50 Interesting Facts About Thomas Alva Edison

World’s Greatest Scientists/Inventors

One of the greatest inventors of all-time is Thomas Edison. He is well-remembered for the hundreds of inventions he made.

Here’s a long list of important and interesting things about this great inventor.

1.) Thomas Edison is an American inventor and is one of the greatest inventors of all time.

2.) He was born in Milan, Ohio, USA on February 11, 1847. He died on October 18 1933 at the age of 86.

3.) Thomas Alva Edison is of Dutch and British ancestry.

4.) Edison attended school for 3 months only in Port Huron, Michigan. This was his only formal public education.

5.) His mother continued his education, teaching him reading, writing, and arithmetic. She also read to him from well-known English writers, such as Edward Gibbon, William Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens.

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6.) When he was 12, his job was selling newspapers, apples, and candy on the Detroit and Port Huron branch of the Grand Trunk Railroad.

7.) Edison was partly deaf possibly due to a childhood attack of scarlet fever.

8.) Although he considered his partial deafness almost an asset, particularly when he wanted to concentrate on an experiment, he mentioned in his diary that he haven't heard a bird sing since he was 12 years old.

9.) At 15, he bought a small secondhand printing press and installed it in a baggage car and started producing the “Weekly Herald”, which he printed, edited, and sold on the Grand Trunk Railroad.

10.) In 1862, Edison saved a 3-year-old boy from being run over by a boxcar. The boy was the son of the stationmaster in Mount Clemens, Michigan.

11.) In gratitude, the stationmaster offered to teach Edison how to operate the telegraph gladly accepted the offer.

12.) Within 5 months he learned to send and receive dispatches and for the next 4 years he traveled thousands of miles as a telegrapher.

13.) Edison spent most of his salary on various laboratory and electrical instruments, which he would take apart and rebuild.

14.) In 1871, Edison met his first wife, Mary Stilwell, and married her on Christmas Day of that year.

15.) Mary and Thomas had a daughter, Marion (1873), and two sons, Thomas, Jr. (1876) and William (1878)

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16.) His second wife was Mina Miller, the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer. They were married in February 1886 and had daughter, Madeleine (1888) and two sons, Charles (1890) and Theodore (1898).

17.) Because of his work, Edison spent little time with his family and avoided socialization.

18.) Oftentimes, he wore dirty shirts and shabby working clothes. Nevertheless, his associates describe him a humorous type of person and had a genuine affection for his family.

19.) He would sleep for 4 hours only in a day and would work for 72 hours especially when an experiment is about to be completed.

20.) Edison's most famous statement: “'Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”.

21.) Edison was a dedicated inventor who worked at an early age and continued to work right up until his death.

22.) This prolific inventor was well known for his focus and determination and patented over 1,000 inventions.

23.) Among his most important inventions were the electric light, the phonograph, and the motion-picture camera.

24.) The period from 1879 to 1900 is called the Age of Edison. This span of time is the period when Edison produced and perfected most of his devices.

25.) Edison was already knowledgeable about electricity and telegraphy as a teenager.

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26.) When he was 21 years of age, he developed a telegraphic vote-recording machine. This was the first of his inventions to be patented.

27.) In 1869, Edison’s second patented work was an improved version of a fully automatic stock ticker, which printed stock market quotations and gold prices on a paper tape.

28.) The first invention that brought him money was another improvement on the stock ticker. He received $40,000 for this invention. That amount is worth $530,000 in 2000.

29.) Edison and a business partner used this amount in establishing a machine shop and manufactured his improved stock ticker.

30.) He would usually spend up to 18 hours a day in his workshop in Newark, New Jersey.

31.) One of Edison’s significant inventions was the quadruplex, a highly efficient telegraph that could send four messages at a time over a telegraph wire.

32.) In 1876, Edison established a laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, the world’s first laboratory dedicated to industrial research.

33.) Within ten years people throughout the world knew of Edison as the Wizard of Menlo Park.

34.) Edison improved the telephone which was invented by Alexander Graham Bell to such an extent that it could carry speech clearly over almost unlimited distances.

35.) In March 1878, Edison's telephone system connected New York City to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a distance of 172 km.

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36.) One of Edison’s most original and most important invention is the phonograph which was patented in February 1878.

37.) The incandescent lamp is another significant invention by Edison. It was the first practical electric bulb because it used a small current and lasted a long time without burning out.

38.) By 1881 Edison had set up a complete electric lighting system at his Menlo Park home.

39.) In 1882 at Holborn Viaduct in London, the Edison Electric Lighting Company completed and began operating the world’s first commercial generating station for incandescent lighting.

40.) This so-called Edison effect, which he discovered, became the foundation of all modern electronics. Radio, television, radar, and computers all depend on it.

41.) His first wife, Mary, died of typhoid fever in 1884. He was greatly affected that he rarely returned to his laboratories at Menlo Park.

42.) In 1886, Edison married his second wife and bought Glenmont, a large country estate in West Orange, New Jersey, where he established a new laboratory.

43.) Glenmont and the laboratory are preserved as part of the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange and are open to the public.

44.) Edison also invented the first motion-picture camera in 1890. This machine was the prototype of all modern motion-picture cameras.

45.) In 1893 Edison constructed the first motion-picture studio. This structure was 15.2 meters in length.

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46.) He invented also an improved electrical storage battery where he had spent eight years and a million dollars. This battery was widely used in electric cars and even to power submarines.

47.) American businessman Henry Ford spent several million dollars to erect a museum of industry in Dearborn, Michigan. The museum consisted largely of a collection of Edison's inventions.

48.)  In 1881, Edison was awarded the French Legion of Honor for developing electric power distribution systems.

49.) Edison received awards from the governments of Chile, Britain, Japan, Russia, and many other nations.

50.) In 1889, Italy made him a Grand Officer of the Crown.

See also

35 InterestingFacts About Alexander Graham Bell