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July 5 - White History Month - 27th Most Iconic White AmericanThomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was the quintessential American inventor in the era of Yankee ingenuity. As the fulfillment of the American dream of rags-to-riches through hard work and intelligence, he became a folk hero to his countrymen and the best-known American in the world. His phonograph brought him worldwide fame when the device was used by the U.S. Army to bring music to the troops overseas during World War I and quickly became the most popular home-entertainment device of the century. He laid the basis for the technological and social revolution of the modern electric world.America's most ingenious inventor, Edison said "genius is hard work, stick-to-it-iveness, and common sense." His presentations and business bargaining were astounding. His life and achievements epitomize the ideal of applied research derived from practical experiments. Edison never questioned whether something might be done, only how.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.But Edison did more than invent, he thought of ways to make something better, built it, tested it, made it work, then manufactured it.Not only did Edison improve the phonograph several times, but he also worked on X-rays, storage batteries, and the first talking doll. At West Orange he also worked on one of his greatest ideas: motion pictures, or "movies." The inventions made here changed the way we live even today. He worked here until his death at the age of 84.He began his career in 1863, in the adolescence of the telegraph industry, when virtually the only source of electricity was primitive batteries putting out a low-voltage current. Before he died, in 1931, he had played a critical role in introducing the modern age of electricity.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. In 1887, Edison built a laboratory in West Orange that was ten times larger than the one in Menlo Park. In fact, it was one of the largest laboratories in the world, almost as famous as Edison himself. Once Edison worked for three days straight, taking only short naps. Edison earned half of his patents in West Orange. He later established a botanic laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, in collaboration with businessmen Henry Ford and Harvey S. Firestone, and a laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, that featured the world's first film studio, the Black Maria. He was a prolific inventor, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as patents in other countries. Edison married twice and fathered six children. He died in 1931 of complications of diabetes.Thomas Edison patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New Jersey; the surname had originally been "Edeson"."Al," as he was called as a boy, went to public school for a total of 12 weeks. Deemed "difficult" by his teacher, he did so poorly that his mother, a former teacher, taught him reading, writing, and arithmetic at home. Al was a very curious child who learned most things by reading on his own. As a child, he became fascinated with technology and spent hours working on experiments in the basement.Al developed hearing problems at the age of 12. The cause of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle-ear infections. He subsequently concocted elaborate fictitious stories about the cause of his deafness. Being completely deaf in one ear and barely hearing in the other, it is alleged that Edison would listen to a music player or piano by clamping his teeth into the wood to absorb the sound waves into his skull. As he got older, Edison believed his hearing loss allowed him to avoid distraction and concentrate more easily on his work.Al not only played hard, but also worked hard. At the age of 12 he sold fruit, candy, snacks, newspapers, and vegetables on a train as a "news butcher." (Trains were the newest way to travel, cutting through the American wilderness.) He turned a $50 a week profit by age 13, most of which went to buying equipment for electric and chemical experiments. This was the first of what would become a long string of entrepreneurial ventures where he saw a need and capitalized on the opportunity.At 15, Al roamed the country as a "tramp telegrapher." He became a telegraph operator after he saved a three-year-old Jimmie from being struck by a runaway train. Jimmie's father was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Using a kind of alphabet called Morse Code, he sent and received messages over the telegraph. Even though he was losing his hearing, he could still hear the clicks of the telegraph. In the next seven years he moved over a dozen times, often working all night, taking messages for trains and even for the Union Army during the Civil War. In his spare time, he took things apart to see how they worked. Finally, he decided to invent things himself.Edison obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed his own newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, on a moving train, which he sold with his other papers. As he discovered his talents as a businessman, his entrepreneurship was central to the formation of some 14 companies, including General Electric, still one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where, as an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift, which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes—reading and experimenting. Eventually, the latter pre-occupation cost him his job. One night in 1867, he was working with a lead–acid battery when he spilled sulfuric acid onto the floor. It ran between the floorboards and onto his boss's desk below. The next morning Edison was fired.His first patent was for the electric vote recorder in 1869. Finding little demand for the machine, Edison moved to New York City.There he improved the way the stock ticker worked in 1870. This was his big break. Edison began developing a multiplex telegraphic system, which could send two messages simultaneously, in 1874, eventually making it send up to four messages at once.Edison's major innovation was the establishment of an industrial research lab in 1876. It was built in Menlo Park, 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 ($228,700 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 was legally attributed with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development under his direction. His staff was generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research, and he drove them hard to produce results.Edison's invention that first gained him wide 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". Most patents, the inventions he described were improvements over prior patients. The phonograph patent, in contrast, was unprecedented as the first machine that could record the sound of someone's voice and play it back. Edison recorded the first words on a piece of tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. He recited the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and the phonograph played the words back to him. Despite its limited sound quality and that the recordings could be played only a few times, the phonograph made Edison a celebrity. Starting in 1878, Edison and his assistants worked on one of his greatest achievements. The electric light system was more than just the incandescent lamp, or "light bulb." Edison also designed a system of power plants that make the electrical power and the wiring that brings it to people's homes. His company slogan: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking." In 1876, Edison began work to improve the microphone for telephones (at that time called a "transmitter") by developing a carbon microphone, which consists of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon that would change resistance with the pressure of sound waves. A steady direct current is passed between the plates through the granules and the varying resistance results in a modulation of the current, creating a varying electric current that reproduces the varying pressure of the sound wave.Up to that point, microphones, such as the ones developed by Johann Philipp Reis and Alexander Graham Bell, worked by generating a weak current. The carbon microphone works by modulating a direct current and, subsequently, using a transformer to transfer the signal so generated to the telephone line. Edison used the carbon microphone concept in 1877 to create an improved telephone for Western Union. In 1886, Edison found a way to improve a Bell Telephone microphone, one that used loose-contact ground carbon, with his discovery that it worked far better if the carbon was roasted. This type was put in use in 1890 and was used in all telephones along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s.In 1878, Edison began working on a system of electrical illumination, something he hoped could compete with gas and oil-based lighting. He began by tackling the problem of creating a long-lasting incandescent lamp, something that would be needed for indoor use. However, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb.Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. It was during this time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."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. The company established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. On September 4, 1882, Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.In January 1882, Edison switched on the first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to street lamps and several private dwellings within a short distance of the station. On January 19, 1883, the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey.In 1884 his wife died. (Previously in 1871, 24-year-old Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell.) He needed a change in scenery.In 1886, the 39-year-old widower for two years married 20-year-old Mina Miller and moved to West Orange NJ where he produced the commercial phonograph, founded the motion-picture industry, and developed the alkaline storage battery as a power source for the phonograph at a time when most homes still lacked electricity. AC arc lighting systems for streets and large spaces had been an expanding business in the US. With the development of transformers in Europe and by Westinghouse Electric in the US in 1885–1886, it became possible to transmit AC long distances over thinner and cheaper wires, and "step down" (reduce) the voltage at the destination for distribution to users. This allowed AC to be used in street lighting and in lighting for small business and domestic customers, the market Edison's patented low voltage DC incandescent lamp system was designed to supply. Edison's DC empire suffered from one of its chief drawbacks: it was suitable only for the high density of customers found in large cities.Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous. As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886, Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating, "Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size. He has got a new thing and it will require a great deal of experimenting to get it working practically."By the end of 1887, Edison Electric was losing market share to Westinghouse, who had built 68 AC-based power stations to Edison's 121 DC-based stations. Other companies built many AC power stations.Rising public furor over a series of deaths in the spring of 1888 caused by pole mounted high voltage alternating current lines turned into a media frenzy against high voltage alternating current. Edison took advantage of the public perception of AC as dangerous, and joined with self-styled New York anti-AC crusader Harold P. Brown in a propaganda campaign, aiding Brown in the public electrocution of animals with AC, and supported legislation to control and severely limit AC installations and voltages (to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system) in what was now being referred to as a "battle of currents". The development of the electric chair was used in an attempt to portray AC as having a greater lethal potential than DC and smear Westinghouse at the same time via Edison colluding with Brown and Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to make sure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator.Thomas Edison's staunch anti-AC tactics were not sitting well with his own stockholders. By the early 1890s, Edison's company was generating much smaller profits than its AC rivals, and the War of Currents would come to an end in 1892 with Edison forced out of controlling his own company. That year, the financier J.P. Morgan engineered a merger of Edison General Electric with Thomson-Houston that put the board of Thomson-Houston in charge of the new company called General Electric. General Electric now controlled three-quarters of the US electrical business and would compete with Westinghouse for the AC market.Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available fluoroscope, a machine that uses X-rays to take radiographs. Until Edison discovered that calcium tungstate fluoroscopy screens produced brighter images than the barium platinocyanide screens originally used by Wilhelm Röntgen, the technology was capable of producing only very faint images.The fundamental design of Edison's fluoroscope is still in use today, although Edison abandoned the project after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously injuring his assistant, Clarence Dally. Dally made himself an enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopy project and was exposed to a poisonous dose of radiation; he later died (at the age of 39) of injuries related to the exposure, mediastinal cancer.In 1903, a shaken Edison said: "Don't talk to me about X-rays, I am afraid of them." Nonetheless, his work was important in the development of a technology still used today.Edison was granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical design while his employee William Kennedy Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson. In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.Edison's film studio made nearly 1,200 films. The majority of the productions were short films showing everything from acrobats to parades to fire calls including titles such as Fred Ott's Sneeze (1894), The Kiss (1896), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910), and the first Frankenstein film in 1910. To better protect the copyrights on his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U.S. copyright office. Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era.Edison said his favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiled everything" for him. "There isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf." His favorite stars were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow.In the late 1890s, Edison worked on developing a lighter, more efficient rechargeable battery (at that time called an "accumulator"). He looked on them as something customers could use to power their phonographs but saw other uses for an improved battery, including electric automobiles. The then available lead acid rechargeable batteries were not very efficient and that market was already tied up by other companies so Edison pursued using alkaline instead of acid. He had his lab work on many types of materials (going through some 10,000 combinations), eventually settling on a nickel-iron combination.Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at his winter retreat in Fort Myers. Ford once worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit and met Edison at a convention of affiliated Edison illuminating companies in Brooklyn, NY in 1896. Edison was impressed with Ford's internal combustion engine automobile and encouraged its developments. By 1912 Henry Ford was one of Edison’s greatest admirers and asked him to design a battery for the self-starter, to be introduced on the Model T. Ford’s request led to a continuing relationship between these two Americans They were friends until Edison's death. Edison and Ford undertook annual motor camping trips from 1914 to 1924. Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs also participated.Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931.Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento. A plaster death mask and casts of Edison's hands were also made.