Thomas Alva Edison, known as ‘AI” as a child would be the last of the seven children born to his mother, Nancy. He was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio.
He experienced hearing loss at an early age. He was an imaginative and curious child. He did poorly in school, though, perhaps because he could not hear his teacher. Edison’s formal education was limited to home schooling though he had set up his own chemical laboratory by the age of 10. Mathematics was his weakest subject, but he found chemistry to his liking.
In 1876, Edison built research laboratories at Menlo Park and West Orange, New Jersey. He later created companies that produced and sold his successful inventions.
Edison concentrated during the early 1870s on making advances in the telegraph, often improving on the work of earlier inventors.
Edison held 1069 patents on his inventions, which included such important innovations as the incandescent electric lamp and the phonographs.
He happened upon his only discovery in the realm of pure science accidentally when he noted what became known as the Edison effect, the emission of electrons a heated cathode.
At his death in October 18, 1931 Edison was celebrated as America’s most famous and prolific inventor but little recognized as a leader in the development of the industrial research and development laboratory.
Thomas Alva Edison
