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Thomas Alva Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an 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. Edison 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).
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Family background
* 2 Birth
* 3 Early years
* 4 First marriage
* 5 Inventor
* 6 Second marriage
* 7 Middle career
o 7.1 Menlo Park
o 7.2 Incandescence era
o 7.3 War of Currents era
o 7.4 Work relations
o 7.5 Media inventions
* 8 Homes
* 9 Trivia
* 10 List of contributions
* 11 Improvements of Edison's work
* 12 Tributes
* 13 Fictional appearances
* 14 External links
o 14.1 Biography
o 14.2 Historic sites
o 14.3 Archives
o 14.4 Relations
o 14.5 Writings and speech
o 14.6 Cross references in popular culture
* 15 Timeline
[edit]
Family background
Thomas Alva Edison's ancestors, the Dutch Edesons, came to New Jersey in 1730.
John Edeson remained loyal to England when the colonies revolted (see United
Empire Loyalists). That got him arrested and nearly hanged. He and his family
fled to Nova Scotia, Canada, settling on land the colonial government gave those
who had been loyal to Britain. In 1811, three generations of Edisons took up
farming near Vienna, Ontario. Among them was Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr.
(1804-1896), an erstwhile shingle maker, tailor, and tavern keeper from
Marshalltown, Nova Scotia. He married Nancy Matthews Elliott, of Chenango
County, New York. In 1837, Samuel Edison was a rebel in the MacKenzie Rebellion
that sought land reform and autonomy from Great Britain. The revolt failed and,
like his grandfather before him, Samuel Edison was forced to flee for his life.
Unlike his grandfather, he went south across the American border instead of
north. He settled first in Port Huron, Michigan, temporarily leaving his wife
Nancy and children behind. From Port Huron, he moved to Detroit, then to Peru,
Ohio, and finally to Milan, Ohio.
[edit]
Birth
Thomas Edison was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio to Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. and
Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810-1871). Thomas was their seventh child. When he was
seven years old the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan.
[edit]
Early years
Edison had a late start in his schooling due to childhood illness. His mind
often wandered and shortly into his schooling, his teacher Alexander Crawford,
was overheard calling him "addled". This ended Edison's three-months of formal
schooling. His mother had been a school teacher in Canada and happily took over
the job of schooling her son in his academics. She encouraged and taught him to
read and experiment. He recalled later, "My mother was the making of me. She was
so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must
not disappoint." [[1]]. Many of his lessons came from reading R.G. Parker's
School of natural philosophy'.
Edison's life in Port Huron was bittersweet. Partially deaf since adolescence,
he became a telegraph operator after he saved Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck
by a runaway train. Little Jimmie's father, station agent J.U. MacKenzie of
Mount Clemens, Michigan was so grateful that he took Edison under his wing and
trained him as a telegraph operator. Edison's deafness aided him as it blocked
out noises and prevented Edison from hearing the telegrapher sitting next to
him. One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and
inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the then impoverished youth to
live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey home.
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.
[edit]
First marriage
On December 25, 1871 he married Mary Stilwell (1855-1884), and they had three
children:
* Marion Estelle Edison (1873-1965) who married Karl Oscar Oeser
* Thomas Alva Edison II (1875-1935) who married Marie Louise Toohey and later
married Beatrice Heyzer
* William Leslie Edison (1878-1935) who married Blanche Travers
[edit]
Inventor
Thomas Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey with the
automatic repeater and other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention
which first gained Edison wide fame was the phonograph in 1877. While
non-reproducible sound recording was first achieved by Leon Scott de Martinville
(France, 1857), and others at the time (notably Charles Cros) were contemplating
the notion that sound waves might be recorded and reproduced, Edison was the
first to publicly demonstrate a device to do so. 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 resided.
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. Sound quality was still low, and replays were limited before wear
destroyed the recording, but the invention enjoyed popularity. 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.
[edit]
Second marriage
On February 24, 1886 he married Mina Miller (1865-1946) and had an additional
three children:
* Madeleine Edison (1888-1979) who married John Eyre Sloane
* Charles Edison (1890-1969) who took over the company upon his father's death
and married Carolyn Hawkins
* Theodore Smidlap Edison (1898-1992) who married an Osterhout
[edit]
Middle career
[edit]
Menlo Park
Edison's major innovation was the Menlo Park research lab, which was built in
New Jersey. It was the first institution set up with the specific purpose of
producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Edison invented
most of the inventions produced there, though he primarily supervised the
operation and work of his employees.
Most of Edison's patents were utility patents, with only about a dozen being
design patents. Many of his inventions were not completely original, but
improvements which allowed for mass production. For example, contrary to public
perception, Edison did not invent the electric light bulb. Several designs had
already been developed by earlier inventors including Moses G. Farmer (see)[2],
Joseph Swan, Henry Woodward, Mathew Evans, James Bowman Lindsay, William Sawyer,
Humphrey Davey, and Heinrich Göbel. In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to
the element of glowing wire carrying the current, although English inventor
Joseph Swan used the term prior to this. Edison took the features of these
earlier designs and set his workers to the task of creating longer-lasting
bulbs. After Edison purchased the Woodward and Evans patent of 1875, his
employees experimented with a large number of different materials to increase
the bulb's burning time. By 1879, they had increased the burning time enough to
make the light bulb commercially viable. While the earlier inventors had
produced electric lighting in laboratory conditions, Edison concentrated on
commercial application and was able to sell the concept to homes and businesses
by mass-producing relatively long-lasting light bulbs and creating a system for
the generation and distribution of electricity.
The Menlo Park research lab was made possible by the sale of the quadruplex
telegraph that Edison invented in 1874. The quadruplex telegraph could send four
simultaneous telegraph signals over the same wire. When Edison asked Western
Union to make an offer, he was shocked at the unexpectedly large amount that
Western Union offered; the patent rights were sold for $10,000. The quadruplex
telegraph was Edison's first big financial success.
[edit]
Incandescence era
U.S. Patent #223898 Electric Lamp
Enlarge
U.S. Patent #223898 Electric Lamp
In 1878, Edison formed Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with
several financiers, including J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts. Edison made the
first public demonstration of incandescent lighting on December 31, 1879, in
Menlo Park. On January 27, 1880, he filed a patent in the United States for the
electric incandescent lamp.
On October 8, 1883, the U.S. patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based
on the work of William Sawyer and was therefore invalid. Litigation continued
until October 6, 1889, when a judge ruled that Edison's electric light
improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. After
he lost another court battle with Joseph Swan, he and Swan formed a joint
company called Ediswan to market the invention. This company and its
technological heritage became General Electric in 1892.
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. On January
19, 1883, the first standardized electric lighting system employing overhead
wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey.
(video)
Edison speech on light bulb (info)
Video clip of Thomas Edison talking about the invention of the light bulb, late
1920s.
Problems seeing the videos? Media help.
[edit]
War of Currents era
Main article: War of Currents
Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public
events, as this picture from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition shows.
Enlarge
Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public
events, as this picture from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition shows.
During the initial years of electricity distribution, Edison's DC was the
standard for the United States, and Edison was not disposed to lose all his
patent royalties. During the "War of Currents" era, Nikola Tesla and Edison
became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of DC for electric power
distribution over the more efficient alternating current (AC) advocated by
Tesla, who patented AC in Graz, Austria. Edison (or, reportedly, one of his
employees) employed the tactics of misusing Tesla's patents to construct the
first electric chair for the state of New York to promote the idea that AC was
deadly. Popular myth has it that Edison invented the electric chair, despite
being against capital punishment, solely as a means of impressing the public
that AC was more dangerous than DC. In fact, like most of the output of the
Menlo Park operations, the chair was primarily invented by a few of his
employees, in particular Harold P. Brown, while Edison supervised their
operations. [3]
Edison went on to carry out a campaign to discredit and discourage the use of
AC. Edison presided personally over several electrocutions of animals, primarily
stray cats and dogs, for the benefit of the press to prove that his system of DC
was safer than that of AC. Edison's demonstrations peaked with the electrocution
of Topsy the Elephant.
Many of Edison's inventions using DC ultimately lost favor to AC devices
proposed by others. AC distribution systems replaced DC, extending the range and
improving the safety and efficiency of power distribution. Since the 1950s,
high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems have become more common
in certain situations.
[edit]
Work relations
As exemplified by the light bulb, most of Edison's inventions were improvements
of ideas by others, achieved through a diligent and industrial approach and
team-based development. He was the undisputed head of the team, but usually did
not share credit for the inventions. He himself said: "genius is one percent
inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." Nikola Tesla, possibly Edison's
most famous employee who went on to be a great scientist and inventor in his own
right, said about Edison's method of problem-solving: "If Edison had a needle to
find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to
examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry
witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have
saved him ninety percent of his labor." He profited from his good connections
with Europe - European inventors often did not apply for US patents for their
ideas, so that Edison was free to develop their ideas further himself and then
obtain his own US patents.
Frank J. Sprague, a former naval officer, was recruited by Edward H. Johnson,
and joined the Edison organization in 1883. Sprague was a good mathematician,
and one of Sprague's significant contributions to the Edison Laboratory at Menlo
Park was the introduction of mathematical methods. Prior to his arrival, Edison
conducted many costly trial-and-error experiments. Sprague's approach was to
calculate the optimum parameters and thus save much needless tinkering. He did
important work for Edison, including correcting Edison's system of mains and
feeders for central station distribution. In 1884, Sprague decided his interests
in the exploitation of electricity lay elsewhere, and he left Edison to found
the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company. However, Sprague, who later
developed many electrical innovations, always credited Edison for their work
together.
[edit]
Media inventions
The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of
working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This
allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first
electricity-based broadcast system.
Edison holds the patent for the motion picture camera, but it is argued that
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson actually invented it while working in the Menlo
Park research lab. As with the electric light, an improvement upon ideas
developed by others. Edison established the standard of using 35 mm (then 1 and
3/8 inches) film that allowed film to emerge as a mass medium. The film included
four perforations on the edge of each frame to enable the projector to advance
the film properly. He built what has been called the first movie studio, the
Black Maria, in New Jersey. There, he made the first copyrighted film, Fred
Ott's Sneeze. In 1902, a US court rejected Edison's claim that he be granted
sole rights over all aspects of movie production in the case "Edison v. American
Mutoscope Company" [4].
In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope, or peep-hole viewer. This device was
installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. In
1894, Edison experimented with synchronizing audio with film; the Kinetophone
loosely synchronized a Kinetoscope image with a cylinder phonograph. This was
especially important to Thomas Edison because he had been searching for a way to
entertain customers that were listening to music on his phonograph. Now, people
could go to a penny arcade, put in a coin, put on headphones, and watch a film
through the peep-hole.
On August 9, 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph.
In April of 1896, Edison and Thomas Armat's Vitascope was used to project motion
pictures in public screenings in New York City.
[edit]
Homes
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). Edison even contributed
technology to the automobile. They were friends until Edison died. The Edison
and Ford Winter Estates are now open to the public.
[edit]
Trivia
* Thomas Edison was a freethinker, and was most likely a deist, claiming he did
not believe in "the God of the theologians," but did not doubt that "there is a
Supreme Intelligence." However, he rejected the idea of the supernatural, along
with such ideas as the soul, immortality, and a personal God. "Nature," he said,
"is not merciful and loving, but wholly merciless, indifferent."5
* Edison was a vegetarian: "Non-violence" he said, "leads to the highest ethics,
which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living
beings, we are still savages."
* He purchased a home known as Glenmont in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina in
West Orange, New Jersey. The remains of Thomas and Mina Edison are now buried
there. The 13.5 acre (55,000 m˛) property is maintained by the National Park
Service as the Edison National Historic Site.
* His contributions to technology benefited people world-wide, and in 1878 he
was named Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur of France, and in 1889 was made a
Commander in the Legion of Honor.
[edit]
List of contributions
Main article : List of Edison patents
* Phonograph
* Kinetoscope
* Dictaphone
* Edison provided financial backing for Guglielmo Marconi's work on Radio
transmission, and obtained several related patents
* Edison purchased the Woodward and Evans patent for the electric bulb
(incandescent light bulb) and improved the design
* Tattoo gun (enabling technology)
[edit]
Improvements of Edison's work
* Lewis Latimer patented an improved method of producing the filament in light
bulbs.
* Nikola Tesla developed alternating current distribution, which could be used
to transmit electricity over longer distance than Edison's direct current due to
the ability to transform the voltage.
* Emil Berliner developed the gramophone, which is essentially an improved
phonograph, with the main difference being the use of flat records with spiral
grooves.
* Edward H. Johnson had light bulbs specially made, hand-wired, and displayed at
his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City on the first electrically-illuminated
Christmas tree on December 22, 1882.
[edit]
Tributes
The town of Edison, New Jersey, and Thomas Edison State College, a
nationally-known college for adult learners in Trenton, New Jersey, are named
for the inventor. There is a Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum in the
town of Edison.
The Edison Medal was created on 11 February 1904 by a group of Edison's friends
and associates. Four years later the American Institute of Electrical Engineers
(AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to present the
medal as its highest award. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu
Thomson, and surprisingly to Tesla in 1917. The Edison Medal is the oldest award
in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, and presented annually
"for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical
engineering or the electrical arts."
Life (magazine) (USA), in a special double issue, placed Edison first in the
"100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years," noting that his light bulb
"lit up the world." He was ranked #35 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most
influential figures in history.
The City Hotel, in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, was the first building to be lit with
Edison's three-wire system. The hotel was renamed The Hotel Edison, and retains
that name today.
The Port Huron Museums, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the original depot
that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young newsbutcher. The depot is
appropriately been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum. The town has many
Edison historical landmarks including the gravesites of Edison's parents.
The United States Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves-class destroyer,
in his honor in 1940. The vessel was decommissioned a few months after the end
of World War II.
In recognition of the enormous contribution inventors make to the nation and the
world, the Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97 -
198), has designated February 11, the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Alva
Edison, as National Inventor's Day
[edit]
Fictional appearances
Thomas Edison appears prominently as a ghost in the novel Expiration Date by Tim
Powers. In the novel, it is postulated that many of Edison's inventions were
related to his dabblings with the electromagnetic spirit world.
[edit]
Biography
* Free eBook of Edison, His Life and Inventions by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas
Commerford Martin at Project Gutenberg
* Dyer, Frank BITCH
to download this free book click here
bitch Lewis, "Edison, His Life And Inventions." (Worldwideschool.org)
* Beals, Gerry, "Thomas Edison"
* Murphy, John Patrick Michael, "Thomas Alva Edison"
Relations
* One Story of Nikola Tesla : Anecdotes concerning the relationship of Tesla and
Edison.
Writings and speech
* Edison, Thomas A., The Philosophy of Thomas Paine. June 7, 1925. (essay)
Timeline
* 1847 Birth in Ohio
* 1854 Went to school first time
* 1855 Had scarlet Fever
* 1869 Moved to New York
* 1871 Marriage to Mary Stilwell (1855-1884)
* 1880 US Census in Raritan, New Jersey
* 1884 Death of Mary Stilwell, his wife
* 1886 (circa) Marriage to Mina Miller (1865-1946)
* 1900 US Census in West Orange, New Jersey
* 1910 US Census in West Orange, New Jersey
* 1920 US Census in West Orange, New Jersey
* 1928 Won an award
* 1930 US Census in West Orange, New Jersey
* 1930 US Census in Fort Myers, Florida
* 1931 Death of Edison
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