Thomas Edison
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]
"Edison" redirects here. For other uses, see Edison (disambiguation).
Thomas Edison
October 18, 1931 (aged 84)
Self-educated; some coursework at Cooper Union
- Inventor
- businessman
1877–1930
- Edison effect
- Edison light bulb
- Edison screw
- Edison's Phonograph Doll
- Electric pen
- Edisonian approach
- Edison–Lalande cell
- Acoustic telegraphy
- Carbon microphone
- Etheric force
- Fluoroscopy
- Electric power distribution
- Grasshopper telegraphy
- Kinetoscope
- Nickel–iron battery
- Phonograph
- Phonomotor
- Quadruplex telegraph
- Tasimeter
- War of the currents
- Founder of General Electric
-
Mary Stilwell(m. 1871; died 1884)
Lewis Miller (father-in-law)
- Matteucci 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)
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 career
Thomas Edison began his career as a news butcher, selling newspapers, candy, and vegetables on 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.[21] At age 15, in 1862, he saved 3-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train.[22] 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.[23] 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.[24][25][26]
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.[26] 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.[27][28]
In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, 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.[29]
His first patent was for the electric vote recorder, U.S. patent 90,646, which was granted on June 1, 1869.[30] 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.[31]
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.[98]
In 1903, a shaken Edison said: "Don't talk to me about X-rays, I am afraid of them."[99] Nonetheless, his work was important in the development of a technology still used today.[100]
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.[101]
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.[18][19] His innovations also included the development of the quadruplex, the first system which could simultaneously transmit four messages through a single wire.[102]
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:
Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, of unknown causes: possibly from a brain tumor[132] 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.[133]
Edison generally preferred spending time in the laboratory to being with his family.[40]
On February 24, 1886, at the age of 39, Edison married the 20-year-old Mina Miller (1865–1947) in Akron, Ohio.[134] 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.[138][139]
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 $1,187 in 2023)[140] 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.[141][142]
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.