Thomas Alva Edison
Compiled by D. A. Sharpe
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 Ð October 18, 1931) was an
American inventor and businessman, who has been described as America's greatest
inventor.
Edison is the sixth cousin, twice removed,
to United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is my half eighth cousin.
He
developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including
the phonograph (first demonstrated November 29, 1877), the motion picture
camera, and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. It was demonstrated in Menlo Park on December 31,
1879. Dubbed "The Wizard of
Menlo Park", he was one of
the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention,
and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first
industrial research laboratory.
Thomas A. Edison, one
of the premiere inventors in American History, is the sixth cousin, twice
removed, to United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, my half eighth
cousin. So again we see indirect relationship with very interesting personalities of our historic American
stage.
Edison
was a prolific inventor, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United
Kingdom, France, and Germany. More significant than the number of Edison's
patents was the widespread impact of his inventions: electric light and power utilities, sound recording, and motion pictures all established major new industries worldwide.
Edison's inventions contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications.
These
included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote
recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical
power, recorded music and motion pictures. His advanced
work in these fields was an outgrowth of his early career as a telegraph operator. Edison developed a system of
electric-power generation and distribution to
homes, businesses, and factories Ð a crucial development in the modern
industrialized world. His first power station was on Pearl Street in Manhattan, New York.
Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of
Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (1804Ð1896, born in Marshalltown,
Nova Scotia) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810Ð1871, born in Chenango
County, New York).[6] His father, the son of a Loyalist refugee, had moved as
a boy with the family from Nova Scotia, settling in southwestern
Ontario(then called Upper Canada), in a village known as Shewsbury, later Vienna, by 1811. Samuel Jr. eventually fled Ontario,
because he took part in the unsuccessful Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837.
His father, Samuel Sr., had earlier fought in the War of 1812 as captain of the First Middlesex
Regiment. By contrast, Samuel Jr.'s struggle found him on the losing side, and
he crossed into the United States at Sarnia-Port Huron. Once across the border, he found his way
to Milan, Ohio. His patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New Jersey; the
surname had originally been "Edeson."
Edison only attended school for a few months and was instead
taught by his mother.[9] Much of his education came from reading R.G.
Parker's School of
Natural Philosophy and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.
Edison developed hearing problems at an early age. The cause
of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring
untreated middle-ear infections. Around the middle of his career, Edison
attributed the hearing impairment to being struck on the ears by a train
conductor when his chemical laboratory in a boxcar caught fire and he was
thrown off the train in Smiths Creek,
Michigan, along with his apparatus and chemicals. In his later
years, he modified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in
helping him onto a moving train, lifted him by the ears.
Edison's family moved to Port Huron,
Michigan, after the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854 and business
declined.[13]Edison sold candy and newspapers on trains running
from Port Huron to Detroit, and sold vegetables. He briefly worked as a
telegraph operator in 1863 for the Grand Trunk Railway at Stratford, Ontario railway at age 16. He
was held responsible for a near collision. He also studied qualitative analysis
and conducted chemical experiments on the train until he left the job.
Edison obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on
the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed
the Grand Trunk Herald, which he sold with his other papers.[15] This began Edison's long streak of
entrepreneurial ventures, as he discovered his talents as a businessman. These
talents eventually led him to found 14 companies, including General Electric, which is still one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.
On December 25, 1871,
Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855Ð1884), whom he had met two
months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops. They had three
children:
¥
Marion Estelle Edison (1873Ð1965), nicknamed
"Dot"[21]
¥
Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. (1876Ð1935), nicknamed
"Dash"[22]
¥
William Leslie Edison (1878Ð1937) Inventor, graduate of the
Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 1900.
On May 13, 1880, Edison performed the first test of his electric
railway, done in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, of unknown
causes: possibly from a brain
tumor 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.
On February 24, 1886, at the age of thirty-nine, Edison
married the 20-year-old Mina Miller (1865Ð1947) in Akron,
Ohio.[27] She
was the daughter of the inventor Lewis Miller, co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution, and a benefactor of Methodist charities.
They also had three children together:
¥
Madeleine Edison (1888Ð1979), who married John
Eyre Sloane.[28][29]
¥
Charles
Edison (1890Ð1969), Governor of New Jersey (1941Ð1944), who took over his father's
company and experimental laboratories upon his father's death.[30]
¥
Theodore Miller Edison (1898Ð1992), (MIT Physics 1923),
credited with more than 80 patents.
Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.
Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18,
1931, in his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn
Park in West Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in
1886 as a wedding gift for Mina. He 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. A plaster death mask and casts of Edison's hands
were also made. Mina died in 1947.
HereÕs an ancestry report for Edison. ItÕs 4 pages, 9 generations.
Compiled by
Dwight Albert (D. A.) Sharpe
805 Derting Road East
Aurora, TX 76078-3712
817-504-6508