Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Edison before he was a major scientist. (http://www.crpusd.org/goldridge/pictures/bios/edison.jpg)

On February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio a baby was born named Thomas Alva Edison. In 1854, he moved to Port Huron, Michigan, and that is where he grew up as the youngest of 7 children. He had two brothers and four sisters. Edison attended school in Michigan for a short time of only 3 months. Then he was a gatekeeper for his dad's observatory for tourists. In 1859-1862, Thomas Edison worked on selling newspapers and candy by the Grand Trunk Railway between Detroit and Port Huron, Michigan.

When Edison was 24 he invented the typewriter. On December 31, 1871, Edison made a lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey. In 1877, Edison invented the first carbon transmitter in the use for a telephone. After that he was known as the "Wizard of Menlo Park". In 1879, Edison invented the first successful electric incandescent lamp. In 1882, Edison opened Pearl Street central Power Station in New York City. The power station supplied electricity to streets and buildings in small areas.

In 1884 Edison's wife Mary died. Two years, later Edison was remarried to a woman named Mina Miller. A year after being married to Mina, Edison established a laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1888, Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter, who were Edison's rivals, patent an improved the phonograph and called it the "graphophone." To answer, back Edison developed his own improved phonograph.

Thomas Edison

In 1889, Edison formed General Electric and invented a kinetograph (an early motion camera). In 1899, Edison failed in his efforts to develop a commercial process of magnetic ore separation. Eleven years later, in 1910, Edison perfected a nickel-iron-alkaline storage battery. 1911 was the year Thomas A. Edison, Inc. was organized. In 1929, on the 50th anniversary of the electric light, Edison reenacted his invention of the light bulb at the reconstructed Menlo Park lab in Greenfield Village. On October 18,1931 Edison died at the age of 84.

Edison was an amazing scientist who invented and patented 1,093 different items. He is my hero because he was a very interesting man. Without Edison, we would be without light bulbs and we would have to use candles. Thanks to Edison we don't need candles to light our houses! We can also credit Edison with improving the telephone, the phonograph, and the typewriter. Thanks to Edison's curiosity in science as a kid, he grew up to be an adult who invented many items we still use today. That's a pretty impressive legacy for someone who only went to school for three months.