Thomas Edison - Inventions, Quotes and Developments Facts

Childhood and education

An early bout with scarlet fever and ear infections left Edison with hearing problems in both ears as a child and nearly deaf as an adult. Edison would later reveal, with variations in the story, that he lost his hearing due to a train incident that damaged his ears. But others tend to ignore this as the sole cause of his hearing loss.

In 1854, Edison's family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where he attended public school for 12 weeks. , A hyperactive child prone to distraction, his teacher considered him "difficult."

His mother quickly pulled him out of school and taught him at home. At age 11, he showed a voracious appetite for knowledge, reading books on a wide range of subjects. In this wide-open curriculum, Edison developed a process of self-education and self-directed learning that would serve him throughout his life.

At the age of 12, Edison convinced his parents to let him sell newspapers to passengers along the Grand. Trunk Railroad Line Using his access to news bulletins teletyped into the station office each day, Thomas began publishing his own little newspaper called the Great Trunk Messenger. The contemporary articles were a hit among passengers. It was the first of what would become a long line of entrepreneurial endeavors where he saw a need and took advantage of the opportunity.

Edison also used his access to the railroad to conduct chemical experiments in a small laboratory he established. in the baggage car of the train. During one of his experiments, a chemical fire started and the car caught fire. The conductor rushed in and hit Thomas on the head, likely worsening his hearing loss. He was kicked off the train and forced to sell his newspapers at various stations along the route.

Family and childhood

The future inventor was born on February 11, 1847 in the city of Milen, Ohio. His father Samuel was a successful wheat merchant, but soon after the birth of his youngest son he went bankrupt. Thomas was barely seven years old when he and his family were forced to move to Michigan.

Edison did not do very well at school. He was absent-minded and often distracted. The situation was aggravated by hearing problems that began in childhood. Thomas claimed that they were caused by the impact of the composter. But scientists found that the inventor’s hearing was impaired due to an untreated infection.

Thomas was in school for only three months. After this, the teacher called him “brainless and narrow-minded,” and the parents took their son out of school. His mother, Nancy Elliott Edison, began teaching him at home. She was a school teacher, so there were no difficulties in choosing a program.

Edison, telegraph operator

While Edison was working on the railroad, an almost tragic event turned out to be fortunate for the young man. After Edison saved a three-year-old child from being run over by a train, the child's grateful father rewarded him by teaching him how to operate a telegraph. By the age of 15, he had already learned enough to work as a telegraph operator.

For the next five years, Edison traveled throughout the Midwest as a traveling telegraph operator, picking up those who had gone off to fight in the Civil War. In his spare time, he read widely, studied and experimented with telegraph technology, and became familiar with electrical engineering.

In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, working for the Associated Press. The night shift allowed him to spend most of his time reading and experimenting. He developed an open-ended style of thinking and research, proving things to himself through objective research and experimentation.

Edison initially succeeded in his telegraph work because early Morse code was written on a piece of paper, so Edison's partial deafness was not a handicap. However, as technology developed, receivers were increasingly equipped with audible keys, allowing telegraph operators to “read” messages by the sound of the clicks. This left Edison at a disadvantage, with fewer job opportunities.

In 1868, Edison returned home to find that his beloved mother had become mentally ill and his father was out of work. The family was almost destitute. Edison realized that he needed to take control of his future.

At the suggestion of a friend, he ventured to Boston, taking a job at Western Union. At the time, Boston was the American center of science and culture, and Edison enjoyed it. In his spare time, he developed and patented an electronic vote recorder for quickly counting legislative votes.

However, Massachusetts legislators were not interested. As they explained, most legislators did not want votes to be counted quickly. They wanted time to change the minds of fellow legislators.

Education

In 1852, the United States passed a law requiring children to go to school. Thomas's mother herself taught her son to read and write, and placed him in primary school.

School did not work out right away: the boy was inattentive, hard of hearing, and cramming was difficult. The teachers did not consider it shameful to “educate” a careless student with a belt and call him “stupid.”

Mom Nancy showed great parental wisdom here, which, as the inventor himself later admitted, was the creator of his abilities.

After 2 months of school “torment,” she took her son out of school, hired a tutor and allowed the boy to study independently those subjects that sincerely interested him.

Many people have heard a very beautiful story about maternal love: One day Thomas Edison brought a note from school. The mother read it aloud to her son: “Your son is a genius. There are no suitable teachers in our school who can teach him anything. Teach it yourself, please.” Many years later, after the death of his mother, a successful inventor will find this note, which reads: “Your son is mentally retarded. We can’t teach him along with the others.”

At the age of 9, Thomas began to read history books and the works of Dickens. In the basement of the house, he sets up a laboratory and implements the experiments described in Parker’s book “Experimental Philosophy.”

Thomas Edison: Inventions

In 1869, when he was 22, Edison moved to New York and developed his first invention, an improved ticker called the Universal Stock Printer, which synchronized multiple stock tickers for a trade. The Gold and Stock Telegraph Company was so impressed that they paid him $40,000 for the rights. With this success, he left his telegraph job to devote his time to invention.

By the early 1870s, Thomas Edison had gained a reputation as a first-class inventor. In 1870, he established his first small laboratory and manufacturing plant in Newark, New Jersey, and employed several machinists.

As an independent entrepreneur, Edison formed numerous partnerships and developed products for the highest bidders. Often it was the Western Union Telegraph Company, the industry leader, but just as often it was one of Western Union's competitors.

In one such case, Edison developed a quadruplex telegraph for Western Union, capable of transmitting two signals in two different directions on the same wire, but railroad magnate Jay Gould wrested the invention from Western Union, paying Edison over $100,000 in cash, bonds, and stock. , and saved years of litigation.

In 1876, Edison moved his expansion efforts to Menlo Park, New Jersey, and built an independent industrial research center including machine shops and laboratories. That same year, Western Union approached him about developing a communications device to compete with Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. He never did.

However, in December 1877, Edison developed a method for recording sound: the phonograph. Although this invention was not commercially viable for another decade, the invention brought him worldwide fame.

Opening of the laboratory

After his debut, which did not bring him any profit, Thomas decided to develop exclusively things that people needed. At the end of 1870, he received 40 thousand dollars for the invention of a stock ticker that conveys stock quotes. With this money, the scientist opened his first workshop in Newark. He purchased only the best equipment for his experiments, even if he had to skimp on everything else.

Three years later, Edison developed a special telegraphy scheme that allowed the simultaneous transmission of up to four messages. In 1874, he sold this invention to Western Union for $10,000. Thomas spent them on opening an industrial research laboratory in the village of Menklo. At the same time, he invented a carbon microphone, thanks to which the quality of telephone communications significantly improved.

In 1877, the world saw one of Edison's best inventions - the phonograph. The scientist was able to record and reproduce the children's song “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” after which they began to call him a wizard. Phonographs sold for $18 apiece and remained popular until the invention of the gramophone.

Back in 1874, Russian engineer Alexander Lodygin invented the first incandescent lamp. Edison became interested in this device, and soon he bought the scientist’s invention. He dreamed of illuminating all houses and streets, so he spent a lot of time improving the light bulb. Thomas made a threaded base and also inserted a twisted tungsten spiral inside. Later he thought about creating a switch and developed a wiring diagram. Soon the first power plant illuminated by incandescent lamps was built in New York.

In 1882, the first distribution substation for the residents of Manhattan appeared. At the same time, Edison founded a company producing electrical generators, cables and light bulbs.

Thomas Edison's light bulb

Although Thomas Edison was not the inventor of the first light bulb, he did come up with the technology that helped bring it to the masses. Edison was called upon to perfect a commercially practical and efficient incandescent light bulb after English inventor Humphry Davy first invented the first electric arc lamp in the early 1800s.

In the decades following Davey's creation, scientists such as Warren de la Rue, Joseph Wilson Swan, Henry Woodward, and Matthew Evans worked to improve electric or vacuum light bulbs, but were unsuccessful in their attempts.

After purchasing Woodward and Evans & apos; After receiving a patent and improving the design, Edison received a patent for his own improved light bulb in 1879. He began producing and selling it for widespread use. In January 1880, Edison set out to create a company that would provide electricity to power and light the cities of the world.

That same year, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company, the first investor-owned electrical utility that later became the General Electric Corporation. In 1881 he left Menlo Park to establish facilities in several cities where electrical systems were installed. In 1882, the Pearl Street Power Plant supplied 110 volts of electricity to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.

Laboratory in Menlo Park

In 1876, Edison moved to the small village of Menlo Park with his wife Mary Stillwell and daughter Marion. Here he builds his own laboratory and completely delves into invention. For his activities, he spares no expense on the most modern equipment.

During this period, Thomas Edison's path to world fame through inventions began. He completes the first order in the new laboratory and receives a fee of 100 thousand dollars for improving the quality of telephone communications.

In 1877, he invented the phonograph - the progenitor of the gramophone. It was a real sensation! The idea of recording human speech and playing it back came to Thomas after observing the operation of a telegraph - he heard sounds similar to human speech, pulled the tape harder and the “speech” accelerated. He decided to create a roller on which a sound could be recorded with a needle, and then reproduced with the same needle.

Later inventions and business

In 1887, Edison built an industrial research laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, which served as the main research laboratory for the Edison lighting companies. He spent much of his time there observing developments in lighting technology and power systems. He also improved the phonograph and developed the motion picture camera and alkaline battery.

Over the next few decades, Edison found his role as an inventor, moving into one as an industrialist and business manager. The West Orange laboratory was too large and complex for any one person to fully manage, and Edison found that he was not as successful in his new role as he had been in his old one.

Edison also discovered that much of the future development and improvement of his inventions was carried out by university-trained mathematicians and scientists. He worked best in intimate, unstructured environments with few assistants, and he was open about his disdain for academic and corporate operations.

In the 1890s, Edison built a magnetic iron ore processing plant in northern New Jersey, which turned out to be a commercial failure. He was later able to salvage the process into a better method for producing cement. On April 23, 1896, Edison became the first person to design a motion picture, which featured the world's first theatrical screening at the Koster & Bial music hall in New York City.

In the automobile industry As Edison began to grow, he worked to create a suitable battery that could power an electric car. Although the gasoline engine eventually prevailed, Edison developed a self-starting battery in the Model T in 1912 for friend and admirer Henry Ford. This system has been widely used in the automotive industry for decades.

During World War I, the US government asked Thomas Edison to head a naval consulting board that studied inventions submitted for military use. Edison worked on several projects, including underwater detectors and weapons locating techniques. However, due to his moral indignation towards violence, he specified that he would only work on defensive weapons, Fr.

By the end, Thomas Edison was in his 80s. He and his second wife, Mina, spent part of their time in a winter retreat in Fort Myers, Florida, where his friendship with automobile magnate Henry Ford flourished and he continued to work on several projects ranging from trains and ending with the search for a domestic source of natural rubber.

Other famous inventions

Edison's prolific output as an inventor is amazing. His list of know-how includes many useful and bold decisions for its time, which changed the world around us in their own way. Among them:

A mimeograph is a device for printing and duplicating written sources in small quantities, which Russian revolutionaries loved to use.
The method of storing organic food in a glass container was patented in 1881 and involved the creation of a vacuum environment in the container.
A Kinetoscope is a device for watching a film by one person. It was a massive box with an eyepiece through which you could see a recording lasting up to 30 seconds. It was in good demand before the advent of film projectors, to which it seriously lost in terms of mass viewing.
A telephone membrane is a device for reproducing sound, which laid the foundations of modern telephony.
The electric chair is a device for carrying out the death penalty. Edison convinced the public that this was one of the most humane methods of execution and obtained permission for its use in a number of states. The first “client” of the deadly invention was a certain W. Kemmer, executed in 1896 for the murder of his wife.
The stencil pen is a pneumatic device for perforating printed paper, patented in 1876. For its time, it was the most effective device capable of copying documents. 15 years later, S. O'Reilly created a tattoo machine based on this pen.
The fluoroscope is an apparatus for fluoroscopy, which was developed by Edison's assistant K. Delli. At that time, X-rays were not considered particularly dangerous, so he tested the device on his own hands. As a result, both limbs were subsequently amputated, and he himself died of cancer.
Electric car - Edison was truly obsessed with electricity and believed that it was the real future. In 1899, he developed an alkaline battery and intended to improve it to increase its service life. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century in the United States more than a quarter of cars were electric, Thomas soon abandoned this idea due to the widespread use of gasoline engines.

Most of these inventions were made in West Orange, where Edison moved in 1887. Edison's series of achievements also includes purely scientific discoveries, for example, in 1883 he described thermionic emission, which later found application in detecting radio waves.

Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla

Edison became embroiled in a long-running rivalry with Nikola Tesla, a visionary engineer with an academic background who had briefly worked with Edison's company. The two parted ways in 1885 and would publicly clash over the use of direct current electricity, which Edison favored, against alternating current. which Tesla advocated. Tesla then entered into a partnership with George Westinghouse, an Edison competitor, leading to a major business feud over electricity.

Personal life

Our hero is not lacking in determination on the love front either. His first wife, Mary Stillwell, worked on the staff of his workshop.

Bypassing the tedious courtship, Thomas approached the girl and proposed marriage to him, noting that she should not rush to answer and make a decision before Tuesday.

They got married in '71. The marriage produced three heirs - two sons and a daughter.

In 1984, the wife dies. A couple of years later, 39-year-old Edison marries Mina Miller. The couple has three more children.

Edison's legacy

Edison's career was a typical rags to riches success story that made him a folk hero in America. A freewheeling egoist, he could be a tyrant to employees and ruthless to competitors. Although he was an advertising seeker, he was a poor communicator and often neglected his family.

But by the time of his death, Edison was one of the most famous and respected Americans in the world. He was at the forefront of America's first technological revolution and laid the foundation for the modern electric world.

About personal life

In many things this great mind remained a typical Victorian man with very definite tastes. Exclusively thanks to his desire to create something new, he was reliably protected from women. The only one who dominated his heart was his mother.

Having married Mary Stilwell, he soon discovered that his wife was not a partner in his affairs, which made him quite upset. From the marriage a daughter and two sons were born. Mary died early, in 1884. A brain tumor. With his second wife, they gave birth to three more.

A man who spent his whole life in search, in discoveries, in new plans, by the end of the 20s his pace had noticeably slowed down. He received the last 1093rd patent at the age of 83, almost without leaving home, and worked there. Until his last day, Edison remained surrounded by associates and friends. The names of many and success stories are known to everyone: Charles Lindbergh, Marie Curie, Henry Ford, Herbert Hoover.

On the evening of October 18, 1931, Thomas Edison passed away in West Orange, New Jersey. Many people around the world briefly turned off their power in honor of this man.

Rice. 7. World famous American inventor Thomas Alve Edison

Life Lessons "I want to save and promote human life, not destroy it... I am proud of the fact that I have never invented a weapon to kill."

He was not flawless, much of what was said about him was in fact only myths, but it was a rare person who served humanity so selflessly, worked with such tenacity and did more to make dreams and fantasies become reality.

The last lesson of life “If there is an afterlife, great. If not, well, that’s also good. I lived my life with pleasure and did everything I could.”

Edison's last years

The cause of death of the 84-year-old American inventor was diabetes. Thomas Edison was buried in the backyard of his own home. Mina's wife survived her husband by 16 years and was buried next to him.

In addition to everything that Thomas Edison invented and what we use in our daily lives, everyone can look at the beaker with the “last breath” of an outstanding person. The inventor's attending physician sealed the air from the room in which he died in a flask.

Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas was born in the town of Mylan, Ohio, in 1847 and was the 7th child in the family. The doctor, while delivering the baby, noted that the baby had a large head, suggesting that the baby was suffering from “brain fever.” Al, as the boy was often called, often played alone since his sisters and brother were older than him.

Curiosity and some absent-mindedness gave grounds for his school teacher to declare that the boy was completely incapable of learning. However, Nancy did not agree with this verdict and, taking the boy from school, began to study with him herself.

During these years the village flourished. In 1839, a canal was built here, and Mylan became a busy port on the Great Lakes. Produce from surrounding farms and timber were transported across Lake Erie to the New York market. The column of wagons stretched for several miles. The Edison house stood next to the canal, and Thomas was always aware of all events.

The inquisitive boy often got into trouble. One day he almost drowned in a canal. Then, having fallen into the elevator funnel, he barely managed to get out of the huge pile of grain. While playing in his father's barn, Al accidentally set it on fire. Samuel could not restrain himself and, as an edification for the future, whipped him.

The father loved his son, but his constant, uninterrupted questions often drove him crazy.

In 1954, Mailan's prosperity ended: the railway appeared and the canal lost its importance. The family sold the house and moved to Port Huron, Michigan. Samuel went into business: he sold grain, timber and houses.

He made a staircase 30 meters high and for 1/4 dollar he allowed townspeople to admire the picturesque panorama of the city and its environs. Many people ridiculed his idea. Al collected money for the use of the stairs and realized that people were willing to pay not only for necessary things, but also for entertainment.

Al helped his father grow fruits and vegetables. When the harvest was ripe, he and a friend drove around the neighborhood, knocked on doors and offered goods.

The most clueless student

In those years, laws on compulsory education for children had already been adopted. The first such law was passed in Massachusetts in 1852. But another 60 years passed before this law became effective in all states. Many children went to school only in winter.

Nancy was the daughter of a minister, had an education and worked for some time as a teacher. She taught her son to read, write and draw, and after moving she enrolled him in school. Al was often sick and contracted scarlet fever in August. There were no antibiotics then and the boy was ill for several months, so he did not go to school until the next year.

The headmaster of the school was George Ingle. He and his wife were strict teachers. Their method involved memorizing a text and telling it in front of the class.

If a student made mistakes or spoke in class, the teachers would use a whip or leather belt “for educational purposes.” Al was not a diligent child; he was constantly distracted or asking questions. One day, Ingle could not restrain himself and called him “clueless.”

Al cried and ran home, begging his mom to pick him up from school. So Alva’s schooling ended after three months. Nancy took care of his education.

A mother’s act that changed her son’s fate (video). "Thomas Edison: biography"

Although, we can say that the boy studied on his own. His mother bought books that were interesting to him. At the age of eight, Alva enthusiastically read books on world history, the works of Shakespeare and Dickens.

Commercial vein

Alva became a businessman while still a teenager. At age 12, he sold snacks and sweets on the railroad. By the age of 14, he was offering his own newspaper, Bolshoi Magistralny Gazette, on trains.

With the money he earned, he created a chemical laboratory. After Nancy asked him to remove the "dangerous toys," he moved some of his chemicals to the baggage car where he was working.

A young chemist almost set a train on fire when a stick of phosphorus fell to the floor, causing the train conductor to hit him on the head. Edison considered this incident to be the cause of his deafness in his left ear.

Telegraph operator

In 1862, fifteen-year-old Thomas worked full-time as a telegraph operator that quickly covered the entire United States. At that time, the telegraph was the fastest way to send messages.

It worked by sending electrical impulses representing letters in Morse code. In 1868 he began work for the Western Union telegraph company in Boston. There he patented his first invention: an automatic vote-counting system, which was not very successful.

Iron ore failure

Advances in phonographs and motion pictures in the 1890s helped offset the greatest failure of Edison's career. For ten years he worked in his laboratory and in old iron mines in northwestern New Jersey on methods for extracting iron ore to satisfy the insatiable demand of Pennsylvania iron and steel mills. To finance this work, Edison sold all his shares in General Electric.

Despite ten years of work and millions of dollars spent on research and development, he was unable to make the process commercially viable and lost all of his investment. This would have meant financial ruin if Edison had not continued to develop the phonograph and cinema simultaneously. Be that as it may, the inventor entered the new century still financially secure and ready to take on a new challenge.

Little-known facts from biography

Fans of the world-famous modernizer and inventor will be interested to know the following about their idol:

Thomas Edison was able to obtain more than 1 thousand patents in the USA and 3 thousand worldwide over the years of his work.
At the time of the inventor’s death, the value of all his enterprises was estimated at $15 billion, and the diversified General Electric corporation is still one of the greatest companies in the world today.
Edison invested all his money, strength and energy into his dream business. He also chose people for his team who could work irregular hours, up to 19 hours a day.
While working on the electric lamp, Mr. Edison spent 45 hours in the laboratory without breaks for sleep or rest. And only after 6 thousand plant samples were processed, it was possible to discover a material suitable for incandescent filament.
What Thomas Edison did invent was the phonograph. The idea for its creation came by chance - while singing a song over a disassembled telephone. Due to air fluctuations above the membrane, a needle soldered to it pricked Edison’s finger, playing the role of “Newton’s apple.”

Thomas Edison is a talented entrepreneur who was able to modify and promote other people's inventions. He was not the author of outstanding discoveries, but the significance of his contribution to world history cannot be denied. Edison’s hard work and endurance can only be envied. It is he who owns the phrase: “Genius is only 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” And if everyone could work like this outstanding man, perhaps our world today would look completely different.

Edison's Major Achievements

Received 1,093 patents from the US Patent Office. No one has ever received so many patents before.
Electric vote counter for elections.
Aerophone.
Carbon telephone membrane.
Ticker machine.
Mimeograph.
Quadrilateral telegraph.
Carbon microphone.
Phonograph.
Iron ore separator.
Kinetoscope.
Carbon incandescent lamp.
Iron-nickel battery.
Electric chair.

Thomas EdisonThomas Alva Edison

American scientist. Inventor. Creator of the phonograph. He improved the telegraph, telephone, and film equipment. An entrepreneur who received 1093 patents in the USA and about 3 thousand in other countries of the world. He developed one of the first commercially successful versions of an incandescent electric lamp. Member of the US National Academy of Sciences. Foreign honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Mylen, USA. At the age of twelve he worked as a newspaper delivery boy, and at sixteen he became a telegraph operator. In 1868, the young man took up inventing. Already in 1870 he organized a laboratory in Newark, in 1876 in Menlo Park, and ten years later he headed his own center.

Edison's inventions include the improved Bell telephone and the incandescent lamp; in 1877, Thomas invented the phonograph, which he improved in 1889. Also, he developed a lighting system, designed a rotary switch, a megaphone, an electric meter, a socket and base, and a recorder.

Edison introduced parallel switching of lamps into use, built extremely powerful electric generators for that time, and in 1881 launched the first thermal power plant for supplying electricity with an extensive network.

The merits of Thomas Edison also include: the invention of the railway brake, an apparatus for recording telephone conversations, alkali-iron-nickel batteries, and an improved cinematographic camera. It was Edison who came up with the idea of saying “Hello” when starting a telephone conversation. This word stuck and is still used today. In 1883, the inventor was the first to observe the phenomenon of thermionic emission, the Edison effect. The scientist has more than a thousand patented inventions.

The inventor also patented an X-ray device, calling it a fluoroscope, and a carbon microphone, which increased the volume of telephone communications. In 1887, Thomas Edison built a new laboratory in West Orange, larger than the previous one and equipped with the latest technology. A voice recorder and an alkaline battery appeared here.

Edison also left a mark on the history of cinematography. In Thomas's laboratory, the Kinetoscope saw the light of day: a device capable of showing moving images. In essence, the invention was a personal cinema. The man watched the film through a special eyepiece. Later, he opened the Kinetoscope Parlor hall and equipped it with ten boxes.

Thomas Edison hired a young Serbian engineer, Nikola Tesla, in 1884, whose duties included repairing electric motors and DC generators. Tesla proposed using alternating current for generators and power plants. The American perceived Nikola’s new ideas rather coldly and disputes constantly arose between them.

Tesla claimed that in the spring of 1885 Edison promised him 50 thousand dollars, which at that time was approximately equivalent to 1 million modern dollars, if he could constructively improve the direct current electric machines invented by Edison. Nikola actively set to work and soon introduced 24 varieties of AC machines, a new commutator and regulator, which significantly improved performance.

Having approved all the improvements, in response to a question about the reward, Edison refused Tesla, saying that the emigrant still did not understand American humor well. Offended, Tesla immediately quit. A couple of years later, the Serbian scientist opened his own Tesla Electric Light Company next door to Edison. Thomas began a widespread campaign against alternating current, claiming that it was dangerous to life. The apogee was the invention of the electric chair for executing criminals.

The war ended only in the 21st century, when an engineer ceremoniously cut the last cable through which direct current was supplied to New York.

Thomas Edison died from complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931 at his home in West Orange, which he purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for his second wife, Mina Miller. He was buried in the backyard of his house.

Thomas Edison Awards

Distinguished Service Medal (US Navy) Commander of the Legion of Merit Benjamin Franklin Medal Rumford Award Winner 10th Anniversary of People's Poland Medal Congressional Gold Medal Board of Regents Grammy Award (1977) Matteucci Medal (1887) John Scott Medal (1889) ) New Jersey Hall of Fame (2008) US National Inventors Hall of Fame Albert Medal (1892) Edward Longstreth Medal (1899)

Inventions of Thomas Edison

1860 - aerophone 1868 - electric election vote counter 1869 - ticker machine 1870 - carbon telephone membrane 1873 - quadruplex telegraph 1876 - mimeograph 1877 - phonograph 1877 - carbon microphone 1879 - incandescent lamp with carbon filament 1880 - magnetic iron ore separator 1889 — kinetoscope 1889 - electric chair 1908 - iron-nickel battery

Thomas Edison Family

Father: Jonah Samuel Jr. Mother - Nancy Eliot, daughter of a priest.

First wife - Mary Stillwell (married in 1871), telegraph operator. She died at the age of 29 from a brain tumor. This union produced a daughter and two sons. The eldest children, Marriott and Thomas, with the light hand of their father at home, bore the nicknames Dot and Dash, in honor of Morse code.

Second wife: Mina Miller. Edison also had two sons and a daughter from Mina, the only heiress who gave her father grandchildren.

18.10.1931