The Wizard of Menlo Park and the greatest inventor in American history, was Thomas Alva Edison. He mostly experimented and created his inventions in his laboratory located in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Edison is known for his inventions and innovations, creating over 1000 patents. As a businessman, he achieved more success than other inventors because his knowledge in management and networking. Therefore, Edison had more opportunity than the rest in promoting his designs. During the Industrial Revolution, Thomas Edison became the most instrumental pioneer to the success of our nation due to his inventions, such as: the electrographic vote recorder, the electric light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera. His contributions set him apart from other inventors because his inventions helped pave the way for the technology age, the industrial advancement, the entertainment business, and changed people’s role in society.
As a child, Edison suffered from scarlet fever; a contagious bacterial disease, that may have led to his loss of hearing over time. As he grew up, in Port Huron, Michigan, he was ridiculed by his teachers for daydreaming due to his learning disability. According to Development of the Industrial U.S. Reference Library, some historians believe that Edison may have had dyslexia, a disease that disrupts the ability to read and write. Nancy Edison, his mother, decided to remove her son from school and began to teach him at home. In fact, scarlet fever can be attributed to being one of the first reasons that influenced him to invent. Because of his impaired hearing, Edison’s capability to succeed in school was affected and he seemed to be empty-headed. However, pulling him out from formal schooling led Edison to display some incredible signs of early intelligence. Despite his learning disability, Edison developed his reading skills which then became his passion, following this, he began to thirst for knowledge. A curious and bright child, Edison began experimenting in his basement. By the age of ten he began to use a laboratory. He worked at the age of twelve, selling newspapers and candy, using his income to purchase more materials for his projects. Subsequently, Edison moved onward becoming a journalist and started publishing his own newspapers with the space in the train his boss approved to use as a lab. As he grew closer to succeeding, his hearing ability faded and caused him to withdraw from people, which made him spend more time in his lab alone, and allowed him to begin actualizing his vision to be an inventor.
One of the first step he took was creating his patent known as the electrographic vote recorder. This was Edison’s first invention in 1869. One of the ways of Edison paved the path to today’s technology was by thinking that instead of wasting time writing up tally marks and reviewing votes manually, he could use a machine to speed up the process of counting ballot. Using electricity, Edison built his machine that could deliver election results which prints out the total votes. Edison’s first invention was tested in the state legislative assembly, however, it did not attract too much attention and interest. Since then, Edison promised himself to never invent an item that wouldn’t have been appreciated. After a couple of decades, Anthony Beranek arose and innovated Edison’s invention, and surprisingly, it was used as the official voting device approved by the American General Election. Although Beranek’s gadget was the “chosen” one, it was Edison’s idea and design first, to use a voting machine to quicken the process of election. Edison gets ahead of his period once he invented the recorder, though it was refused. Edison was a brilliant pioneer way before Beranek.
After the rejection of his first invention by the state legislators, Edison didn’t stop there. He still had the passion to be a successful inventor. Edison generated the incandescent- electric-light bulb which led to industrial advancement. The long-lasting light bulb affected the people so heavily, by supplying light, which extended the hours of productivity. Generally, during this era, at night when people ran out of kerosene to light up the house, they had no choice but to rest. However, with his invention, Edison provided the opportunity for people to work extra for the benefit of their company. By using this technology, the incandescent light bulb, some businessmen got ahead of the others by having more time to refine their industries and strategizing schemes to defeat rivals. One of the reasons these industries grew larger and stronger was because of Edison’s impact.
In order to power Edison’s incandescent light bulb, he used direct current, which then led to a clash. There were two different types of current that could be used to stimulate the electricity, Edison advocated for direct current (DC) while Tesla argued in favor of alternating current (AC). It was uncertain and highly debated whether AC or DC would be used as the standard in America, Edison and Tesla competed until the bitter end. Battling to win the contract to light the World’s Fair in Chicago, it started a conflict called the War of the Currents. Edison, owning the Edison General Electric Company and Tesla, as Edison’s former employee, discards Tesla’s AC innovation due to his belief that it is too dangerous to use and it might harm people. Unfortunately, Tesla resigns from Edison’s company, but Westinghouse immediately recruited Tesla and his idea to become a part of his business. Edison, trying his best to prove AC is harmful, created the electric chair enforced by AC energy, and was proven AC may kill people by seeing the fact that his electric chair murdered a prisoner and also killed Topsy the elephant. Although, Tesla had stronger evidence that AC was more effective because it could light more places with the same voltage as DC and won the contract, Edison was the one who inspired Tesla by giving him the opportunity to work in his lab and job shadow him. Without Edison, Tesla wouldn’t have achieved the Edison Medal, an award in relations to electricity and engineering.
Shortly after the war ended, Edison developed his first and favorite device to record and produce sound in 1877. As well as his previous invention, the phonograph was a crucial trend in those times because it developed a new culture for the people. The phonograph have been a flourishing invention because it was in most of the households in the country. By the twentieth century, radio and television becomes the home entertainment which ‘evolved’ from the phonograph. With Edison’s talking machine, people would pay him to record and listen to their own voice or to listen to prerecorded music and news. In order to fulfill consumers needs and wants, the music department had to develop more music genres. Classical, patriotic, jazz, folk, country, and lastly, rock and roll music were popular in the 1900s.
In the same way, Edison began to expand the entertainment industry with his motion picture camera. Edison wanted others to have an enjoyable experience while working or even in leisure times. This camera was just an ordinary camera, the only difference was that it combined many pictures and played them rapidly to form a film. Although pictures were monochrome and no sound was produced, it was still entertaining back then. Motion picture camera foreshadowed the making of today’s television. The first film created with Edison’s product was The Great Train Robbery (1903), directed by Edwin S. Porter; also it happened to be the first narrative full film in the U.S. history. Edison then began his career in entertainment by establishing the Edison Studios. He started to produce short motion pictures and by the 1900s, theaters appeared all over the town. Old folks went to the movies at least once a week, and made the movie industry grow rapidly. According to VOA News, “People might not know the names of government officials. But they knew the names of every leading actor and actress.”. This new entertainment was another example of Edison’s great impact on the society which brought harmony by binding people together.
Consequently, Edison has broadened the horizon of the country. He set himself apart from the others in his period because he paved the way in terms of technology, industry, entertainment, and people’s role in society. Edison also had a huge impact on the nation’s literature and economy by causing people to become more creative and providing more job opportunities. Previously, in the post Civil War era, men had to work as laborers, sweat profusely, yet received low wages for unreasonable hours of work. With Edison’s inventions, people in the community had a better chance to get employed in companies with lighter work yet higher income, such as the Edison’s Studio- although brain power was required. Also, without realizing it himself, he made his competitors and rivals more inventive and become hard workers because of the competition among them. Therefore, whenever light, electricity, movies and music are in sight, remember Edison, the developer and contributor in these fields. We thank you, Edison.