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Thomas Edison: A Life From Beginning to End
(Biographies of Business Leaders)
by Hourly History (Author)
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Well written, succinct account.
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Table of Contents
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Introduction
Edison's Early Life
Personal Life
Menlo Park
The Electric Light
The War of the Currents
Let's Go to the Movies
Other Inventions and Projects
Edison's Later Public Life
Final Years and Death
Edison's Legacy
Conclusion
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REVIEW
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Introduction
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"We all know about the lightbulb-over-the-head cartoon. Everyone has seen it. It denotes an idea. If you're old enough, you probably think immediately about the inventor of the lightbulb, Thomas Edison.
"There's one small problem with that thought, however; Edison did not truly invent the lightbulb. Many inventors before him had invented incandescent bulbs, but they went no further than to demonstrate how light can produce electricity.
"Edison improved on the lightbulb, so much so that his patent made it possible to market it everywhere. That was the genius of Thomas Alva Edison. He has become America's most famous inventor. That is due to the fact that Edison didn't merely invent things, he stepped into the world of business and marketed them as well.
"Edison developed many devices that would influence life all around the world. Where would we be today without motion pictures or music caught on CD or DVD? It was Edison who came up with the idea of the phonograph, which inevitably led to our modern digital devices.
"Most ingenious of all, Edison applied the principles of mass production and incorporated teamwork on a large scale when it came to working on his inventions. This had never been done before. Edison and his team were granted over 1,000 patents, and most significant of all was what those patents meant to American life and to life all around the world.
"Suddenly, Americans had lots of leisure time, and many were looking for new ways to fill up those empty hours. What could be better than to visit a movie theater or buy a phonograph and all the newest records? No longer were people forced to bed when it grew dark; now people everywhere were staying up all night long because electric lights and electric-power distribution were available.
"Let us have a look at this remarkable inventor and businessman, Thomas Edison. The next time you pass those high transmission towers or walk past an electrical grid station, know that once a long time ago, there was a man who wanted nothing more than to give you the best life you could have. One that has never before been seen or experienced in the dark centuries of long ago."
Wonder if this was published before the awareness about environmental disaster grew.
Simplest fact comes to mind about birds no longer getting sleep due to cities being so well lit. The more developed the region, the more light at night.
And bees are out of sync as well, leading to concern about effects on their roles in vegetation growth.
All this, apart from various other disasters, such as ocean life depleted due to greed of commercial fishing - and effects of pylons on health.
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May 31, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Edison's Early Life
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"Within the large Edison brood, three siblings died very young and Edison's remaining brothers and sisters were much older than him, so he was raised as if he were an only child. His mother Nancy was a former schoolteacher and taught him at home. Edison learned from his father's extensive library which included the same political hotbed of ideas his father had practiced in Canada as well as books on chemistry and other sciences.
"Early in his childhood, Edison developed hearing problems. He suffered from scarlet fever and had recurring ear infections. But, Edison would in the coming years recount various stories as to how his deafness came to be. He recounted how he was thrown off a train with his chemical laboratory when a boxcar caught fire. In later years, he changed the story when he said the conductor had pulled him onto the train by his ears. Most likely, recurrent ear infections from swimming in the dirty waters around Milan was the reason his hearing started to fail.
"By 1854 business was failing in Milan, so Edison's family moved to Port Huron in Michigan. The canals had passed their shining moment in American history and were fast being replaced by the railroads.
" ... By the time he was fifteen, Edison was publishing his own newspaper, called the Weekly Herald, which he sold along with the other newspapers. ... "
"Being around train stations all the time, Edison became enthralled with telegraphy while watching the telegraph operators at each station. ... "
"After the Civil War had ended, Edison moved to Kentucky where he became an employee of Western Union. ... "
" ... Out of his knowledge of telegraphy came one of his earliest inventions, that of the stock ticker. Edison's very first patent was for a vote recorder which was granted on June 1, 1869."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Personal Life
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"Sadly, in 1884, his wife Mary died at the mere age of 29. There has been speculation as to what killed her; some say a brain tumor, others say that it was a morphine overdose. In those years it was quite common for doctors to prescribe morphine to women for various reasons. Judging by some of her symptoms, it would appear as if she had succumbed to a morphine overdose"
"In later years, Edison spoke harshly of his two oldest sons. He felt they never amounted to much and whenever they would ask him for money, Edison would recall how they had done him no honor by remaining “absolute illiterates scientifically and otherwise.”
"Once his first wife died, Edison no longer did his work at Menlo Park. He moved his new family including his young wife Mina into their new home which was close to his new laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey."
Bad father?
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Menlo Park
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"By this time Edison had invented the quadruplex telegraph. He was going to sell the rights to it for about $5,000 but wasn't sure of the asking price, so he put it out for bid instead. The Western Union scooped it up for a smooth $10,000 much to Edison's surprise.
"Once he had this money in hand, it allowed him to establish his Menlo Park lab. This was the first lab of its kind to be set up specifically for technological innovation and improving his inventions. Edison is credited with most of the inventions created there; even though he had many employees to whom the credit could have gone, as they were responsible for much of the research."
" ... William Joseph Hammer, who started working for Edison in 1879. Hammer assisted in experiments during the development of the telephone, iron ore separator, phonograph, electric lighting and electric railway. Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was Edison's main man for all of the tests and data for the lightbulb.
"Another of Edison's key associates was Charles W. Batchelor, a mechanic who would become one of Edison’s closest friends and associates. It would be Batchelor who would introduce Nikola Tesla to Edison in the coming years.
"As his laboratory in Menlo Park expanded, Edison gave his assistants shares in the various companies created by his inventions. In time his employees would earn far more from their shares than they ever did working for salary under Edison. He was notoriously known for underpaying his assistants. ... "
"The invention which would dub him “The Wizard of Menlo Park” in New Jersey would be the phonograph. Because Edison loved working on more than one project at a time, he was able to take ideas from one experiment and apply them someplace else. Because he liked moving his assistants around, Edison was able to come up with his first major invention; the phonograph.
"Previously he had been working on the carbon transmitter which would improve the telephone microphone. It was at this time that Edison realized that vibrations picked up by a carbon transmitter could be just as easily applied to a needle instead. This needle could use some sort of physical material to etch the vibrations on to."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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The Electric Light
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" ... Incandescent lamps had already been invented by people such as Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer, William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan and Heinrich Gobel. These inventions had all proven useless with their many flaws."
"Edison had formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with the help of financial backing from J.P. Morgan and members of the Vanderbilt family. ... "
" ... What Edison and his researchers were able to do was to produce a bulb which burned for 13 1/2 hours. ... "
" ... Additional experiments would produce a carbonized bamboo filament that would burn for over one thousand hours."
" ... In 1882, the Mahen Theatre in Brno, Czech Republic, was the first public building in the world to use Edison's electric lamps. ... "
Was it, then, Czech Republic, or even Czechoslovakia? Or was it all still part of Austria-Hungary?
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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The War of the Currents
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" ... Edison was a firm believer that AC power was unworkable. AC power depended on high voltages, and Edison said it would never be feasible. By 1886 the Westinghouse Company was fully involved in bringing an AC power distribution system to its customers. Edison began hitting back. He stated that within six months Westinghouse would end up killing a customer after installing their AC system into their home or business. Edison believed there was much work left to be done on the Westinghouse electrical lighting system."
" ... Edison Electric had based their entire design on low-voltage direct current (DC). They had already installed over 100 systems and to change now was absolutely out of the question. The Westinghouse Company was taking over the electric light business; Edison was fast losing out. ... "
"In 1884, Edison was visited by a young Croatian man, named Nikola Tesla. This well-dressed gentleman carried a letter of introduction from Charles Batchelor. Tesla had recently emigrated from France and was looking for work in the U.S. He was in luck, and Edison hired Tesla to work at redesigning the company’s direct current generators.
"Tesla recounted how Edison had offered him a $50,000 bonus if he could successfully improve the generators. Tesla completed the work quickly, but when he asked for his money, Edison told him “you don't understand American humor.” But Edison did offer Tesla a $10 per week raise. Tesla promptly quit. But, the conflicts were far from over."
"By the spring of 1888, there had been accidental deaths attributed to the high-voltage current running through high wires. The media picked up on the dangers of AC electricity immediately. This was the perfect time for Edison to start his AC fear-mongering campaign."
"With the help of the tycoon J.P. Morgan, Edison General Electric was merged with the Thomson-Houston Company to become General Electric. They now controlled three-quarters of the US electrical business and would be the competition Westinghouse needed to beat them at their game."
"But by the time General Electric was founded in 1892, the Westinghouse Company was awarded the contract to light up Niagara Falls. This was done with the help of Nikola Tesla, whom Edison had treated so badly."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Let's Go to the Movies
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"By 1888 Edison was working on a device that would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear.” He was granted a patent for a motion picture camera or what came to be called the “kinetograph”. He left the bulk of the development to his chief photographer William Dickson while Edison worked on the electromechanical design. In fact, the design of the camera actually belongs to Dickson."
" ... Dickson started creating short films for the general public. Another Edison assistant saw the commercial value in producing such works. It was Tate who purchased a shoe shop on Broadway in New York City and turned the shop into the first kinetoscope parlor. Because the 10 machines that were delivered there didn't have coin slots, he printed up paper tickets for admission. These became the first movie tickets."
"Edison refused at first to be drawn into a projector project. ... He was quoted as saying that where the motion picture projector was concerned “there will be a use for maybe 10 of them in the whole United States.” ... "
"Without Edison's knowledge or approval, Dickson began working on a projection system of his own along with other entrepreneurs. When Edison got wind of this, Dickson resigned. Who owned what, and whose property rights the projection system belonged to was the source of numerous lawsuits over the ensuing years."
"Edison became the head of his own movie studio. Over time the movie studio made almost 1,200 movies. Most of these were short films and gave the public a little of everything; from parades to acrobats to fire engines. There were titles such as Fred Ott's Sneeze (1894), The Kiss (1896), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910) and the first Frankenstein film in 1910.
"When the owners of Luna Park in Coney Island, New York announced they were going to execute Topsy the elephant by electrocution, strangulation, and poisoning, Edison's Studios sent a film crew to catch it all on film. In 1904 the movie Electrocuting an Elephant was released."
"In 1908 Edison started the Motion Pictures Patent Company which brought together nine major motion picture studios. The motion picture industry was in its infancy during these years, and if Edison had seen its potential and all it offered to society in general, all his money problems could have been swept under the rug.
"In the end, he lost interest in this new device and didn't turn to it again until there was a need to blend pictures with sound. Even then, he believed talking pictures “spoiled everything” for him. Still, he had a favorite movie (The Birth of a Nation) and his favorite actors were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Other Inventions and Projects
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" ... Once Edison realized he wasn't going to win the Current Wars, he turned his attention elsewhere. In the 1880s, he developed a means of separating iron ore using magnets.
"Once Edison had received money for stepping away from his company General Electric, he used the capital to buy an iron ore mine in northern New Jersey in Ogdensburg. ... "
"In time, huge reserves of iron ore were discovered in the Mesabi Range in northeastern Minnesota. Edison realized at that point that his small iron ore operation was doomed. The ore in Minnesota was easily mined and close to shipping facilities. Combine that with the falling prices of iron ore and Edison's magnetic extractors were no longer feasible."
" ... In the late 1890s, he began experimenting with various materials that would be visible in an x-ray. By 1900 he had invented a fluoroscope that could be manufactured commercially. Edison was using calcium tungstate because this element produced the brightest images on the screen.
"But, just a few short years later, Edison left off with his fluoroscopy inventions. Clarence Dally, who was one of Edison's assistants in the lab suffered radiation poisoning from repeated exposure to x-rays; he would eventually die from aggressive cancer. Even Edison damaged one of his eyes with his repeated fluoroscope experiments."
"Later on, in the 1920s, Edison joined up with Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford to create the Edison Botanic Research Corporation, constructing a lab in Fort Myers, Florida where they conducted rubber experiments. At the time the U.S. was getting its bulk of rubber from countries overseas. Edison wanted to find a way to cultivate rubber in the U.S.
"Unlike other experiments, Edison did the majority of the research and planting. He would send soil samples back to his headquarters in West Orange, NJ for further evaluation of the sample rubber residues. His methods were based on a two-part acid-based extraction; latex was derived from the plant material after it was dried and crushed down to powder form. It would take about 17,000 plant samples before Edison could say he found success in the Leavenworth Goldenrod plant."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Edison's Later Public Life
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"As the years went by, hundreds of companies would come to carry his name, even though they had no affiliation with Edison whatsoever. As early as the 1890s, Edison filed a lawsuit against The Edison Chemical Company, which wasn't associated with him at all. Another businessman with the same last name had named his company thus.
"Edison was certainly adept at marketing inventions, the light bulb being a prime example of those skills. He didn't so much as “invent” the light bulb, but he knew how to market it better than his competitors. Throughout his long career, he created many businesses; his patents were licensed, his products were manufactured, equipment was built, and whole industries sprang up where once there was nothing."
" ... His genius lay in hiring only the very best assistants, many of whom stayed with him for decades; these men knew Edison well and were adapted to his work schedules and quirks. Some, like Nikola Tesla would come and go quickly.
"Beginning in the 1870s and 1880s Edison created and ran companies that established him as the primary producer and distributor of incandescent lights. It wasn't just the light bulb which was manufactured. There were companies that produced wires, insulators, connectors, sockets and the equipment to produce all of these. Edison was also right there when it came to producing current and how it was distributed to customers.
"Additionally, Edison had his network of companies that would conduct his research, develop products, research new markets, build systems, as well as collect the fees that went along with providing electric lights to homes and businesses. Most of these companies would become the General Electric Company, and because Edison stubbornly refused to stay out of a war of currents, he lost control of his company, as well as all of the patents that went with it."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Final Years and Death
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“I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun.”
"—Thomas Edison"
"Edison lived near to Henry Ford in their Fort Myers, Florida community. The two men had met years before when Ford worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company way back in the 1890s. Edison and Ford became good friends in their later years, usually taking yearly motor camping trips from 1914 to 1924.
"Edison continued to work when most men would have been long retired. In 1928 Edison brought direct current power to the Lackawanna Railroad when they introduced an overhead catenary system. This was the cable running along the track above the train from which the wire is suspended.
"When the first train of this kind left the Hoboken, NJ train station, Edison was at its helm. This particular set of train cars would run in northern New Jersey for the next 54 years until they were retired in 1984.
"When Europe entered into the First World War in 1914 Edison urged his fellow citizens to stay prepared. He believed that technology would be the future of war. Edison was named the head of the Naval Consulting Board in 1915 which was the government's way of bringing science into the defense program. Mostly this board was an advisory one, but there was a research laboratory which was implemented in 1923 for the Navy.
"During the war, Edison still busied himself with naval research. In particular, he was interested in submarine detection. He made many suggestions and recounted his inventions to the Navy regarding this, but for the most part, he was ignored."
"His good friend Henry Ford had reconstructed Edison's research factory at Menlo Park as a museum at Greenfield Village, Michigan. It opened during the fiftieth anniversary of Edison's electric light in 1929.
"There was a huge celebration called Light's Golden Jubilee at Menlo Park, and it was co-hosted by Ford and General Electric. A dinner was held in Edison's honor, and attendees included President Hoover, John D. Rockefeller Jr., George Eastman, Marie Curie and Orville Wright."
" ... It was in his home Glenmont in West Orange, NJ which he had purchased for his bride Mina in 1886 as a wedding present, that he drew his last breath.
"It was estimated that 40,000 people paid their respects to Edison where he was laid out in his laboratory in West Orange. Henry Ford couldn't get himself to enter the room where his good friend was resting. The First Lady was there on behalf of her husband, as was Harvey Firestone.
"President Hoover urged all citizens to extinguish their lights at ten p.m. as a tribute to Edison. The president is quoted as saying “this demonstration of the dependence of the country upon electrical current for its life and health is in itself a monument to Mr. Edison's genius.” For one minute on that fateful day, most of the country did go dark. ... "
" ... Edison died at the height of the Great Depression, and by the time his will was probated, there was maybe $1.5 million left. As for his surviving companies, they didn't do so well either.
"Thomas A. Edison Inc. did eventually merge with the McGraw Electric Company of Chicago. The name changed to McGraw-Edison. Unlike his friends, Edison had a paltry few million compared to their rich endowments of one hundred million or more. Many of their personal savings were in the tens of millions as well. Most of Edison's savings were always plugged back into his companies during his lifetime."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Edison's Legacy
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"Edison brought many insightful inventions into the world. But, often he couldn't see the good they would become, and often he got in his own way when insisting something must be done the way he envisioned it.
"One shining example of this is his phonograph. He insisted that it only be used in business and research endeavors. He saw it as a wonderful learning tool, where films for education could be seen by all. Edison couldn't envision the mass public using his glorious invention for entertainment purposes. He would always back away from endorsing its use in this manner."
"When it was shown that AC current would be much more workable over DC current, Edison wouldn't budge. He resolutely refused to see the futility of his thinking when it came to DC current. Direct current power systems would never have been able to power everything for long distances and many other inventions such as the railroads would never have prospered as they did on DC current alone.
"When he was wrong, he refused to see it. He wouldn't admit it either; rather he would personally attack those who were bringing these revelations to his attention. Innovators such as George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla were sorely verbally abused by Edison which started giving him a reputation for being a mean man. He even went so far as to conduct unnecessary tests, electrocuting dogs, for instance, to show the public how dangerous AC high-voltage power could be."
"In taking a look through all of his inventions, many scientists and historians regard the phonograph as Edison's greatest invention. This was his personal favorite, and he was constantly returning to it over the years to improve its quality. When Edison recorded himself as saying “Mary had a little lamb” he was completely stunned, as were his staff, when they heard the first replay.
"Edison's motion picture camera was similar to his phonograph box, but this device came equipped with a spiral arrangement of 1/16th-inch photographs which spun on a cylinder. When George Eastman came up with celluloid film, Edison used it to improve on his motion picture camera. The films were cut into strips with perforated edges; creating the iconic shape that most of us picture when we think about a film roll.
"Edison's vote recorder was invented when he was a mere 22 years old. He was still working as a telegrapher at the time but already loved tinkering with new ideas. This new invention would become the new way the US Congress would cast votes; no longer would a simple “yay” or “nay” suffice. This device connected to the clerk's desk where all of the votes were recorded.
"There were Edison's mining devices, giant magnets and steel rollers which he devised to crush rocks. He grew rubber plants and at the end of his life became involved with Henry Ford's automobiles, encouraging the development of the internal combustion engine, which all by itself, would transform culture around the globe.
"The one “invention” that Edison is known for above all others is the light bulb. This is Edison's greatest legacy. He didn't invent the incandescent light; it was already there when he started working on it. What he did do was design cheaper bulbs that could be easily manufactured, last a long time and were cheap to buy. What Edison did was to introduce a bamboo filament into a vacuum bulb with lower voltage. The rest, as they say, is history."
"What set Edison apart from so many other inventors and scientists was that he was able to figure out something from its very inception, then move it through the patent stage where research was performed, all the way to the development and marketing of that particular invention. Many of his contemporaries never stayed with a project as he did. Edison would involve himself in all stages of his inventions.
"Under Edison, the laboratory would be transformed into something much more than merely hammering out solutions to problems. In fact, up until this point scientists and inventors had shops. It wasn't until Edison came along that the shop would be transformed into a laboratory. From here basic research would be conducted and compiled.
"One of Edison's best qualities is that what he couldn't find in books, he conducted his own experiments to find out. It would be through rudimentary research, countless hours of experimentation that Edison would revolutionize how manufacturing and research would be carried out from that point forward.
"To go along with his research facilities, Edison started to employ some of the brightest minds around. They would become a part of his legacy, for, without their dedicated service, much of what he envisioned could never have seen the light of day."
"Unlike many of his contemporaries such as Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, Edison did not involve himself in philanthropic activities. He wasn't one to support charities any more than he established a foundation in his name. Possibly, because Edison never really retired, he didn't have the time or the inclination for any of it."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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Conclusion
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"Thomas Edison lit up the world. He was never about making vast amounts of money, however nice that would have been for his many inventions. He was all about innovation; he could look at something and see the potential for it to become so much more. He believed that it was his work and nothing more that made him the famous man he became."
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June 01, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
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May 31, 2022 - June 01, 2022.
Purchased February 13, 2020.
Kindle Edition
Format: Kindle Edition
Language: English
ASIN:- B06XGMZD27
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4755868411
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