklyn Institute on May 9.
- Copyright registered to William
K. L. Dickson for sample kinetoscope records on October 6.
1894
- Declares bankruptcy for the North
American Phonograph Co.
- Applications submitted to U.S. Patent
Office for the Kinetograph and the Kinetoscope.
- First Kinetoscope parlor opened in
midtown Manhattan on April 14.
- Puts the Edison Manufacturing Co.
in charge of the manufacture and sale of Kinetoscopes and films on April
1.
1894-95
- Edison and Dickson experiment to synchronize
sound with film; the Kinetophone
is invented which loosely synchronizes a Kinetoscope image with a cylinder
phonograph.
1895
- The Edison Spring Motor Phonograph
appears.
- Dickson resigns on April 2.
- C. Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat
demonstrate their Phantoscope, a motion picture projector, in Atlanta,
Georgia, in late September to early October.
1896
- Forms the National Phonograph Co.
with the purpose of manufacturing phongraphs for home use on January 27.
- Spring Motor Phonograph is released
under aegis of the National Phonograph Co., followed by the Edison Home
Phonograph.
- Negotiates in January with Raff &
Gammon to manufacture the Phantoscope which Armat presents as his own invention;
machine is renamed the Vitascope in February, and Edison's name put on
it.
- Vitascope publicly exhibited at Koster
& Bial's Music Hall on April 23 to great acclaim.
- The company begins practice of copyrighting
its films on October 23 by sending short pieces of positive nitrate film
from the motion pictures to the Library of Congress.
- Distances himself from agreement with
Raff & Gammon; introduces the Projecting Kinetoscope or Projectoscope
on November 30 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
1897
- Edison Standard Phonograph manufactured.
- Begins to send positive paper prints
of motion pictures for copyright deposit to the Library of Congress in
August.
- James White hired to head Kinetograph
Department at the Edison Manufacturing Co. in October.
- Begins legal battles in December that
continue for the following year against other producers and exhibitors
whom he charges with infringement.
1898
- Spanish-American
War occurs; Edison Company sends cameraman to Cuba to film scenes of
war.
