Thomas A. Edison Biography

Thomas Edison	Thomas Alva Edison Born: 1847-02-11 Birthplace: Milan, OH Died: 1931-10-18 Location of Death: West Orange, NJ Remains: Buried, Edison Estate, Glenmont, NJ Race: White Religion: Deist Field: Inventor Famous for: Invented the light bulb
Top 100 Influencial People #17 Field: Inventor

Thomas Alva Edison, American inventor and businessman who developed many important devices. He is one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention.

Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. Edison holds the record for the greatest number of patents granted to a single person (over 1000). Partially deaf, Edison became a telegraph operator in the 1860s, and a famously fast one. Some of his earliest inventions related to electrical telegraphy, including a stock ticker.

The invention which first gained Edison wide fame was the phonograph in 1877. While others at the time (notably Charles Cros) were contemplating the notion that sound waves might be recorded and reproduced, Edison was the first to produce a device to actually do so, and this was so astoundingly unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as The Wizard of Menlo Park (after the New Jersey town where he resided).

Many of his inventions were not unique, but Edison showed unique skills in winning the patents and beating his opponents by better marketing skills and influence. While Edison did not invent the electric lightbulb, it was Edison's relentless attention to detail that made the lightbulb a practical, commercial proposition. Where earlier inventors had produced electric lighting in laboratory conditions, Edison created a complete, integrated system to generate electricity, distributed it to homes and businesses, and mass produced long-lasting bulbs for sale to the public, using the designs and patents of earlier inventors including Joseph Swan, Henry Woodward, James Bowman Lindsay and William Sawyer.

On December 31, 1879, Edison demonstrated incandescent lighting to the public for the first time with some fanfare in Menlo Park, New Jersey. A month later on January 27, 1880 he filed a patent in the United States for the electric incandescent lamp. On October 8, 1883 the U.S. patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William Sawyer and were invalid. Litigation continued until on October 6, 1889, a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. Research exposed in "A Streak of Luck" by Robert Conot (1979), shows that Edison and his attorneys hid significant information from the judge, they cut out the October 7-21, 1879 section of a notebook. Edison failed to patent the light bulb in the United Kingdom, after losing a court battle with Swan, they formed a joint company (Ediswan) to market the invention.

A popular myth has it that he invented the electric chair as a means of impressing the public that alternating current was more dangerous than direct current. The truth is that while he did advocate executions via AC electrocution, the chair was invented by an employee of his, Harold P. Brown.[1] On January 19, 1883 the first electric lighting system employing overhead wires bagan service in Roselle, New Jersey.

Edison's inventions using direct current ultimately lost to alternating current devices proposed by others: Nikola Tesla and Charles Proteus Steinmetz (of General Electric)

Initially, it was believed that Thomas Edison invented the motion picture camera, but it has since been proven that William Kennedy Laurie Dickson actually invented it at the Edison laboratories. However, his influence on the history of film stretches far beyond that of instigator. He became a powerhouse of film production and must be given credit for establishing the standard of using 35mm celluloid film with 4 perforations on the edge of each frame that allowed film to emerge as a mass medium and not just a vaudeville novelty. He built what has been called the first movie studio, the Black Maria in New Jersey. Here he made the first copyrighted film, Fred Ott's Sneeze.

In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope, or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades where people could watch short, simple films. This was important to Thomas Edison especially because he had been searching for a way to entertain customers that were listening to music on his phonograph. Now, people could go to a penny arcade, put in a coin, put on the headphones and watch a film through the peep-hole. Later that same year, on December 29th, Edison patented the radio.

In West Orange, New Jersey on February 1, 1893 Edison finished construction of "Black Maria", the first motion picture studio.

The greatest invention of Thomas Edison was the Menlo Park research lab, which was built in New Jersey. It was the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Most of the inventions there carried Edison as the inventor, while he mostly oversaw the operation.

His inventions benefited people the world wide and in 1878, he was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France and in 1889 was made Commander of the Legion of Honor.

Thomas Edison submitted his last patent application on January 6, 1931 and died later that year.