Thomas Edison Was Born in Milan

7/31/2019 Thomas Edison Was Born in Milan

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Thomas Edison was born inMilan, Ohio, and grew up inPort Huron, Michigan. He was theseventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (180496, born inMarshalltown, NovaScotia, Canada) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (18101871, born inChenango County, NewYork).

[2][citation needed] His father had to escape from Canada because he took part in theunsuccessfulMackenzie Rebellionof 1837.[citation needed] Edison reported being of Dutch

ancestry.

[3]

In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered, and his teacher, the Reverend Engle, wasoverheard calling him "addled". This ended Edison's three months of official schooling. Edisonrecalled later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I hadsomething to live for, someone I must not disappoint." His mother taught him at home.[4]Muchof his education came from reading R.G. Parker'sSchool of Natural PhilosophyandThe CooperUnion.

Edison developed hearing problems at an early age. The cause of his deafness has been attributedto a bout ofscarlet feverduring childhood and recurring untreated middle-ear infections. Around

the middle of his career, Edison attributed the hearing impairment to being struck on the ears bya train conductor when his chemical laboratory in a boxcar caught fire and he was thrown off thetrain inSmiths Creek, Michigan, along with his apparatus and chemicals. In his later years, hemodified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in helping him onto a movingtrain, lifted him by the ears.[5][6]

Edison's family moved toPort Huron, Michigan after the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854 andbusiness declined;[7]his life there was bittersweet. He sold candy and newspapers on trainsrunning from Port Huron to Detroit, and he sold vegetables to supplement his income. He alsostudied qualitative analysis, and conducted chemical experiments on the train until an accidentprohibited further work of the kind.[8]

He obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of fourassistants, he set in type and printed the Grand Trunk Herald, which he sold with his otherpapers.[8]This began Edison's long streak of entrepreneurial ventures, as he discovered his talentsas a businessman. These talents eventually led him to found 14 companies, includingGeneralElectric, which is still one of the largestpublicly traded companiesin the world.[9][10]

Telegrapher

Edison became a telegraph operator after he saved three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from beingstruck by a runaway train. Jimmie's father,station agentJ.U. MacKenzie ofMount Clemens,

Michigan, was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison's first telegraphyjob away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction,Ontario, on theGrand Trunk Railway.

[11]

In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved toLouisville, Kentucky, where, as an employee ofWestern Union, he worked theAssociated Pressbureaunews wire. Edison requested the nightshift, which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimesreading andexperimenting. Eventually, the latter pre-occupation cost him his job. One night in 1867, he was
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working with aleadacid batterywhen he spilledsulfuric acidonto the floor. It ran between thefloorboards and onto his boss's desk below. The next morning Edison was fired.[12]

One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor namedFranklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of

hisElizabeth, New Jerseyhome. 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. Patent90,646),[13]which was granted on June 1, 1869.[14]

Marriages and children

On December 25, 1871, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855-1884), whom he hadmet two months earlier; she was an employee at one of his shops. They had three children:

Marion Estelle Edison (18731965), nicknamed "Dot"[15] Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. (18761935), nicknamed "Dash"[16] William Leslie Edison (1878

1937) Inventor, graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School

at Yale, 1900.[17]

Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, of unknown causes: possibly from abraintumor[18]or amorphine overdose. Doctors frequently prescribed morphine to women in thoseyears to treat a variety of causes, and researchers believe that some of her symptoms sounded asif they were associated with morphine poisoning.[19]

Mina Edison in 1906
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On February 24, 1886, at the age of thirty-nine, Edison married the 20-year-old Mina Miller(1866-1947) inAkron, Ohio.[20]She was the daughter of the inventorLewis Miller, co-founderof theChautauqua Institutionand a benefactor ofMethodistcharities. They also had threechildren together:

Madeleine Edison (1888

1979), who married John Eyre Sloane.

[21][22]

Charles Edison(18901969), who took over the company upon his father's death and

who later was electedGovernor of New Jersey.[23]He also took charge of his father'sexperimental laboratories inWest Orange.

Theodore Edison(18981992), (MIT Physics 1923), credited with more than 80 patents.Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.

[24][25]

Beginning his career

Photograph of Edison with his phonograph (2nd model), taken in Mathew Brady's Washington,DC studio in April 1878.

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Thomas Edison reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

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Thomas Edison began his career as an inventor inNewark, New Jersey, with the automaticrepeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him noticewas thephonographin 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as toappear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey.

His first phonograph recorded ontinfoilaround a grooved cylinder, but had poorsound qualityand the recordings could be played only a few times. In the 1880s, a redesigned model usingwax-coated cardboard cylinders was produced byAlexander Graham Bell,Chichester Bell, and
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Charles Tainter. This was one reason that Thomas Edison continued work on his own "PerfectedPhonograph."

Menlo Park (18761881)

Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, removed to Greenfield Village atHenry Ford MuseuminDearborn, Michigan. (Note the organ against the back wall)

Edison's major innovation was the first industrial research lab, which was built inMenlo Park,New Jersey. It was built with the funds from the sale of Edison'squadruplex telegraph. After hisdemonstration of the telegraph, Edison was not sure that his original plan to sell it for $4,000 to$5,000 was right, so he asked Western Union to make a bid. He was surprised to hear them offer$10,000,[citation needed] ($202,000 USD 2010) which he gratefully accepted.

The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success, and Menlo Park became the

first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovationand improvement. Edison was legally attributed with most of the inventions produced there,though many employees carried out research and development under his direction. His staff wasgenerally told to carry out his directions in conducting research, and he drove them hard toproduce results.

William Joseph Hammer, a consulting electrical engineer, began his duties as a laboratoryassistant to Edison in December 1879. He assisted in experiments on the telephone, phonograph,electric railway,iron ore separator,electric lighting, and other developing inventions. However,Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was put in charge of tests andrecords on that device. In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. In

his first year, the plant under General ManagerFrancis Robbins Uptonturned out 50,000 lamps.According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer of incandescent electric lighting".
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Thomas Edison's first successful light bulb model, used in public demonstration at Menlo Park,December 1879

Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, which were protected for a 17-year period andincluded inventions or processes that are electrical, mechanical, or chemical in nature. About adozen weredesign patents, which protect an ornamental design for up to a 14-year period. As inmost patents, the inventions he described were improvements overprior art. The phonographpatent, in contrast, was unprecedented as describing the first device to record and reproduce

sounds.[26]

Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commerciallypractical incandescent light.[27]Many earlier inventors had previously devised incandescentlamps, includingHenry WoodwardandMathew Evans. Others who developed early andcommercially impractical incandescent electric lamps includedHumphry Davy,James BowmanLindsay,Moses G. Farmer,

[28]William E. Sawyer,Joseph SwanandHeinrich Gbel. Some of

these early bulbs had such flaws as an extremely short life, high expense to produce, and highelectric currentdrawn, making them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially.[29]

In 1878, Edison applied the termfilamentto theelementof glowing wire carrying the current,

although the English inventorJoseph Swanhad used the term prior to this. Swan developed anincandescent light with a long lasting filament at about the same time as Edison, as Swan'searlier bulbs lacked the high resistance needed to be an effective part of an electrical utility.Edison and his co-workers set about the task of creating longer-lasting bulbs. In Britain, JosephSwan had been able to obtain a patent on the incandescent lamp; though Edison had already beenmaking successful lamps for some time, his patent application was incompletely prepared andfailed.[29]
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Unable to raise the required capital in Britain because of this, Edison was forced to enter into ajoint venture with Swan (known asEdiswan). Swan acknowledged that Edison had anticipatedhim, saying "Edison is entitled to more than I ... he has seen further into this subject, vastly thanI, and foreseen and provided for details that I did not comprehend until I saw his system".

[30]

By 1879, Edison had produced a new concept: a high resistance lamp in a very high vacuum,which would burn for hundreds of hours. While the earlier inventors had produced electriclighting in laboratory conditions, dating back to a demonstration of a glowing wire byAlessandro Voltain 1800, Edison concentrated on commercial application, and was able to sellthe concept to homes and businesses by mass-producing relatively long-lasting light bulbs andcreating a complete system for the generation and distribution of electricity.

In just over a decade, Edison's Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to occupy two city blocks.Edison said he wanted the lab to have "a stock of almost every conceivable material". Anewspaper article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim, stating the lab contained"eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made, every size of needle, every kind

of cord or wire, hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, minx, camels ... silk in everytexture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell ... cork, resin,varnish and oil, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores ..." and the list goeson.

[31]

Over his desk, Edison displayed a placard withSir Joshua Reynolds' famous quotation: "There isno expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."[32]This sloganwas reputedly posted at several other locations throughout the facility.

With Menlo Park, Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creatingknowledge and then controlling its application.

Carbon telephone transmitter

In 187778, Edison invented and developed thecarbon microphoneused in all telephones alongwith the Bell receiver until the 1980s. After protracted patent litigation, in 1892 a federal courtruled that Edison and notEmile Berlinerwas the inventor of the carbon microphone. The carbonmicrophone was also used in radio broadcasting and public address work through the 1920s.

Electric light

Main article:History of the light bulb
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Edison in 1878

Building on the contributions of other developers over the previous three quarters of a century,Edison made improvements to the idea ofincandescent light, and entered the publicconsciousness as "the inventor" of thelightbulb, and a prime mover in developing the necessaryinfrastructure for electric power.

After many experiments withplatinumand other metal filaments, Edison returned to acarbonfilament. The first successful test was on October 22, 1879;[33]it lasted 13.5 hours.[34]Edisoncontinued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898

(granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled andconnected to platina contact wires".[35]

Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton andlinen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways",[35]it was not until several monthsafter the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered acarbonizedbamboofilamentthat could last over 1,200 hours. The idea of using this particular raw material originated fromEdison's recalling his examination of a few threads from a bamboo fishing pole while relaxing onthe shore of Battle Lake in the present-day state ofWyoming, where he and other members of ascientific team had traveled so that they could clearly observe a total eclipse of the sun on July29, 1878, from theContinental Divide.

[36]
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U.S. Patent#223898: Electric-Lamp. Issued January 27, 1880.

In 1878, Edison formed theEdison Electric Light Companyin New York City with severalfinanciers, includingJ. P. Morganand the members of theVanderbilt family. Edison made thefirst public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park.It was during this time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich willburn candles."

[37]

Lewis Latimerjoined the Edison Electric Light Company in 1884. Latimer had received a patent

in January 1881 for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for theproduction of carbon filaments for lightbulbs. Latimer worked as an engineer, a draftsman and anexpert witness in patent litigation on electric lights.[38]

George Westinghouse'scompany boughtPhilip Diehl'scompetinginduction lamppatent rights(1882) for $25,000, forcing the holders of the Edison patent to charge a more reasonable rate forthe use of the Edison patent rights and lowering the price of the electric lamp.

[39]

On October 8, 1883, theUS patent officeruled that Edison's patent was based on the work ofWilliam Sawyer and was therefore invalid. Litigation continued for nearly six years, untilOctober 6, 1889, when a judge ruled that Edison's electric-light improvement claim for "a

filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. To avoid a possible court battle withJosephSwan, whose British patent had been awarded a year before Edison's, he and Swan formed ajoint company calledEdiswanto manufacture and market the invention in Britain.

Mahen TheatreinBrno(in what is now the Czech Republic) was the first public building in theworld to use Edison's electric lamps, with the installation supervised by Edison's assistant in theinvention of the lamp,Francis Jehl.[40]In September 2010, a sculpture of three giant light bulbswas erected in Brno, in front of the theatre.[41]
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Electric power distribution

Edison patented a system forelectricity distributionin 1880, which was essential to capitalize onthe invention of the electric lamp. On December 17, 1880, Edison founded theEdisonIlluminating Company. The company established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882

onPearl Street Station, New York City. It was on September 4, 1882, that Edison switched onhisPearl Streetgenerating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110voltsdirect current(DC) to 59 customers in lowerManhattan.

[42]

Earlier in the year, in January 1882, he had switched on the first steam-generating power stationatHolborn Viaductin London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to streetlamps and several private dwellings within a short distance of the station. On January 19, 1883,the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employingoverhead wiresbeganservice inRoselle, New Jersey.

War of currents

Main article:War of Currents

Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public events, as in thispicture from the 1897Tennessee Centennial Exposition.

Edison's true success, like that of his friendHenry Ford, was in his ability to maximize profitsthrough establishment of mass-production systems and intellectual property rights.GeorgeWestinghouseand Edison became adversaries because of Edison's promotion ofdirect current(DC) for electric power distribution instead of the more easily transmittedalternating current(AC) system invented byNikola Teslaand promoted by Westinghouse. Unlike DC, AC could bestepped up to very high voltages withtransformers, sent over thinner and cheaper wires, andstepped down again at the destination for distribution to users.

In 1887, there were 121 Edison power stations in the United States delivering DC electricity tocustomers. When the limitations of DC were discussed by the public, Edison launched apropaganda campaign to convince people that AC was far too dangerous to use. The problemwith DC was that the power plants could economically deliver DC electricity only to customerswithin about one and a half miles (about 2.4 km) from the generating station, so that it wassuitable only for central business districts. When George Westinghouse suggested usinghigh-
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voltageAC instead, as it could carry electricity hundreds of miles with marginal loss of power,Edison waged a "War of Currents" to prevent AC from being adopted.

The war against AC led him to become involved in the development and promotion of theelectric chair(using AC) as an attempt to portray AC to have greater lethal potential than DC.

Edison went on to carry out a brief but intense campaign to ban the use of AC or to limit theallowable voltage for safety purposes. As part of this campaign, Edison's employees publiclyelectrocutedanimals to demonstrate the dangers of AC;[43][44]alternating electric currents areslightly more dangerous in that frequencies near 60 Hz have a markedly greater potential forinducing fatal "cardiac fibrillation" than do direct currents.

[45]On one of the more notable

occasions, in 1903, Edison's workers electrocutedTopsy the elephantat Luna Park, nearConeyIsland, after she had killed several men and her owners wanted her put to death.

[46]His company

filmed the electrocution.

AC replaced DC in most instances of generation and power distribution, enormously extendingthe range and improving the efficiency of power distribution. Though widespread use of DC

ultimately lost favor for distribution, it exists today primarily in long-distancehigh-voltage directcurrent(HVDC) transmission systems. Low-voltage DC distribution continued to be used inhigh-density downtown areas for many years but was eventually replaced by AC low-voltagenetwork distribution in many of them.

[47]

DC had the advantage that largebatterybanks could maintain continuous power through briefinterruptions of the electric supply from generators and thetransmission system. Utilities such asCommonwealth Edisonin Chicago hadrotary convertersormotor-generatorsets, which couldchange DC to AC and AC to various frequencies in the early to mid-20th century. Utilitiessupplied rectifiers to convert the low voltage AC to DC for such DC loads as elevators, fans andpumps. There were still 1,600 DC customers in downtown New York City as of 2005, and

service was finally discontinued only on November 14, 2007.

[47]

Mostsubway systemsare stillpowered by direct current.

Fluoroscopy

Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially availablefluoroscope, amachine that usesX-raysto takeradiographs. Until Edison discovered thatcalcium tungstatefluoroscopy screens produced brighter images than the bariumplatinocyanidescreens originallyused byWilhelm Rntgen, the technology was capable of producing only very faint images.

The fundamental design of Edison's fluoroscope is still in use today, although Edison himself

abandoned the project after nearly losing his own eyesight and seriously injuring his assistant,Clarence Dally. Dally had made himself an enthusiastic human guinea pig for the fluoroscopyproject and in the process been exposed to a poisonous dose of radiation. He later died of injuriesrelated to the exposure. In 1903, a shaken Edison said "Don't talk to me about X-rays, I am afraidof them."

[48]

Work relations
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Photograph of Thomas Edison by Victor Daireaux, Paris, circa 1880s

Frank J. Sprague, a competent mathematician and formernaval officer, was recruited byEdwardH. Johnsonand joined the Edison organization in 1883. One of Sprague's contributions to theEdison Laboratory at Menlo Park was to expand Edison's mathematical methods. Despite thecommon belief that Edison did not use mathematics, analysis of his notebooks reveal that he wasan astute user of mathematical analysis conducted by his assistants such asFrancis RobbinsUpton, for example, determining the critical parameters of his electric lighting system includinglamp resistance by an analysis ofOhm's Law,Joule's Lawand economics.

[49]

Another of Edison's assistants wasNikola Tesla. Tesla claimed that Edison had promised him$50,000 if he succeeded in making improvements to his DC generation plants. Several monthslater, when Tesla had finished the work and asked to be paid, he said that Edison replied, "Whenyou become a full-fledged American you will appreciate an American joke."[50]

Tesla immediately resigned. With Tesla's salary of $18 per week, the payment would haveamounted to over 53 years' pay and the amount was equal to the initial capital of the company.Another account states that Tesla resigned when he was refused a raise to $25 per week.

[51]

Although Tesla accepted anEdison Medallater in life, this and other negative events concerningEdison remained with him. The day after Edison died, theNew York Timescontained extensivecoverage of Edison's life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla who was quoted assaying:

He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of themost elementary rules of hygiene. [...] His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immenseground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I wasalmost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have
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saved him 90% of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematicalknowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense.[52]Nikola Tesla

One of Edison's famous quotations about his attempts to make the light globe suggest that

perhaps Tesla was right about Edison's methods of working: "If I find 10,000 ways somethingwon't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded isanother step forward."[53]

When Edison was a very old man and close to death, he said, in looking back, that the biggestmistake he had made was in not respecting Tesla or his work.[54]

There were 28 men recognized asEdison Pioneers.

Media inventions

The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as atelegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his earlyfortune with thestock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system. Edison patented thesound recording and reproducing phonograph in 1878. Edison was also granted a patent for themotion picture camera or "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical design, while hisemployeeW.K.L. Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and opticaldevelopment. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson.[33]In 1891, ThomasEdison built aKinetoscope, or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades,where people could watch short, simple films. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both firstpublicly exhibited May 20, 1891.

[55]

On August 9, 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. In April 1896,ThomasArmat'sVitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, wasused to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. Later he exhibited motionpictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings, mechanically synchronized with the film.

The June 1894 LeonardCushing bout. Each of the six one-minute rounds recorded by theKinetoscope was made available to exhibitors for $22.50.

[56]Customers who watched the final

round saw Leonard score a knockdown.
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Officially the kinetoscope entered Europe when the rich American BusinessmanIrving T. Bush(18691948) bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Frank Z. Maguire and JosephD. Baucus a dozen machines. Bush placed from October 17, 1894, the first kinetoscopes inLondon. At the same time the French company Kintoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Wernerbought these machines for the market in France. In the last three months of 1894, The

Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe (i.e. the Netherlandsand Italy). In Germany and inAustria-Hungarythe kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche-sterreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck[57]of theSchokoladen-Ssswarenfabrik Stollwerck & Co of Cologne.

The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at theFairsin early 1895. The Edison's KintoscopeFranais, a Belgian company, was founded in Brussels on January 15, 1895, with the rights tosell the kinetoscopes in Monaco, France and the French colonies. The main investors in thiscompany were Belgian industrialists.

[58]

On May 14, 1895, the Edison's Kintoscope Belge was founded in Brussels. The businessman

Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiativein starting this business. He had contacts withLeon Gaumontand theAmerican Mutoscope andBiographCo. In 1898 he also became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Companyfor France.

[58]

In 1901, he visited theSudburyarea in Ontario, Canada, as a mining prospector, and is creditedwith the original discovery of theFalconbridgeore body. His attempts to mine the ore body werenot successful, however, and he abandoned his mining claim in 1903.[59]A street inFalconbridge, as well as theEdison Building, which served as the head office ofFalconbridgeMines, are named for him.

Other exhibitors similarly routinely copied and exhibited each others' films.

[60]

To better protectthe copyrights on his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips ofphotographic paperwith theU.S. copyright office. Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better conditionthan the actual films of that era.[61]

Edison's favorite movie wasThe Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiledeverything" for him. "There isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voicenow and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf."

[62]His

favorite stars wereMary PickfordandClara Bow.[63]

In 1908, Edison started theMotion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of ninemajor film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). Thomas Edison was the firsthonorary fellow of theAcoustical Society of America, which was founded in 1929.

West Orange and Fort Myers (18861931)
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Thomas A. Edison Industries Exhibit, Primary Battery section, 1915

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, andHarvey Firestone, respectively.Ft. Myers, Florida, February11, 1929

Edison moved from Menlo Park after the death of Mary Stilwell and purchased a home known as"Glenmont" in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina inLlewellyn ParkinWest Orange, New Jersey.In 1885, Thomas Edison bought property inFort Myers, Florida, and built what was later calledSeminole Lodgeas a winter retreat. Edison and his wife Mina spent many winters in Fort Myerswhere they recreated and Edison tried to find a domestic source of natural rubber.

Henry Ford, the automobile magnate, later lived a few hundred feet away from Edison at hiswinter retreat in Fort Myers, Florida. Edison even contributed technology to the automobile.They were friends until Edison's death.

In 1928, Edison joined the Fort MyersCivitan Club. He believed strongly in the organization,writing that "The Civitan Club is doing thingsbig thingsfor the community, state, andnation, and I certainly consider it an honor to be numbered in its ranks."[64]He was an activemember in the club until his death, sometimes bringing Henry Ford to the club's meetings.

The final years
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Edison was active in business right up to the end. Just months before his death in 1931, theLackawanna Railroadimplemented electric trains in suburban service fromHobokentoGladstone,MontclairandDoverin New Jersey. Transmission was by means of an overheadcatenary system, with the entire project under Edison's guidance. To the surprise of many, hewas at the throttle of the very first MU (Multiple-Unit) train to depart Lackawanna Terminal in

Hoboken, driving the train all the way to Dover.

[65]

As another tribute to his lasting legacy, the same fleet of cars Edison deployed on theLackawanna in 1931 served commuters until their retirement in 1984, when some of them werepurchased by theBerkshire Scenic Railway MuseuminLenox, Massachusetts. A special plaquecommemorating the joint achievement of both the railway and Edison can be seen today in thewaiting room of Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, presently operated byNew JerseyTransit.

[65]

Edison was said to have been influenced by a popularfad dietin his last few years; "the onlyliquid he consumed was a pint of milk every three hours".

[33]He is reported to have believed this

diet would restore his health. However, this tale is doubtful. In 1930, the year before Edisondied, Mina said in an interview about him, "correct eating is one of his greatest hobbies." Shealso said that during one of his periodic "great scientific adventures", Edison would be up at7:00, have breakfast at 8:00, and be rarely home for lunch or dinner, implying that he continuedto have all three.[62]

Edison became the owner of hisMilan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, hewas shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles.

Thomas Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931, in his home, "Glenmont"inLlewellyn ParkinWest Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding

gift for Mina. He is buried behind the home.

[66][67]

Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at theHenry FordMuseum. Fordreportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly afterhis death, as a memento. A plasterdeath maskwas also made.

[68]

Mina died in 1947.

Views on politics, religion and metaphysics

Historian Paul Israel has characterized Edison as a "freethinker".[33]

Edison was heavily

influenced byThomas Paine'sThe Age of Reason.[33]Edison defended Paine's "scientificdeism",saying, "He has been called anatheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supremeintelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity."

[33]In

an October 2, 1910, interview in theNew York Times Magazine, Edison stated:

Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, ormerciful, or loving. If God made me the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke:mercy, kindness, love He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy,
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est_Orange,_New_Jerseyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llewellyn_Parkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan,_Ohiohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#cite_note-condensed1042-61http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#cite_note-Israel-32http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_faddismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#cite_note-Holland_2001-64http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Transithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Transithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenox,_Massachusettshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Scenic_Railway_Museumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#cite_note-Holland_2001-64http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover,_New_Jerseyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montclair,_New_Jerseyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladstone,_New_Jerseyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoboken,_New_Jerseyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware,_Lackawanna_and_Western_Railroad


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kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us nature did it allnot the godsof the religions.[69]

Edison was called an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to bedrawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter: "You have

misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies theexistence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supremeintelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if ourintelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses backagain from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made. "

[33]

Nonviolence was key to Edison's moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant forWorld War I, he specified he would work only on defensive w

Documents

Thomas Edison Was Born in Milan