Happy Birthday, Thomas Edison

When Thomas A. Edison, the little boy his family called “Al”, was born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847, no one suspected that his inventions would change life for virtually every person around the globe.

A creative genius who coined the phrase that genius was “ 1 percent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration”, Edison began selling newspapers and candy on the Detroit-to-Port Huron train at age 14. Later, after inventing a new legible speed writing for the telegraph, young Edison became one the fastest telegraph operators in the United States.

Thomas Edison’s genius lay in the devising of new ideas or the making of ideas practical for use or for manufacture. Other people had experimented with the electric light before Edison, but were only successful in being able to burn them a few minutes. Thanks to Edison’s fine filament of high resistance in a vacuum, his light bulb burned for 40 continuous hours. But, not satisfied, Edison hired glass blowers to produce a quantity of hand blown glass bulbs and simultaneously invented an entire system for their distribution. His fuse and 110-volt current made electric lights a practical reality that was more affordable than gas lamps.

The first motion picture or “movie” was invented when Edison photographed a man sneezing and projected it with “motion” on a screen made of a white sheet. The Edison Studio, still standing in Decantur Avenue, Bronx, NY, was the inventor’s first commercial venture into the movies in 1905. As was his habit, Thomas Edison eventually sold all rights to motion pictures as soon as they went into full production, even selling his patents on the inventions. With the money and time, he continued to invent and bring new ideas to life. He recognized that his greatest strength and talent was invention, and left the manufacturing and distribution of the new products to others.

After experimenting with his automatic telegraph repeater, Edison heard a sound which cause him to write that night, “There is no doubt that I shall be able to store up and reproduce at any future time the human voice perfectly.” Three weeks later was the birth of the phonograph. Also thankful to Edison for their beginnings were the alkaline storage battery, the electric fan, the electric washing machine, the sewing machine, the vote recorder, the ore separator, and countless other necessities of life as we know it.

Perhaps one of the most valuable contributions that Edison made to the world of Science for generations to come was the invention of organized research with repeatable experiments and data that many scientists could share and expand on.

The exhibit consisted of 6 posters of exceptional photographs of Edison and his work, and research that clarified the scientist’s accomplishments. Many machines, along with their dates of invention, were in the exhibit. Advertisements for electronic machines from early in the twentieth century made interesting reading, and the exhibit ended with a Tribute to Thomas Edison written within Edison’s lifetime. Thomas Edison was one of the greatest minds in history, a man of optimism and humor who made life better for all of us.

For information on other past exhibits in the Dacotah Gallery, please click here.