Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison, inventor extraordinaire, is resposible for the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb and myriad devices that make our lives a little more comfortable.

Edison was born in Milan in 1847 and moved with his family to Port Huron, Michigan, at the age of seven. Largely home schooled by his mother, he developed a deep interest in world history and English literature, especially Shakespeare.

At age 14, Edison contracted scarlet fever which contributed to a severe hearing loss. His enormous energy and intelligence, however, were to overcome such a handicap.

Edison, at the age of 23 (and by this time in New York City), sold his patent on his quadruplex transmitter for $40,000. In 1879, after Alexander Graham Bell had beaten him to a patent of the telephone, Edison "one upped" Bell by inventing the first commercially practical incandescent electric light bulb.

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