The Life and Brilliance of a Supposedly Bad Student, Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was born on February 11th, 1847 in Milan Ohio. Thomas Edison did not have an easy childhood during the 1850’s. For Example, when Edison was six year old, he was responsible for starting a fire that ruined the family barn. Edison’s father publically beat his child in humiliation and pain. After the accident, Edison’s moved with to Port Huron, Michigan when he was seven. He became ill then and had to stop his schooling for a year.

Edison’s schoolteacher thought he was a very bad student who had no interest in learning. His mother had different feelings and began to teach Edison herself at home. His mother taught him reading, writing, and arithmetic, but he was always striving to learn more. At a very early age of twelve, Edison began working by selling newspapers and candy on the local railroad that ran through Port Huron to Detroit. While Edison was working for the railroad, he saved a 3-year-old from being run over by an errant train, and the child’s father was very grateful and rewarded him by teaching him how to operate a telegraph.

At sixteen, Edison was able to work as a telegrapher full time and quit his current job. He earned $40,000 for his work on the telegraph and opened a research laboratory in Menlo, New Jersey where he and a team of scientists developed the carbon telephone transmitter to greatly enhance the work of Alexander Bell. He worked at the Gold Indicator Company and the owner provided him a place to sleep in the basement since he did not have any money for shelter.

In 1876, Edison created the world’s first “invention factory” and his lab that was described, as a large barn-like building and he would work on creating new inventions that were life changing in history. In his lab, he created the first phonograph and the first light bulb. Thomas Edison did not create the first electric light, although he did create the first practical light bulb for indoor use. During the late 1870s, arc lights were already created on the streets, but these lights were too bright for indoor households In October of 1878, he filed for his first patent that year called, “Improvement in Electric Lights.

Edison faced many obstacles when creating the first light bulb. This is because the light bulb had many high requirements and he had to face many competitors who had the same idea. It took him many failures to create his success, he did not fail ten thousand times, he found ten thousand ways it did not work until it finally did.

Thomas Edison’s light bulb is still a huge success today, and his invention has lead to hundreds of different electric companies and light bulbs. He has an estimated net worth of more than $12 million since 2013. Thomas Edison has earned 1,093 U.S. patents, and this is a record that still stands today. His greatest success, the light bulb, has changed the world and is still a big influence towards electric companies.

Edison’s brilliant indoor light bulb brought him great triumph, leading him to receive massive amounts of wealth and fame. As electricity began to spread throughout the world rapidly, Edison had many different electric companies and these companies grew until 1889. For example, in New York today, there are more than 100 different electric companies that have been impacted by Thomas Edison’s establishment. Thomas Edison is an Entrepreneur that has strived to establish endless amounts of new creations that has lead him to great success till this day.