Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He was the youngest of six other children and son to Samuel and Nancy Edison. He spent only a few months in school, his mother taught him some at home, but mostly he taught himself at the library. The ability to do things on his own helped Thomas Edison to later become one of the greatest inventors the world has ever known. Edison was a very curious and intelligent boy. He liked to see how things worked. He was fascinated by electricity and soon wanted to make his own inventions. But he needed equipment and money to work on his experiments, and his parents had none to give him. So when Edison was just 12 years old, he took a job as a newsboy and sold newspapers and candy at the …show more content…
He worked on inventing and manufacturing devices that improved the speed and efficiency of the telegraph. Five years later Edison sold all of his Newark manufacturing concerns and moved to the small village of Menlo Park, where he built an all-new facility. It was the world’s first modern research facility and its model would later be used for other facilities like it. Edison called it his “Invention Factory.” And it sure did live up to its name. The first great invention he developed here was the tin foil phonograph. It was the first machine that could record and reproduce sound, this invention brought Edison much fame and he began to invent …show more content…
So he founded the Edison Illuminating Company, the first investor-owned electric company. Edison soon left Menlo Park to establish facilities for his company in various cities. He then moved to West Orange where he decided to build a new facility; which had a lot of necessary equipment and consisted of five buildings. He began to further work on the phonograph and to improve motion pictures. After inventing and improving many things, as well as building more factories for his companies, Edison left his industries and factories behind to