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The Extraordinary Life of Thomas Alva Edison

§Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847, the beginning of the age of electricity. He was a very curious child. He was so curious in fact, that his mother, who was a school teacher, could not answer all of his questions. Young Edison started work on a train at age 12 selling newspapers and candy. On this train there was an empty boxcar, where Edison would conduct his very first experiments. When he was 16 he went to work at a telegraph office where he became nearly deaf due to an injury to his ears. Edison said he didn't mind because "It helps me concentrate". When Thomas Edison was 22, he went to New York with one dollar in his pocket looking for a job. By day, he would search for a job, and by night, he would sleep in the basement of a gold company. During his stay at the gold company, a piece of equipment broke down and he was able to fix it because he watched the machine every night before he went to sleep therefore knowing how it worked. The owners gave him a job, and because he improved on the machine so much, they gave him forty-thousand dollars. Thus began the invention period of Thomas Edison's life. In 1876, Edison opened a lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was here that he would invent some of his most famous inventions such as the phonograph and the electric light bulb. Edison and his team worked on a light bulb that wouldn't burn out. They tried 1,500 different materials and none of them worked. Finally, he invented a light bulb that burned for 200 hours. After making the light bulb, he worked on making a power system so people could use the bulb. Eventually, he was able to flip a switch and lights came on in many different houses in New York. During this time, Edison helped Alexander Graham Bell improve on the telephone by inventing the microphone so people wouldn't have to yell into the speaker to be heard. Edison worked on making an electric telegraph, and on August 9, 1892 he received a patent for the two way telegraph. In 1891 Edison invented the motion picture camera known then as a . Soon after, Edison opened a film studio that would make 1,200 films. The majority of the films were short films such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the first Frankenstein film. Thomas Edison was probably the world's greatest inventor. He had a patent on 1,093 inventions. Edison died of diabetes on October 18, 1831 at his home in West Orange, New Jersey. Edison is buried behind the home. Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit. A plaster death mask and casts of Edison's hands were also made. By Carson S. Cruz

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

-Thomas Alva Edison