This paper will be an effort to explain about Thomas Alva Edison and his life before the 1900s. Thomas Edison was an American inventor, he was considered the most prolific inventor in American history and one of America’s leading businessmen who came from humble beginnings to work as an inventor of major technology. He was also giving public recognition as a participant in the production of helping build America’s economy during the nation’s vulnerable early years. Thomas Edison was born on February 11th, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He was the last and youngest out of seven children of Samuel Edison Jr., an exiled political activist, and Nancy Elliott Edison, an accomplished school teacher. When he was seven years old he suffered from scarlet fever …show more content…
When Thomas became thirteen he asked his parents if he could get a job, they let him. He took the job of becoming a newsboy and “candy butcher” on the trains of the Grand Trunk Railway, running between Port Huron and Detroit. While having a job was fun for Thomas, he spent much of his free time reading scientific and technical books, he also spent some of this time learning how to operate a telegraph. In 1862, when he was fifteen, he printed and published the first ever newspaper to be typeset and printed on a moving train, The Weekly Herald. The London Times featured him and his paper in one of their stories, giving him his first exposure to international notoriety. Around the same time Thomas Edison had saved the son of J.U. Mackenzie, a station agent at Mount Clemens, Michigan. As a sign of gratitude, the child’s father taught him telegraphy. A few months later, when he was close to the age of sixteen, he hung a telegraph line from the Port Huron railway station to the Port Huron village and worked in the local telegraph office. By the time he was really at the age of sixteen, he was skilled enough to work as a telegrapher full time. (Beals, …show more content…
A year later, in 1868 he landed in New York City by using a Boston steamship, he was poor, penniless, and in debt. He went looking for work and tried his luck being in the operating room of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company. One day when their ticker apparatus broke down, no one but Thomas was able to fix it. As a result of his help, he was given a job as superintendent with an amazing salary of $300 per month. Early in 1869, he went into a partnership with Franklin L. Pope, as an electrical engineer, and in a fundamental way, he improved stock tickers and patented several associated inventions, among which were the Universal Stock Ticker and the Unison Device. Later in the year, he received his first payment, a $40,000 check, for one of his inventions, but he sent the money back to his parents, who were financially desperate at the time. Then he opened a manufacturing shop in Newark, where he made stock tickers and worked on developing the quadruplex telegraph. Afterward he assisted Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter, in making the first successful working model of the device. (Beals,
Long ago, Thomas Edison lived, but today remembered by making lives better. When everyone else gave
While employed by the Telegraph Office Carnegie met Thomas A. Scott, the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who offered him a job. It was while being employed by Scott, that he was given a proposal to invest in the Adams Express Company. Carnegie was able to convince his mother to mortgage their home and loan him $500 to begin his first investment.
Morse created the telegraph, a machine that sends messages in a series of dots and dashes. This made him famous because now, people had a way to communicate with people from long distances. He didn’t make it himself, because he got the idea from other people in Europe. That's why, when he received his patent, people were saying that he had stolen the idea from others. The arguments in the United States Supreme Court state that Samuel Morse was first to create the first working telegraph.
Morse was a very friendly guy. Being a natural leader, he was a founder and the first president of the National Academy of Design, but was lost his campaigns to become mayor of New York or a Congressman. In 1832, while returning on the ship from another period of studying art in Europe, Morse heard a conversation about the newly discovered electromagnet and got the idea of an electric telegraph. He mistakenly thought that the idea of such a telegraph was new, helping to give him the go ahead and push the idea forward. By 1835 he probably had his first telegraph model working in the New York University building where he taught art. Being poor, Morse used materials like an old artist's canvas stretcher to hold his invention, a home-made battery and an old clock-work to move the paper on which dots and dashes were to be recorded.
Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on November 25, 1835, Andrew Carnegie entered the world in poverty. The son of a hand weaver, Carnegie received his only formal education during the short time between his birth and his move to the United States. When steam machinery for weaving came into use, Carnegie’s father sold his looms and household goods, sailing to America with his wife and two sons. At this time, Andrew was twelve, and his brother, Thomas, was five. Arriving into New York on August 14, 1848, aboard the Wiscasset from Glasgow, the Carnegies wasted little time settling in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, where relatives already existed and were there to provide help. Allegheny City provided Carnegie’s first job, as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory, working for $1.20 a week. His father also worked there while his mother bound shoes at home, making a miniscule amount of money. Although the Carnegies lacked in money, they abounded in ideals and training for their children. At age 15, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in Pittsburgh. He learned to send and decipher telegraphic messages and became a telegraph operator at the age of 17. Carnegie’s next job was as a railroad clerk, working for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He worked his way up the ladder, through his dedication and honest desire to succeed, to become train dispatcher and then division manager. At this time, young Carnegie, age 24, had already made some small investments that laid the foundations of his what would be tremendous fortune. One of these investments was the purchase of stock in the Woodruff Sleeping Car Company.
In 1854 there were two systems consisted of 13 separate companies. In 1856 the company was named the “Western Union Telegraph Company”. Soon there were a lot of telegraph companies everywhere. One of the most important take-over was carried out by Sibley when he negotiated the purchase of the Morse patent rights for the Midwest for $50,000 from Jeptha H. Wade and john J. Speed, company (EMTC). Sibly switched to the superior Morse system. He also hired Wade, a very capable manager, who became his protege and later his successor. After a struggle Wade and Morse obtained the EMTC from Cornell in 1855.
Out of Thomas Edison’s many influences, his mother had the most dominant impact on his life, of inventing. Out of the many things she taught him of, the two most important were the “ Three R’s ” and to read and cherish the bible. The “ Three R’s ” refer to the most basic skills needed in all levels of education. That alludes to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Thomas Edison’s mother also helped input some of his great love for reading all types books. She showed him how to use the resources he had at hand, one of them
He sold newspapers by the railroad so he could sponsor his own experiments, (Thomas Edison Center, “Thomas Edison and Menlo Park”). He took advantage of going back and forth on the railroad by going to Detroit and visiting the library when he had time during the day, (Thomas Edison Center). Nevertheless, his father gave him a strict bedtime of 11:30, which didn’t leave him much time after work, (Dyer and Martin 49). It was inconvenient because he had set up a telegraph line with his friend and wanted to practice with it, (Dyer and Martin 48). Brilliantly, young Thomas knew that his father read the extra newspapers that he didn’t sell that day, (Dyer and Martin 49). With that knowledge he told his father that he left the newspapers with a friend and that he could tell his father the news by using the telegraph which conveniently gave him the practice he desired, (Dyer and Martin 49). Eventually, Mr. Edison let his son stay up longer and miraculously Thomas started bringing the newspapers back home, (Dyer and Martin 49). Thomas Edison made the most out of selling newspapers even though most would say it was pretty mundane job. Unfortunately, he was fired because he ironically started a fire in the baggage car of the train when working on one of his experiments, (Thomas Edison
This is where his first experiments started to happen. "In early 1869, he quit telegraphy to pursue invention full time" ("Thomas Edison"). At this time his inventions started to increase as he had more time to invent. For a couple of years, Edison worked out of Newark, New Jersey. Then, "He built a large estate and research laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, with facilities including a machine shop, a library and buildings for metallurgy, chemistry, and woodworking" ("Thomas Edison"). Edison now had more materials and space to start working. Edison invented many inventions in each of these places, more in his laboratory than his
Thomas Edison’s early life was filled with downfalls and achievements. He was born on February 11th, 1847, in Milan, Ohio to Samuel and Nancy Edison (Endersby 1). The last child of 7 siblings to survive until adulthood. They lived in Ohio prior to moving towards Port Huron, Michigan in 1854 after his father's lumber business failed. Edison was a sickly child throughout his childhood years. It was not until his family relocated when he began school at the age of 8 years old. He attended a private school called Reverend G.B. Engle. After 3 months, his mother Nancy took him out of school because the teacher called him “addled” meaning a slow learner. From that point on she educated him at home only after he accepted a job selling newspapers and candy to passengers on the Grand Trunk Railroad in 1859 (Endersby 1). While working there he set up his first laboratory for experimenting and a printing press called the Grand Trunk Herald. One day while experimenting in the laboratory, a fire broke out causing him to discontinue working there. This tragic event almost caused him to become deaf due a conductor boxing his ears. Yet it did n...
What do we know about Thomas Edison's life how he started how he rose and how he died. We know he made he created the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, and the mimeograph. Thomas Edison did have a great life and did a lot to help America grow with electricity and that's why I think he was one of if not the greatest inventor in American history.
Luckily, Thomas saw him and saved his life. The father of the young boy was so grateful that he taught Thomas how to master the use of Morse Code and the telegraph. This was one of the most important events of his life. The Morse Code is a method of sending text messages by keying in a series of electronic pulses - ”what”. By the time Thomas was 15, he had pretty much mastered the basics of his new career. Thomas got a job as the replacement for one of the thousands of telegraph operators who had gone to serve in the Civil War. At age 16, he had worked in a variety of telegraph offices where he had performed numerous experiments. Thomas finally came up with his first authentic invention. It was called an “automatic repeater”, that transmitted telegraph signals between unmanned stations. Unfortunately, the initial version of his idea was never patented. Thomas went home with no money and his parents in even worse predicament. His mother was showing signs of insanity, his father just quit his job, and the bank was about to foreclose their family homestead. Thomas knew that it was time to try and make some serious money. Shortly after, he accepted the suggestion of Billy Adams to go east and apply for a permanent job as a telegrapher with the Western Union Company in
Thomas (Alva) Edison was one of America’s most important and famous inventors. Edison was born into a time and place where there wasn’t much technological advancements. His inventions helped a lot of things quickly change in the world. His inventions contributed to many inventions today such as the night light, movies, telephones, and records and CDs.
While many believe that Edison comes from an educated background due to his success, it is clear that he was not a scientist. In fact, Edison's real talent was his ability to clearly judge a problem and his determination in experimenting as he was the master of the trial and error method (Anderson, 8). Therefore, Edison was a strong believer in hard work and education as he was not a strong believer of education, as he stated in 1902 for the Harper’s Monthly Magazine of 1932 ,“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” (Qtd in Anderson, 58).
Thomas’s first invention, thinking it would sell, was the electric voting machine. Unfortunately, that did not sell. He tried to sell it to Congress and the state, but, they did not want it. Next, Thomas created the Universal Stock Printer. Then, it was the quadruplex telegraph. Third, created the phonograph. Forth, he worked on the electric light bulb.