Edison Biography

"Thomas Edison was more responsible than any one else for creating the modern world. Specifically, no one did more to shape the physical/cultural makeup of present day civilization. Accordingly, he was the most influential figure of the last 500 years: The Heroes Of The Age: Electricity and Man" And TIME MAGAZINE MILLENNIAL

Surprisingly, little "Al Edison," who was the last of seven children in his family, did not learn to communicate very well until he was three and a half years of age. Soon thereafter, he suddenly began pleading with every adult he met to explain the workings of just about everything he encountered. If they said they didn't know, he would look them straight in the eyes, with his deeply set and vibrant blue-green eyes and ask them "Why?"

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Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Edison was not born into poverty in a backwater mid-western "hicktown." Actually, he was born - on Feb. 11, 1847 - to middle-class parents in the bustling port of Milan, Ohio, a vital community that - next to Odessa, Russia - was the largest wheat shipping center in the world. In 1854, his family moved to the vibrant city of Port Huron, Michigan, which ultimately surpassed the commercial preeminence of both Milan and Odessa....

Edison as a child

At age seven - after spending about 12 weeks in a noisy anf chaoitic one-room schoolhouse - with 38 other students of all ages and capabilties - Tom's overworked and short tempered teacher finally lost his patience with the Tom's persistent questioning and seemingly self centered behavior. Noting that his forehead was unusually broad and that his head was considerably larger than average, he made no secret of his belief that the hyperactive youngster's brains were "addled" or scrambled.

If modern psychology had existed back then, Tom might have been deemed a victim of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and proscribed a dose of the "miracle drug" Ritalin. Instead, when his beloved mother - whom he often recalled "was the making of me (because) she was so true and so sure of me...and always made me feel I had someone to live for - and whom I must never disappoint - became aware of this situation, she eventually withdrew him from school and tried to home-teach" him.

she believed her son's slightly unusual physical appearance and demeanor were merely outward signs of his above-average intelligence. Its also noteworthy to add here that the real contents of a note that Tom's teacher sent home to his mother at this time, informing her that "the child is as dense as a stump and virtually unteachable," was never revealed to him until many years after her death. in any case, "quietly ignoring the its existence and essence, she and her husband utterly dedicated themselves to educating their beloved child by themselves.

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A proud descendant of the distinguished old Elliot family of New England, New York born Nancy Edison was the devout and charming daughter of a highly respected Presbyterian minister, as well as an accomplished educator in her own right. After the above incident, she commenced teaching her favorite son the "Three R's" and the Bible. Meanwhile, his rather "worldly and roguish" father, Samuel, encouraged him to focus on the great classics, giving him a ten cents reward for each one he completed.

It wasn't long thereafter that the serious minded youngster developed a deep interest in world history and English literature. Interestingly, many years later, Tom's abiding fondness for Shakespeare's plays lead him to briefly consider becoming an actor. But, because of his high-pitched voice and extreme shyness before every audience - "except those he was trying to influence into helping him finance ever more inventions" - he soon gave up the idea.

“The boast of heraldry of pomp and power, All that beauty all that wealth ere gave, Alike await the inevitable hour. The path to glory leads but to the grave...”

At age 11, Tom's parents tried to appease his voracious appetite for knowledge by teaching him how to use the resources of the local library. This skill became the foundation of many factors that gradually caused him to prefer learning via independent self instruction.

"Not to be an illiterate hayseed."

Starting with the last book on the bottom shelf, Tom now set out to systematically read every book in the stacks. Wisely, however, his parents promptly guided him towards being ever more selective in what he read. So, by age 12, Tom had not only completed Gibbon's Rise And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Sears' History Of The World, and Burton's Anatomy Of Melancholy, he had devoured The World Dictionary of Science and a number of works on Practical Arithmetic and Chemistry.

But, in spite of their noble efforts, Tom's dedicated parents soon found themselves incapable of addressing his increasing interest in the Sciences and mathematics. For example, when he began to question them about concepts dealing with Physics and

On the other hand, the simple beauty of Newton's laws did not escape him. In fact, they very much helped him sharpen his own free wheeling style of clear thinking, "proving all things to himself through his own method of objective examination and experimentation." Tom's response to the Principia also enhanced his propensity towards gleaning insights from the writings and activities of other great men and women of wisdom, never forgetting that "even they might be entrenched in preconceived dogma and mired down in error...."

All the while, he was cultivating a strong sense of perseverence, readily expending whatever amount of time and perspiration that was needed to overcome any challenge. Which was a characteristic that he later noted was contrary to the way most people respond to stress and strain on their body. The key upshot of this attribute was that his unique mental and physical, stamina stood him in very good stead when he later took on the incredible rigors of a being a successful inventor in the mid-to-late 19th Century.

Meanwhile, as most of his contemporaries continued to indulge in the popular electrical pontifications of the day, he was always sharpening his now ingrained style of dispassionate and bold analysis.... "I accept almost nothing dealing with electricity without thoroughly testing it first." he often declared. Accordingly, by arming his brains with this perspective, he soon established a firm foothold in the world of practical 19th century electrical science. And of course, at the dawn of the "Age Of Electric Lights And Dynamos, nothing could have better served his destiny....
Edison at 12 years old

By age 12, Tom "already seemed to have become an adult." He had not only talked his parents into letting him go to work selling newspapers, snacks, and candy on the local railroad, he had started an entirely separate sideline, selling fruits and vegetables....

At age 14 - during the time of the famous pre-Civil War debates between Lincoln and Douglas - he exploited his access to the associated news releases that were being teletyped into the station each day and published them in his own little newspaper. Focusing upon such newsworthy "scoops," he quickly enticed over 300 commuters to subscribe to his splendid little paper, The Weekly Herald. Interestingly, because this was the first such publication ever to be type-set, printed and sold on a train, an English journal now gave him his first exposure to international notoriety, when it related this story, in 1860.)

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After his hero, Abraham Lincoln, was nominated for president, Tom not only distributed campaign literature on his behalf, he peddled flattering photographs of this "great emancipator." (Note: Of related interest, 25 years later, Tom's strong feelings about abolition was the key factor in encouraging him to select Brockton, Massachusetts as the first place on earth to model his "World's first calibrated, perfected and standardized 3 wire, undergound central power system etc., which is fully detailed elsewhere on this website.)

At its peak, Tom's mini-publishing venture netted him more than ten dollars per day. Because this was considerably more than enough to provide for his own support, he had a good deal of extra income, most of which went towards outfitting a chemical laboratory he had set up in the basement of his home. But because his, usually very patient and tolerant, mother was "worried about all the strange odors and dangerous poisons he was amassing," he transferred most of them to a locked room in the basement of his home. And placed the remainder in his locker room on the train.

One day, while traversing a bumpy section of track, the train lurched, causing a stick of phosphorous to roll onto the floor and burst into flames. Within moments, the baggage car caught fire. The conductor was so angry, he severely chastised the boy and struck him with a powerful blow on the side of his head. Purportedly, this could have enhanced some of the loss of hearing he may have inherited and from a later bout he had with scarlet fever. In any case, the station-master penalized him by restricting him to peddling his newspaper to only venues in railroad stations along the track ....

Remarkably, many years later, and not long after he had acquired the means to have an operation that "might have very likely restored his hearing," he flatly refused to act upon the option. His rationale was that he was afraid he "would have difficulty re-learning how to channel his thinking in an ever more noisy world."

Whatever the cause for this defect, by the time Tom was 14 years of age, it was virtually impossible for him to acquire knowledge in a typical educational setting. Amazingly, however, he never seemed to fret a whole lot about the matter. Naturally inclined towards accepting his fate in life - and promptly adapting to whatever he became convinced was out of his control - he always reacted by committing himself to compensating via alternative methods....

Ultimately, Tom became totally deaf in his right ear, and approximately 80% deaf in his left ear. Poignantly, he once stated that the worst thing about this condition was being unable to enjoy the beautiful sounds of singing birds. Indeed, he loved the creatures so much, he later amassed an aviary containing over 5,000 of them.

At this juncture, one of the most significant events in Tom's life occurred. As a reward for his heroism - the child's grateful father taught him how to master the use of Morse code and the telegraph. Which in the "age of telegraphy," this was akin to being introduced to learning how to use a state-of-the-art computer.

By age 15, Tom had pretty much mastered the basics of this fascinating new career and obtained a job as a replacement for one of the thousands of "brass pounders" (telegraph operators) who had gone off to serve in the Civil War. He now had a golden opportunity to enhance his speed and efficiency in sending and receiving code and performing experiments designed to improve this device.... Edison telegraph years

Shortly after the Civil War ended, to his mother's great dismay, Tom decided that it was time to "seek his fortune." So, over the next few years, he meandered throughout the Central States, supporting himself as a "tramp telegraph operator".

      At age 16, after working in a variety of telegraph offices, where he "was able to squeeze in numerous moonlight experiments of his own," he finally came up with his first authentic invention. Called an "automatic repeater," it transmitted telegraph signals between unmanned stations, allowing virtually anyone to easily and accurately translate Morse code at their own speed and convenience. Curiously, he never patented the initial version of this idea.

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     In 1868 - after making a name for himself amongst fellow telegraphers for being a rather flamboyant and quick witted character who enjoyed playing "mostly harmless" practical jokes - he returned home one day ragged and penniless. Sadly, he found his parents in an even worse predicament.... First, his beloved mother was beginning to show signs of mental derangement "which was probably brought on by the strains of an often difficult life." Making matters worse, his occasionally impulsive father had just quit his job at the local bank, which was about to foreclose on the family's homestead.

     Tom promptly came to grips with the pathos of this overall situation and - perhaps for the first time in his life - resolved to address head-on a number of his own immature shortcomings. After a good deal of soul searching and angiush about leaving his folks, he finally decided that the best thing he could do would be to get right back out on his own - and try to make some serious money....

     Shortly thereafter, Tom accepted the suggestion of a fellow "lightening slinger" named Billy Adams to "Come East and apply for a permanent job as a telegrapher with the relatively prestigious Western Union Company in Boston." His willingness to travel over a thousand miles from home was at least partly influenced by the fact that he had been given a free rail ticket by the local street railway company for some repairs he had done for them. The most important factor, however, was the fact that greater Boston - not greater New York City - was then considered "the hub of the scientific, educational, and cultural universe..."

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     Throughout the mid-19th century, New England had many features that were somewhat analogous to today's Silicon Valley in California. However, instead of being a haven for the thousands of young "tekkies" - who communicate with each via the internet of today - it was the home of scores of young telegraphers who anxiously stayed abreast of the emerging new age of electricity by communicating via Morse telegraph code.

     During these latter days of this "Age of Telegraphy," Tom toiled 12 hours a day and six days a week for Western Union. Meanwhile, he continued his habit of "moonlighting" on his own projects... Within six months, he had applied for and received his very first patent: "But, even though this beautifully constructed vote-recording machine, was this first legitimate invention he was to come up with, it turned out to be a disaster."

     When he tried to market it to members of the Massachusetts Legislature, they thoroughly denigrated it, claiming "its speed in tallying votes would disrupt the delicate political status-quo." Their specific concern was that - during times of stress - political groups regularly relied upon the brief delays that were provided by the process of manually counting votes to influence, and hopefully change, the opinions of their colleagues.... "This is exactly what we do not want" a seasoned old politician scolded him, adding that "Your invention would not only destroy the only hope the minority would have in influencing legislation, it would deliver them over - bound hand and foot - to the majority!"

     Although Tom was very disappointed by this turn of events, he immediately grasped its implications. Even though the remarkable invention allowed each voter to instantly and accurately cast and record his vote from his seat - exactly as it was supposed to do - he realized the idea was so far ahead of its time, it was completely devoid of any immediate sales appeal.

Because of his desperate need for money, Tom now made a critically significant adjustment in his, heretofore, relatively naive outlook on the world of business and marketing.... "From now on," he vowed, he would "never waste time inventing things that people would not want to buy."

     It is also important to note here that it was during Tom's 17 month stint in Boston that he was first exposed to lectures at Boston Tech (which was founded in 1861 and became the Mass. Institute of Technology in 1916) and the ideas of several associates on the state-of-the-art of "multiplexing" telegraph signals. Specifically, this theory and related experimental quests involved the transmission of electrical impulses at different frequencies over telegraph wires, producing horn-like simulations of the human voice - and even crude images (the first internet?) via an instrument called the harmonic telegraph.

Not surprisingly, his "casual (same aged) friend and acquaintance" Alexander Graham Bell, who was also living and working in Boston (trying to develop a telephone-like device right along side of Edison's bench at the famous Williams Shop) was equally fascinated by this exciting new aspect of communication science. And no wonder. The principles surrounding it would ultimately lead both men toward far greater heights....

Deeply in debt and about to be fired by Western Union for "not concentrating on his primary responsibilities and again for doing too much moonlighting for his own good "Edison now suddenly borrowed $35.00 from his fellow telegrapher and "night owl" pal, Benjamin Bredding, to purchase a steamship ticket to the "much more commercially oriented city of New York."

During the third week after arriving in "the big apple" Tom (seen left) was purportedly "on the verge of starving to death." At this precipitous juncture, one of the most amazing coincidences in the annals of technological history now began to unfold. Immediately after having begged a cup of tea from a street vendor, Tom began to meander through some of the offices in New York's financial district. Observing that the manager of a local brokerage firm was in a panic, he eventually determined that a critically important stock-ticker in his office had just broken down....

    Noting that no one in the crowd that had gathered around the defective machine seemed to have a clue on how to fix it, he elbowed his way into the scene and grasped a momentary opportunity to have a go at addressing what was wrong, himself. Luckily, since he had been sleeping in the basement of the building for a few days - and was, typically, doing quite a bit of snooping around - he already had a pretty good idea of what the device was supposed to do.

     After spending a few more seconds confirming exactly how the stock ticker was intended to work in the first place, Tom boldly reached down and manipulated a loose spring back to where it belonged. And to everyone's amazement, except Tom's, the device began to "purr like a kitten."

     The office manager was so ecstatic, he quickly made an on-the-spot decision to hire Edison to make all such repairs for the busy company, for the extraordinary salary of $300.00 per month. This was not only more than what his very talented pal Benjamin Bredding was making back in Boston, but twice the going rate for a top electrician in New York City. Later in life, Edison recalled that the incident was more euphoric than anything he had ever experienced before, "because it made me feel as though I had been suddenly delivered out of abject poverty, into prosperity.

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It should come as no surprise that, during his free time, Edison once again resumed his habit of "moonlighting" with the telegraph, the quadruplex transmitter, and the stock-ticker, etc. Shortly thereafter, he was absolutely astonished - in fact he nearly fainted - when a corporation paid him $40,000 for all of his rights to the latter device.

     Convinced no bank would honor the large check he was given for it, which was the first "real" money he had ever received for an invention, young Edison walked around for hours in a stupor, staring at it in amazement. Fearful that someone would steal it, he laid the cash out on his bed and stayed up all night, counting it over and over in disbelief. The next day a wise friend told him to "deposit it in a bank forthwith and to just forget about it for a while.

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     A few weeks later, Edison wrote a series of extremely poignant letters back home to his father: "How is mother getting along?... I am now in a position to give you folks some cash... Write and say how much....Give mother anything she wants...." (Interestingly, It was during this time that he also repaid Bredding the $35.00 he had borrowed earlier.)

     Over the next three years, Edison's progress in creating successful inventions for industry really took off. For example, in 1874 - with the money he received from the sale of an electrical engineering firm that held several of his patents - he opened his first testing and Cartoon of Edison

development laboratory in Newark, New Jersey.

And at age 29, he commenced work on the carbon transmitter, which ultimately made Alexander Graham Bell's amazing new "articulating" telephone (which by today's standards sounded more like someone trying to talk through a kazoo than a telephone) audible enough for practical use. Interestingly, at one point during this intense period, Edison was as close to inventing the telephone as Bell was to inventing the phonograph. Nevertheless, shortly after Edison moved his laboratory to Menlo Park, N.J. in 1876, he invented - in 1877 - the first phonograph.

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In 1879, extremely disappointed by the fact that Bell had beaten him in the race to patent the first authentic transmission of the human voice, Edison now "one upped" all of his competition by inventing the first commercially practical incandescent electric light bulb...

And if that wasn't enough to forever seal his unequaled importance in technological history, he came up with an invention that - in terms of its collective affect upon mankind - has had more impact than any other. In 1883 and 1884, while beating a path from his research lab to the patent office, he introduced the world's first economically viable system of centrally generating and distributing safe electric light, heat, and power. Sometimes properly acknowledged as his "greatest of acheivement" it has enormously impacted the world we know today... Even some of his worst critics grant that "it was a Herculean achievement that only he was capable of bringing about at this specific point in history."

By 1887, Edison was recognized for having set up the world's first full fledged research and development center in West Orange, New Jersey. An amazing enterprise, its significance is as much misunderstood as his work in developing the first practical centralized power system. Regardless, within a year, this fantastic operation was the largest scientific testing laboratory in the world.

     In 1890, Edison immersed himself in developing the first Vitascope, which would lead to the first silent motion pictures.
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     And, by 1892, his Edison General Electric Co. had fully merged with another firm to become the great General Electric Corporation, in which he was a major stockholder.

     At the turn-of-the-century, Edison invented the first practical dictaphone, mimeograph, and storage battery. After creating the "kinetiscope" and the first silent film in 1904, he went on to introduce The Great Train Robbery in 1903, which was a ten minute clip that was his first attempt to blend audio with silent moving images to produce "talking pictures."

By now, Edison was being hailed world-wide as The wizard of Menlo Park, The father of the electrical age," and The greatest inventor who ever lived." And, quite naturally, when World War I began, he was asked by the U. S. Government to focus his genius upon creating defensive devices for submarines and ships. During this time, he also perfected a number of important inventions relating to the enhanced use of rubber, concrete, and ethanol.

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And, by the 1920s, Edison was internationally revered. However, even though he was personally acquainted with scores of very important people of his era, he cultivated very few close friendships. And according to his son, Charles, due to the "continuing demands of his unique career, there were still relatively long periods when he felt obliged to spend a shockingly small amount of time with his family.

It wasn't until his health began to fail, in the late 1920s, that Edison finally began to slow down and, so to speak, "smell the flowers." Up until obtaining his last (1,093rd) patent at age 83, "he worked mostly at home where, though increasingly frail, he much enjoyed greeting former associates and famous people such as Charles Lindberg, Marie Curie, Henry Ford, and President Herbert Hoover etc. He also enjoyed reading mail from the thousands of his admirers - and puttering around, when physically able, in his office and home laboratory."

Thomas Edison died At 9 P.M. On Oct. 18th, 1931 in New Jersey. He was 84 years of age. Shortly before passing away, he awoke from a deep coma to strains of his favorite composer, Bethoven, (Who was also deaf) that were "loudly" emanating from his favorite phonograph... Looking upward, to his very religious "ever-faithful" wife, Mina - who had been keeping a vigil all night by his side - and haltingly uttered... "I'm finished... Its very beautiful over there... Eternal GOD!

Most realized that, even though he was far from being a perfect human being - and may not have really had the always amiable and avuncular personality that was so often ascribed to him by myth makers -Thomas Edison was an essentially good man with a powerful mission.

Driven by a superhuman desire to fulfill the promise of objective persistent research and create things to serve and uplift all of mankind, no one did more to help realize our founders dream of creating a brand new country that - at its best - would be seen by everyone as "a shining new city upon a hill, whose light would be going out to the world...."

Because of the peculiar voids that Edison sometime evinced in areas such as cognition, speech, grammar, etc., a number of medical authorities have argued that he may have been plagued by a fundamental learning disability that went well beyond mere deafness.... A few of have conjectured that this mysterious ailment - along with his lack of a formal education - may account for why he always seemed to "think so differently" compared to others of his time: "Always tenaciously clinging to those unique methods of analysis and experimentation with which he alone alwaya seemed to feel so comfortable...."

Whatever the impetus for his unique personality and traits, his incredible ability to come up with a meaningful new patent every two weeks throughout his working career "added more to the collective wealth of the world - and had more impact upon shaping modern civilization - than the accomplishments of any figure since Gutenberg...." Accordingly, most serious science and technology historians grant that he was indeed "The most influential figure of our millennium."

Notes: In 1929, Edison's close friend, Henry Ford, completed the task of moving Edison's original Menlo Park laboratory to the Greenfield Village museum in Dearborn, Mich. In 1962 his existing laboratory and home in West Orange, N.J. were designated as National Historic Sites.

Copyright © Gerald Beals June, 1999. All rights registered and reserved. Please Note: Absolutely no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form - or stored by any means in a database or retrieval system - without the prior written and express permission of the author.

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