Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Edison (1847 – 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed and made commercially available many key inventions of modern life. His Edison Electric company was a pioneering company for delivering DC electricity directly into people’s homes. He filed over 1,000 patents for a variety of different inventions. Crucially, he used mass-produced techniques to make his inventions available at low cost to households across America. His most important inventions include, the electric light bulb. the phonograph, the motion picture camera, an electric car and electric power station.

Thomas Alva Edison was called Alva, or Al by his family. He was a very curious child. He was always asking questions. Even his mother, who had once been a schoolteacher could not answer all his questions. He would experiment to try to find the answers. Once he tried to hatch some eggs by sitting on them. Another time he accidently burned down the family's barn.

The teacher told someone she thought there was something wrong with Alva; that he was "addled".* He told his mother and they took him out of the school. He only went to school for 3 months in his whole life. Afterwards, he was taught at home.

He wanted to experiment. To make money for his experiments, he went to work at age 12 selling newspapers and candy on a train. When he had some spare time on the train, he would do experiments in the baggage car.

When he was 16 he went to work for the telegraph* office sending messages.

He became nearly deaf due to an injury to his ears. He later said he didn't mind being deaf because it helped him to concentrate.

When he was 22 years old he went to New York. He only had $1 in his pocket. He hunted for a job during the day, and at night he slept in the basement of a gold company. He watched everything around him very closely. Some equipment broke down and Edison was able to fix it because he had been watching it work before he went to sleep each night. The owners gave him a job. He improved the machine so much the company paid him $40,000 for his invention. He started the American Telegraph Works in New Jersey.

The modern world is an electrified world. The light bulb, in particular, profoundly changed human existence by illuminating the night and making it hospitable to a wide range of human activity. The electric light, one of the everyday conveniences that most affects our lives, was invented in 1879 by Thomas Alva Edison. He put together what he knew about electricity with what he knew about gas lights and invented a whole of electrical system.

Facts on Thomas Edison:

Edison was born on February 11 in Milan and was the seventh and last child to his parents. He hardly attended school and hence did not have a strong formal education.

His first invention was a vote recorder in 1968 which was followed by the invention of the printing telegraph and the stock ticker. In 1876, he founded the first industrial research laboratory and two years later, started the Edison Electric Light Company in New York. His other significant patents include phonograph and carbon telephone transmitter.

In 1879, he demonstrated the working of the Incandescent Electric Lamp at Menlo Park. The following year, he patented the first electric distribution system and also founded the Edison Electric Illuminating Company.

In the year 1882, he established the first power station based on steam generation. The same year, he also established the first investor-owned electric utility at Pearl Street Station in New York

In 1883, Edison described the electron flow in a heated filament popularly called “Edison effect”. He also created the first incandescent electric light system in New Jersey.

Edison married twice during his lifetime. He first married Mary Stilwell on December 25, 1871. Following her death in 1884, he married Mina Miller two years later at the age of 39.

         He died on October 18, 1931 at West Orange.