Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. His dad was a trader, and his mom was a teacher. A strange thing for such an amazing person was that he didn't talk until he was four or five years old. Edison spent three months in school, and then was home-schooled by his mother after that. When he was 11 he sold fruit, newspapers, and candy on a train called the Grand Trunk Railroad. In 1962 using his own hand press in a baggage car, he wrote and printed the Grand Trunk Herald. It was passed out to over 400 railroad employees. Also that year, he became the telegrapher in which sent the message that tramps were trying to get on the train until he became a member of the Western Union Telegraph Company. That job he had was located in Boston.
Edison's first invention was an automatic telegraph repeater. His first patent was an electric vote recorder. After that he got a job at the New York Electrical Firm which provided him the chance to earn money in order to buy a factory. He then hired 80 men from many different jobs and backgrounds. (These people were kind of his slaves.)
From 1870 to 1875 Edison invented lots of improvements for the telegraph. Edison also invented at least 12 improvements for the typewriter too! Edison also invented a telegraph for Western Union that resulted to the Bell telephone. The first big invention by Thomas Edison was the phonograph patented in 1877. It was a manually operated instrument making impressions on foil playing back sounds. Then it finally became powered by a motor.
To research a way to make an electric light Edison and other great inventors made the company called the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. Later called General Electric. They made the first light that actually worked the next year and patented it the year after that. They finally had light after testing over 6,000 organic fibers. Bamboo was the winning one!
The West Orange, New Jersey factory which Edison was head of from 1887 to 1931 was the world's most complete research labrotory. The Edison battery was patented in 1910, and was made of Nickel Electrolyte. It took 8,000 trials to get the done.
The motion picture camera was made in 1886, and took film on 50 foot strips of film, 16 images per foot. It was patented in 1891. The first movie theater was opened in New York, in 1893. The first movie together with the phonograph was made in 1904.
During World War 1, Edison was head of the U.S. Navy Consulting Board. He invented a ship telephone system, anti torpedo nets, navigating equipment. Those are just some of the inventions he made.
With Henry Ford and the Firestone Company, he organized the Edison Botanic Research Company in 1927. To disvover a domestic source for rubber. He examined over 17,000 different substances in rubber over four years.
To raise money, Edison dramatized his self by careless dress, clowning for reporters, and playing the role of homespun sage with the public. He laughed at formal education, and only slept four hours a night, and sometimes worked forty or fifty hours straight! Edison had more than 10,000 books, and a whole bunch of printed materials at the labrotory. Over 25,00 notebooks are contained today that have research records, ideas, hunchesm and mistakes all from Thomas Edison's mind. Supposedly, he became a lack of courage and inspiration from himself and just quit. His new main hobby became reading the same Shakespheare books over and over.
Sadly, Edison died in West Orange, New Jersey on Octover 18, 1931. The lab buildings and equipment associated with his career are preserved in Greenfield Village, Detroit, Michigan, thanks to Henry Ford's interest and his friendship.
