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Thomas Edison

February 02, 2024

"Edison" redirects here. For other uses, see Edison (disambiguation).

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman.[1][2][3] He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures.[4] These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world.[5] He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory.[6]

Thomas Edison
Edison c. 1922
Born
Thomas Alva Edison

(1847-02-11)February 11, 1847
Milan, Ohio, U.S.
DiedOctober 18, 1931(1931-10-18) (aged 84)
West Orange, New Jersey, U.S.
Burial placeThomas Edison National Historical Park
EducationSelf-educated; some coursework at Cooper Union
Occupations
  • Inventor
  • businessman
Years active1877–1930
Known for
List
Spouses
  • Mary Stilwell
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1871; died 1884)​
  • ​
    (m. 1886)​
Children6, including Madeleine, Charles, and Theodore
RelativesLewis Miller (father-in-law)
Awards
Signature

Edison was raised in the American Midwest. Early in his career he worked as a telegraph operator, which inspired some of his earliest inventions.[4] In 1876, he established his first laboratory facility in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where many of his early inventions were developed. He later established a botanical laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, in collaboration with businessmen Henry Ford and Harvey S. Firestone, and a laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, that featured the world's first film studio, the Black Maria. With 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as patents in other countries, Edison is regarded as the most prolific inventor in American history.[7] Edison married twice and fathered six children. He died in 1931 due to complications from diabetes.

Early life

 
Edison in 1861

Thomas Edison was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio, but grew up in Port Huron, Michigan, after the family moved there in 1854.[8] He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. (1804–1896, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871, born in Chenango County, New York).[9][10] His patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New Jersey;[11] the surname had originally been "Edeson".[12]

His great-grandfather, loyalist John Edeson, fled New Jersey for Nova Scotia in 1784. The family moved to Middlesex County, Upper Canada around 1811, and his grandfather, Capt. Samuel Edison Sr. served with the 1st Middlesex Militia during the War of 1812. His father, Samuel Edison Jr. moved to Vienna, Ontario, and fled to Ohio after his involvement in the Rebellion of 1837.[13]

Edison was taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by his mother, who used to be a school teacher. He attended school for only a few months. However, one biographer described him as a very curious child who learned most things by reading on his own.[14] As a child, he became fascinated with technology and spent hours working on experiments at home.[15]

Edison developed hearing problems at the age of 12.[16] The cause of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever[16] during childhood and recurring untreated middle-ear infections. He subsequently concocted elaborate fictitious stories about the cause of his deafness.[17] As he was completely deaf in one ear and barely hearing in the other, it is alleged[18] that Edison would listen to a music player or piano by clamping his teeth into the wood to absorb the sound waves into his skull. As he got older, Edison believed his hearing loss allowed him to avoid distraction and concentrate more easily on his work. Modern-day historians and medical professionals have suggested he may have had ADHD.[15]

It is known that early in his career he enrolled in a chemistry course at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art to support his work on a new telegraphy system with Charles Batchelor. This appears to have been his only enrollment in courses at an institution of higher learning.[19][20][21]

Early career

Thomas Edison began his career as a news butcher, selling newspapers, candy and vegetables on the trains running from Port Huron to Detroit. He turned a $50-a-week profit by age 13, most of which went to buying equipment for electrical and chemical experiments.[22] At age 15, in 1862, he saved 3-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train.[23] Jimmie's father, station agent J. U. MacKenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison's first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction, Ontario, on the Grand Trunk Railway.[24] He also studied qualitative analysis and conducted chemical experiments until he left the job rather than be fired after being held responsible for a near collision of two trains.[25][26][27]

Edison obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed the Grand Trunk Herald, which he sold with his other papers.[27] This began Edison's long streak of entrepreneurial ventures, as he discovered his talents as a businessman. Ultimately, his entrepreneurship was central to the formation of some 14 companies, including General Electric, formerly one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.[28][29]

In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky,[30] where, as an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift, which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes—reading and experimenting. Eventually, the latter pre-occupation cost him his job. One night in 1867, he was working with a lead–acid battery when he spilt sulfuric acid onto the floor. It ran between the floorboards and onto his boss's desk below. The next morning Edison was fired.[31]

His first patent was for the electric vote recorder, U.S. patent 90,646, which was granted on June 1, 1869.[32] Finding little demand for the machine, Edison moved to New York City shortly thereafter. One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey, home, while Edison worked for Samuel Laws at the Gold Indicator Company. Pope and Edison founded their own company in October 1869, working as electrical engineers and inventors. Edison began developing a multiplex telegraphic system, which could send two messages simultaneously, in 1874.[33]

Menlo Park laboratory (1876–1886)

Research and development facility

 
Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, reconstructed at Greenfield Village at Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan

Edison's major innovation was the establishment of an industrial research lab in 1876. It was built in Menlo Park, a part of Raritan Township (now named Edison Township in his honor) in Middlesex County, New Jersey, with the funds from the sale of Edison's quadruplex telegraph. After his demonstration of the telegraph, Edison was not sure that his original plan to sell it for $4,000 to $5,000 was right, so he asked Western Union to make a bid. He was surprised to hear them offer $10,000 ($258,647 in 2022), which he gratefully accepted.[34] The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success, and Menlo Park became the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Edison was legally credited with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development under his direction. His staff was generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research, and he drove them hard to produce results.

William Joseph Hammer, a consulting electrical engineer, started working for Edison and began his duties as a laboratory assistant in December 1879. He assisted in experiments on the telephone, phonograph, electric railway, iron ore separator, electric lighting, and other developing inventions. However, Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was put in charge of tests and records on that device (see Hammer Historical Collection of Incandescent Electric Lamps). In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. In his first year, the plant under general manager Francis Robbins Upton turned out 50,000 lamps. According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer of incandescent electric lighting".[35] Frank J. Sprague, a competent mathematician and former naval officer, was recruited by Edward H. Johnson and joined the Edison organization in 1883. One of Sprague's contributions to the Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park was to expand Edison's mathematical methods. Despite the common belief that Edison did not use mathematics, analysis of his notebooks reveal that he was an astute user of mathematical analysis conducted by his assistants such as Francis Robbins Upton, for example, determining the critical parameters of his electric lighting system including lamp resistance by an analysis of Ohm's Law, Joule's Law and economics.[36]

 
Edison's Menlo Park Lab, 1880

Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, which were protected for 17 years and included inventions or processes that are electrical, mechanical, or chemical in nature. About a dozen were design patents, which protect an ornamental design for up to 14 years. As in most patents, the inventions he described were improvements over prior art. The phonograph patent, in contrast, was unprecedented in describing the first device to record and reproduce sounds.[37]

In just over a decade, Edison's Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to occupy two city blocks. Edison said he wanted the lab to have "a stock of almost every conceivable material".[38] A newspaper article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim, stating the lab contained "eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made, every size of needle, every kind of cord or wire, hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, minx, camels ... silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell ... cork, resin, varnish and oil, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores ..." and the list goes on.[39]

Over his desk Edison displayed a placard with Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous quotation: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."[40] This slogan was reputedly posted at several other locations throughout the facility.

In Menlo Park, Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application.[41] Edison's name is registered on 1,093 patents.[42]

Phonograph

 
Photograph of Edison with his phonograph (2nd model), taken in Mathew Brady's Washington, D.C. studio in April 1878
 
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Thomas Edison reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in 1929.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him wider notice was the phonograph in 1877.[43] This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park".[5]

His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. Despite its limited sound quality and that the recordings could be played only a few times, the phonograph made Edison a celebrity. Joseph Henry, president of the National Academy of Sciences and one of the most renowned electrical scientists in the US, described Edison as "the most ingenious inventor in this country... or in any other".[44] In April 1878, Edison traveled to Washington to demonstrate the phonograph before the National Academy of Sciences, Congressmen, Senators and US President Hayes.[45] The Washington Post described Edison as a "genius" and his presentation as "a scene... that will live in history".[46] Although Edison obtained a patent for the phonograph in 1878,[47] he did little to develop it until Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter produced a phonograph-like device in the 1880s that used wax-coated cardboard cylinders.[citation needed]

Carbon telephone transmitter

In 1876, Edison began work to improve the microphone for telephones (at that time called a "transmitter") by developing a carbon microphone, which consists of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon that would change resistance with the pressure of sound waves. A steady direct current is passed between the plates through the granules and the varying resistance results in a modulation of the current, creating a varying electric current that reproduces the varying pressure of the sound wave.

Up to that point, microphones, such as the ones developed by Johann Philipp Reis and Alexander Graham Bell, worked by generating a weak current. The carbon microphone works by modulating a direct current and, subsequently, using a transformer to transfer the signal so generated to the telephone line. Edison was one of many inventors working on the problem of creating a usable microphone for telephony by having it modulate an electric current passed through it.[48] His work was concurrent with Emile Berliner's loose-contact carbon transmitter (who lost a later patent case against Edison over the carbon transmitter's invention[49]) and David Edward Hughes study and published paper on the physics of loose-contact carbon transmitters (work that Hughes did not bother to patent).[48][50]

Edison used the carbon microphone concept in 1877 to create an improved telephone for Western Union.[49] In 1886, Edison found a way to improve a Bell Telephone microphone, one that used loose-contact ground carbon, with his discovery that it worked far better if the carbon was roasted. This type was put in use in 1890[49] and was used in all telephones along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s.

Electric light

Main article: Incandescent light bulb
 
Thomas Edison's first successful model of light bulb, used in public demonstration at Menlo Park, December 1879

In 1878, Edison began working on a system of electrical illumination, something he hoped could compete with gas and oil-based lighting.[51] He began by tackling the problem of creating a long-lasting incandescent lamp, something that would be needed for indoor use. However, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb.[52] In 1840, British scientist Warren de la Rue developed an efficient light bulb using a coiled platinum filament but the high cost of platinum kept the bulb from becoming a commercial success.[53] Many other inventors had also devised incandescent lamps, including Alessandro Volta's demonstration of a glowing wire in 1800 and inventions by Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. Others who developed early and commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer,[54] William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan, and Heinrich Göbel.

These early bulbs all had flaws such as an extremely short life and requiring a high electric current to operate which made them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially.[55]: 217–218  In his first attempts to solve these problems, Edison tried using a filament made of cardboard, carbonized with compressed lampblack. This burnt out too quickly to provide lasting light. He then experimented with different grasses and canes such as hemp, and palmetto, before settling on bamboo as the best filament.[56] Edison continued trying to improve this design and on November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires".[57]

The patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways".[57] It was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1,200 hours.[58]

 
U.S. Patent #223898: Electric-Lamp, issued January 27, 1880

In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan, Spencer Trask,[59] and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. It was during this time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."[60]

 
The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company's new steamship, the Columbia, was the first commercial application for Edison's incandescent light bulb in 1880.

Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, attended Edison's 1879 demonstration. Villard was impressed and requested Edison install his electric lighting system aboard Villard's company's new steamer, the Columbia. Although hesitant at first, Edison agreed to Villard's request. Most of the work was completed in May 1880, and the Columbia went to New York City, where Edison and his personnel installed Columbia's new lighting system. The Columbia was Edison's first commercial application for his incandescent light bulb. The Edison equipment was removed from Columbia in 1895.[61][62][63][64]

In 1880, Lewis Latimer, a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation, began working for the United States Electric Lighting Company run by Edison's rival Hiram S. Maxim.[65] While working for Maxim, Latimer invented a process for making carbon filaments for light bulbs and helped install broad-scale lighting systems for New York City, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London. Latimer holds the patent for the electric lamp issued in 1881, and a second patent for the "process of manufacturing carbons" (the filament used in incandescent light bulbs), issued in 1882.

On October 8, 1883, the US patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William E. Sawyer and was, therefore, invalid. Litigation continued for nearly six years. In 1885, Latimer switched camps and started working with Edison.[66] On October 6, 1889, a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid.[67] To avoid a possible court battle with yet another competitor, Joseph Swan, who held an 1880 British patent on a similar incandescent electric lamp,[68] he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to manufacture and market the invention in Britain.

The incandescent light bulb patented by Edison also began to gain widespread popularity in Europe as well. Mahen Theatre in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic), opened in 1882, and was the first public building in the world to use Edison's electric lamps. Francis Jehl, Edison's assistant in the invention of the lamp, supervised the installation.[69] In September 2010, a sculpture of three giant light bulbs was erected in Brno, in front of the theater.[70] The first Edison light bulbs in the Nordic countries were installed at the weaving hall of the Finlayson's textile factory in Tampere, Finland in March 1882.[71]

In 1901 Edison attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. His company, the Edison Manufacturing Company, was given the task of installing the electric lights on the various buildings and structures that were built for the exposition. At night Edison made a panorama photograph of the illuminated buildings.[72]

Electric power distribution

After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison developed an electric "utility" to compete with the existing gas light utilities.[73] On December 17, 1880, he founded the Edison Illuminating Company, and during the 1880s, he patented a system for electricity distribution. The company established the first investor-owned electric utility. On September 4, 1882, in Pearl Street, New York City, his 600 kW cogeneration steam-powered generating station, Pearl Street Station's, electrical power distribution system was switched on, providing 110 volts direct current (DC), initially to 59 customers in lower Manhattan,[74] quickly growing to 508 customers with 10,164 lamps. The power station was decommissioned in 1895.

Eight months earlier in January 1882, to demonstrate feasibility, Edison had switched on the 93 kW first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. This was a smaller 110 V DC supply system, eventually supplying 3,000 street lights and a number of nearby private dwellings, but was shut down in September 1886 as uneconomic, since he was unable to extend the premises.

On January 19, 1883, the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey.

War of currents

Main article: War of the currents
 
Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public events, as in this picture from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition.

As Edison expanded his direct current (DC) power delivery system, he received stiff competition from companies installing alternating current (AC) systems. From the early 1880s, AC arc lighting systems for streets and large spaces had been an expanding business in the US. With the development of transformers in Europe and by Westinghouse Electric in the US in 1885–1886, it became possible to transmit AC long distances over thinner and cheaper wires, and "step down" (reduce) the voltage at the destination for distribution to users. This allowed AC to be used in street lighting and in lighting for small business and domestic customers, the market Edison's patented low voltage DC incandescent lamp system was designed to supply.[75] Edison's DC empire suffered from one of its chief drawbacks: it was suitable only for the high density of customers found in large cities. Edison's DC plants could not deliver electricity to customers more than one mile from the plant, and left a patchwork of unsupplied customers between plants. Small cities and rural areas could not afford an Edison style system, leaving a large part of the market without electrical service.[76] AC companies expanded into this gap.[77]

Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous. As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886, Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating, "Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size. He has got a new thing and it will require a great deal of experimenting to get it working practically."[78] Many reasons have been suggested for Edison's anti-AC stance. One notion is that the inventor could not grasp the more abstract theories behind AC and was trying to avoid developing a system he did not understand. Edison also appeared to have been worried about the high voltage from misinstalled AC systems killing customers and hurting the sales of electric power systems in general.[79] The primary reason was that Edison Electric based their design on low voltage DC, and switching a standard after they had installed over 100 systems was, in Edison's mind, out of the question. By the end of 1887, Edison Electric was losing market share to Westinghouse, who had built 68 AC-based power stations to Edison's 121 DC-based stations. To make matters worse for Edison, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts (another AC-based competitor) built 22 power stations.[80]

Parallel to expanding competition between Edison and the AC companies was rising public furor over a series of deaths in the spring of 1888 caused by pole mounted high voltage alternating current lines. This turned into a media frenzy against high voltage alternating current and the seemingly greedy and callous lighting companies that used it.[81][82] Edison took advantage of the public perception of AC as dangerous, and joined with self-styled New York anti-AC crusader Harold P. Brown in a propaganda campaign, aiding Brown in the public electrocution of animals with AC, and supported legislation to control and severely limit AC installations and voltages (to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system) in what was now being referred to as a "war of the currents".[83] The development of the electric chair was used in an attempt to portray AC as having a greater lethal potential than DC and smear Westinghouse, via Edison colluding with Brown and Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to ensure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator.[84]

Edison was becoming marginalized in his own company having lost majority control in the 1889 merger that formed Edison General Electric.[85] In 1890 he told president Henry Villard he thought it was time to retire from the lighting business and moved on to an iron ore refining project that preoccupied his time.[86] Edison's dogmatic anti-AC values were no longer controlling the company. By 1889 Edison's Electric's own subsidiaries were lobbying to add AC power transmission to their systems and in October 1890 Edison Machine Works began developing AC-based equipment. Cut-throat competition and patent battles were bleeding off cash in the competing companies and the idea of a merger was being put forward in financial circles.[87] The War of Currents ended in 1892 when the financier J.P. Morgan engineered a merger of Edison General Electric with it main alternating current based rival, The Thomson-Houston Company, that put the board of Thomson-Houston in charge of the new company called General Electric. General Electric now controlled three-quarters of the US electrical business and would compete with Westinghouse for the AC market.[88][89] Edison served as a figurehead on the company's board of directors for a few years before selling his shares.[90]

West Orange and Fort Myers (1886–1931)

 
Thomas A. Edison Industries Exhibit, Primary Battery section, 1915

Edison moved from Menlo Park after the death of his first wife, Mary, in 1884, and purchased a home known as "Glenmont" in 1886 as a wedding gift for his second wife, Mina, in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1885, Thomas Edison bought 13 acres of property in Fort Myers, Florida, for roughly $2,750 (equivalent to $89,569 in 2022) and built what was later called Seminole Lodge as a winter retreat.[91] The main house and guest house are representative of Italianate architecture and Queen Anne style architecture. The building materials were pre-cut in New England by the Kennebec Framing Company and the Stephen Nye Lumber Company of Fairfield Maine. The materials were then shipped down by boat and were constructed at a cost of $12,000 each, which included the cost of interior furnishings.[92] Edison and Mina spent many winters at their home in Fort Myers, and Edison tried to find a domestic source of natural rubber.[93]

Due to the security concerns around World War I, Edison suggested forming a science and industry committee to provide advice and research to the US military, and he headed the Naval Consulting Board in 1915.[94]

Edison became concerned with America's reliance on foreign supply of rubber and was determined to find a native supply of rubber. Edison's work on rubber took place largely at his research laboratory in Fort Myers, which has been designated as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.[95]

The laboratory was built after Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey S. Firestone pulled together $75,000 to form the Edison Botanical Research Corporation. Initially, only Ford and Firestone were to contribute funds to the project, while Edison did all the research. Edison, however, wished to contribute $25,000 as well. Edison did the majority of the research and planting, sending results and sample rubber residues to his West Orange Lab. Edison employed a two-part Acid-base extraction, to derive latex from the plant material after it was dried and crushed to a powder.[96] After testing 17,000 plant samples, he eventually found an adequate source in the Goldenrod plant. Edison decided on Solidago leavenworthii, also known as Leavenworth's Goldenrod. The plant, which normally grows roughly 3–4 feet tall with a 5% latex yield, was adapted by Edison through cross-breeding to produce plants twice the size and with a latex yield of 12%.[97]

During the 1911 New York Electrical show, Edison told representatives of the copper industry it was a shame he did not have a "chunk of it". The representatives decided to give a cubic foot of solid copper weighing 486 pounds with their gratitude inscribed on it in appreciation for his part in the "continuous stimulation in the copper industry".[98][99][100]

Other inventions and projects

Fluoroscopy

Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available fluoroscope, a machine that uses X-rays to take radiographs. Until Edison discovered that calcium tungstate fluoroscopy screens produced brighter images than the barium platinocyanide screens originally used by Wilhelm Röntgen, the technology was capable of producing only very faint images.

The fundamental design of Edison's fluoroscope is still in use today, although Edison abandoned the project after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously injuring his assistant, Clarence Dally. Dally made himself an enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopy project and was exposed to a poisonous dose of radiation; he later died (at the age of 39) of injuries related to the exposure, including mediastinal cancer.[101]

In 1903, a shaken Edison said: "Don't talk to me about X-rays, I am afraid of them."[102] Nonetheless, his work was important in the development of a technology still used today.[103]

Tasimeter

Edison invented a highly sensitive device, that he named the tasimeter, which measured infrared radiation. His impetus for its creation was the desire to measure the heat from the solar corona during the total Solar eclipse of July 29, 1878. The device was not patented since Edison could find no practical mass-market application for it.[104]

Telegraph improvements

The key to Edison's initial reputation and success was his work in the field of telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This, together with his studies in chemistry at the Cooper Union, allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system.[19][20] His innovations also included the development of the quadruplex, the first system which could simultaneously transmit four messages through a single wire.[105]

Motion pictures

The June 1894 Leonard–Cushing bout. Each of the six one-minute rounds recorded by the Kinetoscope was made available to exhibitors for $22.50.[106] Customers who watched the final round saw Leonard score a knockdown.

Edison was granted a patent for a motion picture camera, labeled the "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical design while his employee William Kennedy Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson.[55] 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. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.[107]

In April 1896, Thomas Armat's Vitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. Later, he exhibited motion pictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings, mechanically synchronized with the film.

Officially the kinetoscope entered Europe when wealthy American businessman Irving T. Bush (1869–1948) bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Frank Z. Maguire and Joseph D. Baucus a dozen machines. Bush placed from October 17, 1894, the first kinetoscopes in London. At the same time, the French company Kinétoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Werner bought these machines for the market in France. In the last three months of 1894, the Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe (i.e. the Netherlands and Italy). In Germany and in Austria-Hungary, the kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche-österreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck[108] of the Schokoladen-Süsswarenfabrik Stollwerck & Co of Cologne.

The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early 1895. The Edison's Kinétoscope Français, a Belgian company, was founded in Brussels on January 15, 1895, with the rights to sell the kinetoscopes in Monaco, France and the French colonies. The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialists. On May 14, 1895, the Edison's Kinétoscope Belge was founded in Brussels. Businessman Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiative in starting this business. He had contacts with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. In 1898, he also became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France.[109]

Edison's film studio made nearly 1,200 films. The majority of the productions were short films showing everything from acrobats to parades to fire calls including titles such as Fred Ott's Sneeze (1894), The Kiss (1896), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910), and the first Frankenstein film in 1910. In 1903, when the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island announced they would execute Topsy the elephant by strangulation, poisoning, and electrocution (with the electrocution part ultimately killing the elephant), Edison Manufacturing sent a crew to film it, releasing it that same year with the title Electrocuting an Elephant.

A Day with Thomas Edison (1922)

As the film business expanded, competing exhibitors routinely copied and exhibited each other's films.[110] To better protect the copyrights on his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U.S. copyright office. Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era.[111]

In 1908, Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, which was founded in 1929.

Edison said his favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiled everything" for him. "There isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf."[112] His favorite stars were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow.[113]

Mining

Starting in the late 1870s, Edison became interested and involved with mining. High-grade iron ore was scarce on the east coast of the United States and Edison tried to mine low-grade ore. Edison developed a process using rollers and crushers that could pulverize rocks up to 10 tons. The dust was then sent between three giant magnets that would pull the iron ore from the dust. Despite the failure of his mining company, the Edison Ore Milling Company, Edison used some of the materials and equipment to produce cement.[114]

In 1901, Edison visited an industrial exhibition in the Sudbury area in Ontario, Canada, and thought nickel and cobalt deposits there could be used in his production of electrical equipment. He returned as a mining prospector and is credited with the original discovery of the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to mine the ore body were not successful, and he abandoned his mining claim in 1903.[115] A street in Falconbridge, as well as the Edison Building, which served as the head office of Falconbridge Mines, are named for him.

Rechargeable battery

Further information: Nickel–iron battery § History
 
Share of the Edison Storage Battery Company, issued October 19, 1903

In the late 1890s, Edison worked on developing a lighter, more efficient rechargeable battery (at that time called an "accumulator"). He looked on them as something customers could use to power their phonographs but saw other uses for an improved battery, including electric automobiles.[116] The then available lead acid rechargeable batteries were not very efficient and that market was already tied up by other companies so Edison pursued using alkaline instead of acid. He had his lab work on many types of materials (going through some 10,000 combinations), eventually settling on a nickel-iron combination. Besides his experimenting Edison also probably had access to the 1899 patents for a nickel–iron battery by the Swedish inventor Waldemar Jungner.[117]

Edison obtained a US and European patent for his nickel–iron battery in 1901 and founded the Edison Storage Battery Company, and by 1904 it had 450 people working there. The first rechargeable batteries they produced were for electric cars, but there were many defects, with customers complaining about the product. When the capital of the company was exhausted, Edison paid for the company with his private money. Edison did not demonstrate a mature product until 1910: a very efficient and durable nickel-iron-battery with lye as the electrolyte. The nickel–iron battery was never very successful; by the time it was ready, electric cars were disappearing, and lead acid batteries had become the standard for turning over gas-powered car starter motors.[117]

Chemicals

Further information: Great Phenol Plot

At the start of World War I, the American chemical industry was primitive: most chemicals were imported from Europe. The outbreak of war in August 1914 resulted in a shortage of imported chemicals. One of particular importance to Edison was phenol, which was used to make phonograph records—presumably as phenolic resins of the Bakelite type.[118]

At the time, phenol came from coal as a by-product of coke oven gases or manufactured gas for gas lighting. Phenol could be nitrated to picric acid and converted to ammonium picrate, a shock resistant high explosive suitable for use in artillery shells.[118] Most phenol had been imported from Britain, but with war, Parliament blocked exports and diverted most to production of ammonium picrate. Britain also blockaded supplies from Germany.[citation needed]

Edison responded by undertaking production of phenol at his Silver Lake facility using processes developed by his chemists.[119] He built two plants with a capacity of six tons of phenol per day. Production began the first week of September, one month after hostilities began in Europe. He built two plants to produce raw material benzene at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Bessemer, Alabama, replacing supplies previously from Germany. Edison manufactured aniline dyes, which previously had been supplied by the German dye trust. Other wartime products include xylene, p-phenylenediamine, shellac, and pyrax. Wartime shortages made these ventures profitable. In 1915, his production capacity was fully committed by midyear.[118]

Phenol was a critical material because two derivatives were in high growth phases. Bakelite, the original thermoset plastic, had been invented in 1909. Aspirin, too was a phenol derivative. Invented in 1899, it had become a blockbuster drug. Bayer had acquired a plant to manufacture in the US in Rensselaer, New York, but struggled to find phenol to keep their plant running during the war. Edison was able to oblige.[118]

Bayer relied on Chemische Fabrik von Heyden, in Piscataway, New Jersey, to convert phenol to salicylic acid, which they converted to aspirin. It is said that German companies bought up supplies of phenol to block production of ammonium picrate. Edison preferred not to sell phenol for military uses. He sold his surplus to Bayer, who had it converted to salicylic acid by Heyden, some of which was exported.[120][118]

Spirit Phone

In 1920, Edison spoke to American Magazine, saying that he had been working on a device for some time to see if it was possible to communicate with the dead.[121][122] Edison said the device would work on scientific principles, not by an occult means.[121] The press had a field day over Edison's remarks.[122][121] The actual nature of this invention remained a mystery, as there were no details revealed to the public. In 2015, Philippe Baudouin, a French journalist, found a copy of Edison's Diary in a thrift store with a chapter not found in the previously published editions. The new chapter details Edison's theories of the afterlife and the scientific basis by which communication with the dead might be achieved.[121]

Final years

 
Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey S. Firestone, respectively. Ft. Myers, Florida, February 11, 1929

Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at his winter retreat in Fort Myers. Ford once worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit and met Edison at a convention of affiliated Edison illuminating companies in Brooklyn, NY in 1896. Edison was impressed with Ford's internal combustion engine automobile and encouraged its developments. They were friends until Edison's death. Edison and Ford undertook annual motor camping trips from 1914 to 1924. Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs also participated.

In 1928, Edison joined the Fort Myers Civitan Club. He believed strongly in the organization, writing that "The Civitan Club is doing things—big things—for the community, state, and nation, and I certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks."[123] He was an active member in the club until his death, sometimes bringing Henry Ford to the club's meetings.

Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before his death, the Lackawanna Railroad inaugurated suburban electric train service from Hoboken to Montclair, Dover, and Gladstone, New Jersey. Electrical transmission for this service was by means of an overhead catenary system using direct current, which Edison had championed. Despite his frail condition, Edison was at the throttle of the first electric MU (Multiple-Unit) train to depart Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken in September 1930, driving the train the first mile through Hoboken yard on its way to South Orange.[124]

This fleet of cars would serve commuters in northern New Jersey for the next 54 years until their retirement in 1984. A plaque commemorating Edison's inaugural ride can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, which is presently operated by NJ Transit.[124]

Edison was said to have been influenced by a popular fad diet in his last few years; "the only liquid he consumed was a pint of milk every three hours".[55] He is reported to have believed this diet would restore his health. However, this tale is doubtful. In 1930, the year before Edison died, Mina said in an interview about him, "Correct eating is one of his greatest hobbies."[125] She also said that during one of his periodic "great scientific adventures", Edison would be up at 7:00, have breakfast at 8:00, and be rarely home for lunch or dinner, implying that he continued to have all three.[112]

Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, he was reportedly shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles.[126]

Death

Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931, in his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina. Rev. Stephen J. Herben officiated at the funeral;[127] Edison is buried behind the home.[128][129]

Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento.[130] A plaster death mask and casts of Edison's hands were also made.[131] Mina died in 1947.

Marriages and children

On December 25, 1871, at the age of 24, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855–1884), whom he had met two months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops. They had three children:

  • Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965), nicknamed "Dot"[132]
  • Thomas Alva Edison Jr. (1876–1935), nicknamed "Dash"[133]
  • William Leslie Edison (1878–1937) Inventor, graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 1900.[134]

Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, of unknown causes: possibly from a brain tumor[135] or a morphine overdose. Doctors frequently prescribed morphine to women in those years to treat a variety of causes, and researchers believe that her symptoms could have been from morphine poisoning.[136]

Edison generally preferred spending time in the laboratory to being with his family.[42]

 
Mina Miller Edison in 1906

On February 24, 1886, at the age of 39, Edison married the 20-year-old Mina Miller (1865–1947) in Akron, Ohio.[137] She was the daughter of the inventor Lewis Miller, co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution, and a benefactor of Methodist charities. They also had three children together:

Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.[141][142]

Wanting to be an inventor, but not having much of an aptitude for it, Thomas Edison's son, Thomas Alva Edison Jr., became a problem for his father and his father's business. Starting in the 1890s, Thomas Jr. became involved in snake oil products and shady and fraudulent enterprises producing products being sold to the public as "The Latest Edison Discovery". The situation became so bad that Thomas Sr. had to take his son to court to stop the practices, finally agreeing to pay Thomas Jr. an allowance of $35 (equivalent to $1,140 in 2022)[143] per week, in exchange for not using the Edison name; the son began using aliases, such as Burton Willard. Thomas Jr., experiencing alcoholism, depression and ill health, worked at several menial jobs, but by 1931 (towards the end of his life) he would obtain a role in the Edison company, thanks to the intervention of his half-brother Charles.[144][145]

Views

On religion and metaphysics

 
This 1910 New York Times Magazine feature states that "Nature, the supreme power, (Edison) recognizes and respects, but does not worship. Nature is not merciful and loving, but wholly merciless, indifferent." Edison is quoted as saying "I am not an individual—I am an aggregate of cells, as, for instance, New York City is an aggregate of individuals. Will New York City go to heaven?"

Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a "freethinker".[55] Edison was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason.[55] Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism", saying, "He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity."[55] In 1878, Edison joined the Theosophical Society in New Jersey,[146] but according to its founder, Helena Blavatsky, he was not a very active member.[147] In an October 2, 1910, interview in the New York Times Magazine, Edison stated:

Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me—the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love—He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us—nature did it all—not the gods of the religions.[148]

Edison was labeled an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter:

You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made.[55]

He also stated, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."[149] In 1920, Edison set off a media sensation when he told B. C. Forbes of American Magazine that he was working on a "spirit phone" to allow communication with the dead, a story which other newspapers and magazines repeated.[150] Edison later disclaimed the idea, telling the New York Times in 1926 that "I really had nothing to tell him, but I hated to disappoint him so I thought up this story about communicating with spirits, but it was all a joke."[151]

On politics

Edison was a supporter of women's suffrage.[152] He said in 1915, "Every woman in this country is going to have the vote."[152] Edison notably signed onto a statement supporting women's suffrage which was published to counter anti-suffragist literature spread by Senator James Edgar Martine.[153]

Nonviolence was key to Edison's political and moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I, he specified he would work only on defensive weapons and later noted, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill." Edison's philosophy of nonviolence extended to animals as well, about which he stated: "Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."[154][155] He was a vegetarian but not a vegan in actual practice, at least near the end of his life.[55] Following a tour of Europe in 1911, Edison spoke negatively about "the belligerent nationalism that he had sensed in every country he visited".[156]

Edison was an advocate for monetary reform in the United States. He was ardently opposed to the gold standard and debt-based money. Famously, he was quoted in the New York Times as stating: "Gold is a relic of Julius Caesar, and interest is an invention of Satan."[157] In the same article, he expounded upon the absurdity of a monetary system in which the taxpayer of the United States, in need of a loan, can be compelled to pay in return perhaps double the principal, or even greater sums, due to interest. Edison argued that, if the government can produce debt-based money, it could equally as well produce money that was a credit to the taxpayer.[157]

In May 1922, he published a proposal, entitled "A Proposed Amendment to the Federal Reserve Banking System".[158] In it, he detailed an explanation of a commodity-backed currency, in which the Federal Reserve would issue interest-free currency to farmers, based on the value of commodities they produced. During a publicity tour that he took with friend and fellow inventor, Henry Ford, he spoke publicly about his desire for monetary reform. For insight, he corresponded with prominent academic and banking professionals. In the end, however, Edison's proposals failed to find support and were abandoned.[159][160]

Awards

 
Portrait of Edison by Abraham Archibald Anderson (1890), National Portrait Gallery

The following is an incomplete list of awards given to Edison during his lifetime and posthumously:

Commemorations and popular culture

Main articles: Thomas Edison in popular culture and List of things named after Thomas Edison
 
Thomas Edison issues of 1929 and 1947

Thomas Edison has been honored twice with two different U.S. postage stamps. The first was released in 1929 at Menlo Park, NJ, two years before his death; a 2-cent red, on the 50th anniversary of his invention of the incandescent light, and again in 1947, 3-cent violet, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, first released in Milan, Ohio, his place of birth.[168][169]

Edison has also appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, television shows, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon, and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. Edison is also portrayed in popular culture as an adversary of Nikola Tesla.[170]

People who worked for Edison

The following is a list of people who worked for Thomas Edison in his laboratories at Menlo Park or West Orange or at the subsidiary electrical businesses that he supervised.

See also

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Bibliography

  • Albion, Michele Wehrwein. (2008). The Florida Life of Thomas Edison. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-3259-7.
  • Angel, Ernst (1926). Edison. Sein Leben und Erfinden. Berlin: Ernst Angel Verlag.
  • Baldwin, Neil (1995). Edison: Inventing the Century. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0-226-03571-0.
  • Clark, Ronald William (1977). Edison: The man who made the future. London: Macdonald & Jane's: Macdonald and Jane's. ISBN 978-0-354-04093-8.
  • Conot, Robert (1979). A Streak of Luck. New York: Seaview Books. ISBN 978-0-87223-521-2.
  • Davis, L. J. (1998). Fleet Fire: Thomas Edison and the Pioneers of the Electric Revolution. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-47927-1.
  • Essig, Mark (2004). Edison and the Electric Chair. Stroud: Sutton. ISBN 978-0-7509-3680-4.
  • Essig, Mark (2003). Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death. New York: Walker & Company. ISBN 978-0-8027-1406-0.
  • Israel, Paul (1998). Edison: A Life of Invention. New York: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-52942-2.
  • Jonnes, Jill (2003). Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-50739-7.
  • Josephson, Matthew (1959). Edison. McGraw Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-033046-7.
  • Koenigsberg, Allen (1987). Edison Cylinder Records, 1889–1912. APM Press. ISBN 978-0-937612-07-1.
  • Pretzer, William S., ed. (1989). Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience. Dearborn, Michigan: Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village. ISBN 978-0-933728-33-2.
  • Stross, Randall E. (2007). The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World. Crown. ISBN 978-1-4000-4762-8.

External links

External videos
  Booknotes interview with Neil Baldwin on Edison: Inventing the Century, March 19, 1995, C-SPAN
  Booknotes interview with Jill Jonnes on Empires of Light, October 26, 2003, C-SPAN
  • "An Hour with Edison", Scientific American, July 13, 1878, p. 17
  • Interview with Thomas Edison in 1931
  • The Diary of Thomas Edison
  • Works by Thomas Edison at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by or about Thomas Edison at Internet Archive
  • Edison's patent application for the light bulb at the National Archives.
  • Thomas Edison Personal Manuscripts and Letters
  • Edison Papers Rutgers.
  • Edisonian Museum Antique Electrics
  • Thomas Edison at IMDb

February 02, 2024
thomas, edison, edison, redirects, here, other, uses, edison, disambiguation, thomas, alva, edison, february, 1847, october, 1931, american, inventor, businessman, developed, many, devices, fields, such, electric, power, generation, mass, communication, sound,. Edison redirects here For other uses see Edison disambiguation Thomas Alva Edison February 11 1847 October 18 1931 was an American inventor and businessman 1 2 3 He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation mass communication sound recording and motion pictures 4 These inventions which include the phonograph the motion picture camera and early versions of the electric light bulb have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world 5 He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention working with many researchers and employees He established the first industrial research laboratory 6 Thomas EdisonEdison c 1922BornThomas Alva Edison 1847 02 11 February 11 1847Milan Ohio U S DiedOctober 18 1931 1931 10 18 aged 84 West Orange New Jersey U S Burial placeThomas Edison National Historical ParkEducationSelf educated some coursework at Cooper UnionOccupationsInventorbusinessmanYears active1877 1930Known forList Edison effectEdison light bulbEdison screwEdison s Phonograph DollElectric penEdisonian approachEdison Lalande cellAcoustic telegraphyCarbon microphoneEtheric forceFluoroscopyElectric power distributionGrasshopper telegraphyKinetoscopeNickel iron batteryPhonographPhonomotorQuadruplex telegraphTasimeterWar of the currentsFounder of General ElectricSpousesMary Stilwell m 1871 died 1884 wbr Mina Miller m 1886 wbr Children6 including Madeleine Charles and TheodoreRelativesLewis Miller father in law AwardsMatteucci Medal 1887 John Scott Medal 1889 Edward Longstreth Medal 1899 John Fritz Medal 1908 Franklin Medal 1915 Navy Distinguished Service Medal 1920 Congressional Gold Medal 1928 SignatureEdison was raised in the American Midwest Early in his career he worked as a telegraph operator which inspired some of his earliest inventions 4 In 1876 he established his first laboratory facility in Menlo Park New Jersey where many of his early inventions were developed He later established a botanical laboratory in Fort Myers Florida in collaboration with businessmen Henry Ford and Harvey S Firestone and a laboratory in West Orange New Jersey that featured the world s first film studio the Black Maria With 1 093 US patents in his name as well as patents in other countries Edison is regarded as the most prolific inventor in American history 7 Edison married twice and fathered six children He died in 1931 due to complications from diabetes Contents 1 Early life 2 Early career 3 Menlo Park laboratory 1876 1886 3 1 Research and development facility 3 2 Phonograph 3 3 Carbon telephone transmitter 3 4 Electric light 3 5 Electric power distribution 3 6 War of currents 4 West Orange and Fort Myers 1886 1931 5 Other inventions and projects 5 1 Fluoroscopy 5 2 Tasimeter 5 3 Telegraph improvements 5 4 Motion pictures 5 5 Mining 5 6 Rechargeable battery 5 7 Chemicals 5 8 Spirit Phone 6 Final years 6 1 Death 7 Marriages and children 8 Views 8 1 On religion and metaphysics 8 2 On politics 9 Awards 9 1 Commemorations and popular culture 10 People who worked for Edison 11 See also 12 References 13 Bibliography 14 External linksEarly life nbsp Edison in 1861Thomas Edison was born in 1847 in Milan Ohio but grew up in Port Huron Michigan after the family moved there in 1854 8 He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr 1804 1896 born in Marshalltown Nova Scotia and Nancy Matthews Elliott 1810 1871 born in Chenango County New York 9 10 His patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New Jersey 11 the surname had originally been Edeson 12 His great grandfather loyalist John Edeson fled New Jersey for Nova Scotia in 1784 The family moved to Middlesex County Upper Canada around 1811 and his grandfather Capt Samuel Edison Sr served with the 1st Middlesex Militia during the War of 1812 His father Samuel Edison Jr moved to Vienna Ontario and fled to Ohio after his involvement in the Rebellion of 1837 13 Edison was taught reading writing and arithmetic by his mother who used to be a school teacher He attended school for only a few months However one biographer described him as a very curious child who learned most things by reading on his own 14 As a child he became fascinated with technology and spent hours working on experiments at home 15 Edison developed hearing problems at the age of 12 16 The cause of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever 16 during childhood and recurring untreated middle ear infections He subsequently concocted elaborate fictitious stories about the cause of his deafness 17 As he was completely deaf in one ear and barely hearing in the other it is alleged 18 that Edison would listen to a music player or piano by clamping his teeth into the wood to absorb the sound waves into his skull As he got older Edison believed his hearing loss allowed him to avoid distraction and concentrate more easily on his work Modern day historians and medical professionals have suggested he may have had ADHD 15 It is known that early in his career he enrolled in a chemistry course at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art to support his work on a new telegraphy system with Charles Batchelor This appears to have been his only enrollment in courses at an institution of higher learning 19 20 21 Early careerThomas Edison began his career as a news butcher selling newspapers candy and vegetables on the trains running from Port Huron to Detroit He turned a 50 a week profit by age 13 most of which went to buying equipment for electrical and chemical experiments 22 At age 15 in 1862 he saved 3 year old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train 23 Jimmie s father station agent J U MacKenzie of Mount Clemens Michigan was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator Edison s first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction Ontario on the Grand Trunk Railway 24 He also studied qualitative analysis and conducted chemical experiments until he left the job rather than be fired after being held responsible for a near collision of two trains 25 26 27 Edison obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road and with the aid of four assistants he set in type and printed the Grand Trunk Herald which he sold with his other papers 27 This began Edison s long streak of entrepreneurial ventures as he discovered his talents as a businessman Ultimately his entrepreneurship was central to the formation of some 14 companies including General Electric formerly one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world 28 29 In 1866 at the age of 19 Edison moved to Louisville Kentucky 30 where as an employee of Western Union he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire Edison requested the night shift which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes reading and experimenting Eventually the latter pre occupation cost him his job One night in 1867 he was working with a lead acid battery when he spilt sulfuric acid onto the floor It ran between the floorboards and onto his boss s desk below The next morning Edison was fired 31 His first patent was for the electric vote recorder U S patent 90 646 which was granted on June 1 1869 32 Finding little demand for the machine Edison moved to New York City shortly thereafter One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth New Jersey home while Edison worked for Samuel Laws at the Gold Indicator Company Pope and Edison founded their own company in October 1869 working as electrical engineers and inventors Edison began developing a multiplex telegraphic system which could send two messages simultaneously in 1874 33 Menlo Park laboratory 1876 1886 Research and development facility nbsp Edison s Menlo Park Laboratory reconstructed at Greenfield Village at Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn MichiganEdison s major innovation was the establishment of an industrial research lab in 1876 It was built in Menlo Park a part of Raritan Township now named Edison Township in his honor in Middlesex County New Jersey with the funds from the sale of Edison s quadruplex telegraph After his demonstration of the telegraph Edison was not sure that his original plan to sell it for 4 000 to 5 000 was right so he asked Western Union to make a bid He was surprised to hear them offer 10 000 258 647 in 2022 which he gratefully accepted 34 The quadruplex telegraph was Edison s first big financial success and Menlo Park became the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement Edison was legally credited with most of the inventions produced there though many employees carried out research and development under his direction His staff was generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research and he drove them hard to produce results William Joseph Hammer a consulting electrical engineer started working for Edison and began his duties as a laboratory assistant in December 1879 He assisted in experiments on the telephone phonograph electric railway iron ore separator electric lighting and other developing inventions However Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was put in charge of tests and records on that device see Hammer Historical Collection of Incandescent Electric Lamps In 1880 he was appointed chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works In his first year the plant under general manager Francis Robbins Upton turned out 50 000 lamps According to Edison Hammer was a pioneer of incandescent electric lighting 35 Frank J Sprague a competent mathematician and former naval officer was recruited by Edward H Johnson and joined the Edison organization in 1883 One of Sprague s contributions to the Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park was to expand Edison s mathematical methods Despite the common belief that Edison did not use mathematics analysis of his notebooks reveal that he was an astute user of mathematical analysis conducted by his assistants such as Francis Robbins Upton for example determining the critical parameters of his electric lighting system including lamp resistance by an analysis of Ohm s Law Joule s Law and economics 36 nbsp Edison s Menlo Park Lab 1880Nearly all of Edison s patents were utility patents which were protected for 17 years and included inventions or processes that are electrical mechanical or chemical in nature About a dozen were design patents which protect an ornamental design for up to 14 years As in most patents the inventions he described were improvements over prior art The phonograph patent in contrast was unprecedented in describing the first device to record and reproduce sounds 37 In just over a decade Edison s Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to occupy two city blocks Edison said he wanted the lab to have a stock of almost every conceivable material 38 A newspaper article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim stating the lab contained eight thousand kinds of chemicals every kind of screw made every size of needle every kind of cord or wire hair of humans horses hogs cows rabbits goats minx camels silk in every texture cocoons various kinds of hoofs shark s teeth deer horns tortoise shell cork resin varnish and oil ostrich feathers a peacock s tail jet amber rubber all ores and the list goes on 39 Over his desk Edison displayed a placard with Sir Joshua Reynolds famous quotation There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking 40 This slogan was reputedly posted at several other locations throughout the facility In Menlo Park Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application 41 Edison s name is registered on 1 093 patents 42 Phonograph nbsp Photograph of Edison with his phonograph 2nd model taken in Mathew Brady s Washington D C studio in April 1878 nbsp Mary Had a Little Lamb source source track Thomas Edison reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb in 1929 Problems playing this file See media help Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark New Jersey with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices but the invention that first gained him wider notice was the phonograph in 1877 43 This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical Edison became known as The Wizard of Menlo Park 5 His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder Despite its limited sound quality and that the recordings could be played only a few times the phonograph made Edison a celebrity Joseph Henry president of the National Academy of Sciences and one of the most renowned electrical scientists in the US described Edison as the most ingenious inventor in this country or in any other 44 In April 1878 Edison traveled to Washington to demonstrate the phonograph before the National Academy of Sciences Congressmen Senators and US President Hayes 45 The Washington Post described Edison as a genius and his presentation as a scene that will live in history 46 Although Edison obtained a patent for the phonograph in 1878 47 he did little to develop it until Alexander Graham Bell Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter produced a phonograph like device in the 1880s that used wax coated cardboard cylinders citation needed Carbon telephone transmitter In 1876 Edison began work to improve the microphone for telephones at that time called a transmitter by developing a carbon microphone which consists of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon that would change resistance with the pressure of sound waves A steady direct current is passed between the plates through the granules and the varying resistance results in a modulation of the current creating a varying electric current that reproduces the varying pressure of the sound wave Up to that point microphones such as the ones developed by Johann Philipp Reis and Alexander Graham Bell worked by generating a weak current The carbon microphone works by modulating a direct current and subsequently using a transformer to transfer the signal so generated to the telephone line Edison was one of many inventors working on the problem of creating a usable microphone for telephony by having it modulate an electric current passed through it 48 His work was concurrent with Emile Berliner s loose contact carbon transmitter who lost a later patent case against Edison over the carbon transmitter s invention 49 and David Edward Hughes study and published paper on the physics of loose contact carbon transmitters work that Hughes did not bother to patent 48 50 Edison used the carbon microphone concept in 1877 to create an improved telephone for Western Union 49 In 1886 Edison found a way to improve a Bell Telephone microphone one that used loose contact ground carbon with his discovery that it worked far better if the carbon was roasted This type was put in use in 1890 49 and was used in all telephones along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s Electric light Main article Incandescent light bulb nbsp Thomas Edison s first successful model of light bulb used in public demonstration at Menlo Park December 1879In 1878 Edison began working on a system of electrical illumination something he hoped could compete with gas and oil based lighting 51 He began by tackling the problem of creating a long lasting incandescent lamp something that would be needed for indoor use However Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb 52 In 1840 British scientist Warren de la Rue developed an efficient light bulb using a coiled platinum filament but the high cost of platinum kept the bulb from becoming a commercial success 53 Many other inventors had also devised incandescent lamps including Alessandro Volta s demonstration of a glowing wire in 1800 and inventions by Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans Others who developed early and commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy James Bowman Lindsay Moses G Farmer 54 William E Sawyer Joseph Swan and Heinrich Gobel These early bulbs all had flaws such as an extremely short life and requiring a high electric current to operate which made them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially 55 217 218 In his first attempts to solve these problems Edison tried using a filament made of cardboard carbonized with compressed lampblack This burnt out too quickly to provide lasting light He then experimented with different grasses and canes such as hemp and palmetto before settling on bamboo as the best filament 56 Edison continued trying to improve this design and on November 4 1879 filed for U S patent 223 898 granted on January 27 1880 for an electric lamp using a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires 57 The patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including cotton and linen thread wood splints papers coiled in various ways 57 It was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1 200 hours 58 nbsp U S Patent 223898 Electric Lamp issued January 27 1880In 1878 Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers including J P Morgan Spencer Trask 59 and the members of the Vanderbilt family Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31 1879 in Menlo Park It was during this time that he said We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles 60 nbsp The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company s new steamship the Columbia was the first commercial application for Edison s incandescent light bulb in 1880 Henry Villard president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company attended Edison s 1879 demonstration Villard was impressed and requested Edison install his electric lighting system aboard Villard s company s new steamer the Columbia Although hesitant at first Edison agreed to Villard s request Most of the work was completed in May 1880 and the Columbia went to New York City where Edison and his personnel installed Columbia s new lighting system The Columbia was Edison s first commercial application for his incandescent light bulb The Edison equipment was removed from Columbia in 1895 61 62 63 64 In 1880 Lewis Latimer a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation began working for the United States Electric Lighting Company run by Edison s rival Hiram S Maxim 65 While working for Maxim Latimer invented a process for making carbon filaments for light bulbs and helped install broad scale lighting systems for New York City Philadelphia Montreal and London Latimer holds the patent for the electric lamp issued in 1881 and a second patent for the process of manufacturing carbons the filament used in incandescent light bulbs issued in 1882 On October 8 1883 the US patent office ruled that Edison s patent was based on the work of William E Sawyer and was therefore invalid Litigation continued for nearly six years In 1885 Latimer switched camps and started working with Edison 66 On October 6 1889 a judge ruled that Edison s electric light improvement claim for a filament of carbon of high resistance was valid 67 To avoid a possible court battle with yet another competitor Joseph Swan who held an 1880 British patent on a similar incandescent electric lamp 68 he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to manufacture and market the invention in Britain The incandescent light bulb patented by Edison also began to gain widespread popularity in Europe as well Mahen Theatre in Brno in what is now the Czech Republic opened in 1882 and was the first public building in the world to use Edison s electric lamps Francis Jehl Edison s assistant in the invention of the lamp supervised the installation 69 In September 2010 a sculpture of three giant light bulbs was erected in Brno in front of the theater 70 The first Edison light bulbs in the Nordic countries were installed at the weaving hall of the Finlayson s textile factory in Tampere Finland in March 1882 71 In 1901 Edison attended the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo New York His company the Edison Manufacturing Company was given the task of installing the electric lights on the various buildings and structures that were built for the exposition At night Edison made a panorama photograph of the illuminated buildings 72 Electric power distribution After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21 1879 Edison developed an electric utility to compete with the existing gas light utilities 73 On December 17 1880 he founded the Edison Illuminating Company and during the 1880s he patented a system for electricity distribution The company established the first investor owned electric utility On September 4 1882 in Pearl Street New York City his 600 kW cogeneration steam powered generating station Pearl Street Station s electrical power distribution system was switched on providing 110 volts direct current DC initially to 59 customers in lower Manhattan 74 quickly growing to 508 customers with 10 164 lamps The power station was decommissioned in 1895 Eight months earlier in January 1882 to demonstrate feasibility Edison had switched on the 93 kW first steam generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London This was a smaller 110 V DC supply system eventually supplying 3 000 street lights and a number of nearby private dwellings but was shut down in September 1886 as uneconomic since he was unable to extend the premises On January 19 1883 the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle New Jersey War of currents Main article War of the currents nbsp Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public events as in this picture from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition As Edison expanded his direct current DC power delivery system he received stiff competition from companies installing alternating current AC systems From the early 1880s AC arc lighting systems for streets and large spaces had been an expanding business in the US With the development of transformers in Europe and by Westinghouse Electric in the US in 1885 1886 it became possible to transmit AC long distances over thinner and cheaper wires and step down reduce the voltage at the destination for distribution to users This allowed AC to be used in street lighting and in lighting for small business and domestic customers the market Edison s patented low voltage DC incandescent lamp system was designed to supply 75 Edison s DC empire suffered from one of its chief drawbacks it was suitable only for the high density of customers found in large cities Edison s DC plants could not deliver electricity to customers more than one mile from the plant and left a patchwork of unsupplied customers between plants Small cities and rural areas could not afford an Edison style system leaving a large part of the market without electrical service 76 AC companies expanded into this gap 77 Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886 Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating Just as certain as death Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size He has got a new thing and it will require a great deal of experimenting to get it working practically 78 Many reasons have been suggested for Edison s anti AC stance One notion is that the inventor could not grasp the more abstract theories behind AC and was trying to avoid developing a system he did not understand Edison also appeared to have been worried about the high voltage from misinstalled AC systems killing customers and hurting the sales of electric power systems in general 79 The primary reason was that Edison Electric based their design on low voltage DC and switching a standard after they had installed over 100 systems was in Edison s mind out of the question By the end of 1887 Edison Electric was losing market share to Westinghouse who had built 68 AC based power stations to Edison s 121 DC based stations To make matters worse for Edison the Thomson Houston Electric Company of Lynn Massachusetts another AC based competitor built 22 power stations 80 Parallel to expanding competition between Edison and the AC companies was rising public furor over a series of deaths in the spring of 1888 caused by pole mounted high voltage alternating current lines This turned into a media frenzy against high voltage alternating current and the seemingly greedy and callous lighting companies that used it 81 82 Edison took advantage of the public perception of AC as dangerous and joined with self styled New York anti AC crusader Harold P Brown in a propaganda campaign aiding Brown in the public electrocution of animals with AC and supported legislation to control and severely limit AC installations and voltages to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system in what was now being referred to as a war of the currents 83 The development of the electric chair was used in an attempt to portray AC as having a greater lethal potential than DC and smear Westinghouse via Edison colluding with Brown and Westinghouse s chief AC rival the Thomson Houston Electric Company to ensure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator 84 Edison was becoming marginalized in his own company having lost majority control in the 1889 merger that formed Edison General Electric 85 In 1890 he told president Henry Villard he thought it was time to retire from the lighting business and moved on to an iron ore refining project that preoccupied his time 86 Edison s dogmatic anti AC values were no longer controlling the company By 1889 Edison s Electric s own subsidiaries were lobbying to add AC power transmission to their systems and in October 1890 Edison Machine Works began developing AC based equipment Cut throat competition and patent battles were bleeding off cash in the competing companies and the idea of a merger was being put forward in financial circles 87 The War of Currents ended in 1892 when the financier J P Morgan engineered a merger of Edison General Electric with it main alternating current based rival The Thomson Houston Company that put the board of Thomson Houston in charge of the new company called General Electric General Electric now controlled three quarters of the US electrical business and would compete with Westinghouse for the AC market 88 89 Edison served as a figurehead on the company s board of directors for a few years before selling his shares 90 West Orange and Fort Myers 1886 1931 nbsp Thomas A Edison Industries Exhibit Primary Battery section 1915Edison moved from Menlo Park after the death of his first wife Mary in 1884 and purchased a home known as Glenmont in 1886 as a wedding gift for his second wife Mina in Llewellyn Park in West Orange New Jersey In 1885 Thomas Edison bought 13 acres of property in Fort Myers Florida for roughly 2 750 equivalent to 89 569 in 2022 and built what was later called Seminole Lodge as a winter retreat 91 The main house and guest house are representative of Italianate architecture and Queen Anne style architecture The building materials were pre cut in New England by the Kennebec Framing Company and the Stephen Nye Lumber Company of Fairfield Maine The materials were then shipped down by boat and were constructed at a cost of 12 000 each which included the cost of interior furnishings 92 Edison and Mina spent many winters at their home in Fort Myers and Edison tried to find a domestic source of natural rubber 93 Due to the security concerns around World War I Edison suggested forming a science and industry committee to provide advice and research to the US military and he headed the Naval Consulting Board in 1915 94 Edison became concerned with America s reliance on foreign supply of rubber and was determined to find a native supply of rubber Edison s work on rubber took place largely at his research laboratory in Fort Myers which has been designated as a National Historic Chemical Landmark 95 The laboratory was built after Thomas Edison Henry Ford and Harvey S Firestone pulled together 75 000 to form the Edison Botanical Research Corporation Initially only Ford and Firestone were to contribute funds to the project while Edison did all the research Edison however wished to contribute 25 000 as well Edison did the majority of the research and planting sending results and sample rubber residues to his West Orange Lab Edison employed a two part Acid base extraction to derive latex from the plant material after it was dried and crushed to a powder 96 After testing 17 000 plant samples he eventually found an adequate source in the Goldenrod plant Edison decided on Solidago leavenworthii also known as Leavenworth s Goldenrod The plant which normally grows roughly 3 4 feet tall with a 5 latex yield was adapted by Edison through cross breeding to produce plants twice the size and with a latex yield of 12 97 During the 1911 New York Electrical show Edison told representatives of the copper industry it was a shame he did not have a chunk of it The representatives decided to give a cubic foot of solid copper weighing 486 pounds with their gratitude inscribed on it in appreciation for his part in the continuous stimulation in the copper industry 98 99 100 Other inventions and projectsFluoroscopy Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available fluoroscope a machine that uses X rays to take radiographs Until Edison discovered that calcium tungstate fluoroscopy screens produced brighter images than the barium platinocyanide screens originally used by Wilhelm Rontgen the technology was capable of producing only very faint images The fundamental design of Edison s fluoroscope is still in use today although Edison abandoned the project after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously injuring his assistant Clarence Dally Dally made himself an enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopy project and was exposed to a poisonous dose of radiation he later died at the age of 39 of injuries related to the exposure including mediastinal cancer 101 In 1903 a shaken Edison said Don t talk to me about X rays I am afraid of them 102 Nonetheless his work was important in the development of a technology still used today 103 Tasimeter Edison invented a highly sensitive device that he named the tasimeter which measured infrared radiation His impetus for its creation was the desire to measure the heat from the solar corona during the total Solar eclipse of July 29 1878 The device was not patented since Edison could find no practical mass market application for it 104 Telegraph improvements The key to Edison s initial reputation and success was his work in the field of telegraphy With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator he learned the basics of electricity This together with his studies in chemistry at the Cooper Union allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker the first electricity based broadcast system 19 20 His innovations also included the development of the quadruplex the first system which could simultaneously transmit four messages through a single wire 105 Motion pictures source source source source The June 1894 Leonard Cushing bout Each of the six one minute rounds recorded by the Kinetoscope was made available to exhibitors for 22 50 106 Customers who watched the final round saw Leonard score a knockdown Edison was granted a patent for a motion picture camera labeled the Kinetograph He did the electromechanical design while his employee William Kennedy Dickson a photographer worked on the photographic and optical development Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson 55 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 The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20 1891 107 In April 1896 Thomas Armat s Vitascope manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison s name was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City Later he exhibited motion pictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings mechanically synchronized with the film Officially the kinetoscope entered Europe when wealthy American businessman Irving T Bush 1869 1948 bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Frank Z Maguire and Joseph D Baucus a dozen machines Bush placed from October 17 1894 the first kinetoscopes in London At the same time the French company Kinetoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Werner bought these machines for the market in France In the last three months of 1894 the Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe i e the Netherlands and Italy In Germany and in Austria Hungary the kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche osterreichische Edison Kinetoscop Gesellschaft founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck 108 of the Schokoladen Susswarenfabrik Stollwerck amp Co of Cologne The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early 1895 The Edison s Kinetoscope Francais a Belgian company was founded in Brussels on January 15 1895 with the rights to sell the kinetoscopes in Monaco France and the French colonies The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialists On May 14 1895 the Edison s Kinetoscope Belge was founded in Brussels Businessman Ladislas Victor Lewitzki living in London but active in Belgium and France took the initiative in starting this business He had contacts with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co In 1898 he also became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France 109 Edison s film studio made nearly 1 200 films The majority of the productions were short films showing everything from acrobats to parades to fire calls including titles such as Fred Ott s Sneeze 1894 The Kiss 1896 The Great Train Robbery 1903 Alice s Adventures in Wonderland 1910 and the first Frankenstein film in 1910 In 1903 when the owners of Luna Park Coney Island announced they would execute Topsy the elephant by strangulation poisoning and electrocution with the electrocution part ultimately killing the elephant Edison Manufacturing sent a crew to film it releasing it that same year with the title Electrocuting an Elephant source source source source source source A Day with Thomas Edison 1922 As the film business expanded competing exhibitors routinely copied and exhibited each other s films 110 To better protect the copyrights on his films Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U S copyright office Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era 111 In 1908 Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios commonly known as the Edison Trust Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America which was founded in 1929 Edison said his favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation He thought that talkies had spoiled everything for him There isn t any good acting on the screen They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act I can sense it more than you because I am deaf 112 His favorite stars were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow 113 Mining Starting in the late 1870s Edison became interested and involved with mining High grade iron ore was scarce on the east coast of the United States and Edison tried to mine low grade ore Edison developed a process using rollers and crushers that could pulverize rocks up to 10 tons The dust was then sent between three giant magnets that would pull the iron ore from the dust Despite the failure of his mining company the Edison Ore Milling Company Edison used some of the materials and equipment to produce cement 114 In 1901 Edison visited an industrial exhibition in the Sudbury area in Ontario Canada and thought nickel and cobalt deposits there could be used in his production of electrical equipment He returned as a mining prospector and is credited with the original discovery of the Falconbridge ore body His attempts to mine the ore body were not successful and he abandoned his mining claim in 1903 115 A street in Falconbridge as well as the Edison Building which served as the head office of Falconbridge Mines are named for him Rechargeable battery Further information Nickel iron battery History nbsp Share of the Edison Storage Battery Company issued October 19 1903In the late 1890s Edison worked on developing a lighter more efficient rechargeable battery at that time called an accumulator He looked on them as something customers could use to power their phonographs but saw other uses for an improved battery including electric automobiles 116 The then available lead acid rechargeable batteries were not very efficient and that market was already tied up by other companies so Edison pursued using alkaline instead of acid He had his lab work on many types of materials going through some 10 000 combinations eventually settling on a nickel iron combination Besides his experimenting Edison also probably had access to the 1899 patents for a nickel iron battery by the Swedish inventor Waldemar Jungner 117 Edison obtained a US and European patent for his nickel iron battery in 1901 and founded the Edison Storage Battery Company and by 1904 it had 450 people working there The first rechargeable batteries they produced were for electric cars but there were many defects with customers complaining about the product When the capital of the company was exhausted Edison paid for the company with his private money Edison did not demonstrate a mature product until 1910 a very efficient and durable nickel iron battery with lye as the electrolyte The nickel iron battery was never very successful by the time it was ready electric cars were disappearing and lead acid batteries had become the standard for turning over gas powered car starter motors 117 Chemicals Further information Great Phenol Plot At the start of World War I the American chemical industry was primitive most chemicals were imported from Europe The outbreak of war in August 1914 resulted in a shortage of imported chemicals One of particular importance to Edison was phenol which was used to make phonograph records presumably as phenolic resins of the Bakelite type 118 At the time phenol came from coal as a by product of coke oven gases or manufactured gas for gas lighting Phenol could be nitrated to picric acid and converted to ammonium picrate a shock resistant high explosive suitable for use in artillery shells 118 Most phenol had been imported from Britain but with war Parliament blocked exports and diverted most to production of ammonium picrate Britain also blockaded supplies from Germany citation needed Edison responded by undertaking production of phenol at his Silver Lake facility using processes developed by his chemists 119 He built two plants with a capacity of six tons of phenol per day Production began the first week of September one month after hostilities began in Europe He built two plants to produce raw material benzene at Johnstown Pennsylvania and Bessemer Alabama replacing supplies previously from Germany Edison manufactured aniline dyes which previously had been supplied by the German dye trust Other wartime products include xylene p phenylenediamine shellac and pyrax Wartime shortages made these ventures profitable In 1915 his production capacity was fully committed by midyear 118 Phenol was a critical material because two derivatives were in high growth phases Bakelite the original thermoset plastic had been invented in 1909 Aspirin too was a phenol derivative Invented in 1899 it had become a blockbuster drug Bayer had acquired a plant to manufacture in the US in Rensselaer New York but struggled to find phenol to keep their plant running during the war Edison was able to oblige 118 Bayer relied on Chemische Fabrik von Heyden in Piscataway New Jersey to convert phenol to salicylic acid which they converted to aspirin It is said that German companies bought up supplies of phenol to block production of ammonium picrate Edison preferred not to sell phenol for military uses He sold his surplus to Bayer who had it converted to salicylic acid by Heyden some of which was exported 120 118 Spirit Phone In 1920 Edison spoke to American Magazine saying that he had been working on a device for some time to see if it was possible to communicate with the dead 121 122 Edison said the device would work on scientific principles not by an occult means 121 The press had a field day over Edison s remarks 122 121 The actual nature of this invention remained a mystery as there were no details revealed to the public In 2015 Philippe Baudouin a French journalist found a copy of Edison s Diary in a thrift store with a chapter not found in the previously published editions The new chapter details Edison s theories of the afterlife and the scientific basis by which communication with the dead might be achieved 121 Final years nbsp Henry Ford Thomas Edison and Harvey S Firestone respectively Ft Myers Florida February 11 1929Henry Ford the automobile magnate later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at his winter retreat in Fort Myers Ford once worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit and met Edison at a convention of affiliated Edison illuminating companies in Brooklyn NY in 1896 Edison was impressed with Ford s internal combustion engine automobile and encouraged its developments They were friends until Edison s death Edison and Ford undertook annual motor camping trips from 1914 to 1924 Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs also participated In 1928 Edison joined the Fort Myers Civitan Club He believed strongly in the organization writing that The Civitan Club is doing things big things for the community state and nation and I certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks 123 He was an active member in the club until his death sometimes bringing Henry Ford to the club s meetings Edison was active in business right up to the end Just months before his death the Lackawanna Railroad inaugurated suburban electric train service from Hoboken to Montclair Dover and Gladstone New Jersey Electrical transmission for this service was by means of an overhead catenary system using direct current which Edison had championed Despite his frail condition Edison was at the throttle of the first electric MU Multiple Unit train to depart Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken in September 1930 driving the train the first mile through Hoboken yard on its way to South Orange 124 This fleet of cars would serve commuters in northern New Jersey for the next 54 years until their retirement in 1984 A plaque commemorating Edison s inaugural ride can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken which is presently operated by NJ Transit 124 Edison was said to have been influenced by a popular fad diet in his last few years the only liquid he consumed was a pint of milk every three hours 55 He is reported to have believed this diet would restore his health However this tale is doubtful In 1930 the year before Edison died Mina said in an interview about him Correct eating is one of his greatest hobbies 125 She also said that during one of his periodic great scientific adventures Edison would be up at 7 00 have breakfast at 8 00 and be rarely home for lunch or dinner implying that he continued to have all three 112 Edison became the owner of his Milan Ohio birthplace in 1906 On his last visit in 1923 he was reportedly shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles 126 Death Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18 1931 in his home Glenmont in Llewellyn Park in West Orange New Jersey which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina Rev Stephen J Herben officiated at the funeral 127 Edison is buried behind the home 128 129 Edison s last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor s room shortly after his death as a memento 130 A plaster death mask and casts of Edison s hands were also made 131 Mina died in 1947 Marriages and childrenOn December 25 1871 at the age of 24 Edison married 16 year old Mary Stilwell 1855 1884 whom he had met two months earlier she was an employee at one of his shops They had three children Marion Estelle Edison 1873 1965 nicknamed Dot 132 Thomas Alva Edison Jr 1876 1935 nicknamed Dash 133 William Leslie Edison 1878 1937 Inventor graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale 1900 134 Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9 1884 of unknown causes possibly from a brain tumor 135 or a morphine overdose Doctors frequently prescribed morphine to women in those years to treat a variety of causes and researchers believe that her symptoms could have been from morphine poisoning 136 Edison generally preferred spending time in the laboratory to being with his family 42 nbsp Mina Miller Edison in 1906On February 24 1886 at the age of 39 Edison married the 20 year old Mina Miller 1865 1947 in Akron Ohio 137 She was the daughter of the inventor Lewis Miller co founder of the Chautauqua Institution and a benefactor of Methodist charities They also had three children together Madeleine Edison 1888 1979 who married John Eyre Sloane 138 139 Charles Edison 1890 1969 Governor of New Jersey 1941 1944 who took over his father s company and experimental laboratories upon his father s death 140 Theodore Miller Edison 1898 1992 MIT Physics 1923 credited with more than 80 patents Mina outlived Thomas Edison dying on August 24 1947 141 142 Wanting to be an inventor but not having much of an aptitude for it Thomas Edison s son Thomas Alva Edison Jr became a problem for his father and his father s business Starting in the 1890s Thomas Jr became involved in snake oil products and shady and fraudulent enterprises producing products being sold to the public as The Latest Edison Discovery The situation became so bad that Thomas Sr had to take his son to court to stop the practices finally agreeing to pay Thomas Jr an allowance of 35 equivalent to 1 140 in 2022 143 per week in exchange for not using the Edison name the son began using aliases such as Burton Willard Thomas Jr experiencing alcoholism depression and ill health worked at several menial jobs but by 1931 towards the end of his life he would obtain a role in the Edison company thanks to the intervention of his half brother Charles 144 145 ViewsOn religion and metaphysics nbsp This 1910 New York Times Magazine feature states that Nature the supreme power Edison recognizes and respects but does not worship Nature is not merciful and loving but wholly merciless indifferent Edison is quoted as saying I am not an individual I am an aggregate of cells as for instance New York City is an aggregate of individuals Will New York City go to heaven Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a freethinker 55 Edison was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine s The Age of Reason 55 Edison defended Paine s scientific deism saying He has been called an atheist but atheist he was not Paine believed in a supreme intelligence as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity 55 In 1878 Edison joined the Theosophical Society in New Jersey 146 but according to its founder Helena Blavatsky he was not a very active member 147 In an October 2 1910 interview in the New York Times Magazine Edison stated Nature is what we know We do not know the gods of religions And nature is not kind or merciful or loving If God made me the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke mercy kindness love He also made the fish I catch and eat And where do His mercy kindness and love for that fish come in No nature made us nature did it all not the gods of the religions 148 Edison was labeled an atheist for those remarks and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly he clarified himself in a private letter You have misunderstood the whole article because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God There is no such denial what you call God I call Nature the Supreme intelligence that rules matter All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came scattered amongst the cells of which we are made 55 He also stated I do not believe in the God of the theologians but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt 149 In 1920 Edison set off a media sensation when he told B C Forbes of American Magazine that he was working on a spirit phone to allow communication with the dead a story which other newspapers and magazines repeated 150 Edison later disclaimed the idea telling the New York Times in 1926 that I really had nothing to tell him but I hated to disappoint him so I thought up this story about communicating with spirits but it was all a joke 151 On politics Edison was a supporter of women s suffrage 152 He said in 1915 Every woman in this country is going to have the vote 152 Edison notably signed onto a statement supporting women s suffrage which was published to counter anti suffragist literature spread by Senator James Edgar Martine 153 Nonviolence was key to Edison s political and moral views and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I he specified he would work only on defensive weapons and later noted I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill Edison s philosophy of nonviolence extended to animals as well about which he stated Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics which is the goal of all evolution Until we stop harming all other living beings we are still savages 154 155 He was a vegetarian but not a vegan in actual practice at least near the end of his life 55 Following a tour of Europe in 1911 Edison spoke negatively about the belligerent nationalism that he had sensed in every country he visited 156 Edison was an advocate for monetary reform in the United States He was ardently opposed to the gold standard and debt based money Famously he was quoted in the New York Times as stating Gold is a relic of Julius Caesar and interest is an invention of Satan 157 In the same article he expounded upon the absurdity of a monetary system in which the taxpayer of the United States in need of a loan can be compelled to pay in return perhaps double the principal or even greater sums due to interest Edison argued that if the government can produce debt based money it could equally as well produce money that was a credit to the taxpayer 157 In May 1922 he published a proposal entitled A Proposed Amendment to the Federal Reserve Banking System 158 In it he detailed an explanation of a commodity backed currency in which the Federal Reserve would issue interest free currency to farmers based on the value of commodities they produced During a publicity tour that he took with friend and fellow inventor Henry Ford he spoke publicly about his desire for monetary reform For insight he corresponded with prominent academic and banking professionals In the end however Edison s proposals failed to find support and were abandoned 159 160 Awards nbsp Portrait of Edison by Abraham Archibald Anderson 1890 National Portrait GalleryThe following is an incomplete list of awards given to Edison during his lifetime and posthumously In 1878 Edison was awarded an honorary PhD from Union College 161 The President of the Third French Republic Jules Grevy on the recommendation of his Minister of Foreign Affairs Jules Barthelemy Saint Hilaire and with the presentations of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Louis Cochery designated Edison with the distinction of an Officer of the Legion of Honour Legion d honneur by decree on November 10 1881 162 Edison was also named a Chevalier in the Legion in 1879 and a Commander in 1889 163 In 1887 Edison won the Matteucci Medal In 1890 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Philadelphia City Council named Edison the recipient of the John Scott Medal in 1889 163 In 1899 Edison was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal of The Franklin Institute 164 He was named an Honorable Consulting Engineer at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World s fair in 1904 163 In 1908 Edison received the American Association of Engineering Societies John Fritz Medal 163 In 1915 Edison was awarded Franklin Medal of The Franklin Institute for discoveries contributing to the foundation of industries and the well being of the human race 165 In 1920 the United States Navy department awarded him the Navy Distinguished Service Medal 163 In 1923 the American Institute of Electrical Engineers created the Edison Medal and he was its first recipient 163 In 1927 he was granted membership in the National Academy of Sciences 163 On May 29 1928 Edison received the Congressional Gold Medal 163 In 1983 the United States Congress pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 Public Law 97 198 designated February 11 Edison s birthday as National Inventor s Day 166 Life magazine USA in a special double issue in 1997 placed Edison first in the list of the 100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years noting that the light bulb he promoted lit up the world In the 2005 television series The Greatest American he was voted by viewers as the fifteenth greatest In 2008 Edison was inducted in the New Jersey Hall of Fame In 2010 Edison was honored with a Technical Grammy Award In 2011 Edison was inducted into the Entrepreneur Walk of Fame and named a Great Floridian by the governor and cabinet of Florida 167 Commemorations and popular culture Main articles Thomas Edison in popular culture and List of things named after Thomas Edison nbsp Thomas Edison issues of 1929 and 1947Thomas Edison has been honored twice with two different U S postage stamps The first was released in 1929 at Menlo Park NJ two years before his death a 2 cent red on the 50th anniversary of his invention of the incandescent light and again in 1947 3 cent violet on the 100th anniversary of his birth first released in Milan Ohio his place of birth 168 169 Edison has also appeared in popular culture as a character in novels films television shows comics and video games His prolific inventing helped make him an icon and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day Edison is also portrayed in popular culture as an adversary of Nikola Tesla 170 People who worked for EdisonThe following is a list of people who worked for Thomas Edison in his laboratories at Menlo Park or West Orange or at the subsidiary electrical businesses that he supervised Edward Goodrich Acheson chemist worked at Menlo Park 1880 1884 William Symes Andrews started at the Menlo Park machine shop 1879 Charles Batchelor chief experimental assistant John I Beggs manager of Edison Illuminating Company in New York 1886 William Kennedy Dickson joined Menlo Park in 1883 worked on the motion picture camera Justus B Entz joined Edison Machine Works in 1887 Reginald Fessenden worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1886 Henry Ford engineer Edison Illuminating Company Detroit Michigan 1891 1899 William Joseph Hammer started as laboratory assistant Menlo Park in 1879 Miller Reese Hutchison inventor of hearing aid Edward Hibberd Johnson started in 1909 chief engineer at West Orange laboratory 1912 1918 Samuel Insull started in 1881 rose to become VP of General Electric 1892 then President of Chicago Edison Kunihiko Iwadare joined Edison Machine Works in 1887 Francis Jehl laboratory assistant Menlo Park 1879 1882 Arthur E Kennelly engineer experimentalist at West Orange laboratory 1887 1894 John Kruesi started 1872 was head machinist at Newark Menlo Park Edison Machine Works Lewis Howard Latimer hired 1884 as a draftsman continued working for General Electric John W Lieb worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1881 Thomas Commerford Martin electrical engineer worked at Menlo Park 1877 1879 George F Morrison started at Edison Lamp Works 1882 Edwin Stanton Porter joined the Edison Manufacturing Company 1899 Frank J Sprague joined Menlo Park 1883 became known as the Father of Electric Traction Nikola Tesla electrical engineer and inventor worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1884 Francis Robbins Upton mathematician physicist joined Menlo Park 1878 Theo Wangemann personal assistant to EdisonSee alsoEdison Pioneers a group formed in 1918 by employees and other associates of Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison BirthplaceReferences Adrian Wooldridge September 15 2016 The alphabet of success The Economist Archived from the original on September 16 2016 Retrieved September 16 2016 Sproule Anna 2000 Thomas Alva Edison The World s Greatest Inventor 1st U S ed Woodbridge CT Blackbirch Press ISBN 978 1 56711 331 0 Hangout Thomas Edison state nj us State of New Jersey a b Con Edison A Brief History of Con Edison electricity Coned com January 1 1998 Archived from the original on October 30 2012 Retrieved October 11 2012 a b The Wizard of Menlo Park The Franklin Institute Archived from the original on March 5 2013 Retrieved February 24 2013 Walsh Bryan July 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comments to enlist Edison s support He agreed to serve as the head of a new body of civilian experts the Naval Consulting Board to advise the Navy on science and technology Edison Botanic Research Laboratory Edison amp Ford Winter Estates 239 334 7419 Archived from the original on February 3 2017 Retrieved December 30 2016 Green Chemistry The Nexus Blog Thomas Edison ACS Network communities acs org May 21 2014 Archived from the original on August 18 2016 Retrieved August 1 2016 Growing American Rubber by Mark Finlay LeCain Timothy J June 22 2009 Mass Destruction The Men and Giant Mines That Wired America and Scarred the Planet Rutgers University Press ISBN 9780813548562 Archived from the original on January 3 2021 Retrieved October 7 2020 Worthington George 1911 Electrical Review McGraw Hill Publishing Company Archived from the original on August 13 2021 Retrieved October 7 2020 Tyer Brad March 26 2013 Opportunity Montana Big Copper Bad Water and the Burial of an American Landscape 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Money Medicine and 100 Years of Rampant Competition New York Alfred A Knopf p 38 41 ISBN 978 0 394 57894 1 Conot Robert 1979 A Streak of Luck The Life amp Legend of Thomas Alva Edison Seaview Books NY pp 413 414 Nilsson Jeff March 6 2019 Aspirin The First Wonder Drug The Saturday Evening Post a b c d Zarrelli Natalie October 18 2016 Dial a Ghost on Thomas Edison s Least Successful Invention the Spirit Phone Atlas Obscura Archived from the original on December 10 2021 Retrieved December 10 2021 a b Tablang Kristin October 25 2019 Thomas Edison B C Forbes And The Mystery Of The Spirit Phone Forbes Archived from the original on December 10 2021 Retrieved December 10 2021 Armbrester Margaret E 1992 The Civitan Story Birmingham AL Ebsco Media p 34 a b Holland Kevin J 2001 Classic American Railroad Terminals Osceola WI MBI ISBN 9780760308325 OCLC 45908903 Edison at Home Archived May 11 2021 at the Wayback Machine The Brooklyn Daily Eagle May 24 1930 His Life The Thomas Edison Birthplace 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2007 at the Wayback Machine The Straight Dope September 11 1987 Retrieved August 20 2007 Neil Baldwin Edison Inventing the Century University of Chicago Press 2001 408 Baldwin 1995 p 60 Baldwin 1995 p 67 Older Son To Sue To Void Edison Will William Second Child of the Counsel The New York Times October 31 1931 The will of Thomas A Edison filed in Newark last Thursday which leaves the bulk of the inventor s 12 million estate to the sons of his second wife was attacked as unfair yesterday by William L Edison second son of the first wife who announced at the same time that he would sue to break it The Life of Thomas Edison Archived January 20 2011 at the Wayback Machine American Memory Library of Congress Retrieved March 3 2009 Thomas Edison s First Wife May Have Died of a Morphine Overdose Archived November 19 2011 at the Wayback Machine Rutgers Today Retrieved November 18 2011 Thomas Edison s Children IEEE Global History Network IEEE December 16 2010 Archived from the original on 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Thomas A Edison Junior Archived from the original on January 4 2018 Retrieved December 30 2017 Thomas Alva Edison Jr National Park Service Archived from the original on April 20 1997 Retrieved December 30 2017 Theosophical Society Members 1875 1942 Historical membership list of the Theosophical Society Adyar 1875 1942 tsmembers org Archived from the original on October 9 2018 Retrieved October 8 2018 Blavatsky Helena Petrovna 1980 Collected Writings Vol XII Wheaton IL Theosophical Publishing House p 130 No Immortality of the Soul says Thomas A Edison In Fact He Doesn t Believe There Is a Soul Human Beings Only an Aggregate of Cells and the Brain Only a Wonderful Machine Says Wizard of Electricity The New York Times October 2 1910 Thomas A Edison in the following interview for the first time speaks to the public on the vital subjects of the human soul and immortality It will be bound to be a most fascinating an amazing statement from one of the most notable and interesting men of the age Nature is what we know We do not know the gods of religions And nature is not kind or merciful or loving If God made me the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke mercy kindness love He also made the fish I catch and eat And where do His mercy kindness and love for that fish come in No nature made us nature did it all not the gods of the religions The Freethinker Archived June 19 2020 at the Wayback Machine 1970 G W Foote amp Company Volume 90 p 147 Edison s Forgotten Invention A Phone That Calls the Dead GE Reports October 28 2010 Archived from the original on November 11 2013 Invention Geek Edison Spirit Phone Archived from the original on September 24 2015 Retrieved November 11 2013 a b Edison Comes Out Unqalifiedly for Suffrage Passaic Daily News October 7 1915 p 12 Archived from the original on August 2 2021 Retrieved August 2 2021 via Newspapers com Edison Harvey Hughes and Other Leading Men Refute Senator Martine Passaic Daily News October 7 1915 p 12 Archived from the original on August 2 2021 Retrieved August 2 2021 via Newspapers com Cited in Innovate Like Edison The Success System of America s Greatest Inventor Archived June 24 2016 at the Wayback Machine by Sarah Miller Caldicott Michael J Gelb p 37 Vegetarianism Quotes from Noteworthy People Archived from the original on April 13 2016 Retrieved April 5 2016 Review Thomas Edison s life of ceaseless action America Magazine April 24 2020 Archived from the original on August 31 2021 Retrieved August 31 2021 a b Ford sees wealth in muscle shoals PDF The New York Times December 6 1921 Archived PDF from the original on March 14 2021 Retrieved February 24 2013 Edison 1922 Hammes D L Wills D T 2006 Thomas Edison s Monetary Option Journal of the History of Economic Thought 28 3 295 doi 10 1080 10427710600857773 S2CID 154880573 Hammes David L 2012 Harvesting Gold Thomas Edison s Experiment to Re Invent American Money Mahler Publishing Scientific American Munn amp Company July 13 1878 p 21 Archived from the original on July 9 2021 Retrieved June 7 2021 The same decree awarded German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz with the designation of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor as well as Alexander Graham Bell The decree preamble cited for services provided to the Congress and to the International Electrical Exhibition a b c d e f g h Kennelly Arthur E 1932 Biographical Memoir of Thomas Alva Edison PDF National Academy of Sciences pp 300 301 Archived PDF from the original on May 12 2013 Retrieved April 2 2012 Franklin Laureate Database Edward Longstreth Medal 1899 Laureates Franklin Institute Archived from the original on February 22 2014 Retrieved November 18 2011 Thomas Alva Edison Acknowledgement The Franklin Institute Archived from the original on January 7 2013 Retrieved February 24 2013 Proclamation 5013 National Inventors Day 1983 Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Archived from the original on April 10 2014 Retrieved February 24 2013 Great Floridian Program Archived from the original on April 6 2012 Retrieved April 2 2012 Thomas A Edison Issue U S Post office Smithsonian National Postal Museum Retrieved November 23 2023 Scotts Specialized Catalogue of United States Postage Stamps New York Scotts Publishing Company pp 88 122 Knapp Alex May 18 2012 Nikola Tesla Wasn t God and Thomas Edison Wasn t the Devil Forbes Archived from the original on October 15 2017 Retrieved October 15 2017 BibliographyAlbion Michele Wehrwein 2008 The Florida Life of Thomas Edison Gainesville University Press of Florida ISBN 978 0 8130 3259 7 Angel Ernst 1926 Edison Sein Leben und Erfinden Berlin Ernst Angel Verlag Baldwin Neil 1995 Edison Inventing the Century Hyperion ISBN 978 0 226 03571 0 Clark Ronald William 1977 Edison The man who made the future London Macdonald amp Jane s Macdonald and Jane s ISBN 978 0 354 04093 8 Conot Robert 1979 A Streak of Luck New York Seaview Books ISBN 978 0 87223 521 2 Davis L J 1998 Fleet Fire Thomas Edison and the Pioneers of the Electric Revolution New York Doubleday ISBN 978 0 385 47927 1 Essig Mark 2004 Edison and the Electric Chair Stroud Sutton ISBN 978 0 7509 3680 4 Essig Mark 2003 Edison amp the Electric Chair A Story of Light and Death New York Walker amp Company ISBN 978 0 8027 1406 0 Israel Paul 1998 Edison A Life of Invention New York Wiley ISBN 978 0 471 52942 2 Jonnes Jill 2003 Empires of Light Edison Tesla Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World New York Random House ISBN 978 0 375 50739 7 Josephson Matthew 1959 Edison McGraw Hill ISBN 978 0 07 033046 7 Koenigsberg Allen 1987 Edison Cylinder Records 1889 1912 APM Press ISBN 978 0 937612 07 1 Pretzer William S ed 1989 Working at Inventing Thomas A Edison and the Menlo Park Experience Dearborn Michigan Henry Ford Museum amp Greenfield Village ISBN 978 0 933728 33 2 Stross Randall E 2007 The Wizard of Menlo Park How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World Crown ISBN 978 1 4000 4762 8 External linksThomas Edison at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Media from Commons nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote nbsp Texts from Wikisource External videos nbsp Booknotes interview with Neil Baldwin on Edison Inventing the Century March 19 1995 C SPAN nbsp Booknotes interview with Jill Jonnes on Empires of Light October 26 2003 C SPAN An Hour with Edison Scientific American July 13 1878 p 17 Interview with Thomas Edison in 1931 The Diary of Thomas Edison Works by Thomas Edison at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Thomas Edison at Internet Archive Edison s patent application for the light bulb at the National Archives Thomas Edison Personal Manuscripts and Letters Edison Papers Rutgers Edisonian Museum Antique Electrics Thomas Edison at IMDb Portals nbsp Business nbsp Engineering nbsp Energy nbsp Journalism nbsp New Jersey nbsp Ohio nbsp Science nbsp Technology nbsp History of science nbsp Electronics nbsp Film nbsp Trains nbsp History nbsp Physics nbsp Transport nbsp Speculative fiction nbsp Society nbsp Business Retrieved from 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