Charles Edison

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Edison was an associate of the John Birch Society, serving as a member of its editorial advisory committee for its publication, American Opinion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early lifeEdit

File:Charles Edison circa 1900 (cropped).jpg

Edison c. 1900

Charles Edison was born on August 3, 1890, at Glenmont, the Edison family home in West Orange, New Jersey. He was Thomas Edison's fifth child and second from his marriage to Mina Miller. He graduated from the Hotchkiss School in 1909.<ref name=AlumniAchievements>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1915–1916, he operated the 100-seat "Little Thimble Theater" with Guido Bruno at 10 Fifth Avenue, New York. The theater staged the works of George Bernard Shaw and August Strindberg, and Charles contributed verse to BrunoTemplate:'s Weekly under the pseudonym Tom Sleeper. Late in 1915, he brought his players to Ellis Island to perform for Chief Clerk Augustus Sherman and more than four hundred detained immigrants.

These avant-garde activities came to a halt when his father put him to work. For a number of years,Template:When Charles Edison ran Edison Records. Charles became president of his father's company Thomas A. Edison, Inc. in 1927, and ran it until it was sold in 1957, when it merged with the McGraw Electric Company to form the McGraw-Edison Electric Company. Edison was board chairman of the merged company until he retired in 1961.<ref name="a">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Department of the U.S. Navy (1937–1940)Edit

On January 18, 1937, President Roosevelt appointed Charles Edison as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, then as Secretary on January 2, 1940, Claude A. Swanson having died several months previously.<ref>Secretaries of the Navy Template:Webarchive, Naval Historical Center. Accessed August 6, 2007.</ref> Edison himself only kept the job until June 24, resigning to run for Governor of New Jersey. During his time in the Navy department, he advocated construction of the large Template:Sclasss, and that one of them be built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, which secured votes for Roosevelt in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the 1940 presidential election; in return, Roosevelt had BB-62 named the Template:USS.<ref>Comegno, Carol. "Historian details the role politics played in battleship's creation", Courier-Post, January 6, 2000. Accessed May 27, 2007. "Professor Jeffery Dorwart, of Rutgers-Camden said the ship was named after the state by President Franklin Roosevelt to repay a political debt to Charles Edison, the son of inventor Thomas Edison."</ref>

Governor of New Jersey (1941–1944)Edit

In 1940, he won election as Governor of New Jersey, running in reaction to the political machine run by Frank Hague, but broke with family tradition by declaring himself a Democrat. As governor, he proposed updating the New Jersey State Constitution. Although it failed in a referendum and nothing was changed during his tenure, state legislators did reform the constitution later.<ref name="a"/>

Later political lifeEdit

Between 1951 and 1969, he lived in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where he struck up a friendship with Herbert Hoover, who also lived there.<ref>John D. Venable, Out of the Shadow: the Story of Charles Edison (Charles Edison Fund, 1978), p. 271.</ref> In 1962, Edison was one of the founders of the Conservative Party of New York State.<ref>Niels Bjerre-Poulsen, Right Face: Organizing the American Conservative Movement 1945–65 (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002), p. 143. (Template:ISBN)</ref>

In 1967, Edison hosted a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York that led to the founding of the Charles Edison Youth Fund, later the Charles Edison Memorial Youth Fund. Attending the meeting were Rep. Walter Judd (R-MN), author William F. Buckley, organizer David R. Jones, and Edison's political advisor Marvin Liebman. The name of the organization was changed in 1985 to The Fund for American Studies,<ref name="History">History Template:Webarchive, The Fund for American Studies</ref> in keeping with Edison's request to drop his name after 20 years of use.

Personal lifeEdit

Edison married Carolyn Hawkins on March 27, 1918. They had no children.

In 1924, Edison joined the New Jersey Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He was assigned national member number 39,292 and state society number 2,894.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1948, he established a charitable foundation, originally called "The Brook Foundation", now the Charles Edison Fund.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

DeathEdit

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-12371, Charly Edison.jpg

Charles Edison, 1931

Charles Edison died on July 31, 1969, in New York City, three days shy of his 79th birthday.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He is buried in Rosedale Cemetery in Orange, New Jersey.