Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. In 1854, when he was just seven years old, the family moved to Michigan where Edison spent the rest of his childhood…..
Early life
Edison went to school for a brief period and was not good at studies. In fact, his mother, a former teacher, had to teach him at home. However, Edison loved reading and also liked to conduct various experiments at his home. He even printed his own newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, on a moving train. At 15, Edison roamed the country as a “tramp telegrapher.” Using a kind of alphabet called Morse Code, he sent and received messages over the telegraph. Even though he was losing his hearing, he could still hear the clicks of the telegraph.
Some Inventions
Edison moved from Newark to Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1876. There he built his most famous laboratory because he created two of his three greatest works there:
- The phonograph was the first machine that was invented by Edison that could record the sound of someone’s voice and play it back. In 1877, Edison recorded the first words on a piece of tin foil. He recited the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and the phonograph played the words back to him.
- It was in 1878, that Edison worked on one of his greatest achievements – the electric light system. Edison also designed a system of power plants that produce electrical power and the wiring that brings it to people’s homes.
- It was in 1887 that Edison built a laboratory in West Orange that was 10 times larger than the one in Menlo Park. This was the place where Edison earned half of his 1,093 patents.
Beyond Inventions But Edison did more than invent. Not only did Edison improve the phonograph several times, but he also worked on X-rays, storage batteries, and the first talking doll. At West Orange he also worked on one of his greatest ideas: motion pictures or movies. He worked here until his death on October 18, 1931, at the age of 84.
-Team ScienceNow Digital
