Charles Edison was an American politician, businessman, inventor, and animal behaviorist, best known for his successful career in public service. Born on August 3, 1890, in West Orange, New Jersey, he was the fifth child and second son of the great inventor Thomas Edison and Mina Miller Edison.
Charles Edison received his early education from the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, before attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1915, he operated the Little Thimble Theater with Guido Bruno, staging avant-garde plays and contributing verse to Bruno’s Weekly under the pseudonym Tom Sleeper. However, his father put an end to his theater career and put him to work in the family business.
In 1927, Charles became the president of Thomas A. Edison, Inc. and ran the company until it was sold in 1957. During his time at the company, he oversaw the production of Edison’s new invention, the phonograph, and its subsidiary, Edison Records. He was also responsible for merging the company with the McGraw Electric Company to form the McGraw-Edison Electric Company.
In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Charles as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he became Secretary of the Navy the following year. During his time in the Navy department, he advocated the construction of the large Iowa-class battleships and secured votes for Roosevelt in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the 1940 presidential election.
In 1940, Charles broke a family tradition and ran for governor of New Jersey as a Democrat. He won the election and proposed updating the New Jersey State Constitution, though it failed in a referendum during his tenure. Nonetheless, his work inspired later New Jersey legislators to pass a modern constitution after his governorship.
Between 1951 and 1969, Charles lived in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where he struck up a friendship with Herbert Hoover, who also lived there. In 1962, he was one of the founders of the Conservative Party of New York State. In 1967, he hosted a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria that led to the founding of the Charles Edison Youth Fund, later the Charles Edison Memorial Youth Fund, which changed its name in 1985 to The Fund for American Studies in keeping with Charles’s request to drop his name after 20 years of use.
Charles Edison Children, Marriage, and Death
Charles Edison married Carolyn Hawkins in 1918, and they had no children. He died on July 31, 1969, in New York City, just shy of his 79th birthday. He is buried in Rosedale Cemetery in Orange, New Jersey.
References:
