Edison

Edison, THOMAS ALVA, a notable American inventor, was born at Milan, Ohio, 11th February 1847, but his early years were spent at Port Huron, Michigan. His father was of Dutch, and his mother of Scotch descent; the latter, having been a teacher, gave him what schooling he received. Edison was a great reader in his youth, and at the age of twelve he became a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Line running into Detroit, and began to experiment in chemistry. Gaining the exclusive right of selling newspapers on this line, and purchasing some old type, with the aid of four assistants he printed and issued the Grand Trunk Herald, the first newspaper printed in a railway train. A station-master, in gratitude for his having saved his child from the front of an advancing train, taught him telegraphy, in which he had previously been greatly interested; and thenceforward he concentrated the energies of a very versatile mind chiefly upon electrical studies. He invented an automatic repeater, by means of which messages could be sent from one wire to another without the intervention of the operator. His system of duplex telegraphy was perfected while a telegraph operator in Boston, but was not entirely successful until 1872. In 1871 he became superin- tendent of the New York Gold and Stock Company, and here invented the printing-telegraph for gold and stock quotations, for the manufacture of which he established a workshop at Newark, N.J., continuing there till his removal to Menlo Park, N.J., in 1876. His inventive faculties now getting full play, he took out over fifty patents in connection with improvements in telegraphy, including the duplex, quadruplex, and sextuplex system; the carbon telephone transmitter: microtasimeter; aeroplane, for amplifying sound; the megaphone, for magnifying sound. Thence also emanated his phonograph (q.v.), a form of telephone, and various practical adaptations of the electric light. His kinetoscope (1894) is a development of the Zoetrope (q.v.), in which the continuous picture is obtained from a swift succession of instantaneous photographs (taken 46 or more in a second), and printed on a strip of celluloid. Of late he has devoted himself to improving metallurgic methods. He has taken out some 500 patents, and founded many companies at home and in Europe. He has received the degree of Ph.D. from Union College, and is a chevalier of the Legion of Honour. See the enthusiastic Life and Inventions of Edison, by W. K. L. Dickson (1894).