This folder contains correspondence and other documents relating to Edison's chemical businesses. Included are items regarding the sale or closure of his wartime organic chemical enterprises as a result of declining prices and expiring contracts. Also included are letters pertaining to his regular production of inorganic chemical mixes at Silver Lake, New Jersey, for the Edison Storage Battery Co. and to technical questions about industrial chemistry. The correspondents include Kirk Brown of the Condensite Co. of America, R. H. Banister of the Woodward Iron Co., Archibald C. Emery of New Jersey Products, Inc., Shunzo Takaki of Mitsui & Co., and Mark Workman of Dominion Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. At the end of the folder are ten pages of undated notes by Edison, possibly from 1918, which relate to his inspection of workers and equipment at the Edison Chemical Works and his subsequent recommendations.
Approximately 15 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected material includes routine business relating to accounting, orders, and shipping; statistical reports from benzol and toluol extraction plants prepared for the War Industries Board and the U.S. Geological Survey; price quotations on acids and other bulk chemicals; and cost estimates for nickel hydrate, nickel anodes, and iron mix for storage battery production. Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.