Key Woman

Thomas A. Edison always had a warm spot in his heart for the Western Union Telegraph Co., because it gave him his start. As a young man, Edison was a Western Union telegrapher; later, the company bought his improved stock and commodity ticker for $40,000, which enabled Edison to set up as a full-time inventor.

Last week Western Union showed that it still has just as warm a regard for Edison's family. The company's board elected Mrs. Madeleine Edison Sloane, one of Edison's six children, as a director, the first woman--and the first Edison--to sit on the board. Fiftyish Mrs. Sloane has been active in charity, Republican politics and civic affairs, but has only a nodding acquaintance with business. (Her broker husband was a onetime governor and treasurer of the New York Security Dealers Association.) Nevertheless, she feels at home in the telegraph business. "I was brought up on it," she says. "I learned the Morse code when I was eight; my father taught it to me. When my brother Charles* and I had scarlet fever we rigged up a line from room to room."

Would Mrs. Sloane make it her specific job to represent Western Union's women employees and stockholders on the board? Certainly not. Said she: "I don't know why women are different from anyone else."

*Who later became Secretary of the Navy (1939-40), governor of New Jersey (1941-44).

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