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 This image has been floating around the offices here at Hemmings for
so long, we're not sure who sent it to us or when. What we do know,
besides the date of the photo, is that it depicts Thomas Edison (and
presumably his wife Mina) within Edison's compound in West Orange, New Jersey (now a National Historical Park).
At first, we believed this could have been an early iteration of the Locomobile that Edison converted from steam into an electric
around 1902. It's a reasonable assumption - the early Locomobile used a
three-spring chassis much like the one in the photo and Edison's
electric Locomobile did appear to use a center steering tiller (early
Locomobiles all seemed to use a steering tiller mounted to the right of
the body).
However, the body matches neither a stock Locomobile nor Edison's
electric Loco. Instead, it matches perfectly the early Baker Electric.
Indeed, Edison's first car was reputedly a Baker Electric, and he was often photographed with the Baker at that time. Note the center steering tiller on the Baker as well.
Of course, the Baker wasn't the only electric vehicle Edison got
involved with. To promote his storage batteries, he placed them in many
an electric vehicle, including those he built in about 1903 on
Pan-American chassis and in the electric cars Henry Ford built more than a decade later. And as we see from the photos below, culled from the Thomas Edison National Historical Park's website, he didn't stop there.
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