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(ENG) Edison the Business (303)
Transcript
NARRATOR— Thomas Edison managed his corporation while suffering from a profound hearing loss. The video monitor shows film clips of Edison employees speaking to the Old Man. Most of them lean in, as he cups his ear. Here’s Norman Spieden,[1] the first Edison laboratory curator, recorded in 1977.
NORMAN SPIEDEN— He used to say that when you were deaf, you got the truth more often. … Edison had this big library. And anybody who had disobeyed orders or done something foolish would be called in to Mr. Edison’s desk to account for what they had done. They had to shout into Mr. Edison’s ear so he could hear it. And they couldn’t tell a lie when there were six people standing, working in the library who would know that it was a lie![2]
NARRATOR— By the early 1920s, employment applicants for Edison had to take a written test of general and technical knowledge. The Boss himself wrote the questions, which covered geography, astronomy, economics, literature, history, and other topics. Try to answer these three questions from Edison’s test. One: who was the most celebrated maker of violins? Two: how many miles are there between the earth and the sun? Three: where is Tierra del Fuego?
NARRATOR— The most celebrated violin-maker was Stradivarius. The distance between the earth and sun is 93 million miles. And Tierra del Fuego is in Argentina.
Edison knew the answers to all of his questions, though he’d never been to college. He expected any educated American to know them too. Yet his son, Theodore, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, failed the test. When the New York Times published Edison’s list of questions, Albert Einstein reportedly flunked as well.
[1] Pronounced “SPEE-d’n”
[2] Norman Spieden 3/30/1977, excerpt from transfer no. 247-01
Description
English audio guide for Edison the Business, #303
Date Created
01/01/2007
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