Thomas Edison Was The Inventor Of The 1800's

For millions of years, numerous inventions have left lasting marks on society. What once seemed impossible is now possible, thanks to inventions such as Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone; Benjamin Franklin’s bifocals and lightning rod; Steve Jobs’ Apple products; and Larry Page’s Google. Yet one inventor’s bright ideas have been said to stand above the rest. American businessman and inventor, Thomas Edison, is the brains behind numerous inventions including the phonograph, motion picture cameras, and the incandescent light bulb. With nearly 1,093 patents, what was the path that led Thomas Edison to become the most prolific inventor of the 1800’s?

Born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio, Thomas Alva Edison was the seventh and youngest

At the age of thirteen, he took a job as a newsboy, selling newspapers, snacks, and candy on the local railroad that ran through Port Huron. He had also started a separate business selling fruits and vegetables. While working at the station, he exploited his access to news releases of debates between Lincoln and Douglas that were being teletyped into the station. He then took the releases and published them into his own newspaper called The Weekly Herald. His paper became the first to ever be printed and sold on a moving train (“Thomas Edison Chronology: A Life in Numbers”). Edison’s newspaper business netted him more than ten dollars a day, allowing him to support himself and use any extra money to design the chemical laboratory that he had set up in the basement. Eventually, his mother complained about the odors and danger that the chemicals posed, causing Edison to move his belongings to a locked room in the basement and in his locker room on the train. One day while on the train, the train had lurched causing a stick of Phosphorus to fall and ignite. Within seconds, the baggage train caught on fire. The conductor was profoundly angry and struck Edison on the side of the head, potentially resulting in partial hearing loss. As a child, Edison was totally deaf in his left ear and nearly ninety percent deaf in his right ear. He later refused treatment, claiming that it would be difficult to “retrain his thinking process” (Pettinger). The stationmaster also penalized Edison by restricting him to selling newspapers only along the railroad tracks. (“Thomas Edison” and