Essay Example on Thomas Alva Edison is one of the most important People

Thomas Alva Edison is one of the most important people of the industrial revolution Though he was not the richest he was a household name that pushed the advancement of this country through his inventions Thomas edison was born February 11 1847 in Milan Ohio to Samuel and Nancy Edison When he was seven Edison s family moved to Port Huron Michigan in In 1854 Thomas attended public school In the total of twelve weeks he was enrolled thomas was deemed A hyperactive child prone to distraction and his teacher described him as difficult Biography com Thomas s mother Nancy was an accomplished school teacher who after the twelve weeks of primary school pulled him to teach him herself When Thomas was about eleven he started to show a desire to learn without any pressure from others Along with being distracted all the time he also had hearing impairments It is now believed that a major cause was a bout with Scarlet Fever during childhood along with recurring untreated middle ear infections Bob Traynor In 1859 when he was just 12 years old Edison quit school and began working as a trainboy on the railroad between Detroit and Port Huron While he was working as a train boy he had easy access to the news stories that were telegraphed to the station office each day Thomas started to write and publish his own small newspaper named the Grand Trunk Herald 

These articles did very well with the passengers at the station According to Thomas Edison Biography com While Edison worked for the railroad a near tragic event turned fortuitous for the young man After Edison saved a three year old from being run over by an errant train the child's grateful father rewarded him by teaching him to operate a telegraph or so the story goes Before Edison was 15 he had learned enough to become a telegraph operator For five years Edison traveled as an itinerant telegrapher were he would temporarily replace telegrapher who would leave for the Civil War When he wasn't working he was reading or teaching himself about electrical science as well as conducting experiments Biography com In 1869 at twenty two years old Edison moved to New York City inorder to design and developed his first invention He was working on a way to improve the stock ticker which was created by Edward Calahan several years earlier Edison found a way to synchronized several stock tickers transactions The Gold and Stock Telegraph Company was so impressed they paid him 40 000 for the rights after his success of the Universal Stock Printer Edison decide to quit working as a telegrapher to dedicate his time to become a full time inventor In 1870 he set up his first small laboratory and manufacturing facility in Newark New Jersey and had several employees As an independent entrepreneur Edison created multiple partnerships As well as finding better ways to produce products and selling them to the highest paying company Often times edison would work for both sides of business rivalries In one such instance Edison devised for Western Union the quadruplex telegraph capable of transmitting two signals in two different directions on the same wire but railroad tycoon 

Though he would rather be creating as with his own two hands With this change he saw that most of his inventions and products being handled by university trained mathematicians and scientists He accept this fact however was outspoken about his disdain for academia and corporate operations During the 1890s edison started to get back more in control of what he preferred to do which was to create As the automobile industry began to grow Edison worked on developing a storage battery that could power an electric car Though the gasoline powered engine would emerge first Edison designed a battery for the self starter on the Model T for friend and admirer Henry Ford in 1912 The system would be used in the auto industry for decades Edison became involved in a long lasting rivalry with Nikola Tesla an engineering with academic training who worked with Edison s company for a time The two parted ways in 1885 and clashed about the use of direct current electricity which Edison favored vs alternating currents which Tesla championed Soon after succeed with alternating currents Tesla then started a partnership with George Westinghouse a competitor of Edison s resulting in a major business feud over electrical power Thomas Edison Biography com