Last known footage of Thomas Edison shows him celebrating Fourth of July in 1931
A collection of recently digitized home videos published by the Thomas Edison National Historical Park and Library of Congress includes the last known footage of Thomas Edison. The inventor and businessman is shown in the video celebrating the Fourth of July.
"Home movies can provide a much more accurate view of our past: unrehearsed and unpolished," George Willeman, nitrate film vault leader of the Library of Congress, said in a statement. "This is especially true of the home movies of the famous. You often get to see a side of them they hide from the public lens."
In the short video clip, Edison is seen alongside his wife Mina, his son Charles with his wife Carolyn, and son Theodore with his wife Anna, at the front door of their Glenmont home with sparklers and fireworks.
Edison died on October 18, 1931, three months after the video was taken. He was 84.
The eight digitized videos were taken on 16 mm Kodak safety film and stored in the Thomas Edison National Historical Park museum collection for decades before agencies collaborated to digitally restore them, according to the National Park Service. The videos range from one to three minutes.
Other clips in the collection include footage of the construction and landscaping of Charles and Carolyn's Llewellyn Park home, a day at the beach, and a celebration for Charles' birthday.
In a statement, Thomas Edison and Morristown National Historical Parks Superintendent Tom Ross thanked the Library of Congress "for helping us share these unfiltered glimpses of the Edison family with the world."