Thomas Alva Edison Research Paper

Who was the greatest inventor in the mid to late 1800’s? It was Thomas Alva Edison. We will be going over his early life and who he was as a person, his area of expertise, and his impact on the world today.
“Thomas Alva Edison born February 11, 1847 to his father Sam Edison and his mother Nancy Edison in Milan, Ohio. He was called Al in his youth and was the youngest of seven children, whom only four survived to adulthood.” In 1854 the family was moved to Port Huron, Michigan where the father worked in the lumber business. Edison was a poor student. “When a schoolmaster called Edison "addled," his furious mother took him out of the school and proceeded to teach him at home. Edison said many years later, "My mother was the making of me. She

It occurred to him that sound could be recorded as indentations on a rapidly-moving piece of paper. He eventually formulated a machine with a tinfoil-coated cylinder and a diaphragm and needle. “When Edison spoke the words "Mary had a little lamb" into the mouthpiece, to his amazement the machine played the phrase back to him. Edison next undertook his greatest challenge, the development of a practical incandescent, electric light. The idea of electric lighting was not new, and a number of people had worked on, and even developed forms of electric

“They asked Edison to find an alternative source of rubber for use in automobile tires. The natural rubber used for tires up to that time came from the rubber tree, which does not grow in the United States. Crude rubber had to be imported and was becoming increasingly expensive.” With his customary energy and thoroughness, Edison tested thousands of different plants to find a suitable substitute, eventually finding a type of Goldenrod weed that could produce enough rubber to be feasible. Edison was still working on this at the time of his death.
During the last two years of his life Edison was in increasingly poor health. Edison spent more time away from the laboratory, working instead at Glenmont. Trips to the family vacation home in Fort Myers, Florida became longer. Edison was past eighty and suffering from a number of ailments. “In August 1931 Edison collapsed at Glenmont. Essentially house bound from that point, Edison steadily declined until at 3:21 am on October 18, 1931 the great man died.” Thomas Alva Edison and his inventions the phonograph and light bulb not only changed his life for the better financially but changed the world for the