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
his fathers basement when he was just 10 years old.At the age of 12 he
Thomas Edison only had 3 months of formal education, and his schoolmaster thought that Edison may have been retarded. And no one not even his family could envision that Edison would become the inventor that he would eventually end up to be. Born in Milan, Ohio, youngest of 7 children, Edison would often ask questions that his father and mother both could not answer. So naturally he sought out answers through experimentation. Through out his younger years Edison’s mother tried to make learning fun for him, describing it as “exploring”. At age 12 Edison had begun selling newspapers on a railroad line. After purchasing some old type, he soon began printing his own newspapers Grand Truck Herald, the first known newspaper to be printed on a train. However, printing soon halted due to the fact that Edison had set the boxcar on fire, and Edison along with his equipment was thrown from the train. At age 16 Edison got his second job as a telegrapher. He would have to signal Toronto every hour, and Edison thought this to be pointless, thus creating his first invention something to automatically signal Toronto every hour. At 21 Edison made his commercial debut as an inventor with an electric vote-recorder. It did not sell so thereafter he decided to concentrate his efforts on inventions that he was sure would be in universal demand. Then in 1869 Edison arrived in Boston, practically penniless he persuaded a broker to let him sleep in his office. Then when the broker’s stock ticker broke Edison was able to repair it where many others had failed. Amazed the manager quickly made Edison one of his superiors. Soon after Edison invented the printing telegraph, but before approaching the company president to sell the device he thought he should settle on a fair selling price, 3,000$. But Edison decided to let the president of the company to make an offer on his machine, which turned out to be 40,000$ Edison accepted the offer. After selling the patents for the stock ticker Edison had enough money to open his own workshop known as Menlo Park, it was here that some of his most important inventions were created. Of these were
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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).
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
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.
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...
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.
During Thomas Edison’s entire life, he created more than 2000 inventions and acquired 1093 patents in the United States. Thomas Edison became a successful businessman. He manufactures his inventions and sells them to the markets. Thomas Edison’s father was Samuel Ogden Edison. Samuel Edison lived in Vienna, Ontario, where he met his wife Nancy Mathews Elliot and his four children were born.