Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) - an outstanding American inventor and businessman who received over four thousand patents in different countries planets. The most famous among them were the incandescent lamp and the phonograph. His merits have been recognized top level— in 1928, the inventor was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and two years later Edison became an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

An underrated genius

Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in the small town of Mylen, located in Ohio. His ancestors moved overseas in the 18th century from Holland. The inventor's great-grandfather participated in the War of Independence on the side of the metropolis. For this, he was condemned by the revolutionaries who won the war and deported to Canada. There his son Samuel was born, who became Thomas's grandfather. The inventor's father, Samuel Jr., married Nancy Eliot, who later became his mother. After an unsuccessful uprising in which Samuel Jr. participated, the family fled to the United States, where Thomas was born.

During his childhood, Thomas was inferior in height to many of his peers, looking a little sickly and frail. He suffered a severe illness from scarlet fever and practically lost his hearing. This affected his studies at school - the future inventor studied there for only three months, after which he was sent to prison. home schooling with the teacher’s offensive sentence “limited.” As a result, her son was educated by her mother, who managed to instill in him an interest in life.

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Businessman by nature

Despite the harsh imprisonment of his teachers, the boy grew up inquisitive and often visited the Port Huron People's Library. Among the many books he read, he especially remembered “Natural and Experimental Philosophy” by R. Green. In the future, Edison will repeat all the experiments that were described in the source. He was also interested in the work of steamships and barges, as well as carpenters at the shipyard, which the boy could watch for hours.

From a young age, Thomas helped his mother earn money by selling vegetables and fruits with her. He saved the funds he received to conduct experiments, but there was a catastrophic lack of money, which forced Edison to get a job as a newspaperman on a railway line with a salary of 8-10 dollars. At the same time, the enterprising young man began publishing his own newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, and sold it successfully.

When Thomas turned 19, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky and got a job at information Agency Western Union. His appearance in this company was a consequence of the human feat of the inventor, who saved the three-year-old son of the head of one of the railway stations from certain death under the wheels of a train. As gratitude, he helped teach him the telegraph business. Edison managed to get work on the night shift because during the day he devoted himself to reading books and experiments. During one of them, the young man spilled sulfuric acid, which flowed through cracks in the floor to the floor below, where his boss worked.

First inventions

Thomas's first experience as an inventor did not bring him fame. His first apparatus for counting votes during elections turned out to be of no use to anyone; American parliamentarians considered it completely useless. After the first failures, Edison began to adhere to his golden rule - not to invent something that is not in demand.

In 1870, luck finally came to the inventor. For a stock ticker (a device for recording stock exchange rates automatically), he was paid 40 thousand dollars. With this money, Thomas created his own workshop in Newark and began producing tickers. In 1873, he invented a diplex telegraph model, which he soon improved, turning it into a quadruplex with the ability to transmit four messages simultaneously.

Creation of the phonograph

A device for recording and reproducing sound, which the author called the phonograph, glorified Edison for centuries. It was created as a result of the inventor's work on the telegraph and telephone. In 1877, Thomas was working on a machine that could record messages in the form of intaglio impressions on paper, which could then be sent repeatedly using the telegraph.

The active work of the brain led Edison to the idea that a telephone conversation could be recorded in a similar way. The inventor continued to experiment with a membrane and a small press, which were held over moving paraffin-coated paper. Voiced by voice sound waves created vibration, leaving marks on the surface of the paper. Later, instead of this material, a metal cylinder wrapped in foil appeared.

During a test of the phonograph in August 1877, Thomas uttered the line from the nursery rhyme, “Mary had a little lamb,” and the device successfully repeated the phrase. A few months later, he founded the Edison Talking Phonograph enterprise, receiving income from demonstrating his device to people. Soon the inventor sold the rights to make a phonograph for 10 thousand dollars.

Other famous inventions

Edison's prolific output as an inventor is amazing. The list of his know-how includes many useful and bold decisions for its time, which in their own way changed the world. Among them:

• Mimeograph- a device for printing and duplicating written sources in small editions, which Russian revolutionaries loved to use.
• The method of storing organic food in a glass container was patented in 1881 and involved the creation of a vacuum environment in the container.
• Kinetoscope- a device for watching a movie by one person. It was a massive box with an eyepiece through which you could see a recording lasting up to 30 seconds. It was in good demand before the advent of film projectors, to which it seriously lost in terms of mass viewing.
• Telephone membrane- a device for reproducing sound, which laid the foundations of modern telephony.
• Electric chair- apparatus for carrying out the death penalty. Edison convinced the public that this was one of the most humane methods of execution and obtained permission for its use in a number of states. The first “client” of the deadly invention was a certain W. Kemmer, executed in 1896 for the murder of his wife.
• Stencil pen- a pneumatic device for perforating printed paper, patented in 1876. For its time, it was the most effective device capable of copying documents. 15 years later, S. O'Reilly created a tattoo machine based on this pen.
• Fluoroscope- an apparatus for fluoroscopy, which was developed by Edison's assistant K. Delli. At that time, X-rays were not considered particularly dangerous, so he tested the device on his own hands. As a result, both limbs were subsequently amputated, and he himself died of cancer.
• Electric car— Edison was truly obsessed with electricity and believed that it was the real future. In 1899, he developed an alkaline battery and intended to improve it to increase its service life. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century in the United States more than a quarter of cars were electric, Thomas soon abandoned this idea due to the widespread use of gasoline engines.

Most of these inventions were made in West Orange, where Edison moved in 1887. Edison's series of achievements also includes purely scientific discoveries, for example, in 1883 he described thermionic emission, which later found application in detecting radio waves.

Industrial electric lighting

In 1878, Thomas began to commercialize the incandescent lamp. He was not involved in its birth, since 70 years earlier the Briton H. Devi had already invented a prototype of the light bulb. Edison became famous for one of the options for its improvement - he came up with a standard size base and optimized the spiral, making the lighting device more durable.

Edison went even further and built a power plant, developed a transformer and other equipment, ultimately creating an electrical distribution system. It became a real competitor to the then widespread gas lighting. Practical use electricity turned out to be much more important than the idea of ​​its creation. At first, the system illuminated only two blocks, while immediately proving its performance and acquiring a finished presentation.

Edison had a long conflict with another king of American electrification, George Westinghouse, over the type of current, since Thomas worked with direct current, and his opponent worked with alternating current. The war was fought according to the principle “all means are fair”, but time put everything in its place - as a result, alternating current turned out to be much more in demand.

Secrets of an Inventor's Success

Edison was able to combine inventive activity and entrepreneurship in an amazing way. While developing the next project, he clearly understood what its commercial benefits would be and whether it would be in demand. Thomas was never embarrassed by the chosen means and if it was necessary to borrow technical solutions from competitors, he used them without a twinge of conscience. He selected young employees for himself, demanding devotion and loyalty from them. The inventor worked all his life, without stopping, even when he became a rich man. He was never stopped by difficulties, which only strengthened him and directed him to new achievements.

In addition, Edison was distinguished by his uncontrollable capacity for work, determination, creativity of thought and excellent erudition, although he never received a serious education. By the end of his life, the fortune of the entrepreneur-inventor was $15 billion, which allowed him to be considered one of richest people of his era. The lion's share of the money earned went to business development, so Thomas spent very little on himself.

Edison's creative legacy formed the basis of the worldwide famous brand General Electric.

Personal life

Thomas was married twice and had three children from each wife. He first married at the age of 24 to Mary Stilwell, who was 8 years younger than her husband. Interestingly, before marriage they knew each other for only two months. After the death of Mary, Thomas married Mina Miller, whom he taught Morse code. With its help, they often communicated with each other in the presence of other people, tapping their palms.

Passion for the occult

In old age, the inventor became seriously interested in afterlife and conducted very exotic experiments. One of them was associated with an attempt to record the voices of dead people using a special necrophone device. According to the author's plan, the device was supposed to record last words a person who has just died. He even entered into an “electric pact” with his assistant, according to which the first person to die must send a message to his colleague. The device has not survived to this day, and there are no drawings left, so the results of the experiment remained unknown.

Thomas Edison's acquaintances for a long time They wondered why his gate was so difficult to open. Finally one of his friends said to him:
“A genius like you could have designed a better wicket.”
“It seems to me,” replied Edison, “the gate is designed ingeniously.” It is connected to the home water pump. Everyone who comes in pumps twenty liters of water into my tank.

Thomas Edison passed away on October 18, 1931, at his home in West Orange and was buried in his backyard.

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Thomas Edison is an inventor with incredible entrepreneurial talent. Author of 1093 patents in America and almost three thousand patents in other countries. Has America's highest award - Gold medal Congress. In 1930 he received the title of honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Thomas Edison lived an extraordinary and bizarre life. Every time you get acquainted with his biography, some new details emerge. For many, Edison represents a dream come true, respectability and good fortune. Humanity still uses his inventions - we can make calls, send mail, travel by train, listen to music, and all this thanks to his numerous inventions, which number in the thousands. I can’t even believe that as a child he was considered retarded and his parents asked him to take him out of school.

Childhood

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in the small town of Mylen, located in Ohio, USA. His parents were political emigrant from Canada Samuel Edison and the daughter of a priest Nancy Eliot. The mother of the future inventor received a good upbringing and education, which allowed her to teach at a school in the village of Vienna. In 1837, after the uprising in Canada, in which Samuel took part, he had to urgently flee to the States to avoid a prison sentence. In 1839, he took his wife and children.

Thomas became the seventh child in the family; the three eldest Edison children died before they even lived ten years. Al (as Thomas was called at home) did not speak until he was four years old, and was also frail and short. As a child, I was seriously ill with scarlet fever, so I couldn’t hear in my left ear. His parents were afraid of him, afraid that he would repeat the fate of his elders.

After he started talking, the boy pestered everyone with questions, and loved to receive accurate and comprehensive answers to them. His head was significantly larger than other children his age. Mom considered this a sign of great intelligence, but the teachers at school called him limited and offered to transfer him to home schooling, because they saw no prospects for further attendance at school. Thus, the boy studied for only 3 months, after which his parents were forced to take him away from educational institution. The mother herself taught the child, and it was with her that he mastered writing, reading and arithmetic.

Thomas was distinguished by increased curiosity. He noticed everything that happened around him, watched the ships, watched how the carpenters worked. He could also spend hours copying inscriptions on signs of stores and warehouses.

When Thomas was seven years old, the Edisons changed their place of residence - they settled in the city of Porto Huron. At this time, the boy learned to read and made his first discovery. He helped his mother sell fruits and vegetables at the market, and when he managed to find some free time, he visited the People's Library, where he was one of the most active readers.

The boy's favorite authors were David Hume, Edward Gibbon, and Richard Burton. By the age of twelve, he had studied all their works, although he read his first scientific book at the age of 9. It was the work of Richard Greene entitled “Natural and Experimental Philosophy,” which not only described discoveries, but also experiments. The boy managed to repeat them.

For chemical experiments needs money, so Thomas starts selling newspapers at the train station, hoping to make money the required amount. He even received permission to set up his own laboratory to conduct experiments. It was located in the baggage car of one of the trains. However, he was soon expelled from there because one day his experiments led to a fire.

In addition to all his advantages, the boy grew up very brave. One day he saw a train heading towards the son of the head of the railway station, and managed to save the boy from certain death.

As a thank you, his boss hired him as a telegraph operator, and for several years the biography of the young inventor was connected with this place.

Edison could not stay in one place for long. He moved to Indianapolis, then Nashville and Cincinnati, then returned to his native land to go to London in 1868, and then to New York. Thomas was constantly short of money, because almost everything he earned was invested in experiments and the purchase of books.

Inventions

Edison once said that genius consists of one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. This expression subsequently became popular, and it most accurately confirms the secret of his success.

Thomas literally lived in the laboratory. There were times when he did not leave it for nineteen hours, and the result of his labors is impressive. Thomas has registered 1,093 patents in the States alone and more than three thousand inventions have been confirmed by patents in other countries. It should be noted that his first developments were not successful, and there were no buyers for them. For example, the Americans were not interested in an electric meter that sums up votes in elections.

The scientist’s first success came during his collaboration with the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company. Edison was hired after he managed to repair a telegraph apparatus that even hired craftsmen could not handle.

In 1870, Thomas worked to improve the system of telegraphing exchange bulletins, which indicated the rate of precious metals and stocks. The company bought this invention from him. Thomas immediately invested the funds received in his own workshop for the production of tickers for stock exchanges. A year later, Edison already had 3 similar workshops.

From that time on, his business was quite successful. Edison became the founder of the company "Pope, Edison & Co", and for five years he collected a generous harvest of his inventions. At this time, he was actively working on the manufacture of a quadruplex telegraph, thanks to which one wire could transmit four messages simultaneously. Thomas understands that he needs an equipped laboratory, so in 1876 he begins to build it. He chose Menlo Park, near New York, and an industrial complex appeared there for scientific research. Soon Edison managed to gather the most talented and skillful scientists on his staff.

The inventor worked for a long time to convert telegraph messages into sound, and thanks to this the phonograph appeared. In 1877, Thomas learned to record sound on foil using a needle. This is how the first semblance of a record appeared, from which the children's song “Mary Had a Little Lamb” sounded. Everyone thought it was fantastic and called Thomas the Wizard of Menlo Park.

Two years later, in 1879, the most famous of all Edison's inventions appeared in the world - an improved light bulb, which had much longer duration work and was inexpensive to produce. The lamps used in those days lasted no more than two hours and were energy-consuming and expensive. Thomas said that he was ready to illuminate all of New York with fireproof lamps, and anyone could buy them. He began experimenting to find a suitable filament material, testing six thousand samples until he chose carbon fiber. Its burning life was 13.5 hours, later Edison managed to increase it to 1200 hours.

In order to demonstrate the system of working with electricity, Thomas built a power plant in New York. Four hundred lamps lit up there at the same time. In less than a few months, the number of consumers of electrical energy has increased many times. If previously only 59 people used this miracle, now there are more than 500 users.

1882 was the year of the “war of currents,” which lasted until the beginning of the new century. Thomas advocated direct current, which worked over short distances, while another scientist, recently working in Edison's laboratory, advocated the use of alternating current, which could be transmitted over hundreds of kilometers. Tesla proposed using it to work on power plants and generators, but did not find like-minded people.

Edison instructed Nikola to produce 24 machines that use alternating current. But Thomas did not pay the young scientist for this work, although he initially promised him $50 thousand. Tesla was offended, left Edison, and since then they have become competitors.

Tesla and industrialist George Westinghouse introduced alternating current everywhere, and Edison tried to sue him. He also did not refuse anti-advertising to denigrate Tesla’s experiments; he used it on animals to prove how dangerous this current is. As a result of these disputes, the electric chair was invented, which is still used in America for execution.

The final point in this war was set in 2007. The chief engineer of the Consolidate Edison Corporation himself cut off the last of the cables that supplied New York with direct current.

Edison owns the right to invent a device for radiography, called a fluoroscope, and a carbon microphone, thanks to which the volume on the telephone increased several times. In 1887, Edison opened a new laboratory located in West Orange. It was much larger than the previous one and equipped with the latest technology. The invention of the alkaline battery and the voice recorder took place within these walls.

Thomas did not ignore cinema. He became the inventor of the kinetoscope, a device that shows the movement of images. It could well be called a personal cinema, because with the help of a special eyepiece it was possible to watch a movie. After some time, the inventor had his own hall - “Kinetoscope Parlor”, in which there were ten such boxes.

Personal life

The successful inventor managed to build not only a career, but also a personal life. He was married twice, and became the father of six children. His first wife was telegraph operator Mary Stillwell; they wanted to get married literally soon after they met. But the lovers were prevented by the death of Thomas's mother, so they got married only in 1871. After the celebration, Thomas left his young wife and plunged into work; the wedding night took place much later.

Mary gave birth to Thomas three children - a daughter and two sons. He called the older children Dot and Dash, like in Morse code. The marriage was happy, but short-lived; the inventor’s wife died in 1884, at the age of 29, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

A little time passed, and changes began to take place in Thomas's personal life. He fell in love with 20-year-old Mina Miller, whom he immediately taught to understand Morse code, and then used this language to declare his love. They married in 1886. A year later, daughter Madeleine was born, who was the only one of all the children who bore Edison grandchildren. In 1890, a son, Charles, was born, and eight years later another son, Theodore.

Death

Thomas Edison died on October 18, 1831, several months shy of his 85th birthday. The great inventor had diabetes, which caused complications and ultimately led to death.

Monuments to Thomas Edison

Death found him in his own home in West Orange. He purchased this house more than forty years ago, just before his marriage to Mina Miller. Edison's resting place was the backyard of his own estate.

• It was long believed that Thomas invented the simplest tattoo machine, although everyone knows that its invention belongs to Samuel O'Reilly.
• Edison is involved in the death of an elephant named Topsy. She killed three people and was executed using alternating current, which Thomas opposed. The inventor recorded this murder on film.
• Throughout his career, Thomas suffered several defeats. He built a plant that attempted to extract iron from low-grade ore. They laughed at his invention and tried to prove that it was easier and more profitable to invest in the development of deposits. As time has shown, his opponents were right.
• The second failed project was the construction of a house entirely made of concrete. He even began producing concrete furniture, introducing several interior items to customers.
• Another incredible development concerned the creation of a helicopter that was supposed to run on gunpowder.
• His long-burning lamp caused people to sleep two hours less. While working on improving this invention, the scientist spent more than forty thousand notebook pages.
• It was Edison who suggested saying the word “hello” at the beginning of every telephone conversation.

The best inventions

• Aerophone
• Electric vote counter for elections
• Ticker machine
• Carbon telephone membrane
• Mimeograph
• Phonograph
• Carbon microphone
• Incandescent lamp
• Magnetic Iron Ore Separator
• Kinetoscope
• Iron-nickel battery

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Was born Thomas Alva EdisonFebruary 11, 1847 to a family of American immigrants in Ohio. He was the seventh child in the family and since he was the smallest, he became everyone's favorite.

His career began, perhaps, with an attempt to teach his neighbor to fly. The secret discovered by Thomas, who had not yet gone to school, was simple: birds fly because they eat worms. But the neighbor still didn’t fly away from the ground worms, and Thomas was punished.

An American company paid Edison fabulous money for improvements to the telegraph, and Thomas Edison gained popularity as a person accepting orders for inventions. He opened his own laboratory with a staff of one hundred people, in which he practically lived. He worked 20 hours a day, was never afraid to make mistakes and did not believe in the possibility of failure.

Edison invented the quadruplex telegraph, gramophone, kinetoscope (prototype of a movie camera), fluoroscope (x-ray machine) and much, much more. In total, during his life he received 1093 patents for his inventions.

The most famous of his inventions was the incandescent electric lamp. Inventing it, Edison conducted 2000 experiments, spending a whole year on it, burned half of his face with a bright flash of light and even received nervous breakdown. Nevertheless, Thomas achieved his goal both as an inventor and as a businessman: the electric light bulb became so simple and cheap to use that lighting candles became simply a luxury in comparison.

Success stories never get old because the principles of success are essentially unchanged. Thomas Edison is a man who broke all the rules and canons. He did so poorly at school that his mother took him away from there and began teaching him herself. As an employee, he never showed excessive zeal at work. He stormed into interviews with his hands in his pockets and chewing gum. He made his first invention by accident.

The story of Thomas Edison is the story of a man who thought big, worked 20 hours a day and never betrayed himself.

Great words of Edison:

« I didn't fail. I just found 10,000 ways that don't work ».

"I had no working days or rest days. I just did it and enjoyed it ".

Interesting Facts:

Thomas did not perform particularly well at school, if not worse - already in the first grade the teacher called him a brainless idiot and to this schooling The future inventor's life ended after only a few months.

At school, things went so poorly for the future genius that his mother was forced to teach him at home. Edison repeatedly stated that The secret of success is to allow yourself to be yourself, to study in the way that suits you, and not as the teachers impose.

Thomas had hearing problems due to a previous illness. But, he said, his ears “didn’t perceive the noise of the side electrical charges, and this only helped him concentrate completely.”

Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in the city of Mailen (sometimes called Milan in Russian-language sources) in American state Ohio. Edison's ancestors came to America from Holland.
Edison's childhood is partly reminiscent of the childhood of another brilliant inventor -. Both suffered from scarlet fever and became practically deaf; both were declared unfit for school. But if Tsiolkovsky studied at school for several years, then Edison went to school for only three months, after which he was called “brainless” by the teacher. As a result, Edison received only home education from his mother.

Thomas Edison as a child

In 1854, the Edisons moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where little Thomas sold newspapers and candy on trains, and also helped his mother sell fruits and vegetables. In his spare time, Thomas enjoyed reading books and scientific experiments. He read his first science book at the age of 9. It was "Natural and Experimental Philosophy" by Richard Greene Parker, which told almost all the scientific and technical information of the time. Over time, he performed almost all the experiments mentioned in the book. Edison set up his first laboratory in the baggage car of a train, but after a fire there, the conductor threw it out onto the street along with the laboratory.
While working on railway Teenager Edison founded his own travel newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, which he printed with 4 assistants.
In August 1862, Edison saved the son of the head of one of the stations from a moving carriage. The boss offered to teach him telegraphy in gratitude. For several years, Edison worked in various branches of the Western Union telegraph company (this company still exists and, after the decline of the telegraph, is engaged in money transfers).
Edison's first attempts to sell his inventions were unsuccessful, as was the case with a device for counting votes cast for and against, as well as with a device for automatically recording stock exchange rates. However, things soon went well. The most important invention Edison's invention, which ultimately led to the creation of computer networks, was the quadruplex telegraph. The inventor planned to get 4-5 thousand dollars for it, but in the end in 1874 he sold it to Western Union for 10 thousand dollars (about 200 thousand dollars taking into account inflation today). With the money received, Edison opens the first industrial research laboratory in the world in the village of Menlo Park, where he worked 16-19 hours a day.

Thomas Edison Laboratory (Menlo Park)

It became catchphrase Edison: "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." For Edison himself, who was self-taught, everything was exactly like this, for which he was criticized by another famous inventor Nikola Tesla:
“If Edison needed to find a needle in a haystack, he would waste no time in determining the most likely location of its location. He would immediately, with the feverish diligence of a bee, begin to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. methods are extremely ineffective: he can spend a huge amount of time and energy and achieve nothing unless he is helped by a happy accident. At first I watched his activities with sadness, realizing that a little creative knowledge and calculations would have saved him thirty percent of the work. But he had genuine contempt for bookish education and mathematical knowledge, trusting entirely in his instincts as an inventor and common sense American."
However, not knowing, for example, higher mathematics, Edison did not shy away from resorting to the help of more qualified assistants who worked in his laboratory.

Thomas Edison in 1878

Inventions

In 1877, Thomas Edison introduced the world to a hitherto unknown miracle - the phonograph. It was the first device for recording and reproducing sound. To demonstrate, Edison recorded and played back the words from the children's song "Mary had a little lamb." After this, people began to call Edison "the wizard of Menlo Park." The first phonographs sold for $18 each. Ten years later, Emil Berliner invented the gramophone, which soon supplanted Edison's phonographs.

Thomas Edison testing a phonograph

Abraham Archibald Anderson - Portrait of Thomas Edison

In the 70s, Edison tried to improve incandescent lamps, which until now no scientist before him had been able to make publicly available and ready for use. industrial production. Edison succeeded: on October 21, 1879, the inventor completed work on an incandescent light bulb with a carbon filament, which became one of the largest inventions of the 19th century.

Edison's early incandescent lamps

To demonstrate the possibility of using light bulbs on a large scale, Edison created a power plant that provided electricity to the entire New York area. After the success of his experiments, Edison declared: “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”
Edison patented the fluoroscope, a device for creating radiography. However, experiments with X-ray radiation seriously undermined the health of Edison and his assistant. Thomas Edison abandoned further development in this area and said: “Don’t talk to me about X-rays, I’m afraid of them.”
In 1877-78, Edison invented the carbon microphone, which significantly increased the volume of telephone communications and was used until the 80s of the 20th century.
Edison also left his mark on cinema. In 1891, his laboratory created the Kinetograph, an optical device for shooting moving images. And in 1895, Thomas Edison invented the kinetophone - a device that made it possible to demonstrate moving pictures with a phonogram heard through headphones, recorded on a phonograph.
On April 14, 1894, Edison opened the Parlor Kinetoscope Hall, which contained ten boxes designed to display films. One session in such a cinema cost 25 cents. The viewer looked through the device's peephole and watched a short film. However, a year and a half later, this idea was buried by the Lumiere brothers, who demonstrated the possibility of showing films on the big screen.
Relations with cinema in general were tense for Edison. He enjoyed silent films, especially 1915's The Birth of a Nation. Edison's favorite actresses were silent film stars Mary Pickford and Clara Bow. But Edison reacted negatively to the advent of sound cinema, saying that the acting was not so good: “They concentrate on the voice and have forgotten how to act. I feel it more than you, because I am deaf.”

Thomas Edison in 1880

Thomas Edison in 1890

Family

Edison was married twice. His first wife was telegraph operator Mary Stillwell (1855-1884). They married in 1871. There were three children in this marriage: a daughter and two sons. As they say, Edison went to work after the wedding and worked until late at night, forgetting about his wedding night. Mary died at the age of 29, presumably from a brain tumor.

first wife Mary Stillwell (Edison)

In 1886, Edison married Mina Miller (1865-1947), whose father, like Thomas Edison, was an inventor. Mina far outlived Thomas Edison (he died in 1931 at the age of 84). There were also three children in this marriage: a daughter and two sons.

second wife Mina Miller (Edison)

Mina with her husband, Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison. Photo from 1922

Thomas Edison changed the world by making it brighter. The bright ideas of the American have firmly entered our lives and served as the beginning of many future discoveries: electricity, cinema, sound recording, chemical substances, electronic counting systems, etc.

Possessing a high efficiency, he could stay awake for days, carried away by the next idea. He was not an altruist: having sold his first successful development at the age of 20, he invested money in a workshop, replicated the equipment and improved the data transfer speed. His telegraph sent information all over the world, and Edison was already immersed in his main invention - mechanically reproducing the human voice. Its embodiment many years later will be the telephone.

He needed a place to work, assistants and independence to carry out experiments. The order helped him earn money: Edison took it upon himself to improve the operation of the typewriter, in which the letters were bumping into each other and did not want to lie in an even line. It went into commercial production under the Remington brand - this is the name of the businessman who paid Edison the amount with which he founded the laboratory, which became the forge of his experiments in a variety of fields.

He has more than one thousand patents to his name. He went down in history as great inventor, one of the few who drove technological progress without any education. Self-taught Edison was a respected and wealthy American who earned a capital of $15 billion. Thousands of people worked under his leadership in the town of Llewelyn Park, the prototype of the famous Silicon Valley.

He died at the age of 84. They say that on this day, fans of his talent around the world turned off the lights in their windows.

Klutz

Edison's ancestors were from Holland, they were engaged in farming and were quite wealthy people when they moved from Canada to America. Here Samuel Edison met a young girl, the daughter of a priest, Nancy, and proposed to her. In 1828 they married, and 19 years later the Edison couple had a seventh child, who was named Thomas Alva. The youngest of the children was under the constant care of his mother, who was always ready to help and protect. The boy grew up very curious, disappeared on the railway, which was located not far from the house, and accompanied barges on the river near which they lived. He was not interested in toys and children's games; he spent all his time observing the life around him.

At the age of seven he was sent to school, but within a few months teachers began to complain about his inability to study. Although the boy had an almost photographic memory, school lessons were boring and uninteresting to him. His mother took him to home education, since she herself was a teacher with a very good reputation.

Edison read a lot, he was fascinated by books on history, philosophy, science and technology. He conducted many scientific experiments at home, copying them from pages he had read. He especially liked chemical research. Which required reagents. For their sake, he began to earn money, first helping his mother in selling vegetables, then getting a job as a newspaperman on a train.

At the age of 15, he came up with the idea of ​​transmitting newspaper announcements through a telegraph operator to all the stations through which the train passed. They began to buy goods more willingly and the guy is even trying to publish a railway newsletter himself. But he is much more interested in everything connected with the telegraph, and when a successful opportunity arises, he is taken on as an apprentice telegraph operator. Soon Edison masters this business and sits down at the machine himself, receiving a good salary for his work. At the age of 18, he becomes a full member of the Western Union team.

In this telegraph company, he conducts experiments to create a vote recording device. The demonstration of this invention before the commission ends in failure: parliamentarians are accustomed to trusting paper. But Edison received a patent and went further in his developments - a year later he showed another device with the help of which stock exchange rates are automatically recorded. And again failure. But the guy does not despair, he continues to work on improving the mechanism. He spends his small earnings on buying books and necessary equipment for your classes. At the same time, he experiments with electricity and even writes a book on this topic, but he will not be able to publish it due to lack of money.

After two years of working in the office and desperate attempts to get out of poverty and complete his developments, Edison retreats. He leaves for New York, where he tries to find work with famous telegraph business owners. But he is refused everywhere. Quite by chance he goes into a small telegraph company, where the machine just broke down and Edison offered his services. This time, luck was with him, having established himself as a high-class specialist, he soon becomes a technician of large production and now he has somewhere to roam. He is 23 years old, has a decent salary and a good base for implementing his ideas to increase data transfer speeds.

A turbulent period of his activity began, the inventor received a customer, a workshop and a staff of assistants. Telegraph machines began to write hundreds of times faster, but stock tickers were still not satisfying with their work. In desperation, he locks the craftsmen and does not let them out until the problem is fixed. Together with them, he worked without sleep for more than two days, and the team managed to put the equipment into operation. He sells the development for a lot of money and uses it to set up his own workshop. In three years, he received 45 patents for his inventions.

By the age of 30, Edison’s son and father join forces and take on the construction of a laboratory, which for ten years will become a launching pad for the implementation of all technical ideas and will become famous throughout the world.

Discoveries

Menlo Park, where inventor Thomas Edinos lives and works, is bustling with activity. The first significant discoveries appear one after another, many are being worked on in parallel, regardless of the time of day. Edison has always been distinguished by his incredible ability to work, and many of his partners found it very easy to work with him. But carried away by a new order from Western Union, he forces the team to short time execute it. The telegraph is being replaced by the telephone - still primitive, but promising unprecedented prospects. He uses his $100 thousand bonus to equip the laboratory. Something new is coming technical device with sound recording - phonograph. Its demonstration took place in one of the magazines and was quite successful: the press wrote about American know-how with a membrane and a needle sliding along the foil, reproducing sound. Edison will be no less stunned by his discovery than the public: he got it right the first time.

The invention dates back to 1877, and a few years later it would be replaced by the gramophone and gramophone.

The next step will be electric lamps, which, thanks to Edison's filament, will burn much longer than their predecessors - not 12 hours, but a thousand times longer. It was he who was given the idea of ​​the shape of the lamp as the whole world knows it.

Financial business sharks are willing to invest in the Edison Electric Light company, which will instantly saturate the American market with an electrical miracle. Edison at this time was building distribution substations in London and New York. His invention led to the spread of electric lighting. But first, America was shocked by the story associated with the war of currents - this is how the press characterized the disagreements between Edison and the young engineer Nikola Tesla, who quit the inventor’s laboratory with a scandal. They wrote that Edison was wrong when he promised him a big jackpot for improving the DC electric machines invented by him, but having approved the result, he did not pay. After some time, Tesla will open own company, and Edison will begin an information battle against the idea of ​​alternating current - the property of young and talented people.

In this struggle, all means were good for Edison, and in 1890 he participated in a cruel experiment - the first execution by electric chair. She looked terrible, but Edison continued to insist.

By the way, then none of them won in this confrontation: the Americans used both types of current. It would be 100 years before the United States finally adopted AC power.

At 41, Edison would amaze the world with another discovery: the kinetoscope. A small box in which, through a small hole, you can observe the movement of pictures. The first film was watched on film, along the edges of which holes were punched, allowing it to be moved and fixed. Edison's invention will turn out to be the twin brother of the famous Lumers, which will lead to another war: for the right to be the author of the perforation used in the film and jump mechanism. But the big screen on which the movie was shown, Lumières, will turn out to be much more popular than individual screenings in a box.

But having lost the patent, Edison did not want to lose commercial benefits - he intercepted the film “A Trip to the Moon” from his successful competitors, remade it and sold copies, which compensated for his costs and had moral satisfaction. By the way, the film was shown in the first cinema in Los Angeles, located in the Hollywood area.

Heirs

Edison married for the first time at the age of 24 to a charming 16-year-old telegraph operator. Mary gave him a daughter and two sons. Little Marion's father called him "Dot", and his son Thomas - "Dash", the telegraph style entered this house for a long time after dad proposed marriage to mom using Morse code. In general, they often knocked, touching each other with their hands - it is known that Edison suffered from deafness, having received this complication in adolescence.

The younger William did not get a nickname when he was growing up; the head of the family was already inventing and promoting his phonograph.

The family idyll was shattered by tragedy: Mary dies of a brain disease. She was only 28 years old. Edison is bitter about this loss. But after some time he meets the daughter of his colleague - the inventor and owner of the Miller plant - and falls in love with her.

Mina was 21 years old when they got married. She took care of the children and her husband, who was 20 years older than her.

He bought her a huge house with a huge park area. He also located his workshops here, which are equipped with everything necessary for conducting experiments. His assistants and employees lived nearby, and the place resembled a scientific town where the intellectual elite was concentrated. A lecture hall, a huge library, workshops for the production of electric batteries and dynamos. And all this was illuminated as soon as Edison invented the light bulb instead of candles.

Three more children were born into their family: in the same way - a daughter and two sons. And of course, he taught his wife Morse code to make it easier to communicate.

Their daughter Madeline was born two years after the wedding. She was smart and purposeful; it is known that she dreamed of becoming a congressman and even ran for this place. And she is the only one of the heirs who gave three grandchildren.

At 43, Edison became a father for the fifth time: his son Charles will grow up to be a versatile child. In his adult life he would succeed in politics, work on Franklin Roosevelt's team, and after his father's death in 1931, inherit his business.

Most younger son Edison - Theodore - distinguished himself by being educated, working in his father's company and having several dozen of his own patented inventions. He outlived all of his brothers and sisters, and died at the age of 94.

Mina will outlive her husband by sixteen years. All these years she will come to his grave every day. The great Thomas Alva Edison is buried in a park near his large home.