Edison Portland Cement Company

The Edison Portland Cement Company was a venture by Thomas Edison that helped to improve the Portland cement 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 the Yankee Stadium in 1922.

In 1881 Edison formed the Edison Ore-Milling Company, and tried for many years to make that business a success. The demand was not there though and despite the new technological innovations that Edison brought to the industry the company could not compete with the operations in the Midwest. Despite continual investment, with Edison even selling the shares in General Electric, the company suffered huge losses. Eventually the ore-crushing technology was sold off to other mine owners.

The manufacturing process used by the Edison Ore-Milling Company produced a large quantity of waste sand which he would sell on to cement manufacturers. The properties of the fine sand were particularly suitable for concrete, 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.

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 kilns 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.

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. While none of these items were made Edison did create concrete phonograph cabinets. Edison investigated the use of formwork 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.

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