Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was an American inventor and businessman who lived from 1847 to 1931. He is one of the most famous inventors in history. He helped create the practical light bulb, the phonograph (the first machine that could record and play back sound), and an early movie camera. He also built the first power station that sent electricity into homes.

Edison was born in Ohio and grew up in Michigan. He went to school for only a few months. His teacher thought he was slow and could not learn well. His mother pulled him out of school and taught him at home. By the time he was a teenager, Edison was reading science books and running chemistry experiments in the basement.

When he was twelve, he started selling newspapers and candy on trains. A few years later, he learned to use the telegraph, the main long-distance communication tool of the day. Working as a telegraph operator at night gave him time to tinker. By his early twenties, he was inventing improvements to telegraph machines and selling them.

In 1876, Edison built a famous laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. People called him "the Wizard of Menlo Park." It was one of the first places in the world set up just for inventing. Teams of workers tested ideas day and night. Edison once said that genius was "one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

The light bulb is his most famous invention, but he did not invent it from nothing. Other people had made bulbs that glowed for a few minutes. Edison's team tested thousands of materials to find one that could glow for many hours without burning up. In 1879, they found a thin carbon thread that worked. To make light bulbs useful, Edison also built the wires, switches, and power stations needed to send electricity to whole neighborhoods.

Edison was not always fair to other inventors. He had a long fight with Nikola Tesla over which kind of electricity homes should use. Edison wanted direct current, or DC. Tesla wanted alternating current, or AC. Tesla's system won, and most homes today still use AC power. Some historians also point out that Edison took credit for work done by his employees, who rarely got their names on patents.

Edison kept inventing until he was an old man. He died at 84, having shaped the way people light their homes, listen to music, and watch movies. Almost every house with a lamp owes something to his work.