Thomas Edison: His Kaleidoscope Mind, BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS EDISON,THOMAS EDITION , HISTORY OF THOMAS EDITION,

                                                      
                                           
                                                  BIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS EDISON

Thomas Edison: His Kaleidoscope Mind

Hundreds of people stood in a crowd in front of the MenloPark factory in New Jersey as a banner unfurled to reveal the image of Thomas Edison. He wanted the world to know that he was themost important person in the room. He was the brand. The inventor. The one in charge of over 1,000 machines createdunder his name. Thomas Edison has become a polarizing figurein modern history. Some believe that he was a genius inventorand a brilliant businessman who changed the world as we know it. Others believe that he was manipulative, andstole the ideas of greater minds. The truth? Well it's somewhere in between.

On today's Biographics, we are going to diveinto the incredible life of Thomas Edison. Early LifeToday, Thomas Edison is considered to be one of the greatest American icons of all time. Surprisingly, though, his family history startedout as the exact opposite of the American Dream. His grandfather, Samuel Ogden Edison, wasa loyalist during the Revolutionary War. So he decided to move the family to Canada,and pledge his undying allegiance to King George III. Thomas Edison’s father, Samuel Jr., waslater exiled from Canada for being apart of the Mackenzie Rebellion. This was a revolt against the oligarchy whowas in control of local government. Sam Edison and his wife Nancy had no choicebut to move to the United States. They had a total of 7 children, but threeof them died during infancy. Thomas Alva Edison was the youngest childin the family, and he was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He and his family moved to a farming communityin Port Huron, Michigan. He only had three months of formal schoolingbefore working on the family farm.

 His mother Nancy actually had several yearsof education behind her from her time in Canada, so she taught him how to read and write athome. Edison continued to read as many books ashe could get his hands on, and had a natural curiosity for the world around him. He sat on goose eggs to see if he could getthem to hatch, and set a neighbor’s house on fire, just to watch it burn...Because...youknow, we all know that with arson and property damage, boys will be boys, right? When reflecting on this time, Edison saidit was just a bunch of “devilish hijinks.” Even as a young boy, Edison began to dabblein chemical experiments in his parent’s basement. We’re pretty sure a basement isn’t thebest place to be mixing chemicals. He eventually got some fresh air by workingas a newspaper boy for a local railroad at 12 years old. Since he was spending so much time working,he wanted to continue his experiments whenever there was down time. So he began tinkering with his chemicals inone of the train cars, and accidentally started another fire. As you can tell, setting fire seems to bea trend in his life. Not surprisingly, he was asked to pack uphis chemistry set and never return. Since becoming a newspaper boy didn’t workout, Edison decided to learn a valuable skill. He taught himself morse code. No one ever taught him how to do this, soEdison spent up to 18 hours a day sending and receiving these messages in morse codein order to become proficient at the skill.

By the time he turned 15, he got a full-timejob as a telegraph operator for one of the local newspapers. He received the news from far-off publications,and he was able to write down the basic information before handing it off to the writers. It was around this time when he began goingdeaf. It’s possible that the loud trains he workedon as a young boy and the nearly constant tapping he had to listen to for most of hislife contributed to this very early hearing loss. However, he was so hyper-focused on the taskat hand, as he tried to get better and better at translating morse code. He was always highly competitive, and wantedto be the best operator there. He once wrote that his hearing was so bad,all of the background noise of other operators faded away. The sound of their machines was drowned outin a low muffle, and the only thing he could hear was the tapping of his own telegraph. Because of this, he spent a lot of time thinking. Instead of making friends at work, he scarcelyspoke to his co-workers, and concentrated on the machines, instead. Eventually, Thomas Edison asked to work thenight shift, so he was always doing overtime a total of 16 hours a day.

At night, there was scarcely any news comingover the wire. So Edison had plenty of free time to tinkerwith the machines. He wanted to know how they worked, and howthey could possibly be improved. It wouldn’t be too long before he figuredout how to make his beloved telegraph machines to the next level. The Great American InventorWhen he was 22 years old, Thomas Edison decided to leave his job as a telegraph operator andmoved to New York City. At this point, he had studied the telegraphmachines so closely that he knew how to manufacture them from scratch, and he made far more moneycreating and selling the machines that he did as a mere operator. New York City right in the midst of the industrialrevolution. Movie stars did not exist yet, so the realheroes of America were the inventors. Everyone wished that they could come up witha brilliant new idea and file a patent, which would lead to fame and fortune. Their name would be published in the newspapersand magazines, and they became a permanent part of history. For years, Americans had struggled to findtheir sense of national identity.

 They didn't have the great architecture oruniversities that you could find in Europe, and many people considered most things inthe young nation to be sub-par. But once Americans became the masters of innovation,many young men from all over the world began to immigrate to New York City in order tobecome the next great inventor. Edison began to receive more and more ordersfor new telegraph machines, and he had a good business going for himself. He started to hire other men to put the piecestogether, in order to have more time to tinker on his own. As time went on, he began to create telegraphsthat could print out messages. He also developed the patent for a multiplextelegraph, which could send out several messages at the same time. After making these new machines, he only attractedmore and more customers to order from him over the competition. In 1871, he was 24 years old when he met hiswife, Mary Stilwell, and got married. He was 24 years old, and she was just 16. They had two children together, and she immediatelyset out helping him with his meals, clothing, and other essentials so that he could continueto concentrate on work. Edison worked throughout the day and nightto fulfill his orders. He scarcely stopping to sleep or eat, becausethere was so much to do. He once said, “The reason a lot of peopledo not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls lookinglike hard work.” After a few years of this hardcore lifestyle,Thomas Edison began to make a lot of money from his telegraph business. At 29 years old, he invested nearly all ofhis earnings from those 7 years into a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. He hired a team of men who all shared a visionthat Menlo Park could become the world’s first “think tank”. It was a place where inventions could happen. He wanted to be the world’s very first full-timeprofessional inventor. His family moved into a house that was builton the same property as the factory. Even though he was working close to his wifeand children, they almost never saw him, because he spent almost all of his time working. At night, he would walk home to sleep. The one and only day he took off was Sunday,for church and rest. Edison once wrote to a friend that he hadto goal of creating a minor invention every 10 days, and a major breakthrough once a month. Of course, this would be impossible for oneman to do alone. He would give his employees assignments towork on specific projects, or ask them to find a solution to a problem. Since he had multiple teams working on thesenew invention every single day, they were able to come up with new breakthroughs. Once they finished a new invention, he wouldpatent the idea in his own name, and reap the benefits of its profits. in 1876, there was a massive exhibition inPhiladelphia where inventors showcased their new ideas. This is where Alexander Graham Bell displayedthe very first telephone. This invention threatened Thomas Edison'slivelihood. It would make the telegraph completely obsolete. After all, if you could hear someone's voice,why would you bother learning morse code to communicate over the telegraph? Thomas Edison immediately decided to try toimprove on the telephone’s design. He once said, "An inventor needs an enemy." Bell was from a well-to-do family and he hada college education. He also had plenty of money handed to himfrom his father-in-law to tinker with his new inventions. Edison was motivated to compete with him,and just a few months later, his laboratory developed an improved version of Bell's telephonethat could be patented. He had once figured out how to write froma telegraph, based on the vibrations coming from the Morse code. He thought- if it worked on paper, why notsomething else? He placed a needle on top of a sheet of foil,and began to speak loudly into the phonograph. The first thing he ever recorded was the child'snursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb". After years of improving on other people’sinventions, his kaleidoscopic mind had finally rearranged all of the knowledge he had collected. This was his first completely original invention. "I was taken aback," he said. "I was always afraid of anything that workedthe first time." 1877, Scientific American published the storyabout Edison's phonograph. Reporters from all over the world rushed toMenlo Park to see the new device first hand. Edison knew how to be charismatic, and playedto the crowd. When the reporters would show, up he wouldoffer them slices of pie and cigars while he told them entertaining stories. This made the reporters like him, and theywould write about his brilliant mind and impressive laboratory. Like any businessman who knows what he’sdoing you can bet that he immediately took full advantage of all of this free press. He ran ads in newspapers offering to sellanyone a phonograph to anyone in America. Thousands of people would have read the newsand want to order these machines for their own homes. Now, instead of just producing telegraphs,the Edison factory was also selling telephones and phonographs, and he became incrediblywealthy. Newspapers continue to print stories abouthis personal life, because they believed that he was exactly what they would imagine asthe perfect All-American inventor. On April Fool's Day, one newspaper printeda story that Thomas Edison had come up with an invention to turn dirt into food and wine. Even though this was completely ridiculous,people actually fell for it because they thought that he truly could invent anything. He began receiving fan letters and interviewrequests on a daily basis. People would ask for money, favors, and justabout anything you could think of. Edison spent a significant amount of everydayanswering these letters and speaking to reporters, which took even more of his free time awayfrom his family. After a while, being a public figure becameso overwhelming that he was no longer getting any work done in the factory at all. In 1878, Thomas Edison decided to go on atrip to Wyoming so that he and a group of men could watch the solar eclipse. His wife Mary was pregnant with their thirdchild. She felt sick, and became very anxious, especiallywith so many people knocking on their door looking for her husband. Doctors wrote to Edison that he needed toreturn home immediately, because she was too ill to be left alone. Instead of rushing back to his pregnant wife,Edison ignored the letters. He was used to Mary complaining that he workedtoo much, and he usually ignored her please for help. So he finished out 3 more weeks of his trip. Sadly, Mary was more than just anxious. She truly was sick. For the next few years, her health only continuedto decline. The War of CurrentsSoon after the birth of his third child, Thomas Edison did the opposite of slowing down andenjoying his time as a father. He began his most ambitious project yet; Thelight bulb. Plenty of other inventors had come up withlight bulbs before, but they burned out after just a few minutes. So he decided to come up with a solution. In just a few days Thomas Edison figured outhow to have a long-lasting incandescent light bulb. Since the journalists were waiting with batedbreath to find out what he would do next, this became an overnight sensation. Investors were suddenly showing up to hisdoor handing in money, and Edison stock went through the roof. They wanted to support his idea to createa society that no longer needed to rely on dirty oil lamps to bring light to people'shomes. He announced that he would do the impossible:Light up New York City so that it shines even at night. But by the summer of 1879, New York City stillwas not filled with electric light bulbs as promised. Edison stock was dropping, and people accusedhim of lying to manipulate the market. People began to lose hope that an electriccity could ever exist. Behind the scenes, workers in Menlo Park werehustling day and night to get the light bulbs working. Of course, the task was much more difficultthan Edison had ever anticipated. They needed sockets, wiring, and an electricalsystem that must be installed into a building before appliances could work. They also needed to create massive generators. He wanted to achieve this using DC, or DirectCurrent. However, the DC power generations broke downvery easily, and he needed to hire someone to come up with a solution to the problem. His saving grace was none other than NikolaTesla. He was the true natural-born genius with an“eidetic memory”, which meant that he could recall objects from memory, and recreatethem perfectly. After spending years working on DC power inBudapest, 28-year old Nikola Tesla decided to leave Europe on a boat to New York City. After hearing so much hype up about the AmericanDream, Tesla was actually disappointed once he arrived. He said, "What I had left [in Europe] wasbeautiful, artistic and fascinating in every way; what I saw here was machined, rough andunattractive. It [America] is a century behind Europe incivilization." Despite being a bit underwhelmed by the scenery,he was still caught up in the enthusiasm for invention. Almost immediately after arriving to the UnitedStates, he approached Thomas Edison and asked for a job. Once Tesla learned about the issues with theDC generator, Edison made him a deal He said that if he could come up with a solution tothe problem, he promised to give him a $50,000 bonus. With modern inflation, that’s closer to1 and a half million dollars. Edison truly underestimated what a hungrygenius can accomplish with that kind of money on the line. In only a few months, Tesla fixed all of theDC generators. When he came to collect his $50,000, reward,Edison brushed it off, saying that it was a joke. He blamed it on Tesla’s inability to understandthe “American sense of humor”. He wasn’t falling for it, though. Nikola Tesla immediately quit his job, anddecided to go to business on his own. When he was repairing Edison’s generators,he could see all of the problems, so invented a much better version called “AlternatingCurrent”, or AC Power. Edison’s Direct Current could only movein one direction, and there needed to be generators every mile in order for the system to work. But Tesla’s Alternating Current bouncedback and forth, and it could vary in voltage. This meant it could go hundreds of miles in-betweengenerators. Tesla patented the technology, but it wouldbe an expensive undertaking. He tried to show it to investors, but mostthought it was impossible, and weren’t willing to compete with Edison. That was, until Tesla met George Westinghouse. Together, they spent the next few years plottingto create a system that would defeat Thomas Edison’s electric lights. In the midst of this Current War, Edison’swife, Mary, died in 1888. She was just 29 years old. The doctors say that she had “congestionof the brain”, which was a blanket term given to such an intense level of depressionand anxiety that it lead to high blood pressure and a stroke. When she first met him, Mary was just a 16-yearold girl who married a man with a small telegraph business. There was nothing that could have preparedher for the pressure of being the wife of a celebrity. Since Edison was devoted to his company nearly24/7, it only makes sense that he met his second wife at work. Two years after Mary’s death, Thomas Edisonmarried a woman named Mina Miller. Her father was also a well-known inventor,and she had already grown up around famous scientists. This inspired her to work in one of Edison’sfactories in Newark. She had a keen scientific mind, and completelyunderstood Thomas Edison’s passion for innovation. During interviews, he would openly talk abouthow much he loved and appreciated her. Edison even bought her a luxurious mansioncalled Glenmont in the nearby town of West Orange. Mina was exactly the kind of wife Edison needed. She was able to manage their social calendarto have parties with important people in the industry, and this only improved his relationshipswith investors. However, while Edison and Mina were schmoozingwith investors, Tesla and Westinghouse were still hard at work developing their AlternatingCurrent. In 1893, Tesla and Westinghouse debuted theAC Power system at the Chicago World’s Fair. Over 100,000 light bulbs illuminated the night,and people were in total awe. It was clear who the better inventor trulywas. Tesla and Westinghouse won the contract tolight up New York City. After this, Edison was furious, and beganone of the worst smear campaigns in history. He claimed that AC power was too dangerousfor people’s homes. He demonstrated this by electrocuting animalsin public- even elephants. Edison was also the man behind demonstratinghow human beings could be killed in the electric chair. However, all of his attempts to ruin Teslaand Westinghouse didn’t work, because AC power prevailed, and the War of Currents wasover. Motion Pictures and a Lasting LegacyThomas Edison could not make his mark on the world as being the man who would light upthe world. However, he succeeded in introducing the motionpicture camera to the United States. In 1888, Edison He told the press, "I am experimentingupon an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, whichis the recording and reproduction of things in motion ...." A Frenchman named Louis Le Prince had developedthe first motion picture camera in France. So Edison tasked one of his employees, WilliamKennedy Laurie Dickson, to improve it just enough to file a patent. The result was the Kinetograph camera. They also created the Kinetoscope, which wasa device where people had to look into a view-finder to see the moving pictures after they hadbeen captured. Edison began to sell his new devices to themasses, just like he had with his phonographs. Edison’s lab also began to double as a filmingstudio, because they wanted to sell these reels for people to watch on their Kinetoscopes. They began to release productions of shortfilms, and charged people for tickets to see these new “movies”. However, once other filmmakers in New YorkCity started to produce films, Edison would try to sue them. He wanted a monopoly over any movie that wasmade with his devices. So, these film makers decided it was timeto get as far away as humanly possible. They went to Hollywood. So, if it wasn’t for Thomas Edison’s litigiousnature, the movie capital of the world would probably still be in New York City. Over the course of his lifetime, Thomas Edisonfiled 1,093 patents for new inventions. He died in 1931 at his home in West Orange,New Jersey at the age of 84. Today, many people have discredited Edison,because they believe that he doesn’t actually deserve all of the praise he was given overthe years. After hearing all of the terrible storiesabout him, it’s easy to see why. However, you cannot deny that this man trulydid leave a lasting legacy, and he inspired countless numbers of inventors and businessmen. You could also argue that nearly every inventordoes similar things that Edison had. No one is angry at Elon Musk for the factthat he was not the first to invent a car or a rocket ship. They’re also not mad that he has a hugestaff in his factory working for him, or that he has a public image. So, do you think Thomas Edison was unfairlycriticized for his competitive nature? Or was he truly just a terrible person whodeserves all the hate? Let us know in the comments.