Thomas Edison Inventions

Thomas Edison was one out of six children born to Samuel and Nancy Edison in Milan, Ohio (DeMauro). Edison lived for a total of 84 years, and in those many years, he produced a large variety of different inventions that still affect our world to this day. Among his many inventions, the most well known ones consist of the lightbulb, the phonograph, and the kinetoscope. Throughout the earlier stages of Edison’s life, his mother was his main supporter. Nancy Edison was the one who suggested it would be better if her youngest son didn’t attend a public school because he was sick very often, he didn’t pay attention, and he was considered a troublemaker by all of his previous teachers (Mitchell). Though unfortunately, soon after Edison sold his

The first woman he married, Mary Stilwell, gave birth to Marion Estelle, Thomas Alva Jr, and William Leslie. Two years after Mary had died, Edison married Mina Miller, whom he later had three more children with. This included Madeleine, Charles, and Theodore Miller (Charles Edison Fund). From a young age, Edison was always very enamored by the thought of the telegraph. This was an electric machine that was used to send messages back and forth in the form of dots and dashes. Longer or shorter dashes stood for different letters, and put together, they created words (Barnham). Though Edison had started out with simple jobs that didn’t take much time or effort, he eventually became a professional telegrapher. Only later on did he realize his real calling in life was to become an inventor. In 1877, Edison created his favorite invention of all; the phonograph. Edison actually created this by accident while trying to make a telephone, but after he finally perfected it, everyone wanted to know about how it worked. It became popular so quickly, that he was even invited to the White House to show off his new and unusual machine that mimicked sounds

This was a very important advancement to everyone, because in the past they had to use light sources which generally contained many different faults that were considered hazardous (DeMauro). This was the invention that finally persuaded other people to have more confidence in Edison, and it helped him to gain the attention and respect of many other successful inventors. This allowed Edison to develop more supporters that could loan him money in order for him to continue creating his genius inventions. Approximately twenty years later, Edison made his first moving picture machine. Though he had hoped to combine the phonograph with the kinetoscope in order to produce a talking and moving film, he failed to do so, and simply left it as it was. Edison felt as though there was no future for this device, so he allowed others to copy the idea and make their own versions of it (Barnham). From there, it advanced until it became what’s considered a modern movie