$170,000,000
Thomas Edison
Net Worth
Born in (City)
Milan
Born in (Country)
United States of America
Date of Birth
11th December, 1847
Date of Death
18th December, 1931
Mother
Nancy Matthews Elliott
Father
Samuel Ogden Edison Jr.
Children
- Marion Estelle Edison
- Thomas Alva Edison Jr
- William Leslie Edison
- Madeleine Edison
- Charles Edison
- Theodore Miller Edison
About
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory. Edison was raised in the American Midwest; early in his career he worked as a telegraph operator, which inspired some of his earliest inventions. In 1876, he established his first laboratory facility in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where many of his early inventions were developed.
Early Life
He was born on February 11, 1847 in Ohio. His family moved to Michigan in 1854 and he grew up there. He was the seventh and last child of their parents. He was self educated and attended school only for a short period of time. His mother
was a school teacher and she taught him how to read and write. He developed hearing problems at the age of 12. He believed that his hearing ailment made him less distracted and more focused towards work. The journey of Thomas Edison from selling newspapers to becoming a great entrepreneur is truly inspiring. He is the epitome of determination, grit, hardwork and patience. He proved that it is okay to face failures without being ashamed of it and with failures paired with hard work we can definitely be successful. His career story is below:
● At the age of 13, he started selling candies, newspapers and vegetables on the trains.
● He saved a three year old kid from a runaway train, whose father being a station
head trained him to become a telegraph operator.
● He obtained exclusive rights to sell newspapers on the roads.
● He had four assistants and with their help he printed GRAND TRUNK HERALD and
sold it with other newspapers. He set up this printing press in a small baggage car.
● Joined Western Union Telegraph company at Boston in 1868.
● He got first patent for his product, an electric vote recorder in 1869.
Road to Success
Edison's major innovation was the establishment of an industrial research lab in 1876. It was built in Menlo Park, a part of Raritan Township (now named Edison Township in his honor) in Middlesex County, New Jersey, with the funds from the sale of Edison's quadruplex telegraph. After his demonstration of the telegraph, Edison was not sure that his original plan to sell it for $4,000 to $5,000 was right, so he asked Western Union to make a bid. He was surprised to hear them offer $10,000 ($226,000 in today's dollars), which he gratefully accepted. The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success, and Menlo Park became the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him wider notice was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park". After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison developed an electric "utility" to compete with the existing gas light utilities. On December 17, 1880, he founded the Edison Illuminating Company, and during the 1880s, he patented a system for electricity distribution. Edison wasn’t the founder of the bulb, but he made viable improvements to it. In 1878 he started working on an alternative for bulbs that used oil and gas for illumination. He tried various elements , eventually he and his team found out that carbonized bamboo filament was the ideal one and it could last over 1200 hours. Edison also received patents for his motion camera called Kinetograph.
Challenges
Edison had to face many challenges during his lifetime. He developed hearing problems at the age of 12. But he believed that his hearing ailment made him less distracted and more focused towards work. During the late 1880’s Edison was very concerned about the cost of iron, which was impacting the price of some of his inventions, like the electric generator. After some thought and research, he believed he found a solution: build a separation plant to pulverize low-grade iron ore and produce an abundant supply of iron. Once the massive plant and supporting town was built, things didn’t quite go as planned. The machines disastrously failed, causing Edison to lose a substantial amount of money. Today’s cable news programs may often discuss the inefficiencies of the United States Congress, but Edison was dreaming up a solution almost 150 years ago. Just like today, the Senate voted on issues one by one – an inherently inefficient process that Edison wanted to change. As it turns out, the device Edison created, the electrographic vote-recorder, was one of his first patented inventions. Though the recorder could have saved hours of procedural time during Senate sessions, Edison’s creation was soundly rejected when he proposed it in Washington D.C. because political leaders worried that it would subvert the entire legislative process.
Failures
Edison had 1,093 patents for different inventions. However, not everything he created was a success; he also had a few failures. One concept that never took off was Edison's interest in using cement to build things. He formed the Edison Portland Cement Co. in 1899, and made everything from cabinets (for phonographs) to pianos and houses. Unfortunately, at the time, concrete was too expensive and the idea was never accepted. By 1895, Edison had created the Kinetophone--a Kinetoscope (peep-hole motion picture viewer) with a phonograph that played inside the cabinet. Sound could be heard through two ear tubes while the viewer watched the images. This creation never really took off, and by 1915 Edison abandoned the idea of sound motion pictures. The greatest failure of Edison's career was his inability to create a practical way to mine iron ore. He worked on mining methods through the late 1880s and early 1890s to supply the Pennsylvania steel mills' demand for iron ore. In order to finance this work, he sold all his stock in General Electric, but was never able to create a separator that could extract iron from unusable, low-grade ores. Eventually, Edison gave up on the idea, but by then he had lost all the money he'd invested.
Achievements
He was inducted in New Jersey Hall of Fame and Entrepreneur Walk of Fame.|'Officer of the Legion of Honour’ by France, Distinguished Service Medal by US Navy and Congressional Gold Medal by the US.|He received various medals including John Scott Medal, Edward Longstreth Medal, John Fritz Medal, Franklin Medal and Edison Medal.|Life magazine (USA), in a special double issue in 1997, placed Edison first in the list of the "100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years", noting that the light bulb he promoted "lit up the world".|In 2010, Edison was honored with a Technical Grammy Award.
Quotes
- Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.
- When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes.
- To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.