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THOMAS ALVA EDISON Scientific Autograph Letter Signed with Hand-Drawn Diagrams

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:2,400.00 USD Estimated At:3,500.00 - 4,500.00 USD
THOMAS ALVA EDISON Scientific Autograph Letter Signed with Hand-Drawn Diagrams
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Excellent Thomas Alva Edison Scientific Related Autograph Letter Signed “T. A. Edison” with Hand-Drawn Diagrams
THOMAS ALVA EDISON (1847-1931). American Inventor, invented or perfected many of the 20th century's most important devices, including the Light Bulb, the Phonograph, and Moving Pictures, among many others.
October 23, 1886-Dated, Autograph Letter Signed, “T a Edison”, measuring 8” x 10.5”, 1 page, New York, Very Fine. Completely written in Edison’s hand with heavy foutain pen ink, having some ink smear in several small locations and ink transfer when folded. This rare signature is written on Edison’s personal “THOMAS A. EDISON - No. 65 Fifth Avenue - New York” letterhead regarding specific plant root samples for interior fiber potentially for use in his light bulbs. It is well documented that Edison’s “Experiments” included using the fibers in certain plants to make filaments for his light bulbs. Edison’s letter reads:

“Please dig up a lot of the rootlets (alive not dead) of the scrub palmetto cut them up a 15 inch lengths & as straight as possible - put them in bundles & pack two barrells full & ship to me at the Edison Lamp factory East Newark. By any route that is the quickest. The roots are about this size (Edison draws two small diagrams) I enclose sample. There is a hard round part inside I want to Experiment on please get them as straight as possible & live roots only, as the dead ones are rotten. I would in addition like a few rootlets if there are any of the Cabbage palm - please answer what you do - (Signed) Yours, T. a. Edison”.

This is a rarely encountered form of Edison’s personal signature that is highly collectible. It is bold and dark with excellent appearance on the paper, measuring over 3.25” in lenght at the conclusion. The two diagrams drawn by Edision show the end of the stem with the interior portion he most desired for his experiments “a hard round part inside I want to Experiment on.” A second larger diagram is of the longer side view of the exterior root itself. Thomas Edison letters regarding his Experiments are particularly desireable. All text and his signature are on the face side making this a superior letter for display.
On March 6, 1885 Thomas Alva Edison landed in what was then a sleepy tropical village on Florida's west coast. Edison, then 38 years old and widely known for his invention of the incandescent lamp and the phonograph, came for rest and sunshine and to shake off a lingering illness. His health recovered, he purchased a small house and 14 acres on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River.

The following year, he was joined by his bride, Minnie Miller Edison, and then by such famous guests as Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone thrusting the quiet settlement into the headlines and launching the tourist industry that has transformed it into a thriving city.

For 50 years the Edisons, whose main residence was in West Orange, N.J., spent the winter and spring in Fort Myers. A decade after the inventor's death in 1931, his widow willed the Florida home to the city. These days, about 380,000 people come annually from all over the United States and abroad,to tour the estate, which now comprises five buildings, including a museum of Edison's inventions.

Unlike some of the lavish, fanciful retreats built by magnates in other Florida cities, the Edison Winter Home illuminates the work as well as the life style of the owner. Even travelers totally untutored in science who view the home, laboratory and botanical gardens will recognize that this was indeed the residence of a genius. The first sight one sees on leaving the parking lot is the celebrated banyan tree: what appears to be a blockwide forest of separate trunks are in fact aerial roots of the same plant. This vast, mysterious grove, like an Art Nouveau vision of entwined stems, branches and roots capped by an emerald canopy, was a sapling when Edison planted it in 1925.

A sign explains that it was sent from India, a gift from Harvey Firestone, the tire manufacturer, introducing the visitor to an intriguing chapter in Edison's life in Florida: his efforts to create a domestic source of natural rubber.

The botanical gardens, a lush forest of tropical trees, shrubs and vines that were gathered by Edison, not just for their beauty but for potential use in his experiments.

Friends and admirers who knew Edison's interest in horticulture sent him seedlings and specimens from around the world. We noted an African sausage tree, with its hanging, salami-shaped fruit used by some tribes to be ground into medicine; a South American rain tree, whose leaves collect moisture and then shed it in a light rainfall; the tree hibiscus from the West Indies, covered with scarlet bloom most of the year; an immense Moreton Bay fig from Australia. Vast stands of bamboo were transplanted from the river's banks - Edison used the fibers to make filaments for his light bulbs.

Credit: New York Times article by Alberta Eisman: June 24, 1990