The Inventor Thomas Alva Edison | Owlcation The Inventor Thomas Alva Edison The Inventor Thomas Alva Edison Updated on September 12, 2016 Joined: 2 years agoFollowers: 88Articles: 68 1 Young Thomas Edison Early Years The prolific American inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. He was the youngest of a brood of seven children. His father was Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr., a native of Nova Scotia, Canada who fled to the United States after taking part in the Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837. His mother was Nancy Matthews Elliott from New York. Thomas and his siblings grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. The family moved there when business declined due to the bypassing of their hometown Milan by the railroad in 1854. Like all young boys and girls in his community, Thomas was sent to school by his parents. However, the young Thomas was a distracted student. Reverend Engle, one of his teachers called him “addled” which made his parents decide that he would then be schooled at home under the tutelage of his mother.

He spent his childhood reading “School of Natural Philosophy” by R.G. Parker and many other books. One of the earliest health problems encountered by Thomas Edison at a young age concerned his hearing. He suffered from recurrent middle-ear infections, which went untreated. He also caught scarlet fever, which might have contributed to his loss of hearing which affected him the rest of his life. As a young man, Thomas earned his living vending food and candy on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit. He also started delving into chemistry experiments. Later on, he obtained the rights to sell newspapers. Edison printed the Grand Trunk Herald and sold it on the road with the help of four assistants. Advertisement Work at the railroad and as telegraph operator Thomas Edison amassed plenty of experience as a telegraph operator. His first job posting was in Ontario, at the Grand Trunk Railway in Stratford Junction. He ventured into this line of work after a nearly fatal incident at the railroad. He learned how to operate the telegraph from a train station agent named J.U. MacKenzie. Edison saved Jimmie, MacKenzie’s three-year old son from a runaway train.

To express his gratitude, he taught Thomas Edison the skills that he would need to work as a telegraph operator. In 1866, Thomas was assigned to the Associated Press bureau news wire in Louisville, Kentucky. He was an employee of Western Union at that time. While working the night shift, he continued his preoccupation with experimentation and read many books. His experience as a telegraph operator contributed much to his future endeavors involving telegraph machines, which not only cemented his reputation as an inventor. His invention of the stock ticker and the two-way telegraph, earned him a small fortune, which he used to further technological developments. Edison's Stock Ticker Telegraph Edison Quote Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. Advertisement The Entrepreneur Aside from the devices that he invented, he was a pioneer in the entrepreneurial approach of mass production. He was also one of the originators of the idea of teamwork on a large scale to move the process of invention. Because of these principles that he espoused during his lifetime, he is credited as the creator of the first industrial research laboratory. During his lifetime, Edison founded 14 companies.

One of the most prominent of these is General Electric, which grew to be one of the biggest publicly traded enterprises in the world. Some of Edison’s first inventions were telegraphic devices and the automatic repeater. Thomas Alva Edison held patents in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. In the United States alone, he held 1,093 patents for processes and inventions that are chemical, mechanical, and electrical in nature. Edison’s first patent was an electric vote recorder which was granted to him on June 1, 1869. Majority of the patents under Edison’s name were utility patents which were good for 17 years. Meanwhile, about a dozen were design patents that were protected for 14 years. The phonograph was the first invention that turned the public’s attention to Thomas Edison. It was the first device invented by a human being that recorded and produced sounds. He obtained a patent for it in 1878. It was unveiled in 1877 and it was so novel a device and largely unexpected that many thought the device had magical powers. Edison became an instant celebrity after he demonstrated the capacity of the device for sound recording and playback.

The sound quality of the first phonograph he made was rather limited as the recording was made around a grooved cylinder on tinfoil. The recording could be played back only a few times as well. Nevertheless, it was a masterful invention. Edison gave a demonstration of the phonograph before the President of the United States, prominent members of Congress, and the members of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC in April of 1878. According to the Washington Post, Thomas Edison was “a genius.” Edison also received praise from more prominent scientists at that time, including the President of the National Academy of Sciences, Joseph Henry, who called him the “most ingenious inventor in this country... or in any other.” Aside from the phonograph, Thomas Edison’s other great inventions were the electric light bulb, the carbon telephone transmitter, and the motion picture camera (kinetograph). He developed many other devices that changed the lives of the people of his time, and influenced technological development decades after his death. Many of his inventions served as the ancestors of modern machines that make life more convenient and comfortable for modern man. His inventions in the field of motion picture and sound recording helped establish the new industries of communications and entertainment.

Another important invention by Thomas Edison was a system of electric-power generation and distribution, which accelerated the development of industrialization. Edison also pioneered a power station in New York on Pearl Street in Manhattan. Advertisement Thomas Edison “The Wizard of Menlo Park” Menlo Park in Middlesex County, New Jersey, now known as “Edison,” was the location of the first industrial research laboratory. The primary function of the facility was to produce technological innovations. Under his supervision and direction, Edison’s staff thrived on research and development and produced their own significant inventions. Edison also continued to invent various kinds of devices and he had high expectations from the staff of Menlo Park. They were driven to excel and to produce concrete results and were encouraged to create knowledge and control the application of this new knowledge. The main source of the funding for the facility was the proceeds from the sale of the quadruplex telegraph, one of Thomas Edison’s many inventions. This particular invention was purchased by Western Union for $10,000, which is equivalent to almost $210,000 in today’s money.

Edison worked hard to expand Menlo Park Laboratory and he did his best to stock it with “every conceivable material.” Eventually, the laboratory complex occupied two city blocks. The facility largely succeeded in this goal. Everyone was reminded of the important mission that Menlo Park has embarked upon by the slogan that was displayed on a placard in Thomas Edison’s office. The quotation by Sir Joshua Reynolds was featured in many other locations in the lab complex, read “There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.” Thomas Edison started working on a worthy competition for oil-based lighting and lighting that utilizes gas a fuel in 1878. His primary objective was to develop an incandescent lamp that is long-lasting and adequate for indoor use. Before Edison, many inventors have tried to devise incandescent lamps with various degrees of success. The inventions were mostly impractical for daily use, expensive to produce en masse, used very high amounts of electricity, or were very short-lived. Edison experimented with different types of filaments including platinum, carbon, and other metals. The first successful test for Edison’s light bulb, which utilized a carbon filament, was conducted on October 22, 1879.

A couple of months later, on December 1879, Edison gave a public demonstration at Menlo Park, showcasing the first successful model of a light bulb. His model was the first light bulb ever made to fit the qualities of a product that can be produced commercially on a large scale. Edison’s light bulb was successful because it ran at a low voltage and drew a low amount of current due its high electrical resistance. The first commercially reproducible electric light was granted a US patent on January 27, 1880. It was described as “a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires.” After the patent was granted to Edison, his research and development team came up with a carbonized bamboo filament with the capacity to last 1,200 hours. During the public demonstration at Menlo Park, Edison said that, “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.” One of the first people to embrace this new technology was the President of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, Henry Villard, who was present during the demonstration. He immediately asked Thomas Edison’s Edison Electric Light Company to install the new lighting system aboard the Columbia, the company’s new steamer.

In 1880, the Columbia became the first commercial application of Edison’s electric incandescent lighting system. The incandescent light bulb is now a permanent fixture in homes, businesses, and industries. To honor Edison’s unparalleled achievement, Google featured an animated Google Doodle on February 11, 2011 on the anniversary of Edison’s 164th birthday. The homepage featured a graphic that presented some of the devices he invented. Upon placing the cursor over the doodle, mechanism moved and caused a light bulb to glow. Advertisement Edison Video Recognition and legacy The last major recognition he received before his death was the Congressional Gold Medal, which was awarded in 1928. In 1920, he was granted the Distinguished Service Medal. While he was alive, Thomas Edison received the Franklin Medal in 1915, the John Fritz Medal in 1908, the Edward Longstreth Medal in 1899, the Rumford Prize in 1895, the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium in 1889, and the Matteucci Medal in 1887.

Thomas Edison is buried in a plot at the back of Glenmont, his home in West Orange, New Jersey. He died on October 18, 1931 from complications due to diabetes. Thomas Edison’s name is one of the most familiar and popular in the realm of science and invention. His genius is celebrated everyday by people who, watch movies, listen to music, and turn on an electric switch to illuminate their home. Advertisement Thomas Edison's second wife. Personal life Two months after they first met in one of his shops, Thomas Edison married a former employee of his named Mary Stilwell, who was aged 16 when she became Mrs. Edison. They were married on December 25, 1871. The couple was blessed with three children. Thomas and Mary’s eldest child was named Marion Estelle “Dot” Edison. She was born in 1873. Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. was born in 1876 and was nicknamed “Dash.” The youngest child was born in 1878 and was named William Leslie Edison, who grew up to become an inventor like his father, graduating from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1900.

Mary Edison died on August 9, 1884 from suspected morphine poisoning. She was 29 years old. After Mary’s death Edison purchased a home, which became known as “Glenmont” in West Orange, New Jersey’s Llewellyn Park. On February 24, 1886, Thomas Edison remarried at the age of 39. He tied the knot with Mina Miller, the 20-year-old daughter of the co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution, Lewis Miller. Glenmont was his wedding gift to his second wife. The couple also spent time at their winter retreat, which they named “Seminole Lodge” at Fort Myers in Florida. Thomas had three more children with his second wife, namely Madeleine (1888), Charles (1890), who became Governor of New Jersey, and Theodore, who was an inventor and alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in Physics.

Thomas Edison Photo provided by: The Library of Congress Thomas Alva Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor, scientist, and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (now Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large teamwork to the process of invention, and therefore is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. His advanced work in these fields was an outgrowth of his early career as a telegraph operator.

Edison originated the concept and implementation of electric-power generation and distribution to homes, businesses, and factories – a crucial development in the modern industrialized world. His first power station was on Manhattan Island, New York. Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (1804–96, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, Canada) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871). His father had to escape from Canada because he took part in the unsuccessful Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837. Edison considered himself to be of Dutch ancestry. In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered, and his teacher, the Reverend Engle, was overheard calling him "addled". This ended Edison's three months of official schooling. Edison recalled later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint." His mother homeschooled him. Much of his education came from reading R.G. Parker's School of Natural Philosophy and The Cooper Union.

Edison developed hearing problems at an early age. The cause of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle-ear infections. Around the middle of his career Edison attributed the hearing impairment to being struck on the ears by a train conductor when his chemical laboratory in a boxcar caught fire and he was thrown off the train in Smiths Creek, Michigan, along with his apparatus and chemicals. In his later years he modified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in helping him onto a moving train, lifted him by the ears. Edison's family was forced to move to Port Huron, Michigan, when the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854, but his life there was bittersweet. He sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit, and he sold vegetables to supplement his income. This began Edison's long 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 and is one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.

Edison became a telegraph operator after he saved three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train. Jimmie's father, station agent J.U. MacKenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison's first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction, Ontario, on the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1866, at the age of 19, Thomas Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where, as an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift, which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes—reading and experimenting. Eventually, the latter pre-occupation cost him his job. One night in 1867, he was working with a lead-acid battery when he spilled sulfuric acid onto the floor. It ran between the floorboards and onto his boss's desk below. The next morning Edison was fired.

One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey home. Some of Edison's earliest inventions were related to telegraphy, including a stock ticker. His first patent was for the electric vote recorder, (U. S. Patent 90,646), which was granted on June 1, 1869. For more information on Edison’s inventions, please visit: #Bibliography Copyright © 2011, Capitol Square Foundation, Ohio Statehouse Room 16, 1 Capitol Square, Columbus, OH 43215 Fed ID: 31-1222851 THOMAS EDISON - MAN OF THE CENTURY THOMAS EDISON "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." Thomas A. Edison "Without Edison, there would be 0 percent Internet." Joel Leyden After Thomas Edison moved to the Menlo Park Laboratory in New Jersey, USA, he promised he would turn out a minor invention every 10 days and a "big trick" every six months.

Edison and his staff were working on as many as 40 projects at one time and he was applying for nearly 400 patents each year during this time. Thomas Edison employed many people at his laboratories and Edison Manufacturing Company. Under his direction they handled the bulk of the design, research and experimentation on the projects. Ultimately Edison took complete credit for everything made within his company and most if not all patents were applied for under his name. All told, Thomas Edison received patents for 1093 inventions, as either sole inventor or co-inventor. He received 389 for electric light and power, 195 for the phonograph, 150 for the telegraph, 141 for storage batteries, and 34 for the telephone. These are just a few of the 1093 patents issued to inventions of Thomas Alva Edison. Electrographic Vote-Recorder 1868 (Patent # 90,646) First patent granted to Thomas Edison.

Printing Telegraph 1869 Kinetograph and Projecting Kinetoscope 1897 Reversible Galvanic Battery 1900 Holder for Article to be Electroplated 1933 (Patent # 1,908,830) Last patent granted to Thomas Edison, 2 years after his death. Biography of Thomas Alva Edison Born in Milan Ohio, February 11, 1847 to Samuel Edison, Jr and Nancy Elliot; Thomas was the last of seven children. His middle name "Alva" was given in honor of Captain Alva Bradley who operated a fleet of ships on Lake Erie. Thomas Edison's siblings were Marion, William, Callie, Harriet, Samuel and Eliza.The Edison family moved to Port Huron, Michigan in 1854 where Samuel Edison took a job as carpenter. Samuel Edison went on to be a land speculator and owner of a lumber business. At school in Port Huron Thomas Edison was not considered a bright student. His hearing problems caused him difficulty with his lessons and his attendance was sporadic at best. At 10 years of age Nancy Edison removed Thomas from school and began teaching him herself.

She gave Edison books to read. He became most interested in books on chemistry and was allowed to set up a laboratory in his family's home, which his mother made him move to the basement because of the mess. Two years later Thomas moved his laboratory to an empty railcar on the Grand Trunk Railway where he was given a job as trainboy. He also printed a weekly newspaper he called the Grand Trunk Herald. Aledgedly while working on the railway Edison saved the life of a station official's child who had fallen onto the tracks of an oncoming train. As a way of thanking Edison for saving the child's life, the father taught Thomas how to use the telegraph. Over the years Edison became so proficient with the telegraph he served as a telegrapher from the southern United States to Canada. He started work on improving the telegraph which led to his invention of the automatic telegraph, duplex telegraph and message printer. These inventions led Edison to begin a new career of fulltime inventor. Thomas Edison moved to New York and setup a small laboratory in Newark New Jersey. He continued his work on the telegraph and his ideas gave birth to the Universal Stock Printer. In 1871 he married his first wife Mary Stilwell.

Mary was 16 at the time and 9 years younger than Thomas. Mary was working in Edison's labratory when the two met. Thomas and Mary had three children: Marion, Thomas Jr. and Wiliam. In 1875 Edison asked Mary's father to help him build a new laboratory in Menlo Park. He brought in his father Samuel from Port Huron to supervise the construction of the new laboratory which opened in 1876. Here is where Edison invented the carbon-button transmitter, and the cylinder phonograph. With the help and backing of J. P. Morgan and others, Edison opened the Edison Electric Company. In 1879 Thomas Edison unveiled his incandescent light bulb. As the 1880's began Edison planned and supervised the construction of the first commercial, central power system in lower Manhattan. In 1883 an engineer in Edison's laboratory made a discovery which eventually led to the electron tube. This discovery was patented as "The Edison Effect". In 1884 Edison's wife Mary died, two years later he married Mina Miller. Thomas and Mina had three children: Madeline, Charles and Theodore.

He then began construction of a new laboratory in West Orange New Jersey, and also made plans to build a winter home and laboratory in Florida. The Edison phonograph, the kinetoscope, storage battery, electric pen, mimeograph and many other new inventions sprang to life from Edison's idea's, sometimes by plan, other times quite simply by accident. In his life Thomas Edison patented 1093 of his inventions. He died at his West Orange, New Jersey home on October 18, 1931. Thomas Edison was buried behind his "Glenmont" home which is now a museum operated by the National Park Service. Mina Edison was buried next to Thomas after her death. Thomas Edison - Inventions - HISTORY.com Thomas Edison A+E Networks Introduction In his 84 years, Thomas Edison acquired a record number of 1,093 patents (singly or jointly) and was the driving force behind such innovations as the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb and one of the earliest motion picture cameras. He also created the world’s first industrial research laboratory.

Known as the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” for the New Jersey town where he did some of his best-known work, Edison had become one of the most famous men in the world by the time he was in his 30s. In addition to his talent for invention, Edison was also a successful manufacturer and businessman who was highly skilled at marketing his inventions–and himself–to the public. Google Thomas Edison’s Early Life Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio . He was the seventh and last child born to Samuel Edison Jr. and Nancy Elliott Edison, and would be one of four to survive to adulthood. Thomas Edison received little formal education, and left school in 1859 to being working on the railroad between Detroit and Port Huron, Michigan , where his family then lived. Did You Know? By the time he died on October 18, 1931, Thomas Edison had amassed a record 1,093 patents: 389 for electric light and power, 195 for the phonograph, 150 for the telegraph, 141 for storage batteries and 34 for the telephone.

During the Civil War, Edison learned the emerging technology of telegraphy, and traveled around the country working as a telegrapher. He had developed serious hearing problems, which were variously attributed to scarlet fever, mastoiditis or a blow to the head. With the development of auditory signals for the telegraph, Edison was at a disadvantage, and he began to work on inventing devices that would help make things possible for him despite his deafness (including a printer that would convert the electrical signals to letters). In early 1869, he quit telegraphy to pursue invention full time. Edison’s Emergence as a Leading Inventor From 1870 to 1875, Edison worked out of Newark, New Jersey , where he developed telegraph-related products for both Western Union Telegraph Company (then the industry leader) and its rivals. Edison’s mother died in 1871, and that same year he married 16-year-old Mary Stillwell.

Despite his prolific telegraph work, Edison encountered financial difficulties by late 1875, but with the help of his father was able to build a laboratory and machine shop in Menlo Park, New Jersey, 12 miles south of Newark. In 1877, Edison developed the carbon transmitter, a device that improved the audibility of the telephone by making it possible to transmit voices at higher volume and with more clarity. That same year, his work with the telegraph and telephone led him to invent the phonograph, which recorded sound as indentations on a sheet of paraffin-coated paper; when the paper was moved beneath a stylus, the sounds were reproduced. The device made an immediate splash, though it took years before it could be produced and sold commercially, and the press dubbed Edison “the Wizard of Menlo Park.” Edison’s Innovations with Electric Light In 1878, Edison focused on inventing a safe, inexpensive electric light to replace the gaslight–a challenge that scientists had been grappling with for the last 50 years. With the help of prominent financial backers like J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family, Edison set up the Edison Electric Light Company and began research and development.

He made a breakthrough in October 1879 with a bulb that used a platinum filament, and in the summer of 1880 hit on carbonized bamboo as a viable alternative for the filament, which proved to be the key to a long-lasting and affordable light bulb. In 1881, he set up an electric light company in Newark, and the following year moved his family (which by now included three children) to New York . Though Edison’s early incandescent lighting systems had their problems, they were used in such acclaimed events as the Paris Lighting Exhibition in 1881 and the Crystal Palace in London in 1882. Competitors soon emerged, notably George Westinghouse, a proponent of alternating or AC current (as opposed to Edison’s direct or DC current). By 1889, AC current would come to dominate the field, and the Edison General Electric Co. merged with another company in 1892 to become General Electric Co. Edison’s Later Years and Inventions Edison’s wife, Mary, died in August 1884, and in February 1886 he remarried Mirna Miller; they would have three children together.

He built a large estate and research laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, with facilities including a machine shop, a library and buildings for metallurgy, chemistry and woodworking. Spurred on by others’ work on improving the phonograph, he began working toward producing a commercial model. He also had the idea of linking the phonograph to a zoetrope, a device that strung together a series of photographs in such a way that the images appeared to be moving. Working with William K.L. Dickson, Edison succeeded in constructing a working motion picture camera, the Kinetograph, and a viewing instrument, the Kinetoscope, which he patented in 1891. After years of heated legal battles with his competitors in the fledgling motion-picture industry, Edison had stopped working with moving film by 1918. In the interim, he had had success developing an alkaline storage battery, which he originally worked on as a power source for the phonograph but later supplied for submarines and electric vehicles. In 1912, automaker Henry Ford asked Edison to design a battery for the self-starter, which would be introduced on the iconic Model T . The collaboration began a continuing relationship between the two great American entrepreneurs.

Despite the relatively limited success of his later inventions (including his long struggle to perfect a magnetic ore-separator), Edison continued working into his 80s. His rise from poor, uneducated railroad worker to one of the most famous men in the world made him a folk hero. More than any other individual, he was credited with building the framework for modern technology and society in the age of electricity. Tags EDISON WAS BORN IN MEXICO By ADOLFO DE LA PEÑA GIL Published in THE THEOSOPHIST, October 1956, pages 49-54 The key to the fruitful life of Thomas Alva Edison has been admirably put into works by himself. Upon being asked on the occasion of his birth-anniversary in 1924, what his philosophy of life was, he answered: To work, wresting from Nature its secrets in order to use them for the benefit of mankind; bearing always in mind the best side of things.

Upon the passing in 1931 of this great multi-inventor, articles as well as letters from Edison’s Republic about his early years, claiming that he was born in the State of Zacatecas, having migrated or been taken to the United States of America, where he adopted a new nationality and married. Questions from private letters with some details concerning his ancestors and school-fellows were also published. In the Encyclopedia Britannica (1955) we read that Edison was born at Milan, Ohio, February 11th, 1847; that he attended a public school during three months; became a railroad newsboy at 12; a telegraph operator at 15. It seems to us that it would be hard for the writer of these notes to produce documental evidence for them. In 1878, Edison joined the Theosophical Society and became one of its honorary members. His form of application is in the Recording Secretary’s Office at Adyar, and a letter of his exists in the Adyar records acknowledging his diploma of membership which, he mentions, he has placed in his “honor box” where he keep his really valued diplomas. Referring to him, the Master K.

H. wrote to Mr. Sinnett that Edison was “a good deal protected by M.” (the Master Morya).(1) C. Jinaräjadäsa, late President of the Theosophical Society, knew Edison was not born in the United States. Now, as a result of a footnote to my article in THE THEOSOPHIST of April 1953, mentioning Edison’s real birthplace, two friends wrote to the writer asking whether he could obtain additional evidence on the mater. So, when traveling through the State of Zacatecas (May 1955) I tried to get evidence of the Mexican origin of Thomas Alva Edison. Sombrerete, a mining district belonging to Zacatecas, is situated near the Northern Tropic of Cancer, bordering the State of Durango, at an altitude of 2,000 metres. It is famed for its veins of silver, gold, and lead; there are some twenty of them, “Veta Negra” and Pabellén” being the richest. We are told that the former produce, during three different working periods, more than 80 million dollars. Charles B.

Dahlgren, Mining Engineer, in his book Historic Mines of Mexico,(2) when describing the two veins writes that twenty-two others in the same district had rendered up to that year 160 million dollars. “Vega Negra” is considered as having been the riches vein in the world. And it is said that all the silver required for the conquest of the Californias was obtained from Sombrerete. It was in this region that Don José de la Luz Alva, Edison’s grandfather, lived in the small town of Sombrerete, at the beginning of the last century. The village was founded founded June 6th, 1555; its population today is 6,680 inhabitants, according to the 1950 census. Situated near Pan American high road, 870 kilometers from the city of Mexico, it is connected by railroad to El Paso, Texas, U.S.A. This was Edison’s birthplace. All data gathered from local traditions, letters from his contemporaries, and family friends who knew his relatives, and fellow-students, agree on this point that Sombrerete is the place of his origin of this “Benefactor of Humanity”.

When he was at the summit of his fame as a great inventor, denizens of Sombrerete, filled with admiration and civic pride, put a metal plate with bronze letters near the entrance door of Edison’s house, with walls seventy centimeters thick, had four small inner corridors surrounding a square patio, the façade being decorated at its top by a long Doric cornice. The plate reads: EN ESTA CASA NACIO EL 18 DE FEBRERO DE 1848 “In this house Tomás Alva Edison was born, February 18, 1848.” The house is now inhabited by Mr. Jesús Ramírez Alvarez, and it was by his kindness that we were able to get the following private information: From a letter dated 1878: I inform you that Tomás Alva has just invented a talking machine, having done admirable progress in physics. Several are the electrical crafts invented and constructed by him. On my behalf please congratulate Don Luz and German. I am glad to learn of these successes of Tomás who was born in the same home as Chebo. Don José de la Luz Alva was the grandfather of Tomás, as already mentioned.

In another private letter in possession of Mr. Ramírez we read: He (Don José) was administrator of the “Diligencia” [State-coach] and, I was told, lived many years in the city. As regards German, I understand that he was a cousin who received and moved at the slowest pace the mules after the arrival of the Diligencia to the city from Gutierrez Depot. This was a public service which ended about 1912 or 1913. The father of the inventor was Mr. Samuel Alva Ixtlixóchitl; this second name is altogether Aztec, the name Alva being abundant in the State of Zacatecas. There were in that time three Alva families: Alva Edison, Alva Arias, Alva Santini. El Sol, a Durango newspaper, published an article in its issue dated February 1, 1952, under the title, “More about Tomás Alva Edison’s Origin”: Mr. Guillermo H. Ramirez: With reference to your article in the El Sol I may inform you as follows.

During 1899 when I was a student at the High School for teachers, in the city of Zacatecas, one of my most revered masters, Don José Guadalupe Pounce, used to tell us: “In this hall teaching was received by Edison; he was known to us only as Tomás Alva, his father being a mining engineer who came from Pachuca (another mining district) and whose name was not only Alva, but Alva Ixtlixóchitl.” Was he really Tomás Alva Edison or another? There may be no exaggeration at all on the plate you refer to, as it dose not say that the Tomás Alva born in Sombrerete was the inventor of the incandescent lamp, the photograph, etc. The man of the plate may or may not be the inventor, but if it is a fact that he received enough preparation at the School where he studied Don Angel Ruiseco, the constructor of a steam-boiler and steam-motor, as well as another . . . who built a belfry-clock . . . Yours truly, Francisco Flores. On the 14th of February 1952 Mr. Melchor D.

Gaballero wrote a letter to Mr. Jesús Ramírez: Dear friend: Herewith enclosed you will find clippings from El Sol, Durango, concerning Tomás Alva Edison’s origin. I was talking with Mr. Flores and he insists that his teacher personally told him that Edison was his school-fellow. So Mr. Flores is quite sure that Edison was Mexican, but being perhaps convenient to his aims, he preferred to be known as a U.S. citizen. Anyhow, the truth as to his origin does not appear in encyclopaedias [encyclopedias], nor books or interviews, as it is only known here . . . Again, another letter from Mr. Gaballero to Mr. Flores shows a clear statement that Alva Edison was not “American”; that it was only to suit his interest that he allowed himself to be know as such; and that he left this country to go to the North when he was about twenty years old. In another private letter shown to me by Mr.

Ramírez this paragraph occurs: As I explained to you before, there is no birth-record mainly because no civil officers to record births were then in existence, births being registered in the parish or local Church records, which are now lost. There is a doubt as to whether Alva Edison was a Catholic; however . . . he was, having been baptized by Father Bonifacio Balvanera, or Lanfleverde, the act being recorded in the parish book No. 132, page 56, or book No. 56, page 132; he dose not remember exactly which. In a biographical pamphlet entitled Edison by Rosanof, published in 1933 at Santiago (Chile), a footnote states that “Edison pronounced the English language very defectively, so that it is impossible to translate his ‘argot’ [cant or slang]”.

There is a reader for the primary schools at Zacatecas, printed in 1918, by Federico Gómez de Orozco, entitled: Alma de la Patria (Fatherland’s Soul); on its page 147, with reference to the evolution of public street illumination, there is the following observation: Nowadays almost only this kind of light (electric) is seen all through the main cities; and something most satisfactory to you, perhaps, is that the electric lamp was invented by a man born in this country (Mexico) and afterwards naturalized as a citizen of the United States of America, and whose name is Tomás Alva Edison, inventor of the phonograph and many other useful things. The Mexican Law of Civil Status, as part of the Reform Laws, was signed by President Benito Juárez on the 28th of July 1859, (eleven years after Edison’s birth). Civil Status Courts were started then in the Republic in order to record and legalize the tree prominent events in human life-birth, marriage and death-so that the natives could exercise their rights at the tribunals. Formerly these records were kept only at the parish church.

As a result of this innovation the practice began in several of our States to take from the Church offices all books of birth-records, and file them at the civil municipal courts, thus enabling the legal authorization of deeds from evidence afforded by the parish books which recorded births, ect., before the promulgation of the new law. In such a manner the birth records were taken from the parish at Sombrerete, carried to the civil court, and there burnt fifty years afterwards, at the beginning of the last revolution in Mexico which overthrew Porfirio Diaz and his regime. It was on the 10th of May 1910 that the insurgents, upon taking possession of Sombrerete, set on fire the whole of the archives of the Presidencia Municipal. Finally, Mr. Ramírez showed me another private letter which read: I have learnt, without confirmation, that some time between 1926 and 1927, notices were published in newspapers in this region regarding Edison’s wish to communicate with his remote relatives living in Mexico. I was told that he received so many letters as to make him desist in his purpose. . . .

Thus, the popular tradition supported by people who knew Edison’s relatives and school-fellows; many private reports and letters; the unanimous civic impulse at Sombrerete to place a commemorative plate as his birth home; the defective lead us to accept Edison’s Mexican origin notwithstanding the fact that documental evidence, based on legal or parish papers of the time, cannot be obtained because the Church records were destroyed. ADOLFO DE LA PEÑA GIL ________________________________________________________________________ 1 The Mahatma Letters, page 169. See also the last chapter of Old Diary Leaves, by H. S. Olcott, First Series; The Golden Book of the Theosophical Society, edited by C. Jinaräjadäsa, pages 25, 28, 29; and The Early Teachings of the Masters, edited by C. Jinaräjadäsa, page 167. 2 Published in New York, 1883, and translated into Spanish by Sociedad Mexicana de Minería, (printed 1884).

Question: What was the middle name of US inventor Thomas Edison?
Answer: Alva