Thomas Edison

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Thomas Alva Edison (February 11 1847 – October 18 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and a long lasting light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, and therefore is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.

Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

Early life

Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio and was raised in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (1804–1896) (born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, Canada) and Nancy Matthews Edison nee Elliott (1810–1871). His family was of Dutch origin.<ref name=Baldwin> Modèle:Cite book</ref>

In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered, and his teacher the Reverend Engle was overheard calling him "addled." This ended Edison's three months of official schooling. He recalled later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint." His mother then home schooled him.<ref> Edison Family Album

. US National Park Service  
 

 

. Retrieved on 2006-03-11. </ref> Much of his education came from reading R.G. Parker's School of Natural Philosophy.

The cause of Edison's deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle ear infections. Edison around the middle of his career attributed the hearing loss to being struck on the ears by a train conductor when his chemical lab in a boxcar caught fire. In his later years he modified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in helping him onto a moving train, lifted him by the ears.<ref name=Josephson>"Edison" by Matthew Josephson. McGraw Hill, New York, 1959, ISBN 0-07-033046-8</ref><ref>"Edison: Inventing the Century" by Neil Baldwin, University of Chicago Press, 2001, ISBN 0-226-03571-9</ref>

Edison's family was forced to move to Port Huron, Michigan when the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854,<ref> Josephson, p 18</ref> but his life there was bittersweet. This began Edison's long streak of entrepreneurial ventures as he discovered his talents as a businessman. These talents would eventually lead him to found General Electric, which is still a publicly traded company, and 13 other companies. He sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit, as well as vegetables that he sold to supplement his income.

Edison became a telegraph operator after he saved three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train. Jimmie's father, station agent J.U. MacKenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison's first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction, Ontario on the Grand Trunk Railway.<ref>Baldwin, page 37</ref> In 1866, at the age of 19, Thomas Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky as an employee of Western Union working the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift at work which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes -- reading and experimenting. However, it was the latter that eventually cost him his job. One night in 1867, he was working with a battery when he spilled sulphuric acid onto the floor. It ran between the floorboards and onto his boss' desk below. The next morning he was fired.<ref>Baldwin, pages 40-41</ref>

One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey, home.

Some of his earliest inventions were related to telegraphy, including a stock ticker. Edison's first patent was for the electric vote recorder, (U. S. Patent 90,646),<ref>[1]U. S. Patent 90,646</ref> which was granted on June 1 1869.<ref>[2] Rutgers University, The Edison Papers. Retrieved March 20, 2007</ref>

Marriages and children

On December 25 1871, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell, whom he had met two months earlier. They had three children:

• Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965) who was nicknamed "Dot"
• Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. (1876–1935) who was nicknamed "Dash"
• William Leslie Edison (1878–1937)<ref>"

   Older Son To Sue To Void Edison Will; William, Second Child Of The Inventor's First Marriage, Sees Leaning To Younger Sons. Charges Undue Influence Attacks Power Of Executors, Holding Father Was Failing When Codicil Was Made. Older Son To Sue To Void Edison Will W.L. Edison An Inventor. Charles Confers With Counsel.
   
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  , October 31, 1931
 
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 .  "The will of Thomas A. Edison, filed in Newark last Thursday, which leaves the bulk of the inventor's $12,000,000 estate to the sons of his second wife, was attacked as unfair yesterday by William L. Edison, second son of the first wife, who announced at the same time that he would sue to break it."
  </ref>

Mary Edison died on August 9 1884.

On February 24 1886, at the age of thirty-nine, Edison married 19-year-old Mina Miller in Akron, Ohio.<ref>[3] IEEE Virtual Museum. retrieved Jan 15, 2007</ref> They also had three children:

• Madeleine Edison (1888–1979) who married John Eyre Sloane<ref>"

   Madeleine Edison a Bride. Inventor's Daughter Married to J. E. Sloan by Mgr. Brann.
   
 " , New York Times
  , June 18, 1914, Thursday
 
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 . </ref><ref>"
   Mrs. John Eyre Sloane Has a Son at the Harbor Sanitarium Here.
   
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  , January 10, 1931, Saturday
 
  . Retrieved on 2007-07-21
 . </ref>

• Charles Edison (1890–1969), who took over the company upon his father's death and who later was elected Governor of New Jersey<ref>"

   Charles Edison, 78, Ex-Governor Of Jersey and U.S. Aide, Is Dead
   
 " , New York Times
  , August 1, 1969
 
  . Retrieved on 2007-07-21
 . </ref> He is buried in Rosedale Cemetery in Orange, New Jersey.

• Theodore Miller Edison (1898–1992).<ref>"

   Theodore M. Edison; An Illustrious Father Guided Inventor, 94
   
 " , New York Times
  , November 26, 1992
 
  . Retrieved on 2007-07-21
 .  "Theodore M. Edison, an inventor, environmentalist and philanthropist who was the last surviving child of the inventor Thomas Alva Edison, died on Tuesday at his home in West Orange. He was 94 years old. He died of Parkinson's disease, said a cousin, Kim Arnn. After Thomas Alva Edison died in 1931, Theodore Edison took charge of his father's experimental laboratories in West Orange. His father's more than 1,000 inventions included the microphone, the phonograph and the incandescent electric lamp."
  </ref>
 

Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.<ref>"

   Edison's Widow Very III
   
 " , New York Times
  , August 21, 1947, Thursday
 
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 . </ref><ref>"
   Rites for Mrs. Edison
   
 " , New York Times
  , August 26, 1947, Tuesday
 
  . Retrieved on 2007-07-21
 . </ref>

Beginning his career

Thomas Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention which first gained him fame was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey, where he lived. His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder and had poor sound quality. The tinfoil recordings could only be replayed a few times. In the 1880s, a redesigned model using wax-coated cardboard cylinders was produced by Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter. This was one reason that Thomas Edison continued work on his own "Perfected Phonograph."

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Menlo Park

Edison's major innovation was the first industrial research lab, which was built in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Edison was legally attributed with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development work under his direction.

William Joseph Hammer, a consulting electrical engineer, began his duties as a laboratory assistant to Edison in December 1879. He assisted in experiments on the telephone, phonograph, electric railway, iron ore separator, electric lighting, and other developing inventions. However, Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was put in charge of tests and records on that device. In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. In his first year, the plant under General Manager Francis Robbins Upton turned out 50,000 lamps. According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer of incandescent electric lighting."

Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, which were protected for a 17 year period and included inventions or processes that are electrical, mechanical, or chemical in nature. About a dozen were design patents, which protect an ornamental design for up to a 14 year period. Like most patents, the inventions he described were improvements over prior art. The phonograph patent, on the other hand, was unprecedented as the first device to record and reproduce sounds.<ref> Evans, Harold, "They Made America." Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2004. ISBN 0-316-27766-5. page152.</ref> Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light. Several designs had already been developed by earlier inventors including the patent he purchased from Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans, Moses G. Farmer,<ref> Moses G. Farmer, Eliot's Inventor

. Retrieved on 2006-03-11. </ref> Joseph Swan, James Bowman Lindsay, William Sawyer, Sir Humphry Davy, and Heinrich Göbel. Some of these early bulbs had such flaws as extremely short life, high expense to produce, and high current draw, making them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially. In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to the element of glowing wire carrying the current, although English inventor Joseph Swan had used the term prior to this. Edison took the features of these earlier designs and set his workers to the task of creating longer-lasting bulbs. By 1879, he had produced a new concept: a high resistance lamp in a very high vacuum, which would burn for hundreds of hours. While the earlier inventors had produced electric lighting in laboratory conditions dating back to a demonstration of a glowing wire by Alessandro Volta in 1800, Edison concentrated on commercial application and was able to sell the concept to homes and businesses by mass-producing relatively long-lasting light bulbs and creating a complete system for the generation and distribution of electricity.

The Menlo Park research lab was made possible by the sale of the quadruplex telegraph that Edison invented in 1874, which could send four simultaneous telegraph signals over the same wire. When Edison asked Western Union to make an offer, he was shocked at the unexpectedly large amount that Western Union offered; the patent rights were sold for $10,000. The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success.

In just over a decade Edison's Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to consume two city blocks. Edison said he wanted the lab to have "a stock of almost every conceivable material." A newspaper article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim, stating the lab contained "eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made, every size of needle, every kind of cord or wire, hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, minx, camels...silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell...cork, resin, varnish and oil, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores..." and the list goes on.<ref>Modèle:Cite book</ref>

With Menlo Park, Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application.

Carbon telephone transmitter

In 1877-1878, Edison invented and developed the carbon microphone used in all telephones along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s. After protracted patent litigation, a federal court ruled in 1892 that Edison and not Emile Berliner was the inventor of the carbon microphone. (Josephson, p146). The carbon microphone was also used in radio broadcasting and public address work through the 1920s.

Electric light

Main article: History of the light bulb

After many experiments with platinum and other metal filaments, Edison returned to a carbon filament. The first successful test was on October 22 1879;<ref name=Israel/> and lasted 13.5 hours. Edison continued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected ... to platina contact wires."<ref name=Patent898> Modèle:US patent</ref> Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways,"<ref name="Patent898"/> it was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1200 hours.

In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. It was during this time that he said, "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."<ref>"Keynote Address - Second International ALN1 Conference (PDF)</ref>

On October 8 1883, the U.S. patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William Sawyer and was therefore invalid. Litigation continued for nearly six years, until October 6, 1889, when a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. To avoid a possible court battle with Joseph Swan, whose British patent had been awarded a year before Edison's, he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to market the invention in Britain.

The Mahen Theatre in Brno, in what is now the Czech Republic, was the first public building in the world to use Edison's electric lamps, with the installation supervised by Edison's assistant in the invention of the lamp, Francis Jehl. <ref>[http://www.ndbrno.cz/en/thaeatre/theatre-buildings/mahen-theatre/history-of-mahen-theatre/history-mt/ National Theatre Brno- History. Retrieved September 18, 2007</ref> Modèle:Multi-video start Modèle:Multi-video item Modèle:Multi-video end

Electric power distribution

Edison patented an electric distribution system in 1880, which was essential to capitalize on the invention of the electric lamp. On December 17, 1880, Edison founded the Edison Electric Illuminating Company. The company established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. It was on September 4, 1882, that Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.

Earlier in the year, in January 1882 he had switched on the first steam generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to street lamps and several private dwellings within a short distance of the station. On January 19 1883, the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey.

War of currents

Main article: War of Currents

George Westinghouse and Edison became adversaries because of Edison's promotion of direct current for electric power distribution instead of the more easily transmitted alternating current (AC) system invented by Nikola Tesla and promoted by Westinghouse. Unlike DC, AC could be stepped up to very high voltages with transformers, sent over thinner and less expensive wires, and stepped down again at the destination for distribution to users.

Despite Edison's contempt for capital punishment, the war against AC led Edison to become involved in the development and promotion of the electric chair as a demonstration of AC's greater lethal potential versus the "safer" DC. Edison went on to carry out a brief but intense campaign to ban the use of AC or to limit the allowable voltage for safety purposes. As part of this campaign, Edison's employees publicly electrocuted dogs, cats, and in one case, an elephant<ref> IMDB entry on Electrocuting an Elephant (1903)

. Retrieved on 2006-03-11. </ref> to demonstrate the dangers of AC. AC replaced DC in most instances of generation and power distribution, enormously extending the range and improving the efficiency of power distribution.

Though widespread use of DC ultimately lost favor for distribution, it exists today primarily in long-distance high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems. Low voltage DC distribution continued to be used in high density downtown areas for many years and was replaced by AC low voltage network distribution in many central business districts. DC had the advantage that large battery banks could maintain continuous power through brief interruptions of the electric supply from generators and the transmission system. Utilities such as Commonwealth Edison in Chicago had rotary converters, also known as motor-generator sets, which could change DC to AC and AC to various frequencies in the early to mid 20th century. Utilities supplied rectifiers to convert the low voltage AC to DC for such DC loads as elevators, fans and pumps. There were still 1,600 DC customers in downtown New York City as of 2005, and service was only finally discontinued on November 14, 2007 <ref>http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/off-goes-the-power-current-started-by-thomas-edison/</ref>. The New York City Subway system is still run by DC power to this day.

Fluoroscopy

Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available fluoroscope, the machine that takes radiographs (colloquially known as "X-rays"). Until Edison came along and discovered that calcium tungstate fluoroscopy screens produced brighter images than the barium platinocyanide screens originally used by Wilhelm Röntgen, the technology was only capable of producing very faint images. The fundamental design of Edison's fluoroscope is still in use today, despite the fact that Edison himself abandoned the project after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously maiming his assistant, Clarence Dally. Dally had made himself an enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopy project and in the process been exposed to a poisonous dose of radiation. He later died of injuries related to the exposure. In 1903, a shaken Edison said "Don't talk to me about X-rays, I am afraid of them."<ref>[4] Edison, Clarence Dally, and the Hidden Perils of the X-Rays</ref>

Work relations

Frank J. Sprague, a competent mathematician and former naval officer, was recruited by Edward H. Johnson and joined the Edison organization in 1883. One of Sprague's significant contributions to the Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park was to expand Edison's mathematical methods. (Despite the common belief that Edison did not use mathematics, analysis of his notebooks reveal that he was an astute user of mathematical analysis,<ref>http://edison.rutgers.edu</ref> for example, determining the critical parameters of his electric lighting system including lamp resistance by a sophisticated analysis of Ohm's Law, Joule's Law and economics.) A key to Edison's success was a holistic rather than reductionist approach to invention, making extensive use of trial and error when no suitable theory existed. Since Sprague joined Edison in 1883 and Edison's output of patents peaked in 1880,<ref>http://edison.rutgers.edu/patents.htm</ref> it could be interpreted that the shift towards a reductionist analytical approach may not have been a positive move for Edison. Sprague's important analytical contributions, including correcting Edison's system of mains and feeders for central station distribution, form a counter argument to this. In 1884, Sprague decided his interests in the exploitation of electricity lay elsewhere, and he left Edison to found the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company. However, Sprague, who later developed many electrical innovations, always credited Edison for their work together.

Another of Edison's assistants was Nikola Tesla, who claimed that Edison promised him $50,000 if he succeeded in making improvements to his DC generation plants. Tesla claimed that several months later, when he had finished the work and asked to be paid, Edison said, "When you become a full-fledged American you will appreciate an American joke."<ref> Tesla - Master of Lightning:Coming to America

. Retrieved on 2006-03-11. </ref> Tesla immediately resigned. This anecdote is somewhat doubtful, since at Tesla's salary of $18 per week the bonus would have amounted to over 53 years pay, and the amount was equal to the initial capital of the company. Tesla resigned when he was refused a raise to $25 per week.<ref>Jonnes, p110</ref> Although Tesla accepted an Edison Medal later in life and professed a high opinion of Edison as an inventor and engineer, he remained bitter. The day after Edison died, the New York Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla who was quoted as saying, "He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene" and that, "His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense." When Edison was a very old man and close to death, he said, in looking back, that the biggest mistake he had made was that he never respected Tesla or his work.<ref>"

   Tesla Says Edison was an Empiricist. Electrical Technician Declares Persistent Trials Attested Inventor's Vigor. 'His Method Inefficient' A Little Theory Would Have Saved Him 90% of Labor, Ex-Aide Asserts. Praises His Great Genius.
   
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  , October 19 1931
 
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 .  "Nikola Tesla, one of the world's outstanding electrical technicians, who came to America in 1884 to work with Thomas A. Edison, specifically in the designing of motors and generators, recounted yesterday some of ..."
  </ref>

There were 28 men recognized as Edison Pioneers.

Media inventions

The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system. Edison patented the sound recording and reproducing phonograph (or gramophone in British English) in 1878. Edison was also granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical design, while his employee W.K.L. Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson.<ref name=Israel/> 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. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.<ref> History of Edison Motion Pictures

. Retrieved on 2007-10-14. </ref>

On August 9 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. In April 1896, Thomas Armat's Vitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. Later he exhibited motion pictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings, mechanically synchronized with the film.

Officially the kinetoscope entered in Europe when the rich American Businessman Irving T. Bush (1869-194Image:Cool.gif bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Franck Z. Maguire and Joseph D. Bachus a dozen machines. Bush placed from October 17 1894 on the first kinetoscopes in London. At the same time the French company Kinétoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Werner bought these machines for the market in France. In the last three months of 1894 The Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe (i.e. the Netherlands and Italy). In Germany and in Austria-Hungary the kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche-österreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck <ref>http://www.victorian-cinema.net/stollwerck.htm - Martin Loiperdinger. Film & Schokolade. Stollwercks Geschäfte mit lebenden Bildern . KINtop Schriften Stroemfeld Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Basel 1999 ISBN 3-87877-764-7 (Buch) ISBN 3-87877-760-4 (Buch und Videocassette </ref> of the Schokoladen-Süsswarenfabrik Stollwerck & Co of Cologne. The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early 1895. The Edison's Kinétoscope Français, a Belgian company, was founded in Brussels on January 15 1895 with the rights to sell the kinetoscopes in Monaco, France and the French colonies. The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialists. On May 14 1895 the Edison's Kinétoscope Belge was founded in Brussels. The businessman Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiative in starting this business. He had contacts with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. In 1898 he also became shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France.<ref>http://www.imdb.com/company/co0111244/ Guido Convents, Van Kinetoscoop tot Cafe-Cine de Eerste Jaren van de Film in Belgie, 1894-1908, pp.33-69. Universitaire Pers Leuven. Leuven: 2000. Guido Convents, "'Edison's Kinetscope in Belgium, or, Scientists, Admirers, Businessmen, Industrialists and Crooks", pp.249-258. in C. Dupré la Tour, A. Gaudreault, R. Pearson (Ed.) Cinema at the Turn of the Century. Québec, 1999.</ref>

In 1908, Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, which was founded in 1929.

Later years

In the 1880s, Thomas Edison bought property in Fort Myers, Florida, and built Seminole Lodge as a winter retreat. Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at his winter retreat, The Mangoes. Edison even contributed technology to the automobile. They were friends until Edison's death.

Edison purchased a home known as "Glenmont" in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey.

In 1901, he visited the Sudbury area as a mining prospector, and is credited with the original discovery of the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to actually mine the ore body were not successful, however, and he abandoned his mining claim in 1903.<ref>http://www.sudburymuseums.ca/index.cfm?app=w_vmuseum&lang=en&currID=2031&parID=2029</ref> A street in Falconbridge, as well as the Edison Building, which served as the head office of Falconbridge Mines, are named for him.

Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, he was shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles.

Influenced by a fad diet that was popular in the day, in his last few years "the only liquid he consumed was a pint of milk every three hours."<ref name=Israel>Modèle:Cite book</ref> He believed this diet would restore his health.

Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before his death in 1931, the Lackawanna Railroad implemented electric trains in suburban service from Hoboken to Gladstone, Montclair and Dover in New Jersey. Transmission was by means of an overhead catenary system, with the entire project under the guidance of Thomas Edison. To the surprise of many, Thomas Edison was at the throttle of the very first MU (Multiple-Unit) train to depart Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, driving the train all the way to Dover. As another tribute to his lasting legacy, the same fleet of cars Edison deployed on the Lackawanna in 1931 served commuters until their retirement in 1984. A special plaque commemorating the joint achievement of both the railway and Edison, can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, presently operated by New Jersey Transit.^{[citation needed]}

Death

Thomas Edison died on October 18, 1931, in his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina.<ref>"

   Thomas Edison Dies in Coma at 84; Family With Him as the End Comes; Inventor Succumbs at 3:24 A.M. After Fight for Life Since He Was Stricken on August 1. World-Wide Tribute Is Paid to Him as a Benefactor of Mankind
   
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  , October 18, 1931
 
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 .  "West Orange, New Jersey, Sunday, October 18, 1931. Thomas Alva Edison died at 3:24 o'clock this morning at his home, Glenmont, in the Llewellyn Park section of this city. The great inventor, the fruits of whose genius so magically transformed the everyday world, was 84 years and 8 months old."
  </ref>

His final words to his wife were "It is very beautiful over there."

Mina died in 1947. Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at the Henry Ford Museum. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento. A plaster death mask was also made.<ref>[5] "Is Thomas Edison's last breath preserved in a test tube in the Henry Ford Museum?" The Straight Dope, 11-Sep-1987. Retrieved August 20, 2007</ref>

Views on politics, religion and metaphysics

Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a "freethinker."<ref name=Israel/> Edison was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine's Age of Reason.<ref name=Israel/> Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism," saying, "He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity."<ref name=Israel/> In an October 2, 1910 interview in the New York Times Magazine, Edison stated:

Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me -- the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love -- He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us -- nature did it all -- not the gods of the religions.<ref>" "No Immortality of the Soul" says Thomas A. Edison. In Fact, He Doesn't Believe There Is a Soul -- Human Beings Only an Aggregate of Cells and the Brain Only a Wonderful Machine, Says Wizard of Electricity. " , New York Times , October 2, 1910, Sunday . Retrieved on 2007-07-21 .  "Thomas A. Edison in the following interview for the first time speaks to the public on the vital subjects of the human soul and immortality. It will be bound to be a most fascinating, an amazing statement, from one of the most notable and interesting men of the age. ... Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me -- the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love -- He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us -- nature did it all -- not the gods of the religions."  </ref>

Edison was accused of atheism for these remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he defended himself in a private letter. "You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made."<ref name=Israel/>

Criticism

Modèle:Cleanup-merge Although in his early years Edison worked alone, he built up a research and development team to a considerable number while at his Menlo Park research laboratory. His staff were generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research and he drove them hard to produce results. The large research group, which included engineers and other workers, based much of their research on work done by others before them.

Many other inventors had worked on the development of an incandescent light bulb and some had even patented them before Edison, although none before Swan's was shown to be usable in practice or gained acceptance. Edison's own inventions are often mistakenly credited as Edison's work alone, when in fact a number of employees actually worked under his direction. Many people refer to Edison's work as the first incandescent light bulb with high resistance, a small radiating area, and a commercially and uninhibitally but still useful lifetime. In other words his application for patent was the first design suitable for use by energy companies with central generating stations.

Edison's true success, like that of his friend Henry Ford, was in his ability to maximize profits through establishment of mass-production systems and intellectual property rights. This dampened the success of less profitable work by others who were focused on inventing longer-lasting high-efficiency technology.<ref>http://www.snopes.com/science/lightbulb.asp</ref><ref>http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/edison/</ref> Edison was often an opponent to technological innovation and change, perhaps because they threatened his business model. In 1887 there were 121 Edison power stations in the United States that delivered DC electricity to customers. When the limitations of Direct Current (DC) were discussed by the public, Edison launched a propaganda campaign to convince people that Alternating Current (AC) was far too dangerous to use. The problem with DC was that the power plants could only economically deliver DC electricity to customers about one and a half miles from the generating station, so it was only suitable for central business districts. When George Westinghouse suggested using high-voltage AC instead, as it could carry electricity hundreds of miles with marginal loss of power, Edison waged a "War of Currents" to prevent AC from being adopted. He repeatedly electrocuted animals with 1000V of alternating current to 'prove' that AC was unsafe, even though protection from electrocution by AC or DC is essentially the same. One of the more notable occasions when Edison electrocuted animals was when in 1903, his workers electrocuted Topsy the elephant at Luna Park, near Coney Island, after she had killed several men and her owners wanted her put to death. His company filmed the electrocution. Thomas Edison thus introduced the practice of execution by electrocution.

The AC system was eventually adopted, despite Edison staging public electrocutions. The system used today was devised by many contributors including Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, Lucien Gaulard, John Dixon Gibbs, and Oliver Shallenger from 1881 to 1889.

In 1902 agents of Thomas Edison bribed a theater owner in London for a copy of A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès. Edison then made hundreds of copies and showed them in New York City. Méliès received no compensation. He was counting on taking the film to US and recapture the huge cost of it by showing it throughout the US when he realized it has already been showing in the US by Edison. This bankrupted Méliès.<ref> Edison was often an opponent to technological innovation and change, perhaps because they threatened his business model. In 1887 there were 121 Edison power stations in the United States that delivered DC electricity to customers. When the limitations of Direct Current (DC) were discussed by the public, Edison launched a propaganda campaign to convince people that Alternating Current (AC) was far too dangerous to use. The problem with DC was that the power plants could only economically deliver DC electricity to customers about one and a half miles from the generating station, so it was only suitable for central business districts. When George Westinghouse suggested using high-voltage AC instead, as it could carry electricity hundreds of miles with marginal loss of power, Edison waged a "War of Currents" to prevent AC from being adopted. He repeatedly electrocuted animals with 1000V of alternating current to 'prove' that AC was unsafe, even though protection from electrocution by AC or DC is essentially the same. One of the more notable occasions when Edison electrocuted animals was when in 1903, his workers electrocuted Topsy the elephant at Luna Park, near Coney Island, after she had killed several men and her owners wanted her put to death. His company filmed the electrocution. Thomas Edison thus introduced the practice of execution by electrocution.

The AC system was eventually adopted, despite Edison staging public electrocutions. The system used today was devised by many contributors including Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, Lucien Gaulard, John Dixon Gibbs, and Oliver Shallenger from 1881 to 1889.

In 1902 agents of Thomas Edison bribed a theater owner in London for a copy of A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès. Edison then made hundreds of copies and showed them in New York City. Méliès received no compensation. He was counting on taking the film to US and recapture the huge cost of it by showing it throughout the US when he realized it has already been showing in the US by Edison. This bankrupted Méliès.<ref>[6] Rémi Fournier Lanzoni, French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present (2002)</ref> Other exhibitors similarly routinely copied and exhibited each others films.<ref>[7] Siegmund Lubin (1851-1923), Who's Who of Victorian Cinema. Retrieved August 20, 2007</ref> To better protect the copyrights on his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U.S. copyright office. Ironically, these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era.<ref>[8] "History of Edison Motion Pictures: Early Edison Motion Picture Production (1892-1895)." Memory.loc.gov, Library of Congress. Retrieved August 20, 2007</ref>

Tributes

Places named for Edison

Many tributes have been made to Thomas Edison. Several places and objects have been named after him, including the town of Edison, New Jersey.

Thomas Edison State College, a nationally-known college for adult learners is in Trenton, New Jersey. There are numerous Edison High Schools around the country.

Museums and memorials

There is a Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum in the town of Edison. The 13.5 acre (55,000 m²) Glenmont property where the remains of Edison and his wife, Mina, buried is maintained by the National Park Service as the Edison National Historic Site.

In Beaumont, Texas there is an Edison Museum, even though Edison never visited Beaumont.

The City Hotel, in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, was the first building to be lit with Edison's three-wire system. The hotel was renamed The Hotel Edison, and retains that name today.

The Port Huron Museums, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young newsbutcher. The depot has appropriately been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum. The town has many Edison historical landmarks including the gravesites of Edison's parents.

In Detroit, the Edison Memorial Fountain in Grand Circus Park was created to honor his achievements. The limestone fountain was dedicated October 21, 1929.

Companies bearing Edison's name

• Edison General Electric, merged with Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric
• Commonwealth Edison, now part of Exelon
• Consolidated Edison
• Edison International
  • Southern California Edison
  • Edison Mission Energy
  • Edison Capital
• Detroit Edison, a unit of DTE Energy
• Edison Sault Electric Company, a unit of Wisconsin Energy
• FirstEnergy
  • Metropolitan Edison
  • Ohio Edison
  • Toledo Edison
• Edison S.p.A., a unit of Italenergia
• Boston Edison, a unit of NSTAR
• WEEI radio station in Boston, established by Edison Electric Illuminating Company (hence the call letters), the forerunner of Boston Edison

Awards named in honor of Edison

The Edison Medal was created on February 11, 1904, by a group of Edison's friends and associates. Four years later the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to present the medal as its highest award. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu Thomson, and ironically, was awarded to Nikola Tesla in 1917. The Edison Medal is the oldest award in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, and is presented annually "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts."

In the Netherlands, major music awards are named the Edison Award after him.

Honors and awards given to Edison

Life magazine (USA), in a special double issue, placed Edison first in the list of the "100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years," noting that the light bulb he promoted "lit up the world." He was ranked thirty-fifth on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history. In 1940, his life was documented on the screen when Spencer Tracy starred as Edison in Edison, The Man." He has been called the fifteenth Greatest American.

In recognition of the enormous contribution inventors make to the nation and the world, the United States Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97 - 19Image:Cool.gif, has designated February 11, the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Alva Edison, as National Inventor's Day.

In 1887, Edison won the Matteucci Medal.

Other items named after Edison

The United States Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor in 1940. The ship was decommissioned a few months after the end of World War II. In 1962, the Navy commissioned USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine. Decommissioned on 1 December 1983, Thomas A. Edison was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on April 30, 1986. She went through the Navy’s Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Bremerton, Washington, beginning on October 1, 1996. When she finished the program on December 1, 1997, she ceased to exist as a complete ship and was listed as scrapped.

The "Incredible Machines: Contraptions" game series has an alligator with the name Edison (with other animals given scientist names).

In 1879, Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam wrote the book "L'Ève Future" (translated into English as "Tomorrow's Eve"), about a fictional Thomas Edison who creates the ideal (artificial) woman.<ref>Mechanical Women bizoum.com, Retrieved on 2007-10-14.</ref>

Trivia

• Edison was a strong supporter of Montessori schools in the United States.<ref> Maria Montessori: A Brief Biography

. Retrieved on 2007-01-06. </ref>

• While working with Alexander Graham Bell to discover words of greeting, Edison is credited as creating the word "Hello" as a telephone greeting in 1877.<ref>[9] Koenigsberg, Allen "The First 'Hello!': Thomas Edison, the Phonograph and the Telephone – Part 1" Antique Phonograph Magazine, Vol.VIII No.6. Retrieved March 30, 2007</ref><ref>[10] Koenigsberg, Allen. "The First 'Hello!': Thomas Edison, the Phonograph and the Telephone – Part 2" Antique Phonograph Magazine, Vol.VIII No.6. Retrieved March 23, 2007</ref><ref>[11]"Today in Technology History"(August 15), The Center for the Study of Technology and Society. Retrieved March 23, 2007</ref> Bell, however, preferred "Ahoy-hoy" as a greeting.<ref>As stated in the book "QI: The Book of General Ignorance"</ref> (Hello is a variant on the old word hallo.)
• Edison was so fascinated by Morse Code that he taught it to his girlfriend Mina Miller and proposed marriage to her in code. He nicknamed his first two children "Dot" and "Dash" (from his first marriage to Mary Stilwell).
• Edison's company was considerably late in the business of releasing music on phonographs. Reportedly, Edison considered his invention to be limited to a business dictation machine, and the concept of pre-recorded music never crossed his mind.^{[citation needed]}
• At the turn of the last century, Edison saw modern medicine at the crossroads. In 1902 he wrote of Medicine being "played out" which prompted his oft repeated quote: "The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease." He continued in that vein: "There were never so many able, active minds at work on the problems of diseases as now, and all their discoveries are tending to the simple truth — that you can't improve on nature."<ref>[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison</ref>
• Mrs. Thomas Alva Edison was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
• He once said, "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk". <ref>http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Thomas_A._Edison/</ref>

See also

• List of Edison patents
• Thomas Edison in popular culture
• History of the Light Bulb
• List of people on stamps of Ireland
• USS Edison (DD-439)
• John I. Beggs
• Animated Hero Classics - Animated DVD biography series of historical figures, including Thomas Edison
• List of archetypal names

Biographies

• "A Streak of Luck," by Robert Conot, Seaview Books, New York, 1979, ISBN 0-87223-521-1
• "Edison: The man who made the future," by Ronald W. Clark, ISBN 0-354-04093-6
• "Edison" by Matthew Josephson. McGraw Hill, New York, 1959, ISBN 0-07-033046-8
• "Edison: Inventing the Century" by Neil Baldwin, University of Chicago Press, 2001, ISBN 0-226-03571-9
• "Edison and the Electric Chair" Mark Essig, ISBN 0-7509-3680-0
• "Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience," edited by William S. Pretzer, Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, 1989, ISBN 0-933728-33-6 (cloth) ISBN 0-933728-34-4 (paper)
• Ernst Angel: Edison. Sein Leben und Erfinden. Berlin: Ernst Angel Verlag, 1926.
• Mark Essig: Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death. New York: Walker & Company, 2003. ISBN 0-8027-1406-4
• Jill Jonnes, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. New York: Random House, 2003. ISBN 0-375-50739-6
• "The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World", by Randall E. Stross. Crown (March 13, 2007), ISBN 1-400-04762-5
• "The Search for Thomas Edison's Boyhood Home" by Glen J. Adams. 2004, ISBN 978-1-4116-1361-4

References

External links

Modèle:Wikiquote

• Modèle:Gutenberg author
• Edison cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
• 4-disc DVD set containing over 140 films produced by the Thomas Edison Company.
• Complete list of 1,093 patents.
• See Thomas Edison's patent application for the light bulb at the National Archives.
• Modèle:Imdb name
• Thomas Edison at the Internet Movie Database - Animated biography DVD series, includes Thomas Edison
• Historical Deadwood Newspaper accounts of Edison's 1880 placer and pulp sluicing process and electrifying Deadwood SD 1883 before the illumination of the White House 1891
• Thomas Edison Hates Cats - an online video about Thomas Edison and electricity.

Biography links

• "Edison, His Life And Inventions" by Frank Lewis Dyer at Worldwideschool.org
• "Thomas Edison," by Gerry Beales.
• "Thomas Alva Edison" by John Patrick Michael Murphy.
• A short Thomas Edison biography
• Modèle:Gutenberg
• The New Student's Reference Work/Edison, Thomas Alva

Historic sites

• Edison Birthplace Museum
• Thomas Edison House
• Thomas Edison Winter Estate
• Edison National Historic Site
• Menlo Park
• "Menlo Park Reminiscences, Volume 1," by Francis Jehl, originally published by Edison Institute, Dearborn, Michigan, 1937. Reprinted by Dover Publications, Mineola, NY, 1990. ISBN 0-486-26357-6
• Edison Depot Museum
• Edison exhibit and Menlo Park Laboratory at Henry Ford Museum
• Edison Museum

Archives

• Rutgers: Edison Papers
• Rutgers: Edison Patents
• Edisonian Museum Antique Electrics
• Thomas A. Edison in his laboratory in New Jersey, 1901
• "Edison's Miracle of Light" American Experience, PBS.
• William J. Hammer collection — c. 1874–1935, 1955–1957. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

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