The detail devices of the incandescent electric lighting system also contribute a large quota to the country's wealth in the millions of dollars paid out in salaries and wages to many thousands of persons who are engaged in their manufacture.
The electric railways of our country show even larger figures than the lighting stations and plants, as they employ on the average over 250,000 persons, whose annual compensation amounts to not less than $155,000,000.
In the manufacture of about $50,000,000 worth of dynamos and motors annually, for central-station equipment, isolated plants, electric railways, and other purposes, the manufacturers of the country employ an average of not less than 30,000 people, whose yearly pay-roll amounts to no less a sum than $20,000,000.
The growth of the telephone systems of the United States also furnishes us with statistics of an analogous nature, for we find that the average number of employees engaged in this industry is at least 140,000, whose annual earnings aggregate a minimum of $75,000,000; besides which the manufacturers of telephone apparatus employ over 12,000 persons, to whom is paid annually about $5,500,000.
No attempt is made to include figures of collateral industries, such, for instance, as copper, which is very closely allied with the electrical arts, and the great bulk of which is refined electrically.
The 8000 or so motion-picture theatres of the country employ no fewer than 40,000 people, whose aggregate annual income amounts to not less than $37,000,000.
Coming now to the Orange Valley plant, we take a drop from these figures to the comparatively modest ones which give us an average of 3600 employees and calling for an annual pay-roll of about $2,250,000. It must be remembered, however, that the sums mentioned above represent industries operated by great aggregations of capital, while the Orange Valley plant, as well as the Edison Portland Cement Company, with an average daily number of 530 employees and over $400,000 annual pay-roll, represent in a large measure industries that are more in the nature of closely held enterprises and practically under the direction of one mind.
The table herewith given summarizes the figures that have just been presented, and affords an idea of the totals affected by the genius of this one man. It is well known that many other men and many other inventions have been needed for the perfection of these arts; but it is equally true that, as already noted, some of these industries are directly the creation of Edison, while in every one of the rest his impress has been deep and significant. Before he began inventing, only two of them were known at all as arts—telegraphy and the manufacture of cement. Moreover, these figures deal only with the United States, and take no account of the development of many of the Edison inventions in Europe or of their adoption throughout the world at large. Let it suffice
STATISTICAL RESUME (APPROXIMATE) OF SOME OF THE INDUSTRIES
IN THE UNITED STATES DIRECTLY FOUNDED UPON OR
AFFECTED BY INVENTIONS OF THOMAS A. EDISON
Annual
Gross Rev- Number Annual
Class of Industry Investment enue or of Em- Pay-Rolls
sales
Central station lighting
and power $1,000,000,000 $125,000,000 50,000 $40,000,000
Isolated incandescent
lighting 500,000,000 — 33,000 17,000 000
Incandescent lamps 25,000,000 20,000,000 14,000 8,000 000
Electric fixtures 8,000,000 5,000,000 6,000 3,750,000
Dynamos and motors 60,000,000 50,000,000 30,000 20,000,000
Electric railways 4,000,000,000 430,000,000 250,000 155,000,000
Telephone systems 800,000,000 175,000,000 140,000 75,000,000
Telephone apparatus 30,000,000 15,000,000 12,000 5,500,000
Phonograph and motion
pictures 10,000,000 15,000,000 5,000 6,000,000
Motion picture theatres 40,000,000 80,000,000 40,000 37,000,000
Edison Portland cement 4,000,000 2,000,000 530 400,000
Telegraphy 250,000,000 60,000,000 100,000 30,000,000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------Totals
6,727,000,000 1,077,000,000 680,530 397,650,000