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Thomas Alva Edison was born.
His father Samuel Edison Jr. ran a shingle mill and grain business. His mother Nancy Elliott Edison, was a schoolteacher before her marriage to Samuel. Thomas Alva was the last of their seven children, three died in childhood. -
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Thomas Alva Edison
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Thomas Alva Edison Family moves from Ohio to Michigan
Thomas Alva Edison's family moves from Milan, Ohio to Port Huron Michigan because his father Samuel became a dealer in grain and feed. -
Edison left school and started being tutored by his mother at home.
His teachers thought that Edison was not very smart. Edison and his mother didn't like that school anyway so his mother decided to teach him at home. During a part of Edison's childhood he started to enjoy reading and could read super fast! -
Age 12 - Business takes off by the train!
When Edison was only twelve years old he convinced his parents to let him get a job working by the train selling candy, nuts, and newspapers. -
Age 14 - Business Idea Using Printing Press on Trains
When Thomas Edison was fourteen he set up a printing press in the back of a baggage car on a train. He got all his information from gossip on and near the train station which he put together and published a newspaper. Later on Edison set up a laboratory in the baggage car when suddenly two chemicals mixed and it caused a fire. The conductor came and poured water and stopped the fire, but struck Edison's ear in anger for the fire, which resulted in Edison losing his hearing in that ear forever. -
Age 16 - Telegraph and Morse Jobs
At age sixteen Edison jot a job as a tramp telegrapher. A tramp telegrapher is someone who travels throughout the country finding work, to write down messages that were in morse code into English from a telegraph machine. Sometimes there were personal messages for a family or millitary messages for the U.S war department. -
Age 17 - His First Invention
When Edison worked in the telegraph company he couldn't translate the morse code into english that fast, so he invented a machine that could slow down the pace that the morse came in to make it easier to translate to paper. -
Age 22 - His First Patent - Electric Vote Recorder
At age twenty-two Edison decided to stop roaming the country, and moved to Boston where he got his first patent for an electric vote recorder. He hoped the government would use it for voting, but they weren't interested in buying it. He also improved the stock printer in New York City. -
Moves to Newark, New Jersey and opens a small facility
Edison moves to Newark, New Jersey after becoming well known as an electrical inventory. This helped him get more financial backers, to help him begin his business. He started a partnership with Franklin Pope that eventually ended, so he started his own lab and manufacturing facility. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1999191,00.html -
Age 24 - Love at First Sight - Marries Mary Silwell - 1st wife.
Edison met a pretty young lady named Mary Silwell and they soon got married. -
Age 30 - The Phonograph - enchances telephones.
Edison invented the phonograph. The phonograph is an easier way to hear people on the telephone from farther places. -
Age 32 - Improves the lightbulb! Indoor lighting!
Edison invented the electical lightbulb that when he first tested it the lightbulb lasted for 13 hours! -
Age 35 - First successful electric power station - NYC
Edison sets up the world's first successful electric power station on Pearl Street in New York City. This led to lights in buildings particularly inthe financial district which increased his investors in his company. Famous businessman J.P. Morgan was one of them. -
Age 37 -Loss of first wife - Mary Stilwell
Edison's first wife Mary Stilwell, died unexpectedly at the age of 29. -
Age 39 - Marries 19 year old Mina Miller
On February 1886, Edison marries his 2nd wife - Mina Miller who was only 19 at the time. She came from a wealthy and educated family. -
Age 42 - Kinetiscope Movies
Edison created a box shaped machine that you can look inside a small peep hole and see pictures moving fast so that it will look like a video or a movie. -
Age 43 - Edison and the Cement business
The Yankee Stadium was actually built by Edison and construction workers and they were useing the cement Edison made. Edison and his cement also helped build the Panama canal. -
Death
Thomas Alva Edison died at age eighty-four from an illness. On the evening of his funeral at 10:00 p.m everyone in the U.S turned off their electrical lights in honor of Thomas Alva Edison.
" Genius is 1 percent insperation and 99 percent perspiration"
-Thomas Alva Edison
