The Great American Inventor

In 1884, Nikola Tesla arrived in the United States from Europe with nothing but his clothes, a letter to Thomas Edison, and a genius idea. Tesla approached Edison, and the latter hired him. The two worked to improve Edison’s direct current system of electricity. However, the two later split due to the two’s clashing personalities; Thomas Edison acted more stubborn and potent while

In 1843, Morse and Vail received funding from the U.S. Congress to set up and test their telegraph system between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland. On May 24, 1844, Morse sent Vail the historic first message: “What hath God wrought!” The telegraph system subsequently spread across America and the world, aided by further innovations. Among these improvements was the invention of good insulation for telegraph wires. The man behind this innovation was Ezra Cornell (1807-74), one of the founders of the university in New York that bears his name. Another improvement, by the famed inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) in 1874, was the Quadruplex system, which allowed for four messages to be transmitted simultaneously using the same wire (par 6).

So we all know Thomas Edison, but we didn’t really know what he did for us. So you ask yourself who is Thomas Edison, well he was an inventor and he was well known for it. Was he the greatest inventor of all time? He made the phonograph. Also he made one of the greatest invention and it was the light bulb, but you ask , How did he invent light. What was his childhood like? what was his education like? what inventions did he make? Did he get married? Did he have kids?

With a head too big for his body and a weak small body, Edison’s doctors were worried he had brain damage. Though Edison was horrid at school, he was an zealous reader and always had his nose in a book. Edison also had a superb memory being able to clearly remember all the way back to his toddler years. Edison was so lacking in what was needed of a student of his age that he was not allowed to go to school for some time. Luckily his mother had the training and was able to give him a much higher education than the public schools could provide at any given time. Though Edison loved to read, he was aslo always interested in how things worked. Either the bridge or the train, Edison loved to watch the world around him come together. As Edison grew into a man, the family moved from Milan, Ohio to Port Huron, Michigan. While in Michigan, Edison's mother began to grow old and sick. Edison's father began new work in the grain and feed distribution business. As he grew older, his father paid him for each factual book he read and soon after Edison began his own laboratory of sorts. Edison had a love for chemistry and once he had his hands on a book of chemistry experiments he completed every experiment there was and labeled all his bottles of chemicals from the drugstore as “poison” so no one would lay a hand on them. Realizing he had meager cash to spend on his experiments, he went to find a way of earning easy money and

That man was Thomas Alva Edison. Edison invented many products that were used in the daily lives of many: the light bulb, movie camera, phonograph, and more. He patented thousands of products in America, Britain, France, and Germany. He was born to an immigrant father and American mother in a middle class family. Edison became a businessman at a young age.

Thomas Alva Edison was an unconventional genius that played a vital role in shaping the modern world with his inventions, but didn’t accomplish this role easily. Edison led an inquisitive life encompassing his disruptive adolescence, unconventional methods of success, and exceptional ability to endure failure. Although his inventions and ideologies exemplified him, Thomas Edison overcame tremendous obstacles throughout his lifetime before achieving his anticipated goals.

By twenty-three he was considered one of the best electrical engineers in the country. In 1869 he partnered with Franklin Pope, and started a business called Pope. In 1870 he broke his partnership with Pope. In the fall of 1871 he created his own news service called News Reporting Telegraph Co. He also opened his own manufacturing company in Newark, New Jersey the same year. He sold his business in Newark in 1876. He had a lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey. In 1877 he found a way to improve Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone by putting tiny pieces of carbon in the mouthpiece. Thomas Edison called his workers “muckers”. The same year he gave mucker John Kruesi a sketch of the phonograph to make. In 1879 he made the first working light bulb. In 1882 he opened a successful electric power station in New York City. He built a lab about a mile away from Glenmont, New York. The lab was ten times the size of the Menlo Park lab; was three stories high and was 250 feet long. It was the largest, best equipped research lab in the world. The lab contained a physics lab, a chemistry lab, and a metallurgical lab. In 1886 he bought an abandoned factory in Schenectady, New York. In 1889 he started work on an instrument which “Does for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear” (Edison). He also opened the world’s first motion picture studio in 1893. During World War I he was asked by the secretary of the Navy to head the Naval Consultation Board. The board was made up of scientists, inventors, and mathematicians. He was known to skip meals and get little sleep when in the middle of inventing. Often he would be found to take cat naps around the

Edison worked for various telegraph companies for about 5 years. During this time, he got to travel around the United States while he was working. Eventually, in 1886, he returned home only to find his mother suffering from mental illness and his father without a job. At this point, Thomas decided that his parents weren’t going to be that beneficial to his future so he traveled to Boston and was employed at the Western Union Company.

Few names are more monumental in American history than that of Benjamin Franklin. His legacy has stood the test of time, mainly because Franklin’s achievements were unprecedented for the time in which he lived. An integral figure of the American Enlightenment, Franklin was (and still is) wildly popular, due to the magnitude and frequency of his discoveries and his consistent undertakings to uplift and educate the common man. Credited with numerous achievements in literature, civic service, science, and government, Franklin is widely hailed as one of America 's most noted Founding Fathers.

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the increase in American inventors and entrepreneurs of vehicles looking to have their products dominate the world. Famous manufacturers of this era include Henry Ford (founder of Ford Motor Company), William Boeing (founder of The Boeing Company), William C. Durant (founder of General Motors), and George M. Hendee (founder of Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing), just to name a few. The designs produced under the aforementioned manufacturers/inventors would prove to be true innovations, paving the way for technology for decades to come and providing the basic designs on which modern vehicles are built on. The same can be said about William S. Harley, the co-founder and first chief engineer of

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio, which was a community that was the largest wheat shipping center in the world- other than Odessa,Russia. His family moved to Port Huron, Michigan in 1854, which exceeded the commercial excellence of both Milan and Odessa. After spending 12 weeks in the noisy one-room schoolhouse with 38 other kids of two different ages, Thomas overworked and his short tempered teacher finally became flustered with Thomas’ questioning and seemingly self centered behavior. Thomas made no secret of his belief that the other kids brains were scrambled-noting that Thomas’ head was

Tesla and Edison have similarly filed many patents and prototypes for their inventions. Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, Croatia to a Serbian priest. After studying math and physics at the

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio to Nancy Matthew Elliot and Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. He was the youngest out of his seven siblings, Marion Edison, William Pitt Edison, Harriet Ann Edison, Carlisle Edison, Samuel Edison, Eliza S Edison, Marietta Edison, Maud Edison and Mabel Edison. His father was a political activist from Canada and his mother was a school teacher who played a prominent role in his early education. As a child, Thomas was an inquisitive toddler and would examine his surroundings and eagerly demand answers to his questions. At the age of 7, in 1854, the family would move to Port Huron, Michigan, there, young Thomas Edison would attend his first public school. However, because of curiosity and a

Edison’s first invention was the phonograph, which was inspired by his current career through the use of telegraphs. When Edison built his Research and Development

In 1862, he saved a telegrapher’s son from an incoming train and received training as a reward. By the age of twenty, he was supposedly the fastest telegrapher in the U.S. He left the job after telegraphing all over the U.S. and Canada to pay more attention to his inventions by recording his methods and results. In 1868, Alva invented the Electric Vote Recorder and received a patent by the government. But in the end, Congress didn’t want to use it and Edison decided only to invent things that the people wanted.