When looking back at the people in history the one name that always seems to stand out is Thomas Alva Edison. In this essay I will talk about Thomas Edison and his great contributions to the Western Society and mankind. Thomas Alva Edison was born February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio, son to Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr and Nancy Matthews Elliott (Frost). Edison’s mother taught him the three R’s because he only had three months of formal education. Eventually, Edison began to favor in independent self-instruction because of his poor hearing. Edison in his younger years took to reading books to learn about the arts, the histories, and the sciences (Beals). At a very young age Edison became an “adult” (Beals). He had talked his parents into letting him sell newspapers, snacks, and candy at the railroad; he had also started a separate business on selling fruits and vegetables. When learning about Edison in his childhood, one can understand he was not the average kid growing up. He had a different approach to life in which he craved for knowledge and obtained a hard work ethic in his young years. In his mid-teens he saved the son of the railroad stationmaster from a box cart and the grateful father taught Edison how to master Morse code and the telegraph. This allowed him to get a job as a telegraph operator (Beals). This opened the way for Edison’s experimenting with technology and how to further enhance it. After working as a telegraph operator he created his first invention, the
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.
Imagine a world with no phones, computers, or even an easily accessible light source. If there were no technological inventions in the previous centuries, then our technology would not exist. Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. He had an entrepreneurial spirit at an early age and was very talented. Edison took out his first patent when he was 20 years old and his last one was taken out before his death. Overall, Thomas took out 1,093 patents. He is one of the most famous and influential inventors in the history of the world. Thomas Edison's inventions were numerous, but his most important contributions are the first electric light bulb, the phonograph, and motion pictures.
He was a telegrapher. But telegraph system was so slow. And he must wait news for a long time. So, Edison made wire telegraph system himself. It made him rich.
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
When one thinks of a famous inventor from the past, who is the first person that comes to mind? Most would say Thomas Edison, who died in 1931, but is still living in a way. Even in the 21st century, he is surrounding us with his inventions, such as functional incandescent light bulbs, and even the cell phone you have in your pocket right now. Born in 1847 in Canal Town, Milan, Edison had a long and successful career as an inventor up until the time of his death in 1931, at the age of 81. He was married to Mary Stilwell until her death in 1884. Shorly after, he married Mina Miller. A well known American innovator, his most significant and famous inventions include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long lasting practical electric light bulb. Thanks to his inventions, Thomas Edison greatly impacted the world we live in today.
Thomas Edison was an inventor who achieved many goals in his lifetime as well as having many failures.He didn’t give up and kept trying in order to succeed.He also invented many new things,which we now use in our everyday lives.Without his hard work and success we would not have some of the things we use today.
Thomas Alva Edison, the youngest of seven kids born to Samuel and Nancy Edison, was always curious and imaginative of new ways to make life a bit easier. Edison was born in Ohio, but because of political and financial problems faced by his family, moved north for more opportunities, eventually landing in Canada. Edison was largely self-taught, due in part to his families constant moving and financial well-being. When he did attend school, teachers noted that he was “slow” because of his restlessness and inability to concentrate on his lessons. Edison did not like the traditional school model of strict organization and authority, which eventually led him to a life of self-learning by reading scientific journals, philosophy and popular periodicals. Edison was also a budding businessman by the age of twelve, when he took up a job selling newspapers to passengers at the nearby railroad. The impact of the railroad and the opportunities it created, such as access to larger urban cities, was vital to the development and eventual success of Thomas Edison.
Thomas Alva Edison possessed a unique intellectual toolbox. His tool filled mind provided a plethora of unconventional methods which enabled him to succeed. At an early age, Edison learned that he could manipulate people, sometimes by withholding the truth to avoid confrontation (Conot 5). Likewise, he would unconventionally manipulate his experiments or audience to achieve an anticipated result (Unconventional Tactics…). A perfect example is the time Edison publicly executed an elephant, named Topsy, in an aggressive effort to maintain success. In the early 1900’s, the standard for electricity known as direct current (DC), invented by Edison, reigned supreme. This invention consistently generated Edison a substantial amount of revenue for discovering it. The reason Edison went to the extremity of electrocuting an elephant was to both demonstrate a point, but more importantly, vanquish his two rival innovators, George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla. The two rivals posed a great threat to Edison’s monopoly and an even greater threat to his rising popularity. Their weapon of choice? The newly discovered form of electricity called alternating current (AC) (Long). Edison argued that their AC would be infinitely more dangerous to use than his DC, but more importantly, he feared mankind would begin a conversion towards AC (Chandler). In a desperate and very unconventional attempt to discredit his two rival innovators and their form of electricity, Edison released 6,600 volts of
Edison was offered a job to be a telegrapher which helped get his foot in the door to all these new opportunities. Thomas Edison knew he had an interest in telegraphy and began to focus his time and energy on learning more. He began trying all new inventions and even though he was knocked down a few times and none of his inventions were quit a success yet that didn't stop him. Between his motivation for greatness and his constant devotion for achieving his invention Thomas Edison is the most influential inventors in history. ¨But among historians, Edison’s greatest achievement is widely agreed to be
Thomas Edison in his early years loved knowledge and slowly realized electronics; as it was a new discovery at the time and was vastly growing. Following his interests, he started to work as a telegrapher, and there, he learned much about the behaviour of electricity. It was also there where he was inspired to make the electronic voting recorder as he gained enough knowledge and interest in electronics. Edison brought his invention to be patented, but the politicians rejected the invention as it did not allow for much decision changing in voting, which is the whole point of politics and arguments. This was Edison's first invention that he ever made, so he was baffled by the rejection and failure of the invention.
During the Civil war he got into technology, but when he got a little bit older he started to have hearing problems in both of his ears from a train accident but when he was an adult he almost went deaf. When he got into technology, he started to get into electricity in 1869. He always did chemistry experiments in his basement and his mom would be worried and scared because she would think stuff could go bad down there.
Thomas Edison is seen as the grandfather of technology to most but, not all. Edison is seen to some as a villain in history as he has gotten credit for ideas such as the light bulb that had come from someone else. The truth is Edison is both not an angel nor devil. Edison is a hero because of his large amount of inventions, he took challenges and used them for strength over weaknesses, and he is seen as a role model as both an engineer along with a person in general. Edison could also seen as bad from the fact sometimes he let his wealth control him and some of is innovation ideas are believed to have been stolen. The truth is Edison is neither extreme however should be viewed much more positively than negatively.
Thomas Edison started inventing rather young. He was born at home on his parent’s farm on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He had two brothers named Samuel and William. The family moved in his early teen years to Michigan where he stayed. He played and also worked hard on his parent’s farm. Eventually he got a job on the train. He loved steam trains and finally got
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
Thomas Edison accomplished many things in his life. I think the most important achievement is inventing the light bulb. Thomas invented this at around 1878 to 1880, but he was not the only one. Hiram Maxim and Joseph Swan was helping him to make a good light bulb. The first try on making the light bulb has failed. The famous inventor tested about 3000 designs. One of them lasted 40 hours, and one lasted 225 hours.