Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison | |
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Born | Thomas Alva Edison February 11, 1847 Milan, Ohio, U.S. |
Died | October 18, 1931 West Orange, New Jersey, U.S. | (aged 84)
Burial place | Thomas Edison National Historical Park |
Education | Self-educated; some coursework at Cooper Union |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1877–1930 |
Known for | List
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Spouses | |
Relatives | Lewis Miller (father-in-law) |
Awards |
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Signature | |
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman.
Edison was raised in the American
Early life
Thomas Edison was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio, but grew up in Port Huron, Michigan, after the family moved there in 1854.[8] He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. (1804–1896, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871, born in Chenango County, New York).[9][10] His patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New Jersey;[11] the surname had originally been "Edeson".[12]
His great-grandfather,
Edison was taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by his mother, who used to be a school teacher. He attended school for only a few months. However, one biographer described him as a very curious child who learned most things by reading on his own.[14] As a child, he became fascinated with technology and spent hours working on experiments at home.[15]
Edison developed hearing problems at the age of 12. The cause of his
It is known that early in his career he enrolled in a chemistry course at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art to support his work on a new telegraphy system with Charles Batchelor. This appears to have been his only enrollment in courses at an institution of higher learning.[18][19][20]
Early career
Thomas Edison began his career as a
Edison obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed the Grand Trunk Herald, which he sold with his other papers.[26] This began Edison's long streak of entrepreneurial ventures, as he discovered his talents as a businessman. Ultimately, his entrepreneurship was central to the formation of some 14 companies, including General Electric, formerly one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.[27][28]
In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to
His first patent was for the electric vote recorder, U.S. patent 90,646, which was granted on June 1, 1869.[30] Finding little demand for the machine, Edison moved to New York City shortly thereafter. One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey, home, while Edison worked for Samuel Laws at the Gold Indicator Company. Pope and Edison founded their own company in October 1869, working as electrical engineers and inventors. Edison began developing a multiplex telegraphic system, which could send two messages simultaneously, in 1874.[31]
Menlo Park laboratory (1876–1886)
Research and development facility
Edison's major innovation was the establishment of an industrial research lab in 1876. It was built in Menlo Park, a part of Raritan Township (now named Edison Township in his honor) in Middlesex County, New Jersey, with the funds from the sale of Edison's quadruplex telegraph. After his demonstration of the telegraph, Edison was not sure that his original plan to sell it for $4,000 to $5,000 was right, so he asked Western Union to make a bid. He was surprised to hear them offer $10,000 ($269,294 in 2023), which he gratefully accepted.[32] The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success, and Menlo Park became the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Edison was legally credited with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development under his direction. His staff was generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research, and he drove them hard to produce results.
In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. In his first year, the plant under general manager
Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, which were protected for 17 years and included inventions or processes that are electrical, mechanical, or chemical in nature. About a dozen were design patents, which protect an ornamental design for up to 14 years. As in most patents, the inventions he described were improvements over prior art. The phonograph patent, in contrast, was unprecedented in describing the first device to record and reproduce sounds.[35]
In just over a decade, Edison's Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to occupy two city blocks. Edison said he wanted the lab to have "a stock of almost every conceivable material".[36] A newspaper article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim, stating the lab contained "eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made, every size of needle, every kind of cord or wire, hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, minx, camels ... silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell ... cork, resin, varnish and oil, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores ..." and the list goes on.[37]
Over his desk Edison displayed a placard with
In Menlo Park, Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application.[39] Edison's name is registered on 1,093 patents.[40]
Phonograph
Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him wider notice was the phonograph in 1877.[41] This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park".[5]
His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. Despite its limited sound quality and that the recordings could be played only a few times, the phonograph made Edison a celebrity. Joseph Henry, president of the National Academy of Sciences and one of the most renowned electrical scientists in the US, described Edison as "the most ingenious inventor in this country... or in any other".[42] In April 1878, Edison traveled to Washington to demonstrate the phonograph before the National Academy of Sciences, Congressmen, Senators and US President Hayes.[43] The Washington Post described Edison as a "genius" and his presentation as "a scene... that will live in history".[44] Although Edison obtained a patent for the phonograph in 1878,[45] he did little to develop it until Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter produced a phonograph-like device in the 1880s that used wax-coated cardboard cylinders.[citation needed]
Carbon telephone transmitter
In 1876, Edison began work to improve the microphone for telephones (at that time called a "transmitter") by developing a carbon microphone, which consists of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon that would change resistance with the pressure of sound waves. A steady direct current is passed between the plates through the granules and the varying resistance results in a modulation of the current, creating a varying electric current that reproduces the varying pressure of the sound wave.
Up to that point, microphones, such as the ones developed by Johann Philipp Reis and Alexander Graham Bell, worked by generating a weak current. The carbon microphone works by modulating a direct current and, subsequently, using a transformer to transfer the signal so generated to the telephone line. Edison was one of many inventors working on the problem of creating a usable microphone for telephony by having it modulate an electric current passed through it.[46] His work was concurrent with Emile Berliner's loose-contact carbon transmitter (who lost a later patent case against Edison over the carbon transmitter's invention[47]) and David Edward Hughes study and published paper on the physics of loose-contact carbon transmitters (work that Hughes did not bother to patent).[46][48]
Edison used the carbon microphone concept in 1877 to create an improved telephone for
Electric light
In 1878, Edison began working on a system of electrical illumination, something he hoped could compete with gas and oil-based lighting.[49] He began by tackling the problem of creating a long-lasting incandescent lamp, something that would be needed for indoor use. However, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb.[50] In 1840, British scientist Warren de la Rue developed an efficient light bulb using a coiled platinum filament but the high cost of platinum kept the bulb from becoming a commercial success.[51] Many other inventors had also devised incandescent lamps, including Alessandro Volta's demonstration of a glowing wire in 1800 and inventions by Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. Others who developed early and commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer,[52] William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan, and Heinrich Göbel.
These early bulbs all had flaws such as an extremely short life and requiring a high electric current to operate which made them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially.[53]: 217–218 In his first attempts to solve these problems, Edison tried using a filament made of cardboard, carbonized with compressed lampblack. This burnt out too quickly to provide lasting light. He then experimented with different grasses and canes such as hemp, and palmetto, before settling on bamboo as the best filament.[54] Edison continued trying to improve this design and on November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires".[55]
The patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways".
In 1878, Edison formed the
Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, attended Edison's 1879 demonstration. Villard was impressed and requested Edison install his electric lighting system aboard Villard's company's new steamer, the Columbia. Although hesitant at first, Edison agreed to Villard's request. Most of the work was completed in May 1880, and the Columbia went to New York City, where Edison and his personnel installed Columbia's new lighting system. The Columbia was Edison's first commercial application for his incandescent light bulb. The Edison equipment was removed from Columbia in 1895.[59][60][61][62]
In 1880,
On October 8, 1883, the
The incandescent light bulb patented by Edison also began to gain widespread popularity in Europe as well.
In 1901 Edison attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. His company, the Edison Manufacturing Company, was given the task of installing the electric lights on the various buildings and structures that were built for the exposition. At night Edison made a panorama photograph of the illuminated buildings.[70]
Electric power distribution
After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison developed an electric "
Eight months earlier in January 1882, to demonstrate feasibility, Edison had switched on the 93 kW first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. This was a smaller 110 V DC supply system, eventually supplying 3,000 street lights and a number of nearby private dwellings, but was shut down in September 1886 as uneconomic, since he was unable to extend the premises.
On January 19, 1883, the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing
War of currents
As Edison expanded his
Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous. As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886, Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating, "Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size. He has got a new thing and it will require a great deal of experimenting to get it working practically."[76] Many reasons have been suggested for Edison's anti-AC stance. One notion is that the inventor could not grasp the more abstract theories behind AC and was trying to avoid developing a system he did not understand. Edison also appeared to have been worried about the high voltage from misinstalled AC systems killing customers and hurting the sales of electric power systems in general.[77] The primary reason was that Edison Electric based their design on low voltage DC, and switching a standard after they had installed over 100 systems was, in Edison's mind, out of the question. By the end of 1887, Edison Electric was losing market share to Westinghouse, who had built 68 AC-based power stations to Edison's 121 DC-based stations. To make matters worse for Edison, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts (another AC-based competitor) built 22 power stations.[78]
Parallel to expanding competition between Edison and the AC companies was rising public furor over a series of deaths in the spring of 1888 caused by pole mounted high voltage alternating current lines. This turned into a media frenzy against high voltage alternating current and the seemingly greedy and callous lighting companies that used it.[79][80] Edison took advantage of the public perception of AC as dangerous, and joined with self-styled New York anti-AC crusader Harold P. Brown in a propaganda campaign, aiding Brown in the public electrocution of animals with AC, and supported legislation to control and severely limit AC installations and voltages (to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system) in what was now being referred to as a "war of the currents".[81] The development of the electric chair was used in an attempt to portray AC as having a greater lethal potential than DC and smear Westinghouse, via Edison colluding with Brown and Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to ensure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator.[82]
Edison was becoming marginalized in his own company having lost majority control in the 1889 merger that formed Edison General Electric.
West Orange and Fort Myers (1886–1931)
Edison moved from Menlo Park after the death of his first wife, Mary, in 1884, and purchased a home known as "
Due to the security concerns around World War I, Edison suggested forming a science and industry committee to provide advice and research to the US military, and he headed the Naval Consulting Board in 1915.[91]
Edison became concerned with America's reliance on foreign supply of rubber and was determined to find a native supply of rubber. Edison's work on rubber took place largely at his research laboratory in Fort Myers, which has been designated as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.[92]
The laboratory was built after Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey S. Firestone pulled together $75,000 to form the Edison Botanical Research Corporation. Initially, only Ford and Firestone were to contribute funds to the project, while Edison did all the research. Edison, however, wished to contribute $25,000 as well. Edison did the majority of the research and planting, sending results and sample rubber residues to his West Orange Lab. Edison employed a two-part
During the 1911 New York Electrical show, Edison told representatives of the copper industry it was a shame he did not have a "chunk of it". The representatives decided to give a cubic foot of solid copper weighing 486 pounds with their gratitude inscribed on it in appreciation for his part in the "continuous stimulation in the copper industry".[95][96][97]
Other inventions and projects
Fluoroscopy
Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available
The fundamental design of Edison's fluoroscope is still in use today, although Edison abandoned the project after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously injuring his assistant, Clarence Dally. Dally made himself an enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopy project and was exposed to a poisonous dose of radiation; he later died (at the age of 39) of injuries related to the exposure, including mediastinal cancer.[98]
In 1903, a shaken Edison said: "Don't talk to me about X-rays, I am afraid of them."[99] Nonetheless, his work was important in the development of a technology still used today.[100]
Tasimeter
Edison invented a highly sensitive device, that he named the
Telegraph improvements
The key to Edison's initial reputation and success was his work in the field of telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This, together with his studies in chemistry at the Cooper Union, allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system.[18][19] His innovations also included the development of the quadruplex, the first system which could simultaneously transmit four messages through a single wire.[102]
Motion pictures
Edison was granted a patent for a motion picture camera, labeled the "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical design while his employee William Kennedy Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson.[53] In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.[104]
In April 1896, Thomas Armat's Vitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. Later, he exhibited motion pictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings, mechanically synchronized with the film.
Officially the kinetoscope entered Europe when wealthy American businessman Irving T. Bush (1869–1948) bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Frank Z. Maguire and Joseph D. Baucus a dozen machines. Bush placed from October 17, 1894, the first kinetoscopes in London. At the same time, the French company Kinétoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Werner bought these machines for the market in France. In the last three months of 1894, the Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe (i.e. the Netherlands and Italy). In Germany and in Austria-Hungary, the kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche-österreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck[105] of the Schokoladen-Süsswarenfabrik Stollwerck & Co of Cologne.
The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the
Edison's film studio made nearly 1,200 films. The majority of the productions were short films showing everything from acrobats to parades to fire calls including titles such as Fred Ott's Sneeze (1894), The Kiss (1896), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910), and the first Frankenstein film in 1910. In 1903, when the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island announced they would execute Topsy the elephant by strangulation, poisoning, and electrocution (with the electrocution part ultimately killing the elephant), Edison Manufacturing sent a crew to film it, releasing it that same year with the title Electrocuting an Elephant.
As the film business expanded, competing exhibitors routinely copied and exhibited each other's films.
In 1908, Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, which was founded in 1929.
Edison said his favorite movie was
Mining
Starting in the late 1870s, Edison became interested and involved with mining. High-grade iron ore was scarce on the east coast of the United States and Edison tried to mine low-grade ore. Edison developed a process using rollers and crushers that could pulverize rocks up to 10 tons. The dust was then sent between three giant magnets that would pull the iron ore from the dust. Despite the failure of his mining company, the Edison Ore Milling Company, Edison used some of the materials and equipment to produce cement.[111]
In 1901, Edison visited an industrial exhibition in the
Rechargeable battery
In the late 1890s, Edison worked on developing a lighter, more efficient
Edison obtained a US and European patent for his nickel–iron battery in 1901 and founded the Edison Storage Battery Company, and by 1904 it had 450 people working there. The first rechargeable batteries they produced were for electric cars, but there were many defects, with customers complaining about the product. When the capital of the company was exhausted, Edison paid for the company with his private money. Edison did not demonstrate a mature product until 1910: a very efficient and durable nickel-iron-battery with lye as the electrolyte. The nickel–iron battery was never very successful; by the time it was ready, electric cars were disappearing, and lead acid batteries had become the standard for turning over gas-powered car starter motors.[114]
Chemicals
At the start of World War I, the American chemical industry was primitive: most chemicals were imported from Europe. The outbreak of war in August 1914 resulted in a shortage of imported chemicals. One of particular importance to Edison was
At the time, phenol came from coal as a by-product of
Edison responded by undertaking production of phenol at his Silver Lake facility using processes developed by his chemists.
Phenol was a critical material because two derivatives were in high growth phases. Bakelite, the original
Bayer relied on Chemische Fabrik von Heyden, in Piscataway, New Jersey, to convert phenol to salicylic acid, which they converted to aspirin. It is said that German companies bought up supplies of phenol to block production of ammonium picrate. Edison preferred not to sell phenol for military uses. He sold his surplus to Bayer, who had it converted to salicylic acid by Heyden, some of which was exported.[117][115]
Spirit Phone
In 1920, Edison spoke to
Final years
In 1928, Edison joined the Fort Myers Civitan Club. He believed strongly in the organization, writing that "The Civitan Club is doing things—big things—for the community, state, and nation, and I certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks."[120] He was an active member in the club until his death, sometimes bringing Henry Ford to the club's meetings.
Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before his death, the
This fleet of cars would serve commuters in North Jersey for the next 54 years until their retirement in 1984. A plaque commemorating Edison's inaugural ride can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, which is presently operated by NJ Transit.[121]
Edison was said to have been influenced by a popular
Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, he was reportedly shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles.[123]
Death
Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931, in his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina. Rev. Stephen J. Herben officiated at the funeral;[124] Edison is buried behind the home.[125][126]
Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento.[127] A plaster death mask and casts of Edison's hands were also made.[128] Mina died in 1947.
Marriages and children
On December 25, 1871, at the age of 24, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855–1884), whom he had met two months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops. They had three children:
- Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965), nicknamed "Dot"[129]
- Thomas Alva Edison Jr. (1876–1935), nicknamed "Dash"[130]
- William Leslie Edison (1878–1937) Inventor, graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 1900.[131]
Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, of unknown causes: possibly from a
Edison generally preferred spending time in the laboratory to being with his family.[40]
On February 24, 1886, at the age of 39, Edison married the 20-year-old Mina Miller (1865–1947) in
- Madeleine Edison (1888–1979), who married John Eyre Sloane.[135][136]
- Charles Edison (1890–1969), Governor of New Jersey (1941–1944), who took over his father's company and experimental laboratories upon his father's death.[137]
- Theodore Miller Edison (1898–1992), (MIT Physics 1923), credited with more than 80 patents.
Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.[138][139]
Wanting to be an inventor, but not having much of an aptitude for it, Thomas Edison's son, Thomas Alva Edison Jr., became a problem for his father and his father's business. Starting in the 1890s, Thomas Jr. became involved in snake oil products and shady and fraudulent enterprises producing products being sold to the public as "The Latest Edison Discovery". The situation became so bad that Thomas Sr. had to take his son to court to stop the practices, finally agreeing to pay Thomas Jr. an allowance of $35 (equivalent to $1,187 in 2023)[140] per week, in exchange for not using the Edison name; the son began using aliases, such as Burton Willard. Thomas Jr., experiencing alcoholism, depression and ill health, worked at several menial jobs, but by 1931 (towards the end of his life) he would obtain a role in the Edison company, thanks to the intervention of his half-brother Charles.[141][142]
Views
On religion and metaphysics
Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a "
Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me—the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love—He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us—nature did it all—not the gods of the religions.[145]
Edison was labeled an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter:
You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made.[53]
He also stated, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."
On politics
Edison was a supporter of
Edison was an advocate for monetary reform in the United States. He was ardently opposed to the gold standard and debt-based money. Famously, he was quoted in the New York Times as stating: "Gold is a relic of Julius Caesar, and interest is an invention of Satan."[154] In the same article, he expounded upon the absurdity of a monetary system in which the taxpayer of the United States, in need of a loan, can be compelled to pay in return perhaps double the principal, or even greater sums, due to interest. Edison argued that, if the government can produce debt-based money, it could equally as well produce money that was a credit to the taxpayer.[154]
In May 1922, he published a proposal, entitled "A Proposed Amendment to the Federal Reserve Banking System".[155] In it, he detailed an explanation of a commodity-backed currency, in which the Federal Reserve would issue interest-free currency to farmers, based on the value of commodities they produced. During a publicity tour that he took with friend and fellow inventor, Henry Ford, he spoke publicly about his desire for monetary reform. For insight, he corresponded with prominent academic and banking professionals. In the end, however, Edison's proposals failed to find support and were abandoned.[156][157]
Awards
The following is an incomplete list of awards given to Edison during his lifetime and posthumously:
- In 1878, Edison was awarded an honorary PhD from Union College[158]
- The
- In 1887, Edison won the Matteucci Medal. In 1890, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
- In 1927, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.[161]
- The Philadelphia City Council named Edison the recipient of the John Scott Medal in 1889.[160]
- In 1899, Edison was awarded the The Franklin Institute.[162]
- He was named an Honorable Consulting Engineer at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's fair in 1904.[160]
- In 1908, Edison received the American Association of Engineering Societies John Fritz Medal.[160]
- In 1915, Edison was awarded The Franklin Institute for discoveries contributing to the foundation of industries and the well-being of the human race.[163]
- In 1920, the United States Navy department awarded him the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.[160]
- In 1923, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers created the Edison Medal and he was its first recipient.[160]
- In 1927, he was granted membership in the National Academy of Sciences.[160]
- On May 29, 1928, Edison received the Congressional Gold Medal.[160]
- In 1983, the Inventor's Day.[164]
- light bulb he promoted "lit up the world". In the 2005 television series The Greatest American, he was voted by viewers as the fifteenth greatest.
- In 2008, Edison was inducted in the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
- In 2010, Edison was honored with a Technical Grammy Award.
- In 2011, Edison was inducted into the Great Floridian by the governor and cabinet of Florida.[165]
Commemorations and popular culture
Thomas Edison has been honored twice with two different U.S. postage stamps. The first was released in 1929 at Menlo Park, NJ, two years before his death; a 2-cent red, on the 50th anniversary of his invention of the incandescent light, and again in 1947, 3-cent violet, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, first released in Milan, Ohio, his place of birth.[166][167]
Edison has also appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, television shows, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon, and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. Edison is also portrayed in popular culture as an adversary of Nikola Tesla.[168]
People who worked for Edison
The following is a list of people who worked for Thomas Edison in his laboratories at Menlo Park or West Orange or at the subsidiary electrical businesses that he supervised.
- Edward Goodrich Acheson – chemist, worked at Menlo Park 1880–1884
- William Symes Andrews – started at the Menlo Park machine shop 1879
- Charles Batchelor – "chief experimental assistant"
- John I. Beggs – manager of Edison Illuminating Company in New York, 1886
- William Kennedy Dickson – joined Menlo Park in 1883, worked on the motion picture camera
- Justus B. Entz – joined Edison Machine Works in 1887
- Reginald Fessenden – worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1886
- Henry Ford – engineer Edison Illuminating Company Detroit, Michigan, 1891–1899
- William Joseph Hammer – started as laboratory assistant Menlo Park in 1879
- Miller Reese Hutchison – inventor of hearing aid
- Edward Hibberd Johnson – started in 1909, chief engineer at West Orange laboratory 1912–1918
- Samuel Insull – started in 1881, rose to become VP of General Electric (1892) then President of Chicago Edison
- Kunihiko Iwadare – joined Edison Machine Works in 1887
- Francis Jehl – laboratory assistant Menlo Park 1879–1882
- Arthur E. Kennelly – engineer, experimentalist at West Orange laboratory 1887–1894
- John Kruesi – started 1872, was head machinist, at Newark, Menlo Park, Edison Machine Works
- Lewis Howard Latimer – hired 1884 as a draftsman, continued working for General Electric
- John W. Lieb – worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1881
- Thomas Commerford Martin – electrical engineer, worked at Menlo Park 1877–1879
- George F. Morrison – started at Edison Lamp Works 1882
- Edwin Stanton Porter – joined the Edison Manufacturing Company1899
- Frank J. Sprague – joined Menlo Park 1883, became known as the "Father of Electric Traction".
- Nikola Tesla – electrical engineer and inventor, worked at the Edison Machine Works in 1884
- Francis Robbins Upton – mathematician/physicist, joined Menlo Park 1878
- Theo Wangemann– personal assistant to Edison
See also
- Edison Pioneers – a group formed in 1918 by employees and other associates of Thomas Edison
- Thomas Alva Edison Birthplace
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West Orange, New Jersey, Sunday, October 18, 1931. Thomas Alva Edison died at 3:24 o'clock this morning at his home, Glenmont, in the Llewellyn Park section of this city. The great inventor, the fruits of whose genius so magically transformed the everyday world, was 84 years and 8 months old.
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Bibliography
- Albion, Michele Wehrwein. (2008). The Florida Life of Thomas Edison. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-3259-7.
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External links
External videos | |
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Booknotes interview with Neil Baldwin on Edison: Inventing the Century, March 19, 1995, C-SPAN | |
Booknotes interview with Jill Jonnes on Empires of Light, October 26, 2003, C-SPAN |
- "An Hour with Edison", Scientific American, July 13, 1878, p. 17
- Interview with Thomas Edison in 1931
- The Diary of Thomas Edison
- Works by Thomas Edison at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Thomas Edison at Internet Archive
- Edison's patent application for the light bulb at the National Archives.
- Thomas Edison Personal Manuscripts and Letters
- Edison Papers Rutgers.
- Edisonian Museum Antique Electrics
- Thomas Edison at IMDb