Thomas Alva Edison was an american inventor and business man.He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world,including the phonograph,the motion picture camera,and a long-lasting electric light bulb.This is a biography on Thomas A. Edison. Thomas Alva Edison was born February 11,1817 in Milan,Ohio and grew up in Port Huron Michigan.He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. and Nancy Mattaeus Elliott.During his early life Tom prefered to be called Al named after his dads friend Alva. In school Al’s mind often wandered ,and his teacher ,The Reverend Engle, was overheard calling Al addled.When Al’s mom heard this she was furious Al stopped going to school right away and was taught at home.Much …show more content…
As Al became a teenager he decided that from then on he would be called Tom or Thomas.One day Tom saw the stationmasters three year old son Jimmy almost crushed by a boxcar he dashed onto the track and saved him.As a reward the stationmaster tought him about telegraphy. In 1866,at the age of 19,Tom was an employee at The Western Union,where he worked at night on telegraphy and in the day he read and experimented.In 1867 he was working with a lead acid battery when he spilled sulfuric acid onto the floor,it ran between the floor boards onto his bosses desk.The next morning he was fired. In 1877 Tom made the phonograph and developed a carbon microphone used in all telephones along with the Gram Bell Receiver until the 1980’s. Edison did not make the first electric light bulb ,many inventors had previously made lamps,but they could cause fires,they had extremely short life,and they were highly expensive.On December 31,1879 Edison made his first public demonstration of his incandescent light,during this time he said “We will make electricity so cheap only the rich will burn