Thomas a edison biography
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Thomas Edison
Without a doubt, the greatest inventor of the modern era has been Thomas Edison. Many of his over one thousand inventions have profoundly changed the lives of nearly everyone in the world.
Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, In , his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. There, "Al's" favorite hobbies were reading and performing chemistry experiments in his basement lab. However, his teachers considered ung Edison a failure, and his mother soon decided to homeschool him.
Edison's first job in was operating a newstand on the railroad that ran from Port Huron to Detroit. To make the trips more interesting, Edison installed a printing press and chemistry lab in a boxcar. In , he learned how to use a railroad telegraph. Edison then spent many years traveling around Canada and the U.S., working as a telegraph operator and doing scientific experiments in his free time. Finally, in , he decided to become a full-time inventor.
On June 1 of
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The success of his electric light brought Edison to new heights of fame and wealth, as electricity spread around the world. Edison's various electric companies continued to grow until in they were brought together to form Edison General Electric. Despite the use of Edison in the company title however, Edison never controlled this company. The tremendous amount of capital needed to develop the incandescent lighting industry had necessitated the involvement of investment bankers such as J.P. Morgan. When Edison General Electric merged with its leading competitor Thompson-Houston in , Edison was dropped from the name, and the company became simply General Electric.
This period of success was marred by the death of Edison's wife Mary in Edison's involvement in the business end of the electric industry had caused Edison to spend less time in Menlo Park. After Mary's death, Edison was there even less, living instead in New York City with his three children. A year later, while vacationi
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People often say Edison was a genius. He answered, "Genius is hard work, stick-to-it-iveness, and common sense."
Thomas Alva Edison was born February 11, in Milan, Ohio (pronounced MY-lan). In , when he was seven, the family moved to Michigan, where Edison spent the rest of his childhood.
"Al," as he was called as a boy, went to school only a short time. He did so poorly that his mother, a former teacher, taught her son at home. Al learned to love reading, a habit he kept for the rest of his life. He also liked to make experiments in the basement.
Al not only played hard, but also worked hard. At the age of 12 he sold fruit, snacks and newspapers on a train as a "news butcher." (Trains were the newest way to travel, cutting through the American wilderness.) He even printed his own newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, on a moving train.
At 15, Al roamed the country as a "tramp telegrapher." Using a kind of alphabet called Morse Code, he sent and received messages over the teleg