Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison

"Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Thomas Alva Edison, Harper's Monthly (September 1932)
Born

Thomas Alva Edison

February 11, 1847
Milan, Ohio, U.S.

Died

October 18, 1931 (aged84)

West Orange, New Jersey, U.S.

Nationality

American

Education

School dropout

Occupation

Inventor, businessman

Religion

Deist

Spouse

Mary Stilwell (m.18711884)

Mina Miller (m.18861931)

Children

Marion Estelle Edison (18731965)

Thomas Alva Edison Jr. (18761935)
William Leslie Edison (18781937)
Madeleine Edison (18881979)
Charles Edison (18901969)
Theodore Miller Edison (18981992)

Parents

Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr.

(18041896)
Nancy Matthews Elliott (18101871)

Relatives

Lewis Miller (father-in-law)

Signature

Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 October 18, 1931)

was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many
devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the
phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting,
practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park"
(now Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, he was one of
the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and
large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of
that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial
research laboratory.[1]
Edison is the fourth most prolific inventor in history, holding
1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the
United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with
numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and,
in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a
mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical
power, recorded music and motion pictures.

Edison as a boy

His advanced work in these fields was an outgrowth of his early career as a telegraph operator. Edison originated the
concept and implementation of electric-power generation and distribution to homes, businesses, and factories a
crucial development in the modern industrialized world. His first power station was on Manhattan Island, New York.

Early life
Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of
Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (180496, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, Canada) and Nancy Matthews Elliott
(18101871, born in Chenango County, New York).[2] His father had to escape from Canada because he took part in
the unsuccessful Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837. Edison reported being of Dutch ancestry.[3]
In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered, and his teacher, the Reverend Engle, was overheard calling him
"addled". This ended Edison's three months of official schooling. Edison recalled later, "My mother was the making
of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint." His
mother taught him at home.[4] Much of his education came from reading R.G. Parker's School of Natural Philosophy
and The Cooper Union.
Edison developed hearing problems at an early age. The cause of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet
fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle-ear infections. Around the middle of his career, Edison
attributed the hearing impairment to being struck on the ears by a train conductor when his chemical laboratory in a
boxcar caught fire and he was thrown off the train in Smiths Creek, Michigan, along with his apparatus and
chemicals. In his later years, he modified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in helping him
onto a moving train, lifted him by the ears.[5][6]
Edison's family moved to Port Huron, Michigan after the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854 and business declined;[7]
his life there was bittersweet. He sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit, and he
sold vegetables to supplement his income. He also studied qualitative analysis, and conducted chemical experiments
on the train until an accident prohibited further work of the kind.[8]
He 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.[8] This began Edison's long streak of
entrepreneurial ventures, as he discovered his talents as a businessman. These talents eventually led him to found 14
companies, including General Electric, which is still one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.[9][10]

Thomas Edison

Telegrapher
Edison became a telegraph operator after he saved three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a
runaway train. Jimmie's father, station agent J.U. MacKenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he
trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison's first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction,
Ontario, on the Grand Trunk Railway.[11]
In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where, as an employee of Western Union, he
worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift, which allowed him plenty of time
to spend at his two favorite pastimesreading and experimenting. Eventually, the latter pre-occupation cost him his
job. One night in 1867, he was working with a leadacid battery when he spilled sulfuric acid onto the floor. It ran
between the floorboards and onto his boss's desk below. The next morning Edison was fired.[12]
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. Some of
Edison's earliest inventions were related to telegraphy, including a stock ticker. His first patent was for the electric
vote recorder, (U.S. Patent 90,646),[13] which was granted on June 1, 1869.[14]

Marriages and children

On December 25, 1871, 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 (18731965), nicknamed "Dot"[15]
Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. (18761935), nicknamed "Dash"[16]
William Leslie Edison (18781937) Inventor, graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 1900.[17]
Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, of unknown causes: possibly from a brain tumor[18] or a morphine
overdose. Doctors frequently prescribed morphine to women in those years to treat a variety of causes, and
researchers believe that some of her symptoms sounded as if they were associated with morphine poisoning.[19]
On February 24, 1886, at the age of thirty-nine, Edison married the
20-year-old Mina Miller (1866-1947) in Akron, Ohio.[20] She was the
daughter of the inventor Lewis Miller, co-founder of the Chautauqua
Institution and a benefactor of Methodist charities. They also had three
children together:
Madeleine Edison (18881979), who married John Eyre
Sloane.[21][22]
Charles Edison (18901969), who took over the company upon his
father's death and who later was elected Governor of New
Jersey.[23] He also took charge of his father's experimental
laboratories in West Orange.
Theodore Edison (18981992), (MIT Physics 1923), credited with
more than 80 patents.
Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.[24][25]

Mina Edison in 1906

Thomas Edison

Beginning his career

Thomas 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 notice was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment
was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison
became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey.
His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder, but had poor
sound quality and the recordings could be played only a few times. In the 1880s,
a redesigned model using wax-coated cardboard cylinders was produced by
Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter. This was one
reason that Thomas Edison continued work on his own "Perfected Phonograph."
Photograph of Edison with his
phonograph (2nd model), taken in
Mathew Brady's Washington, DC
studio in April 1878.

Menlo Park (18761881)

Edison's major innovation was the first industrial
research lab, which was built in Menlo Park, New
Jersey. It was built 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, ($202,000 USD 2010)
which he gratefully accepted.
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's Menlo Park Laboratory, removed to Greenfield Village at
Henry
Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. (Note the organ against
Edison was legally attributed with most of the
the back wall)
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.
William Joseph Hammer, a consulting electrical engineer, began his duties as a laboratory assistant to Edison in
December 1879. He assisted in experiments on the telephone, phonograph, electric railway, iron ore separator,
electric lighting, and other developing inventions. However, Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric
lamp and was put in charge of tests and records on that device. In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer of the
Edison Lamp Works. In his first year, the plant under General Manager Francis Robbins Upton turned out 50,000
lamps. According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer of incandescent electric lighting".

Thomas Edison

Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, which were

protected for a 17-year period 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 a
14-year period. As in most patents, the inventions he described were
improvements over prior art. The phonograph patent, in contrast, was
unprecedented as describing the first device to record and reproduce
sounds.[26]
Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented
the first commercially practical incandescent light. Many earlier
inventors had previously devised incandescent lamps, including Henry
Woodward and Mathew Evans. Others who developed early and
commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included
Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer,[27]
William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan and Heinrich Gbel. Some of these
early bulbs had such flaws as an extremely short life, high expense to
produce, and high electric current drawn, making them difficult to
apply on a large scale commercially.[28]

Thomas Edison's first successful light bulb

model, used in public demonstration at Menlo
Park, December 1879

In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to the element of glowing

wire carrying the current, although the English inventor Joseph Swan
had used the term prior to this. Swan developed an incandescent light with a long lasting filament at about the same
time as Edison, as Swan's earlier bulbs lacked the high resistance needed to be an effective part of an electrical
utility. Edison and his co-workers set about the task of creating longer-lasting bulbs. In Britain, Joseph Swan had
been able to obtain a patent on the incandescent lamp; though Edison had already been making successful lamps for
some time, his patent application was incompletely prepared and failed.[28]
Unable to raise the required capital in Britain because of this, Edison was forced to enter into a joint venture with
Swan (known as Ediswan). Swan acknowledged that Edison had anticipated him, saying "Edison is entitled to more
than I ... he has seen further into this subject, vastly than I, and foreseen and provided for details that I did not
comprehend until I saw his system".[29]
By 1879, Edison had produced a new concept: a high resistance lamp in a very high vacuum, which would burn for
hundreds of hours. While the earlier inventors had produced electric lighting in laboratory conditions, dating back to
a demonstration of a glowing wire by Alessandro Volta in 1800, Edison concentrated on commercial application,
and was able to sell the concept to homes and businesses by mass-producing relatively long-lasting light bulbs and
creating a complete system for the generation and distribution of electricity.
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". 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.[30]
Over his desk, Edison displayed a placard with Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous quotation: "There is no expedient to
which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."[31] This slogan was reputedly posted at several other
locations throughout the facility.
With Menlo Park, Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then
controlling its application.

Thomas Edison

Carbon telephone transmitter

In 187778, Edison invented and developed the carbon microphone used in all telephones along with the Bell
receiver until the 1980s. After protracted patent litigation, in 1892 a federal court ruled that Edison and not Emile
Berliner was the inventor of the carbon microphone. The carbon microphone was also used in radio broadcasting and
public address work through the 1920s.

Electric light
Building on the contributions of other developers over the
previous three quarters of a century, Edison made improvements
to the idea of incandescent light, and entered the public
consciousness as "the inventor" of the lightbulb, and a prime
mover in developing the necessary infrastructure for electric
power.
After many experiments with platinum and other metal filaments,
Edison returned to a carbon filament. The first successful test was
on October 22, 1879;[32] it lasted 13.5 hours.[33] Edison continued
to improve this design and by 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".[34]
Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon
filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers
coiled in various ways",[34] it was not until several months after
the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered a
carbonized bamboo filament that could last over 1,200hours. The
Edison in 1878
idea of using this particular raw material originated from Edison's
recalling his examination of a few threads from a bamboo fishing
pole while relaxing on the shore of Battle Lake in the present-day state of Wyoming, where he and other members of
a scientific team had traveled so that they could clearly observe a total eclipse of the sun on July 29, 1878, from the
Continental Divide.[35]

Thomas Edison

In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in

New York City with several financiers, including J. P.
Morgan and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison
made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light
bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. It was during this
time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only
the rich will burn candles."[36]
Lewis Latimer joined the Edison Electric Light Company in
1884. Latimer had received a patent in January 1881 for the
"Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for
the production of carbon filaments for lightbulbs. Latimer
worked as an engineer, a draftsman and an expert witness in
patent litigation on electric lights.[37]
George Westinghouse's company bought Philip Diehl's
competing induction lamp patent rights (1882) for $25,000,
forcing the holders of the Edison patent to charge a more
reasonable rate for the use of the Edison patent rights and
lowering the price of the electric lamp.[38]
On October 8, 1883, the US patent office ruled that Edison's
U.S. Patent#223898: Electric-Lamp. Issued January 27,
patent was based on the work of William Sawyer and was
1880.
therefore invalid. Litigation continued for nearly six years,
until October 6, 1889, when a judge ruled that Edison's
electric-light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. To avoid a possible court
battle with Joseph Swan, whose British patent had been awarded a year before Edison's, he and Swan formed a joint
company called Ediswan to manufacture and market the invention in Britain.
Mahen Theatre in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic) was the first public building in the world to use Edison's
electric lamps, with the installation supervised by Edison's assistant in the invention of the lamp, Francis Jehl.[39] In
September 2010, a sculpture of three giant light bulbs was erected in Brno, in front of the theatre.[40]

Electric power distribution

Edison patented a system for electricity distribution in 1880, which was essential to capitalize on the invention of the
electric lamp. On December 17, 1880, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company. The company established
the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. It was on September 4, 1882,
that Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110
volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.[41]
Earlier in the year, in January 1882, he had switched on the first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct
in London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to street lamps and several private dwellings within a
short distance of the station. On January 19, 1883, the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system
employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey.

Thomas Edison

War of currents
Edison's true success, like that of his friend Henry
Ford, was in his ability to maximize profits through
establishment of mass-production systems and
intellectual property rights. George Westinghouse and
Edison became adversaries because of Edison's
promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power
distribution instead of the more easily transmitted
alternating current (AC) system invented by Nikola
Tesla and promoted by Westinghouse. Unlike DC, AC
could be stepped up to very high voltages with
transformers, sent over thinner and cheaper wires, and
stepped down again at the destination for distribution to
users.

Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of

public events, as in this picture from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial
Exposition.

In 1887, there were 121Edison power stations in the

United States delivering DC electricity to customers. When the limitations of DC were discussed by the public,
Edison launched a propaganda campaign to convince people that AC was far too dangerous to use. The problem with
DC was that the power plants could economically deliver DC electricity only to customers within about one and a
half miles (about 2.4km) from the generating station, so that it was suitable only for central business districts. When
George Westinghouse suggested using high-voltage AC instead, as it could carry electricity hundreds of miles with
marginal loss of power, Edison waged a "War of Currents" to prevent AC from being adopted.
The war against AC led him to become involved in the development and promotion of the electric chair (using AC)
as an attempt to portray AC to have greater lethal potential than DC. Edison went on to carry out a brief but intense
campaign to ban the use of AC or to limit the allowable voltage for safety purposes. As part of this campaign,
Edison's employees publicly electrocuted animals to demonstrate the dangers of AC;[42][43] alternating electric
currents are slightly more dangerous in that frequencies near 60Hz have a markedly greater potential for inducing
fatal "cardiac fibrillation" than do direct currents.[44] On one of the more notable occasions, in 1903, Edison's
workers electrocuted Topsy the elephant at Luna Park, near Coney Island, after she had killed several men and her
owners wanted her put to death.[45] His company filmed the electrocution.
AC replaced DC in most instances of generation and power distribution, enormously extending the range and
improving the efficiency of power distribution. Though widespread use of DC ultimately lost favor for distribution,
it exists today primarily in long-distance high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems. Low-voltage DC
distribution continued to be used in high-density downtown areas for many years but was eventually replaced by AC
low-voltage network distribution in many of them.[46]
DC had the advantage that large battery banks could maintain continuous power through brief interruptions of the
electric supply from generators and the transmission system. Utilities such as Commonwealth Edison in Chicago had
rotary converters or motor-generator sets, which could change DC to AC and AC to various frequencies in the early
to mid-20th century. Utilities supplied rectifiers to convert the low voltage AC to DC for such DC loads as elevators,
fans and pumps. There were still 1,600DC customers in downtown New York City as of 2005, and service was
finally discontinued only on November 14, 2007.[46] Most subway systems are still powered by direct current.

Thomas Edison

Fluoroscopy
Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available fluoroscope, a machine that uses
X-rays to take radiographs. Until Edison discovered that calcium tungstate fluoroscopy screens produced brighter
images than the barium platinocyanide screens originally used by Wilhelm Rntgen, the technology was capable of
producing only very faint images.
The fundamental design of Edison's fluoroscope is still in use today, although Edison himself abandoned the project
after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously injuring his assistant, Clarence Dally. Dally had made himself an
enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopy project and in the process been exposed to a poisonous dose of
radiation. He later died of injuries related to the exposure. In 1903, a shaken Edison said "Don't talk to me about
X-rays, I am afraid of them."[47]

Work relations
Frank J. Sprague, a competent mathematician and former naval officer,
was recruited by Edward H. Johnson and joined the Edison
organization in 1883. One of Sprague's contributions to the Edison
Laboratory at Menlo Park was to expand Edison's mathematical
methods. Despite the common belief that Edison did not use
mathematics, analysis of his notebooks reveal that he was an astute
user of mathematical analysis conducted by his assistants such as
Francis Robbins Upton, for example, determining the critical
parameters of his electric lighting system including lamp resistance by
an analysis of Ohm's Law, Joule's Law and economics.[48]
Another of Edison's assistants was Nikola Tesla. Tesla claimed that
Edison had promised him $50,000 if he succeeded in making
improvements to his DC generation plants. Several months later, when
Tesla had finished the work and asked to be paid, he said that Edison
replied, "When you become a full-fledged American you will
appreciate an American joke."[49]

Photograph of Thomas Edison by Victor

Daireaux, Paris, circa 1880s

Tesla immediately resigned. With Tesla's salary of $18 per week, the
payment would have amounted to over 53 years' pay and the amount
was equal to the initial capital of the company. Another account states that Tesla resigned when he was refused a
raise to $25 per week.[50]
Although Tesla accepted an Edison Medal later in life, this and other negative events concerning Edison remained
with him. The day after Edison died, the New York Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's life, with the
only negative opinion coming from Tesla who was quoted as saying:
He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most
elementary rules of hygiene. [...] His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be
covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his
doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90% of the labor. But he had a
veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's
instinct and practical American sense.[51]
Nikola Tesla
One of Edison's famous quotations about his attempts to make the light globe suggest that perhaps Tesla was right
about Edison's methods of working: "If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not
discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."[52]

Thomas Edison

10

When Edison was a very old man and close to death, he said, in looking back, that the biggest mistake he had made
was in not respecting Tesla or his work.[53]
There were 28 men recognized as Edison Pioneers.

Media inventions
The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator,
he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first
electricity-based broadcast system. Edison patented the sound recording and reproducing phonograph in 1878.
Edison was also granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical
design, while his employee W.K.L. Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development.
Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson.[32] 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.[54]
On August 9, 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. 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 the rich American
Businessman Irving T. Bush (18691948) 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
Kintoscope 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-sterreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by
the Ludwig Stollwerck[56] of the Schokoladen-Ssswarenfabrik
Stollwerck & Co of Cologne.

The June 1894 LeonardCushing bout. Each of

the six one-minute rounds recorded by the
Kinetoscope was made available to exhibitors for
[55]
$22.50.
Customers who watched the final
round saw Leonard score a knockdown.

The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early 1895. The Edison's Kintoscope Franais, a Belgian
company, was founded in Brussels on January 15, 1895, with the rights to sell the kinetoscopes in Monaco, France
and the French colonies. The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialists.[57]
On May 14, 1895, the Edison's Kintoscope Belge was founded in Brussels. The businessman Ladislas-Victor
Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiative in starting this business. He had
contacts with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. In 1898 he also became a shareholder
of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France.[57]
In 1901, he visited the Sudbury area in Ontario, Canada, as a mining prospector, and is credited with the original
discovery of the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to mine the ore body were not successful, however, and he
abandoned his mining claim in 1903.[58] A street in Falconbridge, as well as the Edison Building, which served as
the head office of Falconbridge Mines, are named for him.
In 1902, agents of Thomas Edison bribed a theater owner in London for a copy of A Trip to the Moon by Georges
Mlis. Edison then made hundreds of copies and showed them in New York City. Mlis received no
compensation. He was counting on taking the film to the US and recapture its huge cost by showing it throughout the
country when he realized it had already been shown there by Edison. This effectively bankrupted Mlis.[59]

Thomas Edison

11

Other exhibitors similarly routinely copied and exhibited each others' films.[60] To better protect the copyrights on
his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U.S. copyright office. Many
of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era.[61]
Edison's favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiled everything" for him. "There
isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it
more than you because I am deaf."[62] His favorite stars were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow.[63]
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.

West Orange and Fort Myers (18861931)

Edison moved from Menlo Park after the death of Mary Stilwell and
purchased a home known as "Glenmont" in 1886 as a wedding gift for
Mina in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1885, Thomas
Edison bought property in Fort Myers, Florida, and built what was later
called Seminole Lodge as a winter retreat. Edison and his wife Mina
spent many winters in Fort Myers where they recreated and Edison
tried to find a domestic source of natural rubber.
Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, later lived a few hundred feet
away from Edison at his winter retreat in Fort Myers, Florida. Edison
even contributed technology to the automobile. They were friends until
Edison's death.

Thomas A. Edison Industries Exhibit, Primary

Battery section, 1915

In 1928, Edison joined the Fort Myers Civitan Club. He believed

strongly in the organization, writing that "The Civitan Club is doing
thingsbig thingsfor the community, state, and nation, and I
certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks."[64] He was
an active member in the club until his death, sometimes bringing
Henry Ford to the club's meetings.

The final years

Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before
his death in 1931, the Lackawanna Railroad implemented electric
trains in suburban service from Hoboken to Gladstone, Montclair and
Dover in New Jersey. Transmission was by means of an overhead
catenary system, with the entire project under Edison's guidance. To
the surprise of many, he was at the throttle of the very first MU
(Multiple-Unit) train to depart Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken,
driving the train all the way to Dover.[65]

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey

Firestone, respectively. Ft. Myers, Florida,
February 11, 1929

As another tribute to his lasting legacy, the same fleet of cars Edison deployed on the Lackawanna in 1931 served
commuters until their retirement in 1984, when some of them were purchased by the Berkshire Scenic Railway
Museum in Lenox, Massachusetts. A special plaque commemorating the joint achievement of both the railway and
Edison can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, presently operated by New
Jersey Transit.[65]

Thomas Edison
Edison was said to have been influenced by a popular fad diet in his last few years; "the only liquid he consumed
was a pint of milk every three hours".[32] He is reported to have believed this diet would restore his health. However,
this tale is doubtful. In 1930, the year before Edison died, Mina said in an interview about him, "correct eating is one
of his greatest hobbies." She also said that during one of his periodic "great scientific adventures", Edison would be
up at 7:00, have breakfast at 8:00, and be rarely home for lunch or dinner, implying that he continued to have all
three.[62]
Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, he was shocked to find
his old home still lit by lamps and candles.
Thomas 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. He is buried behind the
home.[66][67]
Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at the Henry Ford Museum. Ford reportedly convinced
Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento. A plaster death
mask was also made.[68]
Mina died in 1947.

Views on politics, religion and metaphysics

Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a "freethinker".[32] Edison was heavily influenced by Thomas
Paine's The Age of Reason.[32] Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism", saying, "He has been called an atheist, but
atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express
by the name of deity."[32] In an October 2, 1910, interview in the New York Times Magazine, Edison stated:
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.[69]
Edison was called 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."[32]
Nonviolence was key to Edison's moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I, he
specified he would work only on defensive weapons and later noted, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented
weapons to kill." Edison's philosophy of nonviolence extended to animals as well, about which he stated:
"Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living
beings, we are still savages."[70] However, he is also notorious for having electrocuted a number of dogs in 1888,
both by direct and alternating current, in an attempt to argue that the former (which he had a vested business interest
in promoting) was safer than the latter (favored by his rival George Westinghouse).[71]
Edison's success in promoting direct current as less lethal also led to alternating current being used in the electric
chair adopted by New York in 1889 as a supposedly humane execution method. Because Westinghouse was angered
by the decision, he funded Eighth Amendment-based appeals for inmates set to die in the electric chair, ultimately
resulting in Edison providing the generators which powered early electrocutions and testifying successfully on behalf
of the state that electrocution was a painless method of execution.[72]

12

Thomas Edison

13

Tributes
Places and people named for Edison
Several places have been named after Edison, most notably the town of Edison, New Jersey. Thomas Edison State
College, a nationally known college for adult learners, is in Trenton, New Jersey. Two community colleges are
named for him: Edison State College in Fort Myers, Florida, and Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio.[73]
There are numerous high schools named after Edison; see Edison High School.
In 1883, the City Hotel in Sunbury, Pennsylvania was the first building to be lit with Edison's three-wire system. The
hotel was renamed The Hotel Edison upon Edison's return to the City on 1922. [74]
Edison was on hand to turn on the lights at the Hotel Edison in New York City when it opened in 1931.
Three bridges around the United States have been named in his honor (see Edison Bridge).
In space, his name is commemorated in asteroid 742 Edisona.
The Russian composer Edison Denisov, whose father was a radio-physicist, was named after the inventor.

Museums and memorials

In West Orange, New Jersey, the 13.5acre (5.5ha) Glenmont estate is
maintained and operated by the National Park Service as the Edison
National Historic Site.[75] The Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower
and Museum is in the town of Edison, New Jersey.[76] In Beaumont,
Texas, there is an Edison Museum, though Edison never visited there.
The Port Huron Museum, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the
original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young
newsbutcher. The depot has been named the Thomas Edison Depot
Museum.[77] The town has many Edison historical landmarks,
including the graves of Edison's parents, and a monument along the St.
Clair River. Edison's influence can be seen throughout this city of
32,000.
In Detroit, the Edison Memorial Fountain in Grand Circus Park was
created to honor his achievements. The limestone fountain was
dedicated October 21, 1929, the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of
the lightbulb.[78] On the same night, The Edison Institute was
dedicated in nearby Dearborn.

Statue of young Thomas Edison by the railroad

tracks in Port Huron, Michigan.

In early 2010, Edison was proposed by the Ohio Historical Society as a

finalist in a statewide vote for inclusion in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol.

Thomas Edison

14

Companies bearing Edison's name

Edison General Electric, merged with Thomson-Houston
Electric Company to form General Electric
Commonwealth Edison, now part of Exelon
Consolidated Edison
Edison International
Southern California Edison
Edison Mission Energy
Edison Capital
Detroit Edison, a unit of DTE Energy
Edison Sault Electric Company, a unit of Wisconsin Energy
Corporation
FirstEnergy
Metropolitan Edison
Ohio Edison
Toledo Edison
Edison S.p.A., a unit of Italenergia
Boston Edison, a unit of NSTAR, formerly known as the
Edison Electric Illuminating Company
WEEI radio station in Boston, established by the Edison
Electric Illuminating Company (hence the call letters)

In 1915

Trade association the Edison Electric Institute, a lobbying and research group for investor-owned utilities in the
United States
Edison Ore-Milling Company
Edison Portland Cement Company

Awards named in honor of Edison

The Edison Medal was created on February 11, 1904, by a group of Edison's friends and associates. Four years later
the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to
present the medal as its highest award. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu Thomson and, in a twist of
fate, was awarded to Nikola Tesla in 1917. It is the oldest award in the area of electrical and electronics engineering,
and is presented annually "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the
electrical arts."
In the Netherlands, the major music awards are named the Edison Award after him.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers concedes the Thomas A. Edison Patent Award to individual patents
since 2000.[79]

Thomas Edison

Honors and awards given to Edison

The President of the Third French Republic, Jules Grvy, on the recommendation of his Minister of Foreign Affairs
Jules Barthlemy-Saint-Hilaire and with the presentations of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Louis Cochery,
designated Edison with the distinction of an 'Officer of the Legion of Honour' (Lgion d'honneur) by decree on
November 10, 1881;[80] He also named a Chevalier in 1879, and a Commander in 1889.[81]
In 1887, Edison won the Matteucci Medal. In 1890, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences.
The Philadelphia City Council named Edison the recipient of the John Scott Medal in 1889.[81]
In 1899, Edison was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal of The Franklin Institute.[82]
He was named an Honorable Consulting Engineer at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's fair in 1904.[81]
In 1908, Edison received the American Association of Engineering Societies John Fritz Medal.[81]
Edison was awarded Franklin Medal of The Franklin Institute in 1915 for discoveries contributing to the foundation
of industries and the well-being of the human race.
The United States Navy department awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal in 1920.[81]
The American Institute of Electrical Engineers created the Edison Medal in 1923 and he was its first recipient.[81]
In 1927, he was granted membership in the National Academy of Sciences.[81]
On May 29, 1928, Edison received the Congressional Gold Medal.[81]
In 1983, the United States Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97198), designated
February 11, Edison's birthday, as National Inventor's Day.
Edison was ranked thirty-fifth on Michael H. Hart's 1978 book The 100, a list of the most influential figures in
history. Life magazine (USA), in a special double issue in 1997, placed Edison first in the list of the "100 Most
Important People in the Last 1000 Years", noting that the 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 Entrepreneur Walk of Fame, and named a Great Floridian by the Florida
Governor and Cabinet.[83]
On November 6, 1915, The New York Times announced that both Edison and Tesla were to jointly receive the 1915
Nobel Prize but it did not occur.[84] The details of what happened are not known but Tesla who had once worked for
Edison quit when he was promised a large bonus for solving a problem and then after being successful was told the
promise was a joke.[85] Tesla once said that if Edison had to find a needle in a haystack he would take apart the
haystack one straw at a time.[86] The Prize was awarded to Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg
"for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays".

Other items named after Edison

The United States Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor in 1940. The ship
was decommissioned a few months after the end of World War II. In 1962, the Navy commissioned USS Thomas A.
Edison (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine.
Decommissioned on December 1, 1983, Thomas A. Edison was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on April 30,
1986. She went through the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Bremerton,
Washington, beginning on October 1, 1996. When she finished the program on December 1, 1997, she ceased to
exist as a complete ship and was listed as scrapped.

15

Thomas Edison

In popular culture
Thomas Edison has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, 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. His history with Nikola Tesla has also provided dramatic tension and is a theme returned to numerous
times.
On February 11, 2011, on Thomas Edison's 164th birthday, Google's homepage featured an animated Google Doodle
commemorating his many inventions. When the cursor was hovered over the doodle, a series of mechanisms seemed
to move, causing a lightbulb to glow.[87]

Novel mentions
In Dos Passos' The 42nd Parallel, Thomas Edison is introduced as "The Electrical Wizard", a very handy and
intellectual person. In his lifetime he held many different jobs and created many patents and inventions.[88]

References
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in the following interview for the first time speaks to the public on the vital subjects of the human soul and immortality. It will be bound to be
a most fascinating, an amazing statement, from one of the most notable and interesting men of the age... 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."
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sell any AC generators directly to prison authorities. Thomas Edison and Harold Brown provided the AC generators needed for the first
working electric chairs. George Westinghouse funded the appeals for the first prisoners sentenced to death by electrocution, made on the
grounds that "electrocution was cruel and unusual punishment." Edison and Brown both testified for the state that execution was a quick and
painless form of death and the State of New York won the appeals."
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[80] NNDB online website (http:/ / www. nndb. com/ honors/ 139/ 000048992/ ). The same decree awarded German physicist Hermann von
Helmholtz with the designation of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, as well as Alexander Graham Bell. The decree preamble cited "for
services provided to the Congress and to the International Electrical Exhibition"
[81] Kennelly, Arthur E. (1932). Biographical Memoir of Thomas Alva Edison (http:/ / books. nap. edu/ html/ biomems/ tedison. pdf). National
Academy of Sciences. pp.300301. .
[82] "Franklin Laureate Database - Edward Longstreth Medal 1899 Laureates" (http:/ / www. fi. edu/ winners/ show_results. faw?gs=& ln=&
fn=& keyword=& subject=& award=LONG+ & sy=1898& ey=1900& name=Submit). Franklin Institute. . Retrieved November 18, 2011.
[83] "Great Floridian Program" (http:/ / www. flheritage. com/ preservation/ floridian/ index. cfm). . Retrieved 2 April 2012.
[84] "Edison and Tesla To Get Nobel Prizes - View Article - NYTimes.com" (http:/ / query. nytimes. com/ mem/ archive-free/
pdf?res=9F03E7D91239E333A25755C0A9679D946496D6CF). New York Times. 1915-11-06. . Retrieved 2011-12-11.
[85] "Nikola Tesla" (http:/ / www. u-s-history. com/ pages/ h1619. html). U-s-history.com. . Retrieved 2011-12-11.

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Thomas Edison
[86] ThinkExist.com Quotations. "Nikola Tesla quotes" (http:/ / thinkexist. com/ quotation/ if_edison_had_a_needle_to_find_in_a_haystack-he/
346294. html). Thinkexist.com. . Retrieved 2011-12-11.
[87] "Google Doodle: Feb 11, 2011 Thomas Edison's Birthday" (https:/ / www. google. com/ logos/ logos11-1. html#logo-2011edison11-hp). .
[88] Dos Passos, John. U.S.A. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1996. Print. U.S.A. Trilogy.

Bibliography
Albion, Michele Wehrwein. (2008). The Florida Life of Thomas Edison. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
ISBN978-0-8130-3259-7.
Adams, Glen J. (2004). The Search for Thomas Edison's Boyhood Home. ISBN978-1-4116-1361-4.
Angel, Ernst (1926). Edison. Sein Leben und Erfinden. Berlin: Ernst Angel Verlag.
Baldwin, Neil (2001). Edison: Inventing the Century. University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-03571-0.
Clark, Ronald William (1977). Edison: The man who made the future. London: Macdonald & Jane's: Macdonald
and Jane's. ISBN978-0-354-04093-8.
Conot, Robert (1979). A Streak of Luck. New York: Seaview Books. ISBN978-0-87223-521-2.
Davis, L. J. (1998). Fleet Fire: Thomas Edison and the Pioneers of the Electric Revolution. New York:
Doubleday. ISBN978-0-385-47927-1.
Essig, Mark (2004). Edison and the Electric Chair. Stroud: Sutton. ISBN978-0-7509-3680-4.
Essig, Mark (2003). Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death. New York: Walker & Company.
ISBN978-0-8027-1406-0.
Israel, Paul (1998). Edison: a Life of Invention. New York: Wiley. ISBN978-0-471-52942-2.
Jonnes, Jill (2003). Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. New
York: Random House. ISBN978-0-375-50739-7.
Josephson, Matthew (1959). Edison. McGraw Hill. ISBN978-0-07-033046-7.
Koenigsberg, Allen (1987). Edison Cylinder Records, 1889-1912. APM Press. ISBN0-937612-07-3.
Pretzer, William S. (ed). (1989). Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience.
Dearborn, Michigan: Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village. ISBN978-0-933728-33-2.
Stross, Randall E. (2007). The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World.
Crown. ISBN1-4000-4762-5.

External links
Locations

Menlo Park Museum and Edison Memorial Tower (http://www.menloparkmuseum.com/)

Thomas Edison National Historical Park (http://www.nps.gov/edis/index.htm) (National Park Service)
Edison exhibit and Menlo Park Laboratory at Henry Ford Museum (http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/edison/)
Edison Museum (http://www.edisonmuseum.org/)
Edison Depot Museum (http://www.phmuseum.org/depot/depot.htm)
Edison Birthplace Museum (http://www.tomedison.org/)
Thomas Edison House (http://www.edisonhouse.org/)

Information and media

Thomas Edison (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wdjr8) on In Our Time at the BBC. ( listen now
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00wdjr8/In_Our_Time_Thomas_Edison))
The Diary of Thomas Edison (http://ariwatch.com/VS/TheDiaryOfThomasEdison.htm)
Works by Thomas Edison (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Thomas+A.+Edison) at Project Gutenberg
Edison's patent application for the light bulb (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals_iv/
sections/thomas_edison_patent.html) at the National Archives.
Thomas Edison (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0249379/) at the Internet Movie Database

19

Thomas Edison
Jan. 4, 1903: Edison Fries an Elephant to Prove His Point (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/
2008/01/dayintech_0104?) Wired article about Edison's "macabre form of a series of animal electrocutions
using AC."
The Invention Factory: Thomas Edison's Laboratories (http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/twhp/wwwlps/
lessons/25edison/25edison.htm)
Edison, His Life and Inventions by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin' (http://www.gutenberg.
org/etext/820) at Project Gutenberg
The short film "Story of Thomas Alva Edison" (http://www.archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.49442) is
available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Rutgers: Edison Papers (http://edison.rutgers.edu/)
Edisonian Museum Antique Electrics (http://www.edisonian.com/)
" Edison's Miracle of Light (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/edison/)"
Edison Innovation Foundation (http://www.thomasedison.org) Non-profit foundation supporting the legacy
of Thomas Edison.
Thomas Alva Edison (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1630) at Find a Grave
The Illustrious Vagabonds (http://www.hfha.org/HenryFord.htm#Ford-Edison-Firestone-Burroughs)
"The World's Greatest Inventor", October 1931, Popular Mechanics (http://books.google.com/
books?id=vuQDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA614&dq=Popular+Mechanics+1931+curtiss&hl=en&
ei=sZj0TNiVFcPXngeTp8W2CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&
ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Popular Mechanics 1931 curtiss&f=true) detailed, illustrated article
14 minutes "instructional" film with fictional elements The boyhood of Thomas Edison (http://www.archive.
org/details/filmcollectief-01-661) from 1964, produced by Coronet, published by archive.org
Booknotes interview with Neil Baldwin on Edison: Inventing the Century, March 19, 1995. (http://www.
booknotes.org/Watch/63449-1/Neil+Baldwin.aspx)
Booknotes interview with Jill Jonnes on Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify
the World, October 26, 2003. (http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/178806-1/Jill+Jonnes.aspx)

20

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors

Thomas Edison Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=493648179 Contributors: (jarbarf), *feridik, -asx-, -love-revenge-, 0dd1, 10stone5, 12fred, 194.237.150.xxx, 1exec1,
3.14159265, 41523, 78.26, 8th Ohio Volunteers, 9870, A Softer Answer, A. Balet, ABF, AFoxtrotn00ber123, AHMartin, AKMask, AMazing101, Aaron Schulz, AaronY, Abductive, Abu-Fool
Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri, Accurizer, Acroterion, Adam Bishop, Adam00f, Adipatus, Adraeus, Adrian dakota, Afaprof01, Ageekgal, Agentseven, Ageyban, Ahoerstemeier, Aitias, Ajh16,
Akamad, AlainV, Alan Canon, Alan Rockefeller, Alangstone, Ale jrb, AlexBartlett4, AlexPlank, AlexiusHoratius, Alexlalala, Alexwcovington, Alkivar, Allen234, Allenamet, Alohawolf,
Altenmann, Alvainstantmessenger, Amalthea, Amerias, AmericanColumbia, Americanstar77, Ancheta Wis, Andre Engels, Andrevan, Andrewpmk, Andrewrp, AndyZ, Angela, Ann Stouter,
Anna512, AnnaFrance, AnnaKucsma, AnonEMouse, AnonMoos, Anonymi, Anonymous anonymous, Anoopan, Antaeus Feldspar, Antandrus, Anthony, AntiuserX, Antonrojo,
Apworldhistorybitches, Aquizard, Arakunem, Arch dude, Archivist, Archtransit, Ardara, Argyll Lassie, Arjun01, Art LaPella, Arydberg, Asarelah, Ask123, Astrochemist, Astronautics, At yarraa,
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File:Thomas_Edison2.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Thomas_Edison2.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Louis Bachrach, Bachrach Studios, restored by
Michel Vuijlsteke
File:Thomas Alva Edison Signature.svg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Thomas_Alva_Edison_Signature.svg License: Public Domain Contributors: Thomas Alva
Edison
File:Young Thomas Edison.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Young_Thomas_Edison.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Auntof6, Infrogmation, Juliancolton,
Maksim, Makthorpe, Martin H., Meno25, Succu, Trelio, Vonvon, 10 anonymous edits
File:Mina Edison 1906.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Mina_Edison_1906.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Pach Bros.
File:Edison and phonograph edit1.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Edison_and_phonograph_edit1.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Levin C. Handy (per
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Jbarta, Kelson, Makthorpe, Materialscientist, 2 anonymous edits
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File:PyramidParthenon.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:PyramidParthenon.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Hameryko, Infrogmation, J 1982, Kaldari,
Xnatedawgx, 2 anonymous edits
File:Thomas Edison cabinet card by Victor Daireaux, c1880s.JPG Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Thomas_Edison_cabinet_card_by_Victor_Daireaux,_c1880s.JPG
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