Thomas edison life biography of jackie

It has also been suggested that the brilliant inventor likely suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD. As he aged, so did his number of inventions produced decline. However, he still kept working in his lab and stacking up more and more patents. Thomas Edison died on October 18, aged The cause of death was diabetes.

Edison was survived by his second wife Mina and his six children. President Abraham Lincoln. Having been born about a decade before the breakout of the American Civil War inThomas Edison must have grown to appreciate the selfless work put in by President Lincoln and his administration to keep the Union together. Edison even took to selling portraits of Abe at the Grand Trunk Railway depot.

Another very important influence on Thomas Edison was Thomas Paine — the famous Enlightenment philosopher and author whose works symbolized the spirit of the American Revolution. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again. Edison was also influenced by 18 th century English portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds Port Huron in the U.

He once saved the life of young boy by the name of Jimmie MacKenzie from being hit by a runaway train. Edison was never in favor of the gold standard that America used. Rather than a debt-based money, he supported having a commodity-backed currency. On February 11,the U. Inhe was posthumously inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

Edison quote to the New York Times about the gold standard and interests charged by the banks. Thomas Edison. October 14, September 17, October 15, Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. What was the Chouannerie? Khatanbaatar Magsarjav. What was the Golden Horde? Ancient City of Kerma.

History of the Rijksmuseum. Greatest African Leaders of All Time. Donald Trump: 10 Most Significant Achievements. Kamala Harris: 10 Major Achievements. Mahatma Gandhi: 12 Most Important Achievements. How did Captain James Cook die? Most Famous Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. Skip to content U. What jobs did Thomas Edison hold? He attended only three months of formal schooling — he irritated his teachers with his repeated questioning and inability to just follow instructions.

He was largely disinterested at school and was mainly self-educated through reading. He took upon it himself to read every book on the library shelf. However, Edison was not impressed by the complex maths of Newton and resolved to try and make science more understandable. As a youngster, he tried various odd jobs to earn a living. This including selling candy, vegetables and newspapers.

He had a talent for business, and he successfully printed the Grand Trunk Herald along with his other newspapers. This included selling photos of his hero, Abraham Lincoln. He was able to spend his extra income on a growing chemistry set. He would later refuse any medical treatment, saying it would be too difficult to retrain his thinking process.

He seemed to take his deafness in his stride, and never saw it as a disability. Edison had a big break when he saved a young boy on the railway track from being struck by a runaway train. His grateful father, J. Mckenzie, had Edison trained as a telegraph operator and, aged 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky to work as a telegraph operator for Western Union.

From childhood, Edison loved to experiment, especially with chemicals. However, these experiments often got Edison into difficulties. Edison worked on several projects, including submarine detectors and gun-location techniques. However, due to his moral indignation toward violence, he specified that he would work only on defensive weapons, later noting, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.

By the end of the s, Edison was in his 80s. He and his second wife, Mina, spent part of their time at their winter retreat in Fort Myers, Florida, where his friendship with automobile tycoon Henry Ford flourished and he continued to work on several projects, ranging from electric trains to finding a domestic source for natural rubber.

During his lifetime, Edison received 1, U. He executed his first patent for his Electrographic Vote-Recorder on October 13,at the age of His last patent was for an apparatus for holding objects during the electroplating process. Edison became embroiled in a longstanding rivalry with Nikola Teslaan engineering visionary with academic training who worked with Edison's company for a time.

The two parted ways in and would publicly clash in the " War of the Currents " about the use of direct current electricity, which Edison favored, vs. Tesla then entered into a partnership with George Westinghouse, an Edison competitor, resulting in a major business feud over electrical power. One of the unusual - and cruel - methods Edison used to convince people of the dangers of alternating current was through public demonstrations where animals were electrocuted.

One of the most infamous of these shows was the electrocution of a circus elephant named Topsy on New York's Coney Island. He was 84 years old. Many communities and corporations throughout the world dimmed their lights or briefly turned off their electrical power to commemorate his passing. Edison's career was the quintessential rags-to-riches success story that made him a folk hero in America.

An uninhibited egoist, he could be a tyrant to employees and ruthless to competitors. But by the time he died, Edison was one of the most well-known and respected Americans in the world. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Louis Braille. Frederick Jones. Lonnie Johnson. Lewis Howard Latimer.

Nikola Tesla. Nikola Tesla's Secrets to Longevity. Garrett Morgan. Sarah Boone. Bush placed from October 17,the first kinetoscopes in London. In the last three months ofthe Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe i. The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialists.

Businessman Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiative in starting this business. Inhe also became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France. Edison's film studio made nearly 1, 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 SneezeThe KissThe Great Train RobberyAlice's Adventures in Wonderlandand the first Frankenstein film in Inwhen the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island announced they would execute Topsy the elephant by strangulation, poisoning, and electrocution with the electrocution part ultimately killing the elephantEdison Manufacturing sent a crew to film it, releasing it that same year with the title Electrocuting an Elephant.

As the film business expanded, competing exhibitors routinely copied and exhibited each other's films. Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era. InEdison started the Motion Picture Patents Companywhich was a conglomerate of nine major film studios commonly known as the Edison Trust.

Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of Americawhich was founded in Edison said his favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiled everything" for him. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf. Starting in the late s, Edison became interested and involved with mining.

High-grade iron ore was scarce on the east coast of the United States and Edison tried to mine low-grade ore. Edison developed a process using rollers and crushers that could pulverize rocks up to 10 tons. The dust was then sent between three giant magnets that would pull the iron ore from the dust. Despite the failure of his mining company, the Edison Ore Milling CompanyEdison used some of the materials and equipment to produce cement.

InEdison visited an industrial exhibition in the Sudbury area in Ontario, Canada, and thought nickel and cobalt deposits there could be used in his production of electrical equipment. He returned as a mining prospector and is credited with the original discovery of the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to mine the ore body were not successful, and he abandoned his mining claim in In the late s, 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. He had his lab work on many types of materials going through some 10, combinationseventually settling on a nickel-iron combination. Besides his experimenting Edison also probably had access to the patents for a nickel—iron battery by the Swedish inventor Waldemar Jungner.

Edison obtained a US and European patent for his nickel—iron thomas edison life biography of jackie in and founded the Edison Storage Battery Company, and by it had people working there. The first rechargeable batteries they produced were for electric cars, but there were many defects, with customers complaining about the product. When the capital of the company was exhausted, Edison paid for the company with his private money.

Edison did not demonstrate a mature product until a very efficient and durable nickel-iron-battery with lye as the electrolyte. The nickel—iron battery was never very successful; by the time it was ready, electric cars were disappearing, and lead acid batteries had become the standard for turning over gas-powered car starter motors. At the start of World War I, the American chemical industry was primitive: most chemicals were imported from Europe.

The outbreak of war in August resulted in a shortage of imported chemicals. One of particular importance to Edison was phenolwhich was used to make phonograph records—presumably as phenolic resins of the Bakelite type. At the time, phenol came from coal as a by-product of coke oven gases or manufactured gas for gas lighting. Phenol could be nitrated to picric thomas edison life biography of jackie and converted to ammonium picratea shock resistant high explosive suitable for use in artillery shells.

Britain also blockaded supplies from Germany. Edison responded by undertaking production of phenol at his Silver Lake facility using processes developed by his chemists. Production began the first week of September, one month after hostilities began in Europe. He built two plants to produce raw material benzene at Johnstown, Pennsylvaniaand Bessemer, Alabamareplacing supplies previously from Germany.

Edison manufactured aniline dyeswhich previously had been supplied by the German dye trust. Other wartime products include xylenep-phenylenediamineshellacand pyrax. Wartime shortages made these ventures profitable. Inhis production capacity was fully committed by midyear. Phenol was a critical material because two derivatives were in high growth phases.

Bakelite, the original thermoset plastic, had been invented in Aspirintoo was a phenol derivative. Invented init had become a blockbuster drug. Bayer had acquired a plant to manufacture in the US in Rensselaer, New Yorkbut struggled to find phenol to keep their plant running during the war. Edison was able to oblige. Bayer relied on Chemische Fabrik von Heyden, in Piscataway, New Jerseyto convert phenol to salicylic acid, which they converted to aspirin.

It is said that German companies bought up supplies of phenol to block production of ammonium picrate. Edison preferred not to sell phenol for military uses. He sold his surplus to Bayer, who had it converted to salicylic acid by Heyden, some of which was exported. InEdison spoke to American Magazinesaying that he had been working on a device for some time to see if it was possible to communicate with the dead.

InPhilippe Baudouin, a French journalist, found a copy of Edison's diary in a thrift store with a chapter not found in the previously published editions. The new chapter details Edison's theories of the afterlife and the scientific basis by which communication with the dead might be achieved. Henry Fordthe automobile magnate, later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at his winter retreat in Fort Myers.

Edison was impressed with Ford's internal combustion engine automobile and encouraged its developments. They were friends until Edison's death. Edison and Ford undertook annual motor camping trips from to Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs also participated. He believed strongly in the organization, writing that "The Civitan Club is doing things—big things—for the community, state, and nation, and I certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks.

Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before his death, the Lackawanna Railroad inaugurated suburban electric train service from Hoboken to MontclairDoverand Gladstone, New Jersey. Electrical transmission for this service was by means of an overhead catenary system using direct current, which Edison had championed. Despite his frail condition, Edison was at the throttle of the first electric MU Multiple-Unit train to depart Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken in Septemberdriving the train the first mile through Hoboken yard on its way to South Orange.

This fleet of cars would serve commuters in North Jersey for the next 54 years until their retirement in A plaque commemorating Edison's inaugural ride can be seen today in the waiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, which is presently operated by NJ Transit. Edison was said to have been influenced by a popular fad diet in his last few years; "the only liquid he consumed was a pint of milk every three hours".

However, this tale is doubtful. Inthe year before Edison died, Mina said in an interview about him, "Correct eating is one of his greatest hobbies. Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in On his last visit, inhe was reportedly shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles. Edison died of thomases edison life biography of jackie of diabetes on October 18,in his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jerseywhich he had purchased in as a wedding gift for Mina.

Stephen J. Herben officiated at the funeral; [ ] Edison is buried behind the home. 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. On December 25,at the age of 24, Edison married year-old Mary Stilwell —whom he had met two months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops.

They had three children:. Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9,of unknown causes: possibly from a brain tumor [ ] or a morphine overdose. Doctors frequently prescribed morphine to women in those years to treat a variety of causes, and researchers believe that her symptoms could have been from morphine poisoning. Edison generally preferred spending time in the laboratory to being with his family.

They also had three children together:. Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, Starting in the s, Thomas Jr. The situation became so bad that Thomas Sr. Thomas Jr. Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a " freethinker ". Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity.

Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me—the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love—He also made the fish I catch and eat.

Thomas edison life biography of jackie

And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us—nature did it all—not the gods of the religions. Edison was labeled an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter:. You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God.

There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made.

He also stated, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt. Forbes of American Magazine that he was working on a "spirit phone" to allow communication with the dead, a story which other newspapers and magazines repeated. Edison was a supporter of women's suffrage. Nonviolence was key to Edison's political and moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War Ihe specified he would work only on defensive weapons and later noted, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.

Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. Edison was an advocate for monetary reform in the United States. He was ardently opposed to the gold standard and debt-based money. Edison argued that, if the government can produce debt-based money, it could equally as well produce money that was a credit to the taxpayer.

During a publicity tour that he took with friend and fellow inventor, Henry Fordhe spoke publicly about his desire for monetary reform. For insight, he corresponded with prominent academic and banking professionals. In the end, however, Edison's proposals failed to find support and were abandoned. The following is an incomplete list of awards given to Edison during his lifetime and posthumously:.

Thomas Edison has been honored twice with two different U. The first was released in at Menlo Park, NJ, two years before his death; a 2-cent redon the 50th anniversary of his thomas edison life biography of jackie of the incandescent light, and again in3-cent violet, on the th anniversary of his birth, first released in Milan, Ohiohis place of birth.

Edison has also appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, television shows, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon, and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. Edison is also portrayed in popular culture as an adversary of Nikola Tesla.

The following is a list of people who worked for Thomas Edison in his laboratories at Menlo Park or West Orange or at the subsidiary electrical businesses that he supervised. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item.

American inventor and businessman — For other uses, see Edison disambiguation. Edison, c. Milan, OhioU. West Orange, New JerseyU. Mary Stilwell. Mina Miller. See list. Thomas Edison's voice. Menlo Park laboratory — Research and development facility. Carbon telephone transmitter. Main article: Incandescent light bulb. Electric power distribution.

Main article: War of the currents. West Orange and Fort Myers — Other inventions and projects. Further information: Great Phenol Plot. On religion and metaphysics. Commemorations and popular culture. People who worked for Edison. The Economist. Archived from the original on September 16, Retrieved September 16, Woodbridge, CT: Blackbirch Press.

ISBN State of New Jersey. January 1, Archived from the original on October 30, Retrieved October 11, The Franklin Institute. Archived from the original on March 5, Retrieved February 24, Archived from the original on July 18, Retrieved December 31, Oxford University Press. OCLC Library of Congress.