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Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices which greatly influenced life in the 20th century. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, and can therefore be credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. Some of the inventions attributed to him were not completely original but amounted to improvements of earlier inventions or were actually created by numerous employees working under his direction. Nevertheless, Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,097 U.S. patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Early life
Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, the ninth child of Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (1804–1896) (born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, Canada) and the former Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871). His family was of Dutch origin.[1] His mind often wandered and his teacher the Reverend Engle was overheard calling him "addled". This ended Edison's three months of formal schooling. His mother had been a school teacher in Canada and happily took over the job of schooling her son. She encouraged and taught him to read and experiment. He 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."[2] Many of his lessons came from reading R.G. Parker's School of Natural Philosophy. Edison became hard of hearing at the age of twelve. There are many theories of what caused this; according to Edison he went deaf because he was pulled up to a train car by his ears.[3]

Edison's family was forced to move to Port Huron, Michigan when the railroad bypassed Milan, but his life there was bittersweet. He sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit. Partially deaf since adolescence, he became a telegraph operator after he saved 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 took Edison under his wing and trained him as a telegraph operator. Edison's deafness aided him as it blocked out noises and prevented Edison from hearing the telegrapher sitting next to him. One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the then impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey home.

Some of his earliest inventions related to telegraphy, including a stock ticker. Edison applied for his first patent, the electric vote recorder, on October 28, 1868.


[edit] Marriages and children
On December 25, 1871, Edison married the then 16 year old Mary Stilwell whom he had met two months earlier. They had three children,

Marion "Dot" Estelle Edison (1873–1965)
Thomas "Dash" Alva Edison, Jr (1876–1935)
William Leslie Edison (1878–1935)
Mary Edison died on August 9 1884.

On February 24, 1886, at the age of thirty-nine, Edison married 19-year-old Mina Miller in Akron, Ohio. They also had three children:

Madeleine Edison (1888–1979)
Charles Edison (1890–1969), who took over the company upon his father's death and who later was elected Governor of New Jersey
Theodore Edison (1898–1992)
Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947...........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison

Thomas Alva Edison did not do well in school. He was always asking questions and causing trouble to the class.His teachers offered no encouragement for hisfuture.
Edison's mother knew that her son was intelligent, so she taught him at home. Edison was a good reader and he never stopped learning.
Edison loved working with mechanical things. When he was twelve years old, he worked as a newsboy on the rail-road and he did experiments in his spare time.At the age of sixteen, he published a weekly newspaper. He was trained and worked as a telegrapher. However, hewas more inter-ested in improving the machines than in being a telegrapher. His love for experiments often caused him to be fired from jobs. After he earned about $40,000 for improving telegraph services, he set up his own laboratory in 1876.
Edison is often called America's great inventor. One of his hundreds of inventions is the electric light. He also im-proved the telegraph and the typewriter. He created new industries, more jobs and greater wealth for his country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison