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Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11th, 1847 and later his family moved to Michigan.
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Edison gets a job as a trainboy with the Grandfunk Railroad selling newspapers and candy. He set up a chemistry lab and printing press on board the train.
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Edison becomes a telegraph operator for Western Union and invented an automatic vote recorder and filed his first patent.
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He retires as a telegraph operator to devote his time to inventing. After several more telegraph patents, he moves to New York City where he worked for the Laws Gold Indicator Company.
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Edison moves to Newark, New Jersey and used all of his money and time for new inventions. He opens a telegraph manufacturing shop and invents many stock market machines.
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Edison marries one of his first employees, Mary Stillwell, on Christmas Day and together they have three children.
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Edison invents the quadruplex telegraph for Western Union. This made it possible to send four telegraph messages at the same time.
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Edison invented the electric pen which is an early form of a copy machine.
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Thomas invented the phonograph that plays music and later he improved it so people could afford it. During this same time the carbon transmitter was also invented which was used to make the telephone work much better.
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Using the power of carbon, Edison invented the carbon-filament lamp that required no oil or fire. He also invented a direct-current generatoor for incandescent electric lighting.
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Thomas hired a larger staff an opened an industrial park to develop his electric lighting system for the public to use.
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Edison founded the Pearl Street power station in New York City. This was considered the world's first central electricity generating station and not soon after, Edison moved east to help cities install electricity for the people.
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Edison merged his electric Company with another company named Thomson-Houston Company, and General Electric was formed.
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Trying to find a way to store energy to use when electricity wasn't available, Edison came up with the battery.
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On October 18th 1931, Thomas Edison dies at the age of 84 due to complications with his diabetes. He passed away while in a coma in his home in West Orange, NJ.
Edison's inventions help change our world and the country honored him by dimming their lights on his funeral day.
