Thomas Edison

• Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio.


• Thomas Edison was the 7th (and youngest) child in the family. Three of his siblings died during childhood.


• In 1854 when Edison was 7, his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan.


• Thomas Edison attending formal school for less than one year. His mother then home-schooled him, teaching Thomas to read and write.


• As a child, Edison built things and loved to experiment. Before he was 15 he built a telegraph and printing press.


• At the age of 14, Thomas Edison started his own newspaper called the Weekly Herald.


• By the age of 21, Thomas Edison began to work full time on inventing.


• At the age of 21, in 1868 Thomas Edison invented the electronic voting machine. By the time Edison turned 22, he received his first U.S. patent for the electronic voting machine invention.


• One of Edison's first commercially successful inventions was the quadruplex telegraph.


• In 1870 by the age of 23, Thomas Edison opened his own laboratory and manufacturing company to develop and build his inventions.


• In 1876 Edison built a new laboratory in Menlo Park New Jersey. The Menlo Park lab is the location of many of Edison's greatest inventions. In his first two years at Menlo Park, Edison received patents for 75 inventions.

• In 1877 Thomas Edison and the scientists in his laboratory were the first to record sound with the phonograph.

• In October of 1879 Thomas Edison was able to invent a light bulb that was useful. After testing over 1600 materials, Edison was able to find a filament material that would produce light for at least 40 hours. His incandescent light bulb design was used until recently banned in 2014.

• Edison later went on to invent a video recording device and built the first movie studio in the world.


• By the time Thomas Edison was finished he was granted 1,093 patents for his inventions.