This latest addition to the Library of Congress American memory site (last described in the January 8, 1998 Scout Report) highlights Thomas Edison's entertainment inventions. Included in the 1,093 patents Edison received in his lifetime were the phonograph, the Kinetograph (a motion picture camera), and the Kinetoscope (a motion picture viewer). A large number of movies and recordings made by...

Samuel Insull, Thomas Edison, Clarence Birdseye and numerous other innovators and inventors contributed mightily to the American spirit of invention during the past several centuries. This rather engrossing website, which was designed to complement the four-part television series on PBS, offers a glimpse into the lives of many of these innovators. Based on a book by editor and journalist Harold...

Noted inventor and beloved MIT professor Harold "Doc" Edgerton was a renaissance man without peer. The Edgerton Digital Collections (EDC) project brings together 22,000 still images of Doc, along with other scientific items and a range of short films. First-time visitors should click on Doc's Life to get a feel for this life well-lived through eight thematic areas. The Galleries are a wonderful...