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Was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847 to Samuel and Nancy Edison. He was the youngest of seven children.

When he was very young, Edison caught scarlet fever, and along with ear infections, suffered some hearing loss.

As a young child, Edison was always distracted because of one thing or another, and this was the reason that he was expelled from school. His mother decided to homeschool him after that.

The attractive way that Edison’s mother taught the nine year old boy instilled the love of science in his mind from an early beginning.

At the age of ten, young Thomas Edison asked his mother to have a laboratory at home for chemistry. His mother agreed, and spent everything she had to buy the basic necessities for a lab.

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At age 12 he delivered the newspaper. He also published his own newspaper called, “Grand Trunk Herald.”

Using his access to the railroad, Edison set up a small laboratory in a train baggage car to conduct chemical experiments. While he was conducting one of his experiments, the car caught on fire because of a chemical fire. The conductor bolted in and hit Edison on the side of his head furthering his hearing loss. He was forced to sell his newspapers at various stations along the route, after he was kicked off of the train.

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15 year old “Al” was friendly towards the stationmaster and telegraph officer at a nearby Mount Clemens, James U. Mackenzie. One day, Edison was standing outside the Mount Clemens station, watching freight trains being transferred to a side track. He was watching them when he noticed a freight train approaching at high speeds. But what he noticed next was very surprising; Mackenzie's 3 year old son was playing on the tracks where the train was approaching. Not caring about his own safety, Edison rushed towards the child and saved the child’s life by grabbing him and himself out of the trains path, only with minor injuries.

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Mackenzie was forever grateful to Edison and struggled to figure out how to thank him. The next day, Mackenzie started to teach Edison the Morse telegraphic system. In 1874, Edison developed a system on which four separate signals were run on one line. How a small incident can lead to big discoveries.

Quadruplex telegraph

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Edison realized that the problem with Joseph Swan’s design was the filament. Edison made 99 failed attempts to improve the electric lamp. On his 100th try, Edison finally created a lamp that had a carbon filament and lit up for 13 ½ hours. Now incandescent light bulbs have a tungsten filament.

The phonograph was invented in 1877 and was quickly accepted into homes as a great source of entertainment.

To have pictures to go along with the music from the phonograph, Edison invented the motion- picture camera in 1888 with help from a young lab assistant Dickson.

Phonograph

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First wife was Mina Miller from 1886-1931

Second wife was Mary Stilwell from 1871-1884

6 Kids: Charles Edison, Theodore Miller Edison, Marion Estelle Edison, William Leslie Edison, Madeleine Edison, and Thomas Alva Edison Jr.

Mina Millers

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Persistent and passionate in and about his work.

Ready to think or work against the "popular" idea.

Not afraid of taking a risk.

Tolerant and

Good sense of humor.

Not afraid to take a risk and learn from his mistakes.

Focused on the future; visionary.

Saw the problem and the main roles in it at the same time.

Could give away his ideas.

Could solve a problem from different point of views.

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"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

These quotes that are listed above, are very similar to each other, but yet still have a very powerful message and use strong words. the first one is something that we can all relate. Think back to the time that you were learning to tie your shoelaces for the first time. You wanted to give up, but your mom or dad were by your side, and told you try just one more time. You'd fail and then try again. And then finally, finally, you'd get it. Remember the joy, the pride, the sense of happiness you had. The second quote refers to giving up. What if you hadn't tried that one more time. You wouldn't have gotten that reward, and you might have never learned to tie your shoelaces until you were like 9. That's why I think that these two quotes deliver a very powerful message.

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One day, Thomas Edison’s laboratory plant caught on fire. Instead of saying something like what had he done to deserve this, he shouted for his wife and asked for her to come with her friends to see the fire. He further said that they would never see a fire so big and great ever again. At 5:30 the next morning when the fire was almost out of control, Thomas Edison gathered his employees together and announced, “We’re rebuilding!” Afterwards, he asked if anyone knew where to get the money to rebuild. Later, he explained,“You can always make capital out of disaster. We’ve just cleared out a bunch of old rubbish! We’ll build bigger and better on these ruins.” This shows the positive attitude that Thomas Edison had towards life in every circumstance, even close to death.

He was partially deaf.

Edison has the most patents on record as 1093.