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Grandpa Pencil Thomas Alva Edison |
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many important devices. "The Wizard of Menlo Park" was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention. In 1880 Edison founded the journal Science, which in 1900 became the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors, holding a record 1,093 patents in his name. Most of these inventions were not completely original but improvements of earlier patents, and were actually made by his numerous employees. He was frequently criticized for not sharing the credits. Nevertheless, Edison received patents worldwide, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). In the early 1900s, Thomas Edison bought a house in Fort Myers, Florida (Seminole Lodge) as a winter retreat. Henry Ford, the automobile magnate lived across the street at his winter retreat (The Mangoes). They were friends until Edison died. Thomas Alva Edison's ancestors, the Dutch Edesons, went to New Jersey in 1730. John Edeson remained loyal to England when the colonies revolted. That got him arrested and nearly hanged after which he and his family fled to Nova Scotia, Canada, settling on land the British government gave those who had been loyal to it. Thomas Edison had a late start in his schooling due to childhood illnesses. His mind often wandered and shortly into his schooling his teacher was overheard calling him "addled." This ended Edison's three-months of formal schooling. His mother had been a school teacher in Canada and took over the job of schooling her son in his academics. Mrs. Edison encouraged and taught her son to read and experiment. His curious mind and need to know got him into a lot of trouble but it was here that he had his first laboratory in the basement of the family home. |
At the age of twelve Edison rode the trains daily, selling candy, fruits, and vegtables, from Port Huron, to Detroit and back again. He also worked as a pig slaughterer and started his own business selling vegetables. Around 1862, Edison printed and published The Weekly Herald. It was the first newspaper ever to be typeset and printed on a moving train. Today, the paper is known as the Port Huron Times Herald. Partially deaf since adolescence, he became a telegraph operator after he saved the life of J.U. MacKenzie's son, Jimmie, from being struck by a runaway railcar. Some of his earliest inventions related to electrical telegraphy, included a stock ticker. Edison applied for his first patent, the electric vote recorder, on October 28, 1868. Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey with the stock ticker and other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention which first gained Edison wide fame was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park" after the New Jersey town where he lived. His first phonograph recorded onto tinfoil cylinders that had low sound quality and destroyed the track during replay so that one could listen only once. A redesigned model using wax cylinders was produced soon after by Alexander Graham Bell. The "gramophone," playing gramophone records, was invented by Emile Berliner in 1887, but in the early years, the audio fidelity was worse than the phonograph cylinders marketed by Edison Records. In 1880, Edison patented an electric distribution system. The first investor-owned electric utility was the 1882 Pearl Street Station, New York City. On January 25, 1881, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company. On September 4, 1882, Edison switched on the world's first electrical power distribution system, providing 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan, around his Pearl Street laboratory. |
Edison said: "genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."
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