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edison Essay

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Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio, the youngest of seven children born to Samuel and Nancy Elliott Edison. He began to lose his hearing after having scarlet fever as a young child. As he grew older his deafness increased until finally he was totally deaf in his left year and had only 10% hearing in his right ear. Edison did not consider this a "handicap" and said that it was rather an advantage as it gave him more time to think because he did not have to listen to foolish "small talk." By 1862 young "Al," as his …show more content…

In later years Edison reported that he had almost fainted, but managed to stammer that the offer seemed fair enough. That money was used to set up Edison's first business. Thomas Edison married Mary Stilwell on Christmas Day, 1871. He was 24 years old and she was 16. They had three children: Marion, born in 1873, Thomas, 1876 and William, 1878. Edison's wife died in 1884 from the after-effects of typhoid fever.

Thomas Edison's interests varied widely and he received patents in many areas. For example, in 1876 he patented his electric pen which was later used in mimeograph systems and in 1877 he applied for a patent on a carbon telephone transmitter that led to a commercial telephone and later radio broadcasting.

Considered his most original invention, the phonograph was patented in 1878. Edison sketched out this new and different idea he had, handed it to two men who worked in his shop, John Kuresi and Charles Batchelor, and they made the machine. Edison took

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