Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847. He was the last of seven children of Samuel and Nancy Edison. Tom was nearly deaf as a child. In 1854 Tom only went to school for 12 weeks. His mother pulled him from school and homeschooled him. At 11, he wanted more knowledge, reading books on each subject.

At age 12, Edison put that education to work. He convinced his parents to let him sell newspapers to passengers on the Grand Trunk Railroad line. Thomas began publishing his own small newspaper, called the Grand Trunk Herald. The articles were a hit with passengers.

Edison used his access to the railroad to do chemical experiments in a “laboratory” he set up in a train luggage car. A chemical fire started and the car caught fire. The conductor ran in and smacked Thomas upside the head, probably lost some of his hearing. He was Fired from that train and forced to sell his newspapers at various stations along the route.

While he worked for the railroad, a near-tragic event happened. After Edison saved a 3-year-old from being run over by a train, the child’s grateful father thanked him by teaching him to operate a telegraph. By 15, he had learned enough to become a telegraph operator. In 1866, at 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, working for the press. The night shift let him spend most of his time reading and experimenting.

In 1868, Edison came home and his mother was in a mental illness and his father was out of work. Edison realized he has to control of his future. His friend said he should go to Boston, landing a job for the Western Union Company.

In 1869, Edison moved to New York City and made his first invention, an improved stock ticker, the Universal Stock Printer, which synchronized several stock tickers’ transactions. The Gold and Stock Telegraph Company was very impressed, they paid him $40,000 for the rights. With this success, he quit his work as a telegrapher to devote himself full-time to inventing.

In 1870, Thomas Edison set up his first laboratory in Newark, New Jersey, and gave people several jobs as machinists. With his increasing success, in 1871, Edison married age 16 Mary Stilwell, who was a worker at one of his businesses. During their marriage, they had three children, Marion, Thomas and William, (who became an inventor). Mary died of a brain tumor at the age of 29 in 1884.

By the early 1870s, Thomas Edison had a great reputation as an inventor. In 1876 Western Union wanted him to make a communication device to compete with Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. He never did. But in December of 1877, Edison invented a way for recording sound: the phonograph. The invention brought him to be famous.

The 1880s were busy for Edison. After being granted a patent for the light bulb in January 1880, Edison set out to make a company that would deliver the electricity to power and light the cities. The same year, Edison created the Edison Illuminating Company.

In 1884 Edison’s wife, Mary, died, and in 1886, he married Mina Miller, 19 years his junior. In 1887, Edison built an industrial laboratory in New Jersey, which served as the primary research laboratory for the Edison lighting companies. He supervised the development of light tech . He also perfected the phonograph, and developed the motion picture camera and the alkaline storage battery. The next decades were not so good for Edison. He was losing money.

Thomas Edison died of diabetes on October 18, 1931, in his home, “Glenmont,” in West Orange, New Jersey. He was 84 years old. Many around the world turned off the lights to commemorate his passing. Thomas Edison was one of the people to start up the electrical world.