The Wizard of Menlo Park
Thomas Alva Edison, Inventor
Suppose you are a boy or girl living on a farm remote from town. Only fifty years ago you would have been dependent upon the feeble and uncertain light of candles or kerosene lamps at the coming of nightfall. But now the wonderful electric light is at your beck and call. You have only to reach out your hand and turn a switch, and the room in which you are will be flooded with light. You will be able to read or write and play games by artificial light that rivals even the light of the lordly sun.
Perhaps you may wish to hear a great orchestra or violinist or singer. Your radio may not provide you with what you want, but it does not matter. You have but to select the proper phonograph record, place it on your phonograph or combination phonograph and radio, and soon you will be listening to the magnificent chords of the orchestra or the singing tones of the violin or the superb voice of a great soprano. You may even study a foreign language through phonograph records.
Perhaps it is Friday evening. Home lessons are laid aside, for you are going to a movie in the nearest town. For two hours or more you will be taken to places of interest in your own country or in one far distant; you laugh heartily over a comedy, or your heart aches over some sad, pathetic story. A great parade is held in a distant city, and within a few days the men and women will march down toward you on the picture screen. You see the launching of a proud ship, the forging of a giant anchor, a carnival held in New Orleans or in Rome, or perhaps a native wedding procession in faroff Bombay, or a football game at Yale. Here we are going to read something about the man to whom we owe the fact that our lives are so much richer than the lives of our grandfathers and grandmothers, or even our fathers and mothers when they were young.
Thomas Alva Edison worked out his inventions by known laws of science. He had studied these laws, so that he was able to apply them to make real the visions of his imagination. Yet he had few advantages and little help, and his story is one of those that inspire us to great effort to cultivate the talents that have been given to each one of us.
He was born in February, 1847, in the little village of Milan, in Ohio. His parents were poor because his father did not keep to a settled occupation. Mr. Edison senior had the same kind of mind as his wonder - working son - the kind of mind that is called versatile, that can turn easily from one thing to another. He had not learned, however, that it is wise for a man with a versatile mind to find out how to do one thing thoroughly before he turns to another, and so he was not successful.
Thomas Alva Edison was a quiet, thoughtful little boy, but very inquisitive and always wanting to know how things were done. He was not very strong, however, and was not sent to school until he was quite a big child. When he did go, his teacher, who does not seem to have been very wise, thought him stupid because he asked so many questions. So his mother, who had herself been a teacher, took him away from school at the end of two months and taught him at home. With so kind and loving a teacher he made rapid progress; and above all, he learned to think. His mother had some good books, which he learned to enjoy; and when he was ten years old he read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Hume’s History of England. About that time he began to study an encyclopedia. It was probably from the encyclopedia that he first learned to take an interest in chemistry and to make experiments.
Edison’s First Sample Laboratory
By this time his parents, who had moved with him to Port Huron, Michigan, were able to indulge him in his love for making experiments. He bought some books, made a little laboratory in the cellar of his home, and there, by himself, with no teacher, laid the foundation of his knowledge of chemistry.
When he was twelve years old he decided to start out in life for himself, and he became a newsboy on the train which ran from Port Huron to Detroit. Such a newsboy had never been seen before. He was given a corner in the baggage car in which to keep his stocks of newspapers, magazines and candy. To this corner he moved his little laboratory and library of chemical books, and when he was not engaged in his business, went on with his experiments. Still time hung heavy on his hands, and to fill it up he bought a printing-press and type and published on the train a weekly newspaper filled with local news, stories of things that happened on the railway and notes of the markets. The trainmen and passengers were glad to buy the paper from this enterprising young publisher.
An Accident With Sad Consequences
All went well for two or three years. But when he was in his sixteenth year, one day a phosphorus bottle was jarred off one of his shelves and broke on the floor. It set fire to the baggage car, and in his anger at the danger to his train the conductor not only put the boy off the train, but soundly boxed his ears. That was the most unfortunate part of the accident, for as a result of the boxing Edison gradually lost his hearing and became almost totally deaf. His stock was lost, but an act of great bravery and presence of mind on his part brought to his aid a new resource and opened up a new field for him to work in.
He was standing one day on the platform of the depot at Mt. Clemens, Michigan, watching a train come in, when he saw the station agent’s little boy on the track right in front of the oncoming engine. Another moment and the child would have been crushed, but Edison sprang to the track, seized the little one in his arms, and rolled with him to one side, just in time to escape the wheels. To show his gratitude the baby’s father offered to teach Edison telegraphy. The offer was gratefully accepted, and now that his career as a train newsboy was closed, he turned to his new accomplishment as a means of making a living.
First Jobs in Telegraphy
He worked at telegraphy for some years, first in Port Huron, Michigan, thea at Stratford, Canada, and a little later in the western states, and finally in Boston. At the same time he spent all his spare moments studying chemistry and electricity and experimenting on improved telegraph apparatus. It was during these years that he first turned his attention to duplex telegraphy, but through no fault of his own he was unable to sell his invention, and the matter dropped for a time.
In 1869, when he was in his twenty second year, he went to New York. He arrived penniless in the City; but he was a good telegraph-operator, and was fearless of the future. And now a strange thing happened. He applied to the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company for work, and while he was waiting for a reply part of the apparatus broke down. No one knew what was the matter, and everything was in confusion until Edison said he could set the machine at work again. Permission was given him to try, and at the end of two hours, work in the office was going on as if nothing had happened. Edison was asked if he would accept a position at a salary of three hundred dollars a month and, needless to say, he accepted.
Edison Sells His Telegraph Inventions
In a little over a year Edison sold his telegraph inventions for a large sum of money; this enabled him to set up in business for himself. First he built a factory at Newark, New Jersey, for the manufacture of telegraph apparatus.
He gave up this factory in 1876, and set up a laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey. Later this laboratory was moved to West Orange, New Jersey. His chief business now was making inventions. He gave employment to hundreds of workmen and his inventions made him famous the world over.
His first great invention was the quadruplex system of telegraphy.
The First Phonograph is Invented
It was about the same time that he invented the phonograph. The idea of an instrument which would “write sound” and reproduce it had been thought of before by scientists, though it is doubtful if Edison knew of their efforts to make such an instrument. At any rate, he was the first to make an instrument which would work, and even he did not know that it would work until he heard it repeat the words that he shouted into it.
Edison patented his invention, which from the first excited the wonder of the world. Of course, like all first things, it was crude, and the sounds that it gave back were harsh. For the time he had to lay it aside, for he was busied with many other important projects. But others took it up, and from his parent idea the phonograph and other instruments were invented. Later on, when he had more leisure, Edison himself worked out a phonograph that gave back each beautiful vibration from voice or instrument.
Wonderful Improvements in Electric Lights
When electricity was first used for illumination only large arc-lights were used. The lamps sputtered and scattered sparks, and the light was so harsh that it could be used only for street-lighting and large buildings, such as factories, drill halls and the like. Such a thing as incandescent lights, which make possible the use of softly shaded lamps or indirect lighting in our homes, or brilliant illumination of concert halls and theatres, was not even thought of. For this work Edison put aside the work of his phonograph. He believed that a number of lights could be supplied from one distributing wire, and he believed that the light could be improved so that its use would be a common thing, so he invented the incandescent lamp, from which our modern light.ing has grown. He spent a couple of years over tH work, and to perfect his system improved dynamo machines, and invented a whole scheme of distributing electricity so that it might be used on a large scale for supplying light, heat and power.
Now we come to the moving pictures, where again Edison took up an idea which others had had before him. While it can not be said that Edison invented the moving pictures, he did work out the underlying principle on which they are based, insofar as motion is shown on a screen. The development of “sound” pictures came later and was worked out by others.
Some Other Industrial Inventions
Other inventions of his were hardly less wonderful. He invented the apparatus called the Giant Rolls, by means of which huge rocks could be reduced to fragments in a few seconds. He perfected a new type of storage battery, which did away with the lead and sulphuric acid of the old type. He increased the speed of cement manufacture with his “Long Kiln,” used in burning the mixture of cement material. His new method of cement pouring made it possible to pour the cement for a complete house in a few hours.
When World War I broke out, he found himself in danger of being cut off from his source of supply of carbolic acid for his factories at West Orange. He therefore devised a means of making it for himself. He also erected a number of plants for manufacturing products which formerly had been obtained from Europe.
Artificial Rubber from Goldenrod
During the last years of his life he was busied with the problem of producing synthetic, or artificial rubber. Finally, in 1930, he patented a process for extracting rubber from goldenrod. He died October x8, i9r, at the age of eighty-four.
We have mentioned here but a few of the numberless inventions of this wonderful man. An attempt was made, indeed, to estimate the value of these inventions. When the United States Congress awarded Edison its Gold Medal, it set the value of his contributions to mankind at $15,599,000,000. Any estimate of this sort is futile. It is enouch to say that few men have done so much to make life more complete for countless millions.
Shortly before the death of this great man another important inventor, Henry Ford, established near Dearborn, Michigan, a museum known as Edison Institute. Among the memorials to Edison that it contains is his original laboratory, moved from Menlo Park.