Thomas Alva Edison

by Gary Keesler

Title

Thomas Alva Edison

Artist

Gary Keesler

Medium

Photograph - Digital Art

Description

Thomas Alva Edison's inventor 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, but in my eyes,,, he was a True America Hero!

Though he was a publicity seeker, he did not socialize well and often neglected his family. By the time he died he was one of the most well-known and respected Americans in the world. He had been at the forefront of American first technological revolution and set the stage for the modern electric world.

Thomas Edison rose from humble beginnings to work as an inventor of major technology. Setting up a lab in Menlo Park, some of the products he developed included the telegraph, phonograph, electric light bulb, alkaline storage batteries and Kinetograph (a camera for motion pictures).

Inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He was the last of the seven children of Samuel and Nancy Edison. Thomas's father was an exiled political activist from Canada.

His mother, an accomplished school teacher, was a major influence in Thomas Edison's early life. An early bout with scarlet fever left him with hearing difficulties in both ears, a malady that would eventually leave him nearly deaf as an adult.

In 1854, the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where Edison 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.

At age 12, Edison set out to put much of that education to work. He convinced his parents to let him sell newspapers to passengers along the Grand Trunk Railroad line.

Exploiting his access to the news bulletins teletypes to the station office each day, Thomas 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 opportunity.

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 unrestrictive 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, 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,

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.

In 1869, Edison moved to New York City and developed his first invention, an improved stock ticker, 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. Edison was only 22 years old. With this success, he quit his work as a telegrapher to devote himself full-time to inventing.

In 1870, Thomas Edison 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 his 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.

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.

The 1880s were a busy time for Thomas Edison. After being granted a patent for the light bulb 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 the General Electric Corporation.

In 1881, he left Menlo Park to establish facilities in several cities where electrical systems were being installed.

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.

Edison, considered one of America's leading businessmen, is credited today for helping to build America's economy during the nation's vulnerable early years. By the end of the 1920s Thomas Edison was in his 80s and he slowed down somewhat, but not before he applied for the last of his 1,093 U.S. patents, for an apparatus for holding objects during the electroplating process.

DID YOU KNOW?: Thomas Edison became the first to project a motion picture in 1896, at Koster & Bial's Music Hall in New York City.

QUICK FACTS:

BIRTH DATE: February 11, 1847
DEATH DATE: October 18, 1931

EDUCATION: The Cooper Union
PLACE OF BIRTH: Milan, Ohio
PLACE OF DEATH: West Orange, New Jersey
FULL NAME: Thomas Alva Edison
Great Inventor& Entrepreneur

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February 15th, 2014

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