Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was born 11 February 1847 in Milan, Ohio as the youngest of seven children. His father had been exiled to the United States from Canada, where he was a political activist. Edison suffered significant maladies as a child, including recurrent ear infections and scarlet fever, the former of which rendered him nearly deaf in his later adult life. The Edison family relocated to Port Huron, Michigan in 1854, where Thomas was primarily home taught by his mother, a schoolteacher. He exhibited a keen interest in learning and experimentation as a child, and was able to gain employment during this teenage years as a telegraph operator. In 1866, Edison relocated to Louisville, Kentucky to continue his chosen profession in telegraphy, and, in 1868, once again to Boston, Massachusetts, to take a job with the Western Union Company. It was during his time in Boston that he began honing his interest in scientific invention. A final move came in 1869, whereupon Edison settled in New York City. His first completed invention came in the form of a stock ticker, dubbed the Universal Stock Printer. With the funds he received from selling the rights of this invention to the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, Edison was able to establish his own laboratory and manufacturing facility in Newark, New Jersey. By the 1870s, Edison was recognized as one of the preeminent inventors of the time and was able to expand his operations into a new facility in Menlo Park, New Jersey. His most significant and groundbreaking inventions, the phonograph and incandescent light bulb, came in 1877 and 1880, respectively. The Edison Illuminating Company was formed in 1880 as the first investor-owned electric utility, and later formed the basis of the General Electric Corporation. Edison continued inventing and serving as a business manager into the twentieth century, with subsequent credits including being the first to project a motion picture in 1896, producing the first self-starting electrical engine for Henry Ford’s Model T automobile in 1912, and leading the Naval Consulting Board during the first world war. Edison passed away in his home in West Orange, New Jersey on 18 October 1931 and is remembered both as one of the United States’ most important inventors as well as one of the country’s leading businessmen, contributing significantly to the growth of the national economy with his various ventures.