Edison Township in New Jersey is named for its most famous former resident, Thomas A. Edison, the prolific inventor credited with, among other things, incandescent light and recorded sound. These are but two. During his lifetime, Edison patented more than 1,000 inventions!
Thomas Edison was born in Ohio, grew up Michigan, and during his most inventive years he conducted his work at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Menlo Park today sits within the Township of Edison. Edison Township is one of The Badge Company of New Jersey's customers for police badges.
A common misconception is that Edison’s lab at Menlo Park was his own small shop. Not at all. The laboratory at Menlo Park was an "invention factory" and was run as a business, with a good-sized staff.
Still another source of confusion is the fact that Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory is no longer located in New Jersey. In the 1920s, automobile pioneer Henry Ford reconstructed the buildings at his museum in Dearborn, Michigan. But there is a museum and commemorative tower at the original Menlo Park site. Check it out at http://www.menloparkmuseum.org./
You can learn a great deal more about Thomas Edison at the Henry Ford Museum’s site, http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/edison.
