Inventor Thomas Alva Edison

July 21, 2011
Intellectual Property News and Interesting Facts

Thomas Alva Edison, born in 1847, had shown signs of inventive genius at an early age.

By the age of 6, Thomas Edison started experimenting with fire which said to have cost his father a barn.

Thomas was homeschooled by his mother and much of his education came from reading R.G. Parker’s School of Natural Philosophy.

By his early teens, he had designed his first invention, an electrical cockroach control system. He glued strips of tinfoil to a wall and wired the strips to a powerful battery, delivering a deadly shock to the insect.

He received the first of his 1,093 U.S. patents by age 22.

Thomas sold candy and newspapers on trains which began his streak of entrepreneurial ventures as he discovered his talents as a businessman.

These talents eventually led him to found 14 companies, including General Electric, which is still in existence as one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.

Thomas achieved enormous fame with his lifelong contributions of volumes of inventive technology such as the phonograph, the motion picture camera, electric light bulb, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures.

His first power station was on Manhattan Island, New York.