Person Who Changed America Essay, Research Paper

Matt VanEtten VanEtten 1

Mr. Murfee

English III

Dec.13 1999

Thomas Edison:The man of a thousand inventions

Thomas Edison changed America in a very big way,He held

patents for over a 1000 inventions.His most important one was the

electic lamp.Thomas Edison has made America a better place to live.

Born In Milan,Ohio Thomas Edison was an American genius of

technology , His most known inventions were the electric lamp the

phonograph and the motion picture projector.Edison set up a labrotory in

his fathers basement when he was just 10 years old.At the age of 12 he

began selling news papers and candy on the trains between Port Huron

and detroit.From 1862 to 1868 he worked as a roving telegrapher.He

obtained a position as a night operator for Western Union telegraph

company in 1868.In 1869 he decided to give up his career as a

telegrapher to pursue inventing and entreprenuership.He moved to New

York City and within a year he was sucessful enough to establish a

workshop in Newark, N.J. During this time he produced the Edison

stock printer and other printing telegraphs.In 1876 he gave up his

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telegraph factory and set up a research lab. in nearby Menlo Park.There

with the help of highly talented asoiates he achieved his greatest sucess

(the electric lamp).In 1877 he invented the phonograph.he began work

on the light bulb in 1878 and demonstrated his lamp in 1879.In 1883 he

acidentally discovered the "Edison effect" which later became the basis

of the electron tube.He also perfected motion picture equipment.(Britannica p.370-371)

Edison executed the first of his 1,093 successful U.S. patent

applications (the most by anyone ever.)on 13 October 1868, at the age of

21. Which was the Electrographic Vote-Recorder.

(Internet:Edisons U.S Patents)

Though Edison invented all of the inventions he did he was not a

good student and Edison also had a hearing problem. (Internet:A

Thousand Inventions)In August of 1931, he took a turn for the worse,

and it was clear to everyone that he was slipping away. Someone asked

him if he had thought about a life hereafter, and he replied, "It does not

matter. No one knows." He passed away early Sunday morning, October

18, 1931.(Internet:Edison) Thomas Edison will always be rembered as

the man who invented the light but and to me the man who made

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America a better place to live.