Edison’s concrete housing effort began around 1908. Portland cement (which Edison did not invent) was coming into fashion as a construction material. Edison and his team worked on perfecting a formula for mixing concrete (a mixture of cement and filler materials such as sand or gravel) and building re-usable steel molds to cast the walls of houses. By 1910, he had cast two experimental buildings — a gardener’s cottage and a garage — at his New Jersey mansion Glenmont. He announced in the press that he did not intend to profit from the venture, but would instead give away the patented information to qualified builders.
The publicity generated by this announcement attracted the attention of philanthropist Henry Phipps who proposed using the concrete houses to solve New York City’s housing problems. At that time large influxes of immigrants created a severe housing shortage in New York. Housing conditions were often congested, unsafe, and unhealthy. Reform-minded Phipps declared that he would build a whole city of the houses, which would be rented to working class families for $7.50 per month.
Edison suggested that along with the concrete walls, the houses should have cast-concrete furniture, pianos, refrigerators, and even phonographs. However, Edison had difficulties making the molds for the houses, never mind the accoutrements. One problem was the sheer number of pieces needed. Edison estimated that it would require mold composed of 2300 pieces to make just the house. This meant that any builder who wanted to get into the business would have to invest about $175,000 — a huge amount of money in that day. Gradually, it became clear that the concrete housing would take much more effort to develop than Edison was willing to invest. When he got involved in a project to make a new kind of disc phonograph, he dropped the concrete housing project entirely.
[Full Article at IEEE Global History Network]
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