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Charles Edison
Edison in 1945
42nd Governor of New Jersey
In office January 21, 1941 – January 18, 1944
Preceded by	A. Harry Moore
Succeeded by	Walter Evans Edge
46th United States Secretary of the Navy
In office January 2, 1940 – June 24, 1940 Acting: July 7, 1939 – January 2, 1940
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Claude A. Swanson
Succeeded by	Frank Knox
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
In office January 18, 1937 – January 1, 1940
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Henry L. Roosevelt
Succeeded by	Lewis Compton
Personal details
Born	(1890-08-03)August 3, 1890 West Orange, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	July 31, 1969(1969-07-31) (aged 78) New York City, U.S.
Political party	Republican (before 1940) Democratic (1940–1962) Conservative (1962–1969)
Spouse	Carolyn Hawkins
Parent	Thomas Edison (father)
Signature

Charles Edison (August 3, 1890 – July 31, 1969) was an American politician. He was the Assistant and then United States Secretary of the Navy, and served as the 42nd governor of New Jersey. Commonly known as "Lord Edison", he was a son of the inventor Thomas Edison and Mina Miller Edison.

Early life

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.

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 Bruno'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, 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.

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

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. 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 Iowa-class battleships, 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 USS New Jersey.

Governor of New Jersey (1941–1944)

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.

Later political life

Between 1951 and 1969, he lived in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where he struck up a friendship with Herbert Hoover, who also lived there. In 1962, Edison was one of the founders of the Conservative Party of New York State.

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, in keeping with Edison's request to drop his name after 20 years of use.

Personal life

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.

In 1948, he established a charitable foundation, originally called "The Brook Foundation", now the Charles Edison Fund.

Death

Charles Edison died on July 31, 1969, in New York City, three days shy of his 79th birthday. He is buried in Rosedale Cemetery in Orange, New Jersey.

See also

• List of governors of New Jersey

References

1. "Alumni Award: PREVIOUS RECIPIENTS". The Hotchkiss School. 2004. Archived from the original on March 10, 2015. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
2. ^ "GEDIS.pdf" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 12, 2006. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
3. Secretaries of the Navy Archived August 1, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Naval Historical Center. Accessed August 6, 2007.
4. 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."
5. John D. Venable, Out of the Shadow: the Story of Charles Edison (Charles Edison Fund, 1978), p. 271.
6. Niels Bjerre-Poulsen, Right Face: Organizing the American Conservative Movement 1945–65 (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002), p. 143. (ISBN 978-8772898094)
7. History Archived July 18, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, The Fund for American Studies
8. "Join Ancestry®".
9. "Charles Edison". Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved September 23, 2007.
10. "Charles Edison, 78, Ex-Governor Of Jersey and U.S. Aide, Is Dead". The New York Times. August 1, 1969. Retrieved July 21, 2007. Charles Edison, former Governor of New Jersey, ... Mr. Edison, who had been admitted to the hospital on Wednesday, was 78 years ...

Further reading

• Richard J. Connors, State Constitutional Convention Studies, #4: The Process of Constitutional Revision in New Jersey: 1940–1947. (New York: National Municipal League, 1970). OCLC 118700
• Venable, John D. (1978). Out of the Shadow: The Story of Charles Edison : a Biography. Charles Edison Fund. OCLC 118700.

External links

• Charles Edison at Find a Grave
• New Jersey Governor Charles Edison, National Governors Association
• Charles Edison Fund: Includes a picture of Charles Edison
• The Pragmatic Populism of a Non-Partisan Politician: An Analysis of the Political Philosophy of Charles Edison
• Fund for American Studies – History

v t e United States secretaries of the Navy
Secretaries	Cabinet-level Stoddert Smith Hamilton Jones Crowninshield S Thompson Southard Branch L. Woodbury Dickerson Paulding Badger Upshur Henshaw Gilmer Mason Bancroft Mason Preston Graham Kennedy Dobbin Toucey Welles Borie Robeson R Thompson Goff Hunt Chandler Whitney Tracy Herbert Long Moody Morton Bonaparte Metcalf Newberry Meyer Daniels Denby Wilbur Adams Swanson Edison Knox Forrestal Dept. of Defense Sullivan Matthews Kimball Anderson Thomas T. Gates Franke Connally Korth Nitze Ignatius Chafee Warner Middendorf Claytor Hidalgo Lehman Webb Ball Garrett O'Keefe Dalton Danzig England Winter Mabus Spencer Braithwaite Del Toro
Under Secretaries	Forrestal Bard A. Gates Sullivan Kenney Kimball Whitehair Thomas T. Gates Franke Bantz Fay BeLieu Baldwin Baird Warner Sanders Middendorf Potter Macdonald Woolsey Murray Goodrich Garrett Howard Danzig Hultin Pirie Livingstone Aviles Work Davidson Modly Raven
Assistant Secretaries	Pre–1954 Fox Faxon Soley McAdoo T. Roosevelt Sr. Allen Hackett Darling Newberry Satterlee Winthrop F. Roosevelt G. Woodbury T. Roosevelt Jr. Robinson Jahncke H. Roosevelt Edison Compton Bard Hensel Kenney Andrews Koehler Askins Fogler Post–1954 Financial Management and Comptroller Energy, Installations and Environment Manpower and Reserve Affairs Research, Development and Acquisitions General Counsel of the Navy defunct: Air Installations and Logistics Material Research and Development Research, Engineering and Systems Shipbuilding and Logistics

v t e Governors of New Jersey
Proprietary Province	Carteret
East New Jersey	Carteret Barclay Hamilton Basse Hamilton
West New Jersey	Byllynge Coxe Hamilton Basse Hamilton
Dominion of New England (1688–89)	Andros
Royal governors	Viscount Cornbury Baron Lovelace Ingoldesby (Lt. Gov.) Hunter Burnet Montgomerie Morris (acting) Cosby Anderson (acting) Hamilton (acting) Lord De La Warr Morris Hamilton (acting) Reading (acting) Belcher Reading (acting) Pownall (Lt. Gov.) Reading (acting) Bernard Boone Hardy Franklin
State (since 1776)	Livingston Paterson Howell Bloomfield Ogden W. S. Pennington M. Dickerson Williamson Vroom Southard Seeley Vroom P. Dickerson W. Pennington Haines Stratton Haines G. F. Fort Price Newell Olden Parker Ward Randolph Parker Bedle McClellan Ludlow Abbett Green Abbett Werts Griggs Voorhees F. Murphy Stokes J. F. Fort Wilson Fielder Edge Runyon* Edwards Silzer Moore Larson Moore Hoffman Moore Edison Edge Driscoll Meyner Hughes Cahill Byrne Kean Florio Whitman DiFrancesco* McGreevey Codey* Corzine Christie P. Murphy
* Under N.J.S.A. 52:15-5 (as amended in 2005), an acting governor serving for 180 continuous days or more is conferred the title of Governor.

v t e Cabinet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945)
Vice President	John Nance Garner (1933–1941) Henry A. Wallace (1941–1945) Harry S. Truman (1945)
Secretary of State	Cordell Hull (1933–1944) Edward Stettinius Jr. (1944–1945)
Secretary of the Treasury	William H. Woodin (1933) Henry Morgenthau Jr. (1934–1945)
Secretary of War	George Dern (1933–1936) Harry Hines Woodring (1936–1940) Henry L. Stimson (1940–1945)
Attorney General	Homer Stille Cummings (1933–1939) Frank Murphy (1939–1940) Robert H. Jackson (1940–1941) Francis Biddle (1941–1945)
Postmaster General	James Farley (1933–1940) Frank C. Walker (1940–1945)
Secretary of the Navy	Claude A. Swanson (1933–1939) Charles Edison (1939–1940) Frank Knox (1940–1944) James Forrestal (1944–1945)
Secretary of the Interior	Harold L. Ickes (1933–1945)
Secretary of Agriculture	Henry A. Wallace (1933–1940) Claude R. Wickard (1940–1945)
Secretary of Commerce	Daniel C. Roper (1933–1938) Harry Hopkins (1938–1940) Jesse H. Jones (1940–1945) Henry A. Wallace (1945)
Secretary of Labor	Frances Perkins (1933–1945)

• 1890 births
• 1969 deaths
• Governors of New Jersey
• United States secretaries of the navy
• People from West Orange, New Jersey
• Hotchkiss School alumni
• New York (state) Democrats
• Conservative Party of New York State politicians
• Edison family
• Franklin D. Roosevelt administration cabinet members
• 20th-century American politicians
• American Presbyterians
• New Jersey Democrats
• Democratic Party governors of New Jersey
• Burials at Rosedale Cemetery (Orange, New Jersey)
• United States Assistant Secretaries of the Navy
• American political party founders
• New York (state) Republicans