Thomas Edison

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The Wizard of Menlo Park, formally known as Thomas Edison, was born into a medium sized family and lost most of his hearing by the time he turned 14. Essentially being a self-taught student, Edison, by the end of his career, held over 1,000 patents in America alone (“Thomas Edison Home.”). He made inventions that reduced the workload of people by a substantial amount. His inventions were many and helped many more by contributing masses of technological advances and providing them at an affordable price to families that needed them.
He was born February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio (Conot 3). Edison had a bit of a rocky start by getting pulled out of school and being almost deaf in both ears. He was the last of seven children in his family. His mother was actually a schoolteacher, and she had major impacts on his life. Early on in his childhood, he contracted scarlet fever, which caused him to go deaf completely in one ear and hearing impaired in the other one. Circa 1854, Edison’s family moved to Port Huron, Michigan where Thomas attended public school for about 12 weeks. He was a hyper child and was deemed a “difficult” student while attending the school. His mom quickly pulled him out and ended up teaching him at the beginning of his life on her own. When Thomas reached age 11, he acquired an almost insatiable appetite for knowledge (“Thomas Edison Biography”). Because of his hearing impairment, school wasn’t really an option for him. Later in his life he said that he liked being almost deaf anyway, because it allowed him to focus, and he could omit the distractions of everyday life. Edison ended up teaching himself and loved every subject. A few years later, Thomas had convinced his parents to allow him to sell newspapers to the ...

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...ventor. Edison contributed so many things to the general public. What had been aforementioned was just a small amount of how many other things he built, improved, and invented. There’s a saying that goes, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” He did it all not because it was his profession, but because he loved doing it. He wanted to advance civilization. He didn’t do it for the money but for the good of everyone else. These inventions impacted the public with great force, as well. He increased the speed at which information could be taken and processed and by giving people a much safer way to light his or her house using electrical energy. Thomas created a whole arrangement of inventions that helped press forward society by giving them new things to improve upon and by generally giving everyone a better standard of living his or her life.

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