Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931) inventor

Born in Milan, Ohio, to Samuel and Nancy Elliott Edison, Edison began experimenting while still a child. Not academically talented as a child, his mother often instructed him at home, and he developed an early interest in chemistry. He sold sundries on trains to earn money and suffered an accident that caused lifetime deafness. After learning how to telegraph messages from a railway agent, he took a job as a telegraph agent in Canada before returning to the United States. After working at a series of jobs as a telegraph operator, he began inventing and patented a stock TICKER TAPE machine. While working in New York City, he made improvements for a stock ticker while working for the Gold Indicator Company. The patents he registered were sold to his employer for $40,000, and he promptly took the proceeds and opened a workshop in Newark, New Jersey.

While in Newark, Edison improved the stock ticker and also made substantial improvements for the TYPEWRITER. Both developments helped increase business efficiency once the devices were put into use. Shortly thereafter, he moved his headquarters to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he made improvements on the telephone. His most important invention to date was the phonograph, which he invented as a way to record telegraph messages, but it was the electric incandescent bulb that earned him the nickname “The Wizard of Menlo Park.” In 1879, he succeeded in placing a filament in a bulb that burned for many hours before going out. He was also one of the first developers of the electric chair, bringing him into direct competition with George WESTINGHOUSE. Edison’s version of the electrocution device used direct current (DC), while Westinghouse’s used alternating current (AC) and eventually became the standard model used.

In 1887, Edison moved his laboratories to West Orange, New Jersey, and continued to invent while perfecting his older inventions. He also spent considerable time marketing his ideas. The electric lightbulb was only a part of the process of electric generation, and Edison spent considerable time organizing power stations to support his invention. The first power station in New York City was at Pearl Street, near Wall Street, and J. P. Morgan was the first user of the power that it generated. Morgan later bought Edison’s operation, freeing the inventor from business matters, and used it as the basis for the GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. Edison’s assistant at the time was Samuel INSULL, who would later build a massive UTILITIES empire in Chicago.

Using research first developed by George EASTMAN, Edison also invented the motion picture camera. He connected the phonograph and the camera in order to produce talking pictures but was less interested in this development than others. During his lifetime, he also was responsible for developing the dictaphone, allowing secretaries to transcribe messages from a machine that recorded voices, and a duplicating machine, among many other inventions.

Edison’s original company, the Edison General Electric Company, was later consolidated by J. P. Morgan with the Thompson-Houston Company to become the General Electric Company. During World War I, Edison was president of the Naval Consulting Board and conducted research on torpedoes and submarine periscopes. As a result of his research, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He died in West Orange in 1931, the most prolific and celebrated inventor of modern times.

See also MORGAN, JOHN PIERPONT.

Further reading

• Baldwin, Neil. Edison: Inventing the Century. New York: Hyperion, 1995. 
• Israel, Paul. Edison: A Life of Invention. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. 
• Jonnes, Jill. Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. New York: Random House, 2003.