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Collection Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies

Life of thomas alva edison.

One of the most famous and prolific inventors of all time, Thomas Alva Edison exerted a tremendous influence on modern life, contributing inventions such as the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, as well as improving the telegraph and telephone. In his 84 years, he acquired an astounding 1,093 patents. Aside from being an inventor, Edison also managed to become a successful manufacturer and businessman, marketing his inventions to the public. A myriad of business liaisons, partnerships, and corporations filled Edison's life, and legal battles over various patents and corporations were continuous. The following is only a brief sketch of an enormously active and complex life full of projects often occurring simultaneously. Several excellent biographies are readily available in local libraries to those who wish to learn more about the particulars of his life and many business ventures.

Edison's Early Years

Thomas A. Edison's forebears lived in New Jersey until their loyalty to the British crown during the American Revolution drove them to Nova Scotia, Canada. From there, later generations relocated to Ontario and fought the Americans in the War of 1812. Edison's mother, Nancy Elliott, was originally from New York until her family moved to Vienna, Canada, where she met Sam Edison, Jr., whom she later married. When Sam became involved in an unsuccessful insurrection in Ontario in the 1830s, he was forced to flee to the United States and in 1839 they made their home in Milan, Ohio.

Thomas Alva Edison was born to Sam and Nancy on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. Known as "Al" in his youth, Edison was the youngest of seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Edison tended to be in poor health when young.

To seek a better fortune, Sam Edison moved the family to Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854, where he worked in the lumber business.

Edison was a poor student. When a schoolmaster called Edison "addled," his furious mother took him out of the school and proceeded to teach him at home. Edison said many years later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me, and I felt I had some one to live for, some one I must not disappoint." 1 At an early age, he showed a fascination for mechanical things and for chemical experiments.

In 1859, Edison took a job selling newspapers and candy on the Grand Trunk Railroad to Detroit. In the baggage car, he set up a laboratory for his chemistry experiments and a printing press, where he started the Grand Trunk Herald , the first newspaper published on a train. An accidental fire forced him to stop his experiments on board.

Around the age of twelve, Edison lost almost all his hearing. There are several theories as to what caused his hearing loss. Some attribute it to the aftereffects of scarlet fever which he had as a child. Others blame it on a conductor boxing his ears after Edison caused a fire in the baggage car, an incident which Edison claimed never happened. Edison himself blamed it on an incident in which he was grabbed by his ears and lifted to a train. He did not let his disability discourage him, however, and often treated it as an asset, since it made it easier for him to concentrate on his experiments and research. Undoubtedly, though, his deafness made him more solitary and shy in dealings with others.

Telegraph Work

In 1862, Edison rescued a three-year-old from a track where a boxcar was about to roll into him. The grateful father, J.U. MacKenzie, taught Edison railroad telegraphy as a reward. That winter, he took a job as a telegraph operator in Port Huron. In the meantime, he continued his scientific experiments on the side. Between 1863 and 1867, Edison migrated from city to city in the United States taking available telegraph jobs.

In 1868 Edison moved to Boston where he worked in the Western Union office and worked even more on his inventions. In January 1869 Edison resigned his job, intending to devote himself fulltime to inventing things. His first invention to receive a patent was the electric vote recorder, in June 1869. Daunted by politicians' reluctance to use the machine, he decided that in the future he would not waste time inventing things that no one wanted.

Edison moved to New York City in the middle of 1869. A friend, Franklin L. Pope, allowed Edison to sleep in a room at Samuel Laws' Gold Indicator Company where he was employed. When Edison managed to fix a broken machine there, he was hired to manage and improve the printer machines.

During the next period of his life, Edison became involved in multiple projects and partnerships dealing with the telegraph. In October 1869, Edison formed with Franklin L. Pope and James Ashley the organization Pope, Edison and Co. They advertised themselves as electrical engineers and constructors of electrical devices. Edison received several patents for improvements to the telegraph. The partnership merged with the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co. in 1870. Edison also established the Newark Telegraph Works in Newark, NJ, with William Unger to manufacture stock printers. He formed the American Telegraph Works to work on developing an automatic telegraph later in the year. In 1874 he began to work on a multiplex telegraphic system for Western Union, ultimately developing a quadruplex telegraph, which could send two messages simultaneously in both directions. When Edison sold his patent rights to the quadruplex to the rival Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Co., a series of court battles followed in which Western Union won. Besides other telegraph inventions, he also developed an electric pen in 1875.

His personal life during this period also brought much change. Edison's mother died in 1871, and later that year, he married a former employee, Mary Stilwell, on Christmas Day. While Edison clearly loved his wife, their relationship was fraught with difficulties, primarily his preoccupation with work and her constant illnesses. Edison would often sleep in the lab and spent much of his time with his male colleagues. Nevertheless, their first child, Marion, was born in February 1873, followed by a son, Thomas, Jr., born on January 1876. Edison nicknamed the two "Dot" and "Dash," referring to telegraphic terms. A third child, William Leslie was born in October 1878.

Edison opened a new laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ, in 1876. This site later become known as an "invention factory," since they worked on several different inventions at any given time there. Edison would conduct numerous experiments to find answers to problems. He said, "I never quit until I get what I'm after. Negative results are just what I'm after. They are just as valuable to me as positive results." 2 Edison liked to work long hours and expected much from his employees.

In 1877, Edison worked on a telephone transmitter that greatly improved on Alexander Graham Bell's work with the telephone. His transmitter made it possible for voices to be transmitted at higer volume and with greater clarity over standard telephone lines.

Edison's experiments with the telephone and the telegraph led to his invention of the phonograph in 1877. It occurred to him that sound could be recorded as indentations on a rapidly-moving piece of paper. He eventually formulated a machine with a tinfoil-coated cylinder and a diaphragm and needle. When Edison spoke the words "Mary had a little lamb" into the mouthpiece, to his amazement the machine played the phrase back to him. The Edison Speaking Phonograph Company was established early in 1878 to market the machine, but the initial novelty value of the phonograph wore off, and Edison turned his attention elsewhere.

Edison focused on the electric light system in 1878, setting aside the phonograph for almost a decade. With the backing of financiers, The Edison Electric Light Co. was formed on November 15 to carry out experiments with electric lights and to control any patents resulting from them. In return for handing over his patents to the company, Edison received a large share of stock. Work continued into 1879, as the lab attempted not only to devise an incandescent bulb, but an entire electrical lighting system that could be supported in a city. A filament of carbonized thread proved to be the key to a long-lasting light bulb. Lamps were put in the laboratory, and many journeyed out to Menlo Park to see the new discovery. A special public exhibition at the lab was given for a multitude of amazed visitors on New Year's Eve.

Edison set up an electric light factory in East Newark in 1881, and then the following year moved his family and himself to New York and set up a laboratory there.

In order to prove its viability, the first commercial electric light system was installed on Pearl Street in the financial district of Lower Manhattan in 1882, bordering City Hall and two newspapers. Initially, only four hundred lamps were lit; a year later, there were 513 customers using 10,300 lamps. 3 Edison formed several companies to manufacture and operate the apparatus needed for the electrical lighting system: the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, the Edison Machine Works, the Edison Electric Tube Company, and the Edison Lamp Works. This lighting system was also taken abroad to the Paris Lighting Exposition in 1881, the Crystal Palace in London in 1882, the coronation of the czar in Moscow, and led to the establishment of companies in several European countries.

The success of Edison's lighting system could not deter his competitors from developing their own, different methods. One result was a battle between the proponents of DC current, led by Edison, and AC current, led by George Westinghouse . Both sides attacked the limitations of each system. Edison, in particular, pointed to the use of AC current for electrocution as proof of its danger. DC current could not travel over as long a system as AC, but the AC generators were not as efficient as the ones for DC. By 1889, the invention of a device that combined an AC induction motor with a DC dynamo offered the best performance of all, and AC current became dominant. The Edison General Electric Co. merged with Thomson-Houston in 1892 to become General Electric Co., effectively removing Edison further from the electrical field of business.

An Improved Phonograph

Edison's wife, Mary, died on August 9, 1884, possibly from a brain tumor. Edison remarried to Mina Miller on February 24, 1886, and, with his wife, moved into a large mansion named Glenmont in West Orange, New Jersey. Edison's children from his first marriage were distanced from their father's new life, as Edison and Mina had their own family: Madeleine, born on 1888; Charles on 1890; and Theodore on 1898. Unlike Mary, who was sickly and often remained at home, and was also deferential to her husband's wishes, Mina was an active woman, devoting much time to community groups, social functions, and charities, as well as trying to improve her husband's often careless personal habits.

In 1887, Edison had built a new, larger laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. The facility included a machine shop, phonograph and photograph departments, a library, and ancillary buildings for metallurgy, chemistry, woodworking, and galvanometer testings.

While Edison had neglected further work on the phonograph , others had moved forward to improve it. In particular, Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter developed an improved machine that used a wax cylinder and a floating stylus, which they called a graphophone. They sent representatives to Edison to discuss a possible partnership on the machine, but Edison refused to collaborate with them, feeling that the phonograph was his invention alone. With this competition, Edison was stirred into action and resumed his work on the phonograph in 1887. Edison eventually adopted methods similar to Bell and Tainter's in his own phonograph.

The phonograph was initially marketed as a business dictation machine. Entrepreneur Jesse H. Lippincott acquired control of most of the phonograph companies, including Edison's, and set up the North American Phonograph Co. in 1888. The business did not prove profitable, and when Lippincott fell ill, Edison took over the management. In 1894, the North American Phonograph Co. went into bankruptcy, a move which allowed Edison to buy back the rights to his invention. In 1896, Edison started the National Phonograph Co. with the intent of making phonographs for home amusement. Over the years, Edison made improvements to the phonograph and to the cylinders which were played on them, the early ones being made of wax. Edison introduced an unbreakable cylinder record, named the Blue Amberol, at roughly the same time he entered the disc phonograph market in 1912. The introduction of an Edison disc was in reaction to the overwhelming popularity of discs on the market in contrast to cylinders. Touted as being superior to the competition's records, the Edison discs were designed to be played only on Edison phonographs, and were cut laterally as opposed to vertically. The success of the Edison phonograph business, though, was always hampered by the company's reputation of choosing lower-quality recording acts. In the 1920s, competition from radio caused business to sour, and the Edison disc business ceased production in 1929.

Other Ventures: Ore-milling and Cement

Another Edison interest was an ore-milling process that would extract various metals from ore. In 1881, he formed the Edison Ore-Milling Co., but the venture proved fruitless as there was no market for it. In 1887, he returned to the project, thinking that his process could help the mostly depleted Eastern mines compete with the Western ones. In 1889, the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Concentrating Works was formed, and Edison became absorbed by its operations and began to spend much time away from home at the mines in Ogdensburg, New Jersey. Although he invested much money and time into this project, it proved unsuccessful when the market went down and additional sources of ore in the Midwest were found.

Edison also became involved in promoting the use of cement and formed the Edison Portland Cement Co. in 1899. He tried to promote widespread use of cement for the construction of low-cost homes and envisioned alternative uses for concrete in the manufacture of phonographs, furniture, refrigerators, and pianos. Unfortunately, Edison was ahead of his time with these ideas, as widespread use of concrete proved economically unfeasible at that time.

Motion Pictures

In 1888, Edison met Eadweard Muybridge at West Orange and viewed Muybridge's zoopraxiscope. This machine used a circular disc with still photographs of the successive phases of movement around the circumference to recreate the illusion of movement. Edison declined to work with Muybridge on the device and decided to work on his own motion picture camera at his laboratory. As Edison put it in a caveat written the same year, "I am experimenting upon an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear." 4

The task of inventing the machine fell to Edison's associate William K. L. Dickson. Dickson initially experimented with a cylinder-based device for recording images, before turning to a celluloid strip. In October of 1889, Dickson greeted Edison's return from Paris with a new device that projected pictures and contained sound. After more work, patent applications were made in 1891 for a motion picture camera, called a Kinetograph, and a Kinetoscope, a motion picture peephole viewer.

Kinetoscope parlors opened in New York and soon spread to other major cities during 1894. In 1893, a motion picture studio, later dubbed the Black Maria (the slang name for a police paddy wagon which the studio resembled), was opened at the West Orange complex. Short films were produced using variety acts of the day. Edison was reluctant to develop a motion picture projector, feeling that more profit was to be made with the peephole viewers.

When Dickson aided competitors on developing another peephole motion picture device and the eidoloscope projection system, later to develop into the Mutoscope, he was fired. Dickson went on to form the American Mutoscope Co. along with Harry Marvin, Herman Casler, and Elias Koopman. Edison subsequently adopted a projector developed by Thomas Armat and Charles Francis Jenkins and re-named it the Vitascope and marketed it under his name. The Vitascope premiered on April 23, 1896, to great acclaim.

Competition from other motion picture companies soon created heated legal battles between them and Edison over patents. Edison sued many companies for infringement. In 1909, the formation of the Motion Picture Patents Co. brought a degree of cooperation to the various companies who were given licenses in 1909, but in 1915, the courts found the company to be an unfair monopoly.

In 1913, Edison experimented with synchronizing sound to film. A Kinetophone was developed by his laboratory which synchronized sound on a phonograph cylinder to the picture on a screen. Although this initially brought interest, the system was far from perfect and disappeared by 1915. By 1918, Edison ended his involvement in the motion picture field.

Edison's Later Years

In 1911, Edison's companies were re-organized into Thomas A. Edison, Inc. As the organization became more diversified and structured, Edison became less involved in the day-to-day operations, although he still had some decision-making authority. The goals of the organization became more to maintain market viability than to produce new inventions frequently.

A fire broke out at the West Orange laboratory in 1914, destroying 13 buildings. Although the loss was great, Edison spearheaded the rebuilding of the lot.

When Europe became involved in World War I, Edison advised preparedness, and felt that technology would be the future of war. He was named head of the Naval Consulting Board in 1915, an attempt by the government to bring science into its defense program. Although mainly an advisory board, it was instrumental in the formation of a laboratory for the Navy which opened in 1923, although several of Edison's suggestions on the matter were disregarded. During the war, Edison spent much of his time doing naval research, in particular working on submarine detection, but he felt that the navy was not receptive to many of his inventions and suggestions.

In the 1920s, Edison's health became worse, and he began to spend more time at home with his wife. His relationship with his children was distant, although Charles was president of Thomas A. Edison, Inc. While Edison continued to experiment at home, he could not perform some experiments that he wanted to at his West Orange laboratory because the board would not approve them. One project that held his fascination during this period was the search for an alternative to rubber.

Henry Ford, an admirer and friend of Edison's, reconstructed Edison's invention factory as a museum at Greenfield Village, Michigan, which opened during the 50th anniversary of Edison's electric light in 1929. The main celebration for Light's Golden Jubilee, co-hosted by Ford and General Electric, took place in Dearborn along with a huge celebratory dinner in Edison's honor attended by notables such as President Hoover, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., George Eastman, Marie Curie, and Orville Wright. Edison's health, however, had declined to the point that he could not stay for the entire ceremony.

For his last two years, a series of ailments caused his health to decline even more until he lapsed into a coma on October 14, 1931. He died on October 18, 1931, at his estate, Glenmont, in West Orange, New Jersey.

• Martin V. Melosi, Thomas A. Edison and the Modernization of America , (Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown Higher Education, 1990) p. 8. [ Return to text ]
• Poster for Thomas A. Edison 150th Anniversary, 1847-1997, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Edison National Historic Site, West Orange, New Jersey. [ Return to text ]
• Melosi, p. 73. [ Return to text ]
• Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography , (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1959) p. 386. [ Return to text ]

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Thomas Edison

By: History.com Editors

Updated: October 17, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor and savvy businessman who acquired a record number of 1,093 patents (singly or jointly) and was the driving force behind such innovations as the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, the alkaline battery and one of the earliest motion picture cameras. He also created the world’s first industrial research laboratory. Known as the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” for the New Jersey town where he did some of his best-known work, Edison had become one of the most famous men in the world by the time he was in his 30s. In addition to his talent for invention, Edison was also a successful manufacturer who was highly skilled at marketing his inventions—and himself—to the public.

Thomas Edison’s Early Life

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He was the seventh and last child born to Samuel Edison Jr. and Nancy Elliott Edison, and would be one of four to survive to adulthood. At age 12, he developed hearing loss—he was reportedly deaf in one ear, and nearly deaf in the other—which was variously attributed to scarlet fever, mastoiditis or a blow to the head.

Thomas Edison received little formal education, and left school in 1859 to begin working on the railroad between Detroit and Port Huron, Michigan, where his family then lived. By selling food and newspapers to train passengers, he was able to net about $50 profit each week, a substantial income at the time—especially for a 13-year-old.

Did you know? By the time he died at age 84 on October 18, 1931, Thomas Edison had amassed a record 1,093 patents: 389 for electric light and power, 195 for the phonograph, 150 for the telegraph, 141 for storage batteries and 34 for the telephone.

During the Civil War , Edison learned the emerging technology of telegraphy, and traveled around the country working as a telegrapher. But with the development of auditory signals for the telegraph, he was soon at a disadvantage as a telegrapher.

To address this problem, Edison began to work on inventing devices that would help make things possible for him despite his deafness (including a printer that would convert electrical telegraph signals to letters). In early 1869, he quit telegraphy to pursue invention full time.

Edison in Menlo Park

From 1870 to 1875, Edison worked out of Newark, New Jersey, where he developed telegraph-related products for both Western Union Telegraph Company (then the industry leader) and its rivals. Edison’s mother died in 1871, and that same year he married 16-year-old Mary Stillwell.

Despite his prolific telegraph work, Edison encountered financial difficulties by late 1875, but one year later—with the help of his father—Edison was able to build a laboratory and machine shop in Menlo Park, New Jersey, 12 miles south of Newark.

With the success of his Menlo Park “invention factory,” some historians credit Edison as the inventor of the research and development (R&D) lab, a collaborative, team-based model later copied by AT&T at Bell Labs , the DuPont Experimental Station , the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and other R&D centers.

In 1877, Edison developed the carbon transmitter, a device that improved the audibility of the telephone by making it possible to transmit voices at higher volume and with more clarity.

That same year, his work with the telegraph and telephone led him to invent the phonograph, which recorded sound as indentations on a sheet of paraffin-coated paper; when the paper was moved beneath a stylus, the sounds were reproduced. The device made an immediate splash, though it took years before it could be produced and sold commercially.

Edison and the Light Bulb

In 1878, Edison focused on inventing a safe, inexpensive electric light to replace the gaslight—a challenge that scientists had been grappling with for the last 50 years. With the help of prominent financial backers like J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family, Edison set up the Edison Electric Light Company and began research and development.

He made a breakthrough in October 1879 with a bulb that used a platinum filament, and in the summer of 1880 hit on carbonized bamboo as a viable alternative for the filament, which proved to be the key to a long-lasting and affordable light bulb. In 1881, he set up an electric light company in Newark, and the following year moved his family (which by now included three children) to New York.

Though Edison’s early incandescent lighting systems had their problems, they were used in such acclaimed events as the Paris Lighting Exhibition in 1881 and the Crystal Palace in London in 1882.

Competitors soon emerged, notably Nikola Tesla, a proponent of alternating or AC current (as opposed to Edison’s direct or DC current). By 1889, AC current would come to dominate the field, and the Edison General Electric Co. merged with another company in 1892 to become General Electric .

Later Years and Inventions

Edison’s wife, Mary, died in August 1884, and in February 1886 he remarried Mirna Miller; they would have three children together. He built a large estate called Glenmont and a research laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, with facilities including a machine shop, a library and buildings for metallurgy, chemistry and woodworking.

Spurred on by others’ work on improving the phonograph, he began working toward producing a commercial model. He also had the idea of linking the phonograph to a zoetrope, a device that strung together a series of photographs in such a way that the images appeared to be moving. Working with William K.L. Dickson, Edison succeeded in constructing a working motion picture camera, the Kinetograph, and a viewing instrument, the Kinetoscope, which he patented in 1891.

After years of heated legal battles with his competitors in the fledgling motion-picture industry, Edison had stopped working with moving film by 1918. In the interim, he had had success developing an alkaline storage battery, which he originally worked on as a power source for the phonograph but later supplied for submarines and electric vehicles.

In 1912, automaker Henry Ford asked Edison to design a battery for the self-starter, which would be introduced on the iconic Model T . The collaboration began a continuing relationship between the two great American entrepreneurs.

Despite the relatively limited success of his later inventions (including his long struggle to perfect a magnetic ore-separator), Edison continued working into his 80s. His rise from poor, uneducated railroad worker to one of the most famous men in the world made him a folk hero.

More than any other individual, he was credited with building the framework for modern technology and society in the age of electricity. His Glenmont estate—where he died in 1931—and West Orange laboratory are now open to the public as the Thomas Edison National Historical Park .

Thomas Edison’s Greatest Invention. The Atlantic . Life of Thomas Alva Edison. Library of Congress . 7 Epic Fails Brought to You by the Genius Mind of Thomas Edison. Smithsonian Magazine .

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Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison is credited with inventions such as the first practical incandescent light bulb and the phonograph. He held over 1,000 patents for his inventions.

(1847-1931)

Who Was Thomas Edison?

Thomas Edison was an American inventor who is considered one of America's leading businessmen and innovators. Edison rose from humble beginnings to work as an inventor of major technology, including the first commercially viable incandescent light bulb. He is credited today for helping to build America's economy during the Industrial Revolution .

Early Life and Education

Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He was the youngest of seven children of Samuel and Nancy Edison. His father was an exiled political activist from Canada, while his mother was an accomplished school teacher and a major influence in Edison’s early life. An early bout with scarlet fever as well as ear infections left Edison with hearing difficulties in both ears as a child and nearly deaf as an adult.

Edison would later recount, with variations on the story, that he lost his hearing due to a train incident in which his ears were injured. But others have tended to discount this as the sole cause of his hearing loss.

In 1854, Edison’s family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where he attended public school for a total of 12 weeks. A hyperactive child, prone to distraction, he was deemed "difficult" by his teacher.

His mother quickly pulled him from school and taught him at home. At age 11, he showed a voracious appetite for knowledge, reading books on a wide range of subjects. In this wide-open curriculum Edison developed a process for self-education and learning independently that would serve him throughout his life.

At age 12, Edison convinced his parents to let him sell newspapers to passengers along the Grand Trunk Railroad line. Exploiting his access to the news bulletins teletyped to the station office each day, Edison began publishing his own small newspaper, called the Grand Trunk Herald .

The up-to-date articles were a hit with passengers. This was the first of what would become a long string of entrepreneurial ventures where he saw a need and capitalized on the opportunity.

Edison also used his access to the railroad to conduct chemical experiments in a small laboratory he set up in a train baggage car. During one of his experiments, a chemical fire started and the car caught fire.

The conductor rushed in and struck Edison on the side of the head, probably furthering some of his hearing loss. He was kicked off the train and forced to sell his newspapers at various stations along the route.

Edison the Telegrapher

While Edison worked for the railroad, a near-tragic event turned fortuitous for the young man. After Edison saved a three-year-old from being run over by an errant train , the child’s grateful father rewarded him by teaching him to operate a telegraph . By age 15, he had learned enough to be employed as a telegraph operator.

For the next five years, Edison traveled throughout the Midwest as an itinerant telegrapher, subbing for those who had gone to the Civil War . In his spare time, he read widely, studied and experimented with telegraph technology, and became familiar with electrical science.

In 1866, at age 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, working for The Associated Press. The night shift allowed him to spend most of his time reading and experimenting. He developed an unrestricted style of thinking and inquiry, proving things to himself through objective examination and experimentation.

Initially, Edison excelled at his telegraph job because early Morse code was inscribed on a piece of paper, so Edison's partial deafness was no handicap. However, as the technology advanced, receivers were increasingly equipped with a sounding key, enabling telegraphers to "read" message by the sound of the clicks. This left Edison disadvantaged, with fewer and fewer opportunities for employment.

In 1868, Edison returned home to find his beloved mother was falling into mental illness and his father was out of work. The family was almost destitute. Edison realized he needed to take control of his future.

Upon the suggestion of a friend, he ventured to Boston, landing a job for the Western Union Company . At the time, Boston was America's center for science and culture, and Edison reveled in it. In his spare time, he designed and patented an electronic voting recorder for quickly tallying votes in the legislature.

However, Massachusetts lawmakers were not interested. As they explained, most legislators didn't want votes tallied quickly. They wanted time to change the minds of fellow legislators.

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In 1871 Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell, who was an employee at one of his businesses. During their 13-year marriage, they had three children, Marion, Thomas and William, who himself became an inventor.

In 1884, Mary died at the age of 29 of a suspected brain tumor. Two years later, Edison married Mina Miller, 19 years his junior.

Thomas Edison: Inventions

In 1869, at 22 years old, Edison moved to New York City and developed his first invention, an improved stock ticker called the Universal Stock Printer, which synchronized several stock tickers' transactions.

The Gold and Stock Telegraph Company was so impressed, they paid him $40,000 for the rights. With this success, he quit his work as a telegrapher to devote himself full-time to inventing.

By the early 1870s, Edison had acquired a reputation as a first-rate inventor. In 1870, he set up his first small laboratory and manufacturing facility in Newark, New Jersey, and employed several machinists.

As an independent entrepreneur, Edison formed numerous partnerships and developed products for the highest bidder. Often that was Western Union Telegraph Company, the industry leader, but just as often, it was one of Western Union's rivals.

Quadruplex Telegraph

In one such instance, Edison devised for Western Union the quadruplex telegraph, capable of transmitting two signals in two different directions on the same wire, but railroad tycoon Jay Gould snatched the invention from Western Union, paying Edison more than $100,000 in cash, bonds and stock, and generating years of litigation.

In 1876, Edison moved his expanding operations to Menlo Park, New Jersey, and built an independent industrial research facility incorporating machine shops and laboratories.

That same year, Western Union encouraged him to develop a communication device to compete with Alexander Graham Bell 's telephone. He never did.

In December 1877, Edison developed a method for recording sound: the phonograph . His innovation relied upon tin-coated cylinders with two needles: one for recording sound, and another for playback.

His first words spoken into the phonograph's mouthpiece were, "Mary had a little lamb." Though not commercially viable for another decade, the phonograph brought him worldwide fame, especially when the device was used by the U.S. Army to bring music to the troops overseas during World War I .

While Edison was not the inventor of the first light bulb, he came up with the technology that helped bring it to the masses. Edison was driven to perfect a commercially practical, efficient incandescent light bulb following English inventor Humphry Davy’s invention of the first early electric arc lamp in the early 1800s.

Over the decades following Davy’s creation, scientists such as Warren de la Rue, Joseph Wilson Swan, Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans had worked to perfect electric light bulbs or tubes using a vacuum but were unsuccessful in their attempts.

After buying Woodward and Evans' patent and making improvements in his design, Edison was granted a patent for his own improved light bulb in 1879. He began to manufacture and market it for widespread use. In January 1880, Edison set out to develop a company that would deliver the electricity to power and light the cities of the world.

That same year, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company—the first investor-owned electric utility—which later became General Electric .

In 1881, he left Menlo Park to establish facilities in several cities where electrical systems were being installed. In 1882, the Pearl Street generating station provided 110 volts of electrical power to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.

Later Inventions & Business

In 1887, Edison built an industrial research laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, which served as the primary research laboratory for the Edison lighting companies.

He spent most of his time there, supervising the development of lighting technology and power systems. He also perfected the phonograph, and developed the motion picture camera and the alkaline storage battery.

Over the next few decades, Edison found his role as inventor transitioning to one as industrialist and business manager. The laboratory in West Orange was too large and complex for any one man to completely manage, and Edison found he was not as successful in his new role as he was in his former one.

Edison also found that much of the future development and perfection of his inventions was being conducted by university-trained mathematicians and scientists. He worked best in intimate, unstructured environments with a handful of assistants and was outspoken about his disdain for academia and corporate operations.

During the 1890s, Edison built a magnetic iron-ore processing plant in northern New Jersey that proved to be a commercial failure. Later, he was able to salvage the process into a better method for producing cement.

Motion Picture

On April 23, 1896, Edison became the first person to project a motion picture, holding the world's first motion picture screening at Koster & Bial's Music Hall in New York City.

His interest in motion pictures began years earlier, when he and an associate named W. K. L. Dickson developed a Kinetoscope, a peephole viewing device. Soon, Edison's West Orange laboratory was creating Edison Films. Among the first of these was The Great Train Robbery , released in 1903.

As the automobile industry began to grow, Edison worked on developing a suitable storage battery that could power an electric car. Though the gasoline-powered engine eventually prevailed, Edison designed a battery for the self-starter on the Model T for friend and admirer Henry Ford in 1912. The system was used extensively in the auto industry for decades.

During World War I, the U.S. government asked Edison to head the Naval Consulting Board, which examined inventions submitted for military use. Edison worked on several projects, including submarine detectors and gun-location techniques.

However, due to his moral indignation toward violence, he specified that he would work only on defensive weapons, later noting, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill."

By the end of the 1920s, Edison was in his 80s. He and his second wife, Mina, spent part of their time at their winter retreat in Fort Myers, Florida, where his friendship with automobile tycoon Henry Ford flourished and he continued to work on several projects, ranging from electric trains to finding a domestic source for natural rubber.

During his lifetime, Edison received 1,093 U.S. patents and filed an additional 500 to 600 that were unsuccessful or abandoned.

He executed his first patent for his Electrographic Vote-Recorder on October 13, 1868, at the age of 21. His last patent was for an apparatus for holding objects during the electroplating process.

Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla

Edison became embroiled in a longstanding rivalry with Nikola Tesla , an engineering visionary with academic training who worked with Edison's company for a time.

The two parted ways in 1885 and would publicly clash in the " War of the Currents " about the use of direct current electricity, which Edison favored, vs. alternating currents, which Tesla championed. Tesla then entered into a partnership with George Westinghouse, an Edison competitor, resulting in a major business feud over electrical power.

Elephant Killing

One of the unusual - and cruel - methods Edison used to convince people of the dangers of alternating current was through public demonstrations where animals were electrocuted.

One of the most infamous of these shows was the 1903 electrocution of a circus elephant named Topsy on New York's Coney Island.

Edison died on October 18, 1931, from complications of diabetes in his home, Glenmont, in West Orange, New Jersey. He was 84 years old.

Many communities and corporations throughout the world dimmed their lights or briefly turned off their electrical power to commemorate his passing.

Edison's career was the quintessential rags-to-riches success story that made him a folk hero in America.

An uninhibited egoist, he could be a tyrant to employees and ruthless to competitors. Though he was a publicity seeker, he didn’t socialize well and often neglected his family.

But by the time he died, Edison was one of the most well-known and respected Americans in the world. He had been at the forefront of America’s first technological revolution and set the stage for the modern electric world.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Thomas Alva Edison
• Birth Year: 1847
• Birth date: February 11, 1847
• Birth State: Ohio
• Birth City: Milan
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Thomas Edison is credited with inventions such as the first practical incandescent light bulb and the phonograph. He held over 1,000 patents for his inventions.
• Technology and Engineering
• Astrological Sign: Aquarius
• The Cooper Union
• Interesting Facts
• Thomas Edison was considered too difficult as a child so his mother homeschooled him.
• Edison became the first to project a motion picture in 1896, at Koster & Bial's Music Hall in New York City.
• Edison had a bitter rivalry with Nikola Tesla.
• During his lifetime, Edison received 1,093 U.S. patents.
• Death Year: 1931
• Death date: October 18, 1931
• Death State: New Jersey
• Death City: West Orange
• Death Country: United States

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Thomas Edison Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/inventors/thomas-edison
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 13, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
• Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
• I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.
• I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
• Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.
• To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
• Hell, there ain't no rules around here! We're trying to accomplish something.
• I always invent to obtain money to go on inventing.
• The phonograph, in one sense, knows more than we do ourselves. For it will retain a perfect mechanical memory of many things which we may forget, even though we have said them.
• We know nothing; we have to creep by the light of experiments, never knowing the day or the hour that we shall find what we are after.
• Everything, anything is possible; the world is a vast storehouse of undiscovered energy.
• The recurrence of a phenomenon like Edison is not very likely... He will occupy a unique and exalted position in the history of his native land, which might well be proud of his great genius and undying achievements in the interest of humanity.” (Nikola Tesla)

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Thomas Alva Edison – A Short Biography

Reading comprehension: a short biography of thomas alva edison, thomas edison: the inventor and entrepreneur, comprehension:.

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Thomas Alva Edison summary

Thomas Alva Edison , (born Feb. 11, 1847, Milan, Ohio, U.S.—died Oct. 18, 1931, West Orange, N.J.), U.S. inventor. He had very little formal schooling. He set up a laboratory in his father’s basement at age 10; at 12 he was earning money selling newspapers and candy on trains. He worked as a telegrapher (1862–68) before deciding to pursue invention and entrepreneurship. Throughout much of his career, he was strongly motivated by efforts to overcome his handicap of partial deafness. For Western Union he developed a machine capable of sending four telegraph messages down one wire, only to sell the invention to Western Union’s rival, Jay Gould, for more than $100,000. He created the world’s first industrial-research laboratory, in Menlo Park, N.J. There he invented the carbon-button transmitter (1877), still used in telephone speakers and microphones today; the phonograph (1877); and the incandescent lightbulb (1879). To develop the lightbulb, he was advanced $30,000 by such financiers as J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts. In 1882 he supervised the installation of the world’s first permanent commercial central power system, in lower Manhattan. After the death of his first wife (1884), he built a new laboratory in West Orange, N.J. Its first major endeavour was the commercialization of the phonograph, which Alexander Graham Bell had improved on since Edison’s initial invention. At the new laboratory Edison and his team also developed an early movie camera and an instrument for viewing moving pictures; they also developed the alkaline storage battery. Although his later projects were not as successful as his earlier ones, Edison continued to work even in his 80s. Singly or jointly, he held a world-record 1,093 patents, nearly 400 of them for electric light and power. He always invented for necessity, with the object of devising something new that he could manufacture. More than any other, he laid the basis for the technological revolution of the modern electric world.

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Chapter 12 – Thomas Alva Edison

Karen garvin.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931), the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” was an American inventor. Considered to be a true genius, Edison created the world’s first research laboratory, where his systematic approach to inventing focused on practical results rather than theoretical knowledge. Although best known for his improvements to the light bulb and for creating the phonograph and motion picture camera, much of Edison’s work was related to the generation and distribution of electricity.

Figure 1. Thomas Alva Edison, c. 1904. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Collection, LC-USZ62-108087.

Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He was the youngest of seven children and had limited formal education, which would later feed the myth that he was “a poor boy, uneducated and entirely self-taught.” [1] In fact, during 1854 Edison attended a private school run by Reverend George Engle and from 1859 to 1860 he attended the Port Huron School. [2] Edison, who would later describe himself as a “delicate” small boy, was mostly homeschooled by his mother, a former high-school teacher, who taught her son “how to read good books quickly and correctly.” [3] Edison devoured books on history, philosophy, and science. He liked to do chemical experiments and even strung up a telegraph wire to a friend’s house so they could send messages to each other. [4]

In 1859, Edison began working as a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad line, where he earned pocket money to buy materials for his home chemical laboratory. [5] The twelve-year-old Edison rode the train and sold newspapers and magazines, but he also had a great deal of free time. In 1862 he purchased a small printing press, which he set up in the baggage car. From this makeshift office, Edison printed his own newspaper, the Weekly Herald . [6] Edison also conducted chemical experiments until a fire broke out and he was evicted from the train. [7]

Edison learned telegraphy and, despite noticing that he was developing a hearing loss, spent the next several years working as a telegraph operator. In early 1868 he moved to Boston and took a job with Western Union. During his free time there he designed and patented his first invention: an electronic vote recorder, which was met with indifference by lawmakers in Washington. [8]

Despite this initial setback, Edison quit his job at Western Union in January 1869 so that he could become a full-time inventor. He moved to New York City in April 1869, and in February 1870 he signed a contract with Gold and Stock Telegraph Company to do research and development on improvements to telegraph equipment. Edison began working on designs for an improved stock ticker, which he named the Universal Stock Printer. [9]

Edison sold the rights to the stock ticker to the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company for $40,000. [10] Then, he used the money to set up the Newark Telegraph Works in Newark, New Jersey. [11] That same year, an investor put up enough money for Edison to open a second shop, the American Telegraph Works. Between the two companies, Edison employed more than 160 men.

Edison soon outgrew the facility in Newark, and in December 1875 moved his operations to Menlo Park, New Jersey. He had a two-story laboratory built to his specifications, which housed a machine shop on the ground floor and a chemical laboratory on the second floor. Edison opened the laboratory in the spring of 1876 with a staff of five: two experimenters and three machinists. [12] The Menlo Park lab was quickly dubbed “the invention factory” by reporters, [13] and it was one of the first research and development laboratories. [14] Edison’s system was to come up with ideas and assign teams of researchers to work on projects, whom he referred to as “muckers.” [15] By having multiple teams engaged in developing marketable products, it was possible for the lab to be more productive than a lone inventor could ever have been. [16]

To keep Menlo Park running, Edison needed money. His method of raising money was to pursue only the inventions that were both “practical and profitable.” [17] In the summer of 1877, Edison came up with an idea for a machine that would record and play back sound messages. His prototype used a stylus that vibrated from the pressure of sound waves and carved small grooves on a piece of tin foil wrapped around a cylinder. The foil cylinder was later replaced by wax cylinders. [18] The phonograph became a commercial success and put Edison in the public spotlight, earning him the epithet “Wizard of Menlo Park.”

By early 1878, the laboratory staff had increased to 25, and by the 1880s expanded to a maximum of 50 to 60 employees. Edison added a separate machine shop and several other buildings to the Menlo Park site, and even provided a boardinghouse for some of his employees. [19] For a short time, Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was employed by Edison as an electrical engineer. [20] Both men were dedicated workaholics, but a rift developed between them after Edison supposedly promised Tesla fifty-thousand dollars if he could increase the efficiency of Edison’s electric dynamo. After Tesla succeeded, Edison claimed it had been a joke but counteroffered a raise in pay. Tesla, believing he had been cheated, resigned. [21]

In 1878, Edison began work on developing a longer-burning filament for electric light bulbs. Existing bulbs burned out within just a few hours; Edison realized that in order for the bulbs to be commercially viable they needed to last much longer. He did not invent the light bulb, however—the credit for that goes to English scientist Humphry Davy, who, in the early 1800s, had connected batteries to charcoal sticks and generated an arc of electricity to produce incandescent lighting. [22] On October 14, 1878, Edison filed a patent application for “Improvement in Electric Lights,” but he continued to refine the bulb and submitted another patent application on November 4, 1879.

Eventually, after Edison and his muckers tested thousands of materials for the light bulb filament, including carbonized cardboard and platinum, Edison discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament would last more than a thousand hours before it burned out. [23] Edison made further improvements, such as evacuating the air from the glass bulb and designing the screw base for the light bulb, which is still in use today.

Figure 2. Edison’s patent for the Electric-Lamp. Note the coiled filament inside the bulb. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, “Drawing for an Electric Lamp,” National Archives Catalog, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/595450 .

Edison began to manufacture and market his bulbs, but delivering electricity to run them was still problematic. But instead of just fabricating pieces of the electric puzzle, it was Edison’s intention to create a whole system, from electrical generation and distribution to the end products for home and business use. [24] In December 1880, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company with the purpose of constructing electrical generating stations. In 1881, he purchased a large building in Manhattan and obtained permission from the city to dig up the streets in order to lay nearly fourteen miles of electrical conduits. [25] Edison’s Pearl Street Power Station opened in 1882, and it used coal to power an electrical generator. This central power company delivered direct current (DC) electricity to his customers.

In a DC system, electrical current flows in one direction and is relatively low voltage. But while Edison’s DC distribution system was successful, it had several major drawbacks: the voltage could only be sent over short distances before it dropped too low to be useful, and the voltage could not be changed easily for varying electrical loads, which meant that each electrical device needed its own power lines. A competing power system, one favored by Edison’s ex-employee Tesla, was alternating current (AC), which allowed electricity to be sent over many miles of wire without loss and used a system of transformers to change voltages so that lighting and motors could be operated from the same power lines.

In 1886, William Stanley Jr. (1858–1916) had successfully electrified Great Barrington, Massachusetts, using alternating current. While others, including Tesla and George Westinghouse (1846–1914), believed that an AC distribution system was safe, Edison felt strongly that it was dangerous because of the high voltages it used and its tendency to spark. Indeed, several deaths, including the ghastly public spectacle of the electrocution of lineman John Feeks, had already taken place. [26]

By now Edison had invested a great deal of cash in his own DC system, which served only one square mile of customers, and he was fighting to keep his system financially solvent. [27] He appealed to public emotion about the safety of his DC system, but the differences of opinion between proponents of DC and AC devolved into a bitter rivalry that became known as the “War of the Currents.” It was a losing battle for Edison: in 1891 the Electrical World magazine reported that there were just over 200 Edison DC power stations in use, versus nearly 1,000 operational AC power stations. When the contract for electrifying the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition was awarded to Westinghouse, who used Tesla’s AC system, it cemented the superiority of alternating current for electrical distribution systems.

Nevertheless, Edison’s business continued to grow, and in 1887 he built a larger research facility in West Orange, New Jersey, where he became increasingly involved in management. Construction on the new laboratory began in May and the facility was occupied by the new year. Unlike the informal research facility of Edison’s younger days, this new laboratory employed university-trained scientists and utilized large-scale teamwork in its research methods. [28] Although Edison made no claims for himself about being a “pure scientist,” he nevertheless read professional literature, even as he disdained the career of a pure scientist. [29]

During his time at his West Orange lab, Edison continued to refine his phonograph and, after seeing the work of photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), came to believe that motion could be captured on film. On July 31, 1891, Edison filed a patent for his motion picture camera. Never one to do half measures, Edison built a motion picture studio at the West Orange research park, called the Black Maria, in 1893. [30]

Figure 3. Interior of Thomas. A. Edison Laboratories, Building No. 2, West Orange, New Jersey. Apparatus on the table was used to make a steel master for the mass production of phonograph records. Photo: Jet Lowe, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, HAER NJ,7-ORAW,4-A.

Some of the early films created at the studio were shown in Kinetoscopes, which were wooden boxes that housed rollers and spools for a single film. The first Kinetoscope parlor opened on April 14, 1894, in New York, where viewers could pay to watch the movies. The first commercial motion picture intended for a large audience was projected at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York City on April 23, 1896.

During the 1890s, Edison began experimenting with something completely different: he built an iron ore separating plant in Ogden, New Jersey, that crushed rocks and used an electromagnet to separate the iron ore from the rock. [31] After several expensive upgrades to the plant, and the discovery of high-grade iron ore deposits in the Great Lakes area, Edison realized the unprofitability of this venture. But while the iron had never been a moneymaker, his company had sold crushed rock to cement companies. Thus, Edison followed the money trail and in 1899 he organized the Edison Portland Cement Company, which opened in 1901. [32]

Next, Edison turned his attention back to a project that he had been interested in for years: a storage battery. [33] In 1901, he formed the Edison Storage Battery Company and began working on a storage battery for electric cars. An “E” type of alkaline storage battery was produced in 1903, but there were problems with the batteries leaking and they did not recharge properly. In 1909, a new “A” type of nickel-iron alkaline battery was manufactured, [34] and in 1910, two electric cars with Edison batteries climbed Mt. Washington in New Hampshire on a promotional tour. [35]

In 1915, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels (1862–1948) appointed Edison as president of the newly formed Naval Consulting Board. The board comprised civilian experts who would review technology-related suggestions submitted by the public for possible military application. [36] Edison petitioned the government to establish a permanent research laboratory, but resigned from the naval board in January 1921. [37] Eventually the lab was constructed and the Naval Research Laboratory began operations on July 2, 1923. [38]

In 1927, Edison, now 80 years old, joined forces with Henry Ford (1863–1947) and Harvey Firestone (1868–1938) to form the Edison Botanic Research Corporation in Fort Meyers, Florida. The company’s goal was to find a domestic source of rubber so that America would not be dependent on foreign sources in case of another war. More than 17,000 plants were tested before goldenrod was selected as the most viable source for rubber. [39]

Edison married twice and had six children, although his heavy work schedule left little time for family. [40] In 1871, he met Mary Stilwell (1855–1884), who was working at the News Reporting Company, a short-lived business venture of Edison’s. He proposed  and they were married on Christmas Day. [41] They had three children: Marion (1873), Thomas (1876), and William (1878). Mary’s health declined and she died in 1884.

In 1885, while on a trip to New Hampshire with a group of friends, Edison met and proposed to Mina Miller (1865–1947). They married on February 24, 1886, and also had three children: Madeleine (1888), Charles (1890), and Theodore (1898).

Edison’s research spanned a wide range of electrical improvements and inventions, including small electrical appliances for home use, such as a coffeemaker and iron. He received 1,093 patents and won awards that included the French Légion d’Honneur in 1881 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1928. [42] He died on October 18, 1931, at his home in Glenmont, New Jersey.

Further Reading:

DeGraff, Leonard. Edison and the Rise of Innovation . New York: Sterling Signature, 2013.

Jonnes, Jill. Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World . New York: Random House, 2004.

Freeberg, Ernest. The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America . New York: Penguin Books, 2013.

Morris, Edmund. Edison . New York: Random House, 2019.

Munson, Richard. Tesla: Inventor of the Modern . New York: W.W. Norton, 2018.

Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers Project, http://edison.rutgers.edu/.

Stross, Randall. The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World . New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007.

[1] . Frank Parker Stockbridge, “Rubber from Weeds, My New Goal,” Popular Science Monthly 3, no. 6 (December 1927): 9–11.

[2] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “The Boyhood Years,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/educationinventor.htm#5 .

[3] . Thomas Alva Edison, letter to the pupils of the grammar schools of New Jersey, April 30, 1912, http://edison.rutgers.edu/yearofinno/Oct13/TAE%20to%20Pupils%20of%20Grammar%20School%20of%20NJ_1912-4-30.pdf.

[4] . Rutgers, “The Boyhood Years”; Leonard DeGraff, Edison and the Rise of Innovation (New York: Sterling Signature, 2013), xxi.

[5] . Edison, letter to the pupils.

[6] . DeGraff, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , xxii–xxiii; Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Learning to Do Business: Early Entrepreneurship,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/educationinventor.htm#5 .

[7] . Rutgers, “The Boyhood Years.”

[8] . DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , 3.

[9] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Stock Ticker,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/ticker.htm .

[10] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Edison’s Autobiographical Notes,” https://edison.rutgers.edu/yearofinno/TAEBdocs/V1App1_A.pdf , 643.

[11] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Newark, N.J., 1870–1875,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/educationinventor.htm#5.

[12] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Building the Lab,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/inventionfactory.htm.

[13] . DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , 22.

[14] . “Edison and His Era: ‘Muckers’ and the Invention Process,” Thomas Edison National Historical Park, last updated February 26, 2015, https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/kidsyouth/edison-and-his-era.htm .

[15] . Thomas Edison National Historical Park, “The Gifted Men Who Worked for Edison,” National Park Service, last updated February 26, 2015, https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/kidsyouth/the-gifted-men-who-worked-for-edison.htm.

[16] . “Edison and His Era: ‘Muckers’ and the Invention Process.”

[17] . Edmund Morris, Edison (New York: Random House, 2019), 7.

[18] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Tinfoil Phonograph,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/tinfoil.htm.

[19] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Expanding the Laboratory,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/inventionfactory.htm.

[20] . Ernest Freeberg, The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America (New York: Penguin Books, 2013), 208.

[21] . Munson, Tesla: Inventor of the Modern , 53–54.

[22] . DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , 48; Freeberg, The Age of Edison , 15–17.

[23] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Electric Lamp,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/lamp.htm.

[24] . Thomas P. Hughes, “The Electrification of America: The System Builders,” Technology and Culture 20, no. 1 (January 1979): 124.

[25] . Jill Jonnes, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World (New York: Random House, 2004), 4, 80.

[26] . Freeburg, The Age of Edison , 181.

[27] . DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , 90.

[28] . DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , 75, 78–79.

[29] . Morris, Edison , 7, 46.

[30] . DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , 129–30.

[31] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Ore Milling,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/ore.htm .

[32] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Cement,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/cement.htm ; Jonnes, Empires of Light , 347–50.

[33] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Storage Battery,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/battery.htm .

[34] . Jonnes, Empires of Light , 352; Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “A Brief Chronology of Edison’s Life,” http://edison.rutgers.edu/brfchron.htm .

[35] . “A Brief Chronology of Edison’s Life.”

[36] . “Thomas Edison’s Vision,” U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, https://www.nrl.navy.mil/about-nrl/history/edison/.

[37] . “A Brief Chronology of Edison’s Life.”

[38] . DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , 200–03.

[39] . New York Botanical Garden, International Plant Science Center, Mertz Library, “Personal Papers, Thomas Alva Edison (1880–1964),” https://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/libr/finding_guide/edison2.asp.html ; Stockbridge, “Rubber from Weeds, My New Goal.”

[40] . Jonnes, Empires of Light , 353.

[41] . DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation , 11.

[42] . Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Thomas A. Edison Papers, “Later Years,” last updated October 28, 2016, http://edison.rutgers.edu/biogrphy.htm ; Jonnes, Empires of Light , 96; “Historical Highlights: Thomas Edison’s Congressional Gold Medal,” History, Art, and Archives, United States House of Representatives, https://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/36558 .

History of Applied Science & Technology Copyright © 2017 by Karen Garvin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Alva Edison, being one of the most creative inventors of all time, was considered a true gem in the world of inventions. He also spent a significant part of his life giving contributions to the world of designs that had an incredible influence on modern life. The creation of the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, as well as improving the workings of telegraph and the telephone, were some of his astonishing inventions. Thomas Alva Edison was also a successful businessman and innovator who managed to change the lifestyle of people through his essential innovations and improvements in a wide range of fields.

Table of Contents

About thomas alva edison, education, career and achievements, the invention of the light bulb, the phonograph.

• Edison’s Contribution in the Field of Electricity

Thomas Alva Edison was the phenomenal American inventor who holds the world-record of 1093 patents. Also, he created the world’s first industrial research laboratory. Edison was born on 11th February 1847, in Milan, Ohio – U.S.

Edison’s patents and numerous inventions contributed significantly to mass communications and telecommunications. Stock ticker, phonograph, the practical electric light bulb , motion picture camera, mechanical vote recorder and a battery for the electric car were some of his notable inventions.

He sold newspapers to passengers traveling along the Grand Trunk Railroad line during his early years. This led him to start his own newspaper named as the ‘Grand Trunk Herald’. The access to up-to-date information in this newspaper became quite a hit between the masses. Also, it was the first of the many more to come business ventures by Edison.

• Thomas Alva Edison always had a thrust of knowledge within him, and due to that, at an early age, he started reading a wide range of books and different subjects. 
• Edison’s higher education did not include any university or attending college; instead, he was primarily self-taught. 
• The absence of a well-defined curriculum led him to develop the skill of self-education and independent learning, which remained with him all his life.
• He began his career as an inventor when he moved to New York. 
• He devoted the decade of the 1870s to conducting experiments on the telephone, phonograph, electric railway, electric lighting, and other developing inventions. 
• His first round of fame was brought by the design of the phonograph in 1877, which took his status to greater heights. 
• He formed Edison Electric Light Company in 1878 in New York City.
• Achievement:
• He was felicitated with several awards and medals for his generous contribution to humankind. 
• Some of them include the Distinguished Service Medal by the U.S. Navy and Congressional Gold Medal by the U.S. Also, he was decorated with the  “Officer of the Legion of Honour”  by France. 
• He was welcomed into the New Jersey Hall of Fame and Entrepreneur Walk of Fame.

The greatest challenge faced by Thomas Alva Edison was to develop a practical luminous, electric light. He accomplished this using lower current electricity , an improved vacuum inside the globe and a small carbonized filament which is a stitched thread that burned for thirteen and a half hours. He was successful in producing a reliable, long-lasting source of light.

Did Edison really invent the light bulb?

The tinfoil Phonograph was Thomas Edison’s first greatest invention in 1877. It was the first machine to record and play a person’s voice. Edison recited the rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on a tin cylinder that captured the recording.

He also recommended other uses for the phonograph, such as letter writing and dictation, record music boxes, etc. Edison’s device phonograph played using cylinders rather than discs. It consisted of two needles, one for recording and one for playback.

Edison’s contribution in the field of electricity

A system of conductors , meters, current switches, etc. was designed by Edison as he knew that his light bulb invention would be ineffective without a proper method to deliver electricity. Edison improved the designs of generators, which led him to invent more efficient power output generators than the existing ones at that time. Hence, this was marked as the beginning of the electric age.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Name some of the incredible inventions of thomas alva edison..

Thomas Alva Edison is famous for his incredible inventions like the light bulb, phonograph and motion picture cameras.

How did Thomas Alva Edison invent the lightbulb?

Edison invented the light bulb by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament packed inside a glass vacuum bulb.

What is a filament?

A filament is a metallic thin wire or thread inside a bulb that lights up when electricity is passed through it.

What is a phonograph?

It is a form of gramophone using cylinders to record and reproduce sounds.

How many times did Thomas Alva Edison fail while inventing the light bulb?

Thomas Alva Edison made 1000 unsuccessful attempts before getting the final result.

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The Inventions of Thomas Edison Essay

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The inventions of Thomas Edison, the brilliant American scientist, and entrepreneur, are relevant today, even though more than a century has passed since their creation. One of his most outstanding developments is an electric that was patented in the 19th century and changed the lives of people significantly. Due to this invention, a new round in science was achieved, and humanity entered a new industrial era.

Before Edison invented the electric lamp, centralized electric networks had not existed. However, with the advent of this development, people got an opportunity to illuminate large areas due to the ordered energy of the current rather than local lighting devices. Edison was the first to organize the streaming production of electric lamps and designed their basic configuration. As a result, people were able to control lighting levels and use electricity wisely.

Today, the traditional design of Edison’s lamp is used in many lighting fixtures. Although many innovations in the electricity industry have been developed since its inception, the classic design of this device does not lose popularity. Due to a simple d reliable construction, bulbs with filament are utilized in both domestic and industrial needs. In addition, the appearance of such a device gave impetus to the development of science in the field of electricity. Many new developments appeared due to Edison’s achievements, who was one of the founders of the practical application of current.

The electric lamp was one of the many inventions of the great scientist, but it was this development that glorified Edison most of all and became the subject associated with the inventor. The introduction of compressed current energy marked the transition to a new technological era. The outcome of Edison’s work may be seen in almost any home today, and the value of his contribution to science is undeniable.

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Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He experienced hearing loss at an early age. He was an imaginative and curious child. He did poorly in school, though, perhaps because he could not hear his teacher. His mother then educated him at home.

When Thomas was a teenager he became a telegraph operator. Telegraphy was one of the nation’s most important communication systems at the time. Thomas was good at sending and taking messages in Morse code. He loved tinkering with telegraphic instruments, and he developed several improvements for them. By early 1869 he had quit his telegraphy job to become a full-time inventor.

Although most of his life was devoted to his work, Edison’s family was also important to him. He married twice and had six children. Edison died on October 18, 1931.

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Thomas Edison: One Of The Greatest Inventors Of All Times

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