The Edison Portland Cement Company was a venture by

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

that helped to improve the

Portland cement Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the early 19th ...

industry. Edison was developing an iron ore milling process and discovered a market in the sale of waste sand to cement manufacturers. He decided to set up his own cement company, founding it in New Village, New Jersey in 1899, and went on to supply the concrete for the construction of

Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. Opened in April 2009, the stadium replaced the orig ...

in 1922.

Beginnings

In 1881 Edison formed the

Edison Ore-Milling Company The Edison Ore-Milling Company was a venture by Thomas Edison that began in 1881. Edison introduced some significant technological developments to the iron ore milling industry but the company ultimately proved to be unprofitable. Towards the end ...

and tried for many years to make that business a success. The demand was not existent, though new technological innovations that Edison brought to the industry the company could not compete with the rich ore in the

Iron Range The term Iron Range refers collectively or individually to a number of elongated iron-ore mining districts around Lake Superior in the United States and Canada. Much of the ore-bearing region lies alongside the range of granite hills formed by ...

.The Life of Thomas A. Edison

American Memory American Memory is an internet-based archive for public domain image resources, as well as audio, video, and archived Web content. Published by the Library of Congress, the archive launched on October 13, 1994, after $13 million was raised in ...

. Accessed September 24, 2011.Edison and Ore Refining

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

Global History Network. August 3, 2009. Accessed September 24, 2011. Despite continual investment, with Edison selling shares in

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

, the company suffered huge losses. Eventually, the ore-crushing technology was sold to other mine owners. The manufacturing process used by the Edison Ore-Milling Company produced a large quantity of waste

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...

which he would sell to cement manufacturers. The properties of the fine sand were particularly suitable for concrete,Thomas Alva Edison And The Concrete Piano
'' American Heritage''. August/September 1980. Volume 31, Issue 5. Accessed September 25, 2011. leading to a harder, more durable product. In 1899, Edison decided to join the cement business, reusing some of the technology he had developed for ore-milling.Cement
''The Edison Papers''. March 31, 2010. Accessed September 24, 2011.

Early developments

Edison made significant improvements to the production process of cement. His mill in the valley of the Delaware River in New Jersey featured the first long, rotating

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...

s in the world. While the standard length was between 60 and 80 feet, Edison's kilns were up to 150 feet. To improve his financial stability he licensed the kilns to other manufacturers, but this helped his competitors to improve their production. Eventually, the industry became saturated and Edison's business was not particularly profitable.

Concrete housing

Somewhat ahead of his time Edison believed that concrete would have a wide range of applications, but in the early 20th century its production was not sufficiently economical. He envisioned a future with concrete houses filled with concrete furniture, refrigerators, and pianos.Concrete Housing
IEEE Global History Network. July 14, 2010. Accessed September 24, 2011. While none of these items were made Edison did create concrete phonograph cabinets. Edison investigated the use of

formwork Formwork is molds into which concrete or similar materials are either precast or cast-in-place. In the context of concrete construction, the falsework supports the shuttering molds. In specialty applications formwork may be permanently i ...

molds that could repeatedly be used to create concrete houses, experimenting in 1910 by casting a garage and a gardener's cottage at his mansion in New Jersey. He decided to donate the patented information to qualified builders rather than charge for it, generating significant publicity in the process. Philanthropist Henry Phipps Jr. saw the potential of these affordable houses and considered them to be the solution to New York's housing shortage. He had already invested $1 million into affordable housing projects by setting up Phipps Houses, an organization that continues to this day.About Us
, The Phipps Houses Group. Accessed September 25, 2011. Phipps declared his intention to build an entire city for working-class families using the concrete casting technique but Edison was never able to provide the plans. One of the main difficulties facing the project was its complexity. Each house would be constructed using a mold that comprised 2,300 pieces, and the cost to a builder purchasing the molds was excessive. Nonetheless, some houses were built when investor Charles Ingersoll financed Frank Lambie's plans. Lambie constructed several concrete houses in Union, New Jersey, where they are currently still in use.

Yankee Stadium

The Edison Portland Cement Company was barely surviving financially until a new contract was won in 1922. Production began on the original

on May 5, 1922, and was completed in just 284 working days.Nack, William
This Old House
''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...

''. June 7, 1999. Accessed September 24, 2011.Verducci, Tom
Yankee Stadium, it's gone! Goodbye!
''

''. September 18, 2008. Accessed September 24, 2011. Built in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, New York, the stadium was home to the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

until

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

. During the course of the construction 45,000 barrels of cement, 30,000 cubic yards of gravel, and 15,000 cubic yards of sand were mixed by 500 men who produced 35,000 cubic yards of concrete. When the building underwent renovations from 1973 the walls were left untouched because Edison's concrete mix was seen to be hard and durable enough to remain intact. The stadium was closed for several years of renovations from 1973, reopening in 1976. From then it remained in use until 2008; the

new Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. Opened in April 2009, the stadium replaced the Yankee ...

opened the following April. The original was demolished in 2010.

Bankruptcy

The company only lasted a few years after the construction of the Yankee Stadium, falling victim to the Great Depression.

References

External links

History Detectives. Episode 1. 2004 - Edison House, Union, New Jersey
(transcript) {{Authority control Thomas Edison Cement companies of the United States Manufacturing companies established in 1899 Companies disestablished in the 1920s Yankee Stadium (1923) 1899 establishments in New Jersey American companies established in 1899