Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He created many devices in areas like electricity, sound recording, and movies. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a great influence on the modern world. He was one of the first inventors to use organized science and teamwork in the invention process, working with many researchers and employees. He built the first industrial research laboratory.

Edison was raised in the American Midwest. Early in his career, he worked as a telegraph operator, which inspired some of his earliest inventions. In 1876, he established his first laboratory facility in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where many of his early inventions were developed. He went into business and became wealthy. Edison used his money to continue his work as an inventor. This was shown through experimental mining operations, the first film studio, and 1,093 US patents.

Early life

Thomas Edison was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio, but grew up in Port Huron, Michigan, after his family moved there in 1854. He was the seventh and youngest child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. (1804–1896, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871, born in Chenango County, New York). His family line on his father’s side was Dutch, originally from New Jersey.

His great-grandfather, John Edeson, was a loyalist who fled New Jersey for Nova Scotia in 1784. The family moved to Middlesex County, Upper Canada, around 1811. His grandfather, Capt. Samuel Edison Sr., served with the 1st Middlesex Militia during the War of 1812. His father, Samuel Edison Jr., moved to Vienna, Ontario, and later fled to Ohio after his involvement in the Rebellion of 1837.

Edison was taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by his mother, who had been a school teacher. He attended school for only a few months but was very curious and learned most things by reading on his own. Inspired by a book called A School Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, which his mother gave him, Edison experimented with electricity. His parents also owned books by Thomas Paine, which influenced Edison’s thinking throughout his life.

Edison developed hearing problems at age 12. A historian named Paul Israel said that his deafness was caused by scarlet fever during childhood and repeated ear infections that were not treated. Edison later made up stories about why he was deaf. He was completely deaf in one ear and could barely hear in the other. As an adult, he listened to music or the piano by clamping his teeth into the wood to feel sound waves through his skull. He believed his hearing loss helped him focus better on his work.

Edison began his career as a news butcher, selling newspapers, candy, and vegetables on trains between Port Huron and Detroit. By age 13, he earned $50 a week, most of which he used to buy equipment for electrical and chemical experiments. He founded the Grand Trunk Herald, a newspaper he sold with his other papers. The paper had only twenty-four issues and was unique for its coverage of local news. Five hundred people subscribed to the paper, and Edison hired at least two assistants. He kept a frame with the first issue of the Grand Trunk Herald in his home until he died.

At age 15, in 1862, Edison saved a child from being hit by a runaway train. The child’s father was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison worked as a telegrapher in a local store before moving to Stratford Junction, Ontario, where he worked as a night telegrapher for the Grand Trunk Railway. While working, he studied how chemicals behave, conducted experiments, and sometimes fell asleep on the job. This led to a near train collision, after which he quit his position.

Telegraphy

From 1863 to 1869, Edison held night shift jobs as a telegraph operator in Ontario, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Massachusetts. While working for Western Union, he operated the news wire for the Associated Press. In Cincinnati, he lived with Ezra Gilliland, a friend he kept for 25 years. Edison joined the National Telegraph Union and contributed articles to their magazine. In his free time, he experimented with inventions and studied Spanish. He was known among young telegraph operators for his intelligence and willingness to try new ideas, though his experiments sometimes disrupted his work.

In Boston, from 1867 to 1869, Edison earned money by inventing a stock ticker for local customers. However, he lost this income when he expanded the idea to New York without approval. His first patent, for an electric vote recorder (U.S. Patent 90,646), was issued on June 1, 1869.

In 1869, Edison moved to New York City. A mentor during this time was Franklin Leonard Pope, a fellow telegraph operator who let Edison live and work in his home in Elizabeth, New Jersey, while Edison worked for Samuel Laws at the Gold Indicator Company. Pope and Edison started their own company in October 1869, working as electrical engineers. Edison attracted wealthy investors, who helped fund the business. Within months, the company hired 50 employees and opened a larger workshop in Newark, New Jersey. They earned income by renting telegraph lines and developed machines to record telegraphs and typewriters that printed directly onto wires. Edison closely managed his employees’ work and conducted many experiments.

Edison took a chemistry course at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art to support his work on a new telegraph system with Charles Batchelor. This was his only formal education at a higher learning institution. At the factory, Edison and Batchelor worked closely together, and their shared notebooks, signed "E&B," show continuous experiments to improve the telegraph.

Edison expanded his company to employ several hundred people. In 1874, he received $30,000 (equivalent to $853,676 in 2025) for inventing the first telegraph capable of sending four messages at once through a single wire. He used the money to invest in the Port Huron street railway, owned by his brother William Pitt. He also grew his business and hired his young nephew and father.

Menlo Park laboratory

In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison created the first industrial laboratory focused on creating and using knowledge. The laboratory was built in 1876 in Raritan Township, which is now called Edison Township in his honor. Edison used money from selling his quadruplex telegraph to fund the lab. His team usually followed his instructions for research, and he pushed them hard to achieve results. Edison holds 1,093 patents. As the leader of the lab, he was credited for many inventions made by his team. He worked very long hours and expected others to do the same. This often meant working 18 hours daily from Monday to Friday and extra time on weekends. One worker described the effort as "the limits of human exhaustion." Edison often took legal action and hired patent lawyers. This helped him challenge the intellectual property rights of others.

For Edison, big business meant big public attention. He limited reporters' access to the Menlo Park lab and carefully managed his public image through interviews. He supported the creation of a science journal called Science, which published its first volume in 1880. Edison remained anonymous in his role, and the journal initially shared articles that supported his work. He stopped publishing the journal in 1883 because it was not profitable. Later, Alexander Graham Bell took over the journal.

In just over a decade, Edison's Menlo Park lab grew to cover two city blocks. He wanted the lab to have "a stock of almost every conceivable material." In 1887, the lab contained "eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw, every size of needle, every type of cord or wire, hair from humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, camels, silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell, cork, resin, varnish, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores," and many other items.

In 1876, Edison began improving the microphone for telephones by developing a carbon microphone. This device used two metal plates separated by carbon granules that changed resistance based on sound pressure.

In 1877, Edison and his supporters at Western Union wanted to compete with Alexander Graham Bell on telephone technology. Edison believed Bell's microphone, designed by Emile Berliner, was a weakness. He tested many designs to find the best sound quality for his deaf ears. His plan was to use a stronger current that changed with sound waves. Sound pressure altered the current by pressing a carbon pad, which changed the circuit's resistance. After testing 150 materials, Edison found that parchment and tinfoil worked best for the diaphragm, while specially coated rubber served as the semiconductor.

In 1878, David Edward Hughes published a paper on loose-contact carbon microphones. He claimed to discover the semiconductor effect and presented a Hughes Telephone. This upset Edison and caused public controversy, especially because Hughes said he was advised by one of Edison's colleagues.

Edison's first widely recognized invention was the phonograph in 1877. He promoted it through interviews and public demonstrations. The phonograph amazed people because it seemed almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park." As he aged, he disliked being called a genius and said, "One percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."

His first phonograph used tinfoil wrapped around a grooved cylinder. Though the sound quality was poor and recordings could only be played a few times, the phonograph made Edison famous. Joseph Henry, president of the National Academy of Sciences, called Edison "the most ingenious inventor in this country or any other." In 1878, Edison demonstrated the phonograph before the National Academy of Sciences. Though he patented the phonograph in 1878, he did not develop it further until Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter created a similar device in the 1880s using wax-coated cardboard cylinders.

In 1887, the Edison Phonograph Company was formed to compete with Bell. Gilliland had worked for Bell but joined Edison's company. However, their partnership ended when the company ran out of money and had to seek funding from an investor who used unfair methods. Jesse Lippincott tried to form a monopoly by offering deals to Edison, Gilliland, and Bell. He hid his role in the deal and sent the offer through Edison's lawyer. When Edison discovered this, he was angry, and Gilliland left for Europe, ending their friendship. After five years of legal battles, Edison gained full control of the company. This led to conflicts that damaged Edison's relationships with other inventors.

Edison struggled for years to make the phonograph practical. The main problem was finding a recording material durable enough for repeated use without damaging the needle. He tried making talking dolls with miniature phonographs, but the system failed during shipping. Production stopped in 1890. Edison believed the phonograph could change how business was done and how secretaries worked. However, by 1899, his company produced a cheaper model for entertainment. In 1900, the phonograph sold for $10, and buyers could choose from 3,000 musical records made by Edison's 1,000 employees. Experts supervised the quality of the recordings. Edison had no musical training, could not read sheet music, and was mostly deaf. He personally approved every artist and prevented their names from being attached to the music.

The rise of radio hurt phonograph sales. Edison's business sold 90% fewer records in 1921 compared to 1920. Radio sales increased by 843% from 1922 to 1926. Younger managers, including his son Charles, urged Edison to enter the radio industry or use new advertising methods. Instead, Edison focused on removing employees who did not meet his standards.

Edison invented a highly sensitive device called the tasimeter, which measured infrared radiation. He created it to study the heat from the solar corona during a total solar eclipse on July 29, 1878.

Electric light

In 1878, Edison started working on a system for electrical lighting that he could use in a large-scale business, hoping it could compete with gas and oil lighting. A key part of his system was creating a strong, low-resistance incandescent lamp, which was needed for widespread indoor lighting. Many inventors had already made incandescent lamps, but these early versions had problems, such as short lifespans and needing too much electric current to work, which made them hard to use on a large scale. Edison first tried using a filament made of cardboard treated with lampblack, but it burned out too quickly. He then tested different materials like grasses and canes, such as hemp and palmetto, before choosing bamboo as the best filament.

Edison saw lighting as a complete system. Solving it required experiments, market research with Grosvenor Lowrey, which included connecting with powerful investors, observing a mechanical electric generator, planning power distribution, and making public statements to promote his work. Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with financiers like J. P. Morgan, Spencer Trask, and members of the Vanderbilt family.

Edison kept improving his design. On November 4, 1879, he applied for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using a carbon filament coiled and connected to platinum contact wires. The patent described methods to create the carbon filament, including using cotton, linen thread, wood splints, and paper. It was several months after the patent was granted that Edison and Batchelor discovered a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1,200 hours. This high-resistance filament led Edison to choose the 110V power standard used in the United States today, which was higher than what competitors used. Many employees helped test filaments, make glass bulbs, and create vacuums for the filament to glow. By February 1880, people visited the "Village of Light" in Menlo Park to see his work.

Edison worked to prevent the bulb from blackening due to carbon particles from the hot filament. This led to the creation of Edison effect bulbs. His 1883 patent for voltage regulation was the first U.S. patent for an electronic device because it used the Edison effect in an active component. The Edison Effect was important in later vacuum tube designs.

In 1878, Edison hired Francis Robbins Upton, a former student of Hermann von Helmholtz. Upton received 5% of company profits and later became general manager after leading research on electric lighting. He helped write Edison’s speeches and make hiring decisions. John Ott also worked for Edison, making mechanical improvements and conducting experiments. Both men gave Edison credit for most patents, but Ott was credited for some of his own work. Ott’s testimony supported Edison’s patent claims. John Ott’s brother, Fred, worked for Edison as an experimental assistant for 57 years.

Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, attended Edison’s 1879 demonstration. Villard wanted Edison to install his electric lighting system on the ship Columbia. Edison agreed, and most of the work was completed by May 1880. The Columbia traveled to New York City, where Edison’s team installed the new lighting system. This was Edison’s first commercial use of his incandescent light bulb. The Edison equipment was removed from the Columbia in 1895.

Villard later helped fund the construction of an electrically powered train built on a custom track by Edison’s company. The train worked, and some technology was patented, but Edison focused on bulbs instead of continuing the train project.

Edison’s incandescent light bulb became popular in Europe. He sent engineers to promote his system, starting in London and then across Europe.

On September 4, 1882, Edison turned on the electrical lighting system to serve 946 customers in Manhattan. Few people noticed the change at first because the lights were so steady and similar to gas lighting. The Boston Globe reported on this event.

In 1883, the U.S. patent office ruled that Edison’s improvement process for the filament was based on Sawyer’s method and was invalid. Edison’s company revised their process until 1889, when a judge ruled their new patent valid. To avoid a court battle with Joseph Swan, who held a British patent on a similar lamp, Edison and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to market the invention in Britain. Westinghouse, which owned Sawyer’s patent, took a large share of the bulb market by 1889.

After creating a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison developed an electric utility to compete with gas lighting. To show progress, he hosted a board meeting illuminated by his system. On December 17, 1880, he founded the Edison Illuminating Company. During the 1880s, he patented a system for electricity distribution.

The amount of copper wire needed for this technology was very large. To reduce copper use, Edison invented a three-prong wire system.

To expand in New York and secure rights for underground electric lines, the Edison Illuminating Company opened a second office on 65th Avenue. The Edison Machine Works and Edison Electric Tube Company opened in New York by the end of the year. Edison paid his workers more than other companies in the 1880s. Before commercializing power distribution, Edison needed a way to measure customer power use. He invented a device using zinc solution and plates to record current flow. The zinc from the solution built up on the plates, and their weight was measured monthly to bill customers.

In January 1882, Edison turned on the first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. On September 4, 1882, in Pearl Street, New York City, he activated his 600 kW steam-powered generating station, providing 110 volts direct current (DC) to 508 customers with 10,164 lamps.

As Edison expanded his DC power system, he faced competition from companies using alternating current (AC). AC lighting systems for streets and large spaces had grown in the U.S. by the early 1880s. With the development of transformers in Europe and by Westinghouse Electric in the U.S. between 1885 and 1886, AC could be transmitted over long distances using thinner, cheaper wires. This allowed AC to be used for street lighting and small business lighting.

Mining

Starting in the late 1870s, Edison became interested in mining. High-quality iron ore was not enough on the East Coast, so it had to be brought from the Midwest, which made it very expensive. Edison tried to solve this by mining lower-quality ore and beach sand. Others had tried using magnets to separate iron from other metals, but they could not do it in a way that made money.

In 1880, the Edison Ore Milling Company began by separating iron from beach sand. Edison promised to deliver hundreds of tons of ore each month to several customers, but after three years, the operation closed, and only one customer had received their ore. William Kennedy Dickson and John Birkinbine helped lead the project. Batchelor and Insull provided some money, but Edison used most of the funds from his own savings.

This first mining project was not a complete failure because Edison was able to license some of the technology to other iron producers. The West Orange team continued improving the technology for years, and Edison bought a mine in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. Birkinbine wanted to use the mine to show others how the technology worked, but Edison wanted to control the mining industry himself. Birkinbine was fired in 1890.

Edison bought several mines in the eastern United States and built a new central mining operation in Ogdensburg, New Jersey. The new process used rollers and crushers to break rocks that weighed five tons. To get the large rocks, Edison bought the largest steam shovel in America. One special part of Edison’s system was electric rollers that rotated at 3,500 feet per minute. The gears of the rollers released at the moment rocks were dropped, and their movement crushed the rocks. Edison avoided traditional, labor-heavy mining methods by using automation. This meant rocks moved up, down, and across the facility using conveyor belts, gravity, sieves, and more rollers to separate the ore. Small pieces of ore were sent through a system of 480 electromagnets to collect iron.

Customers refused to buy iron with too much phosphorus because it ruined the Bessemer process. Edison’s system removed phosphorus using a lightweight air system that took advantage of phosphorus’s lower weight. Economic reasons also required iron ore to be mixed into briquettes for transport to steel mills. Edison improved the automation of this process and was proud that it took only two hours. The goal was to have no humans touch the iron. However, the mine quickly lost money.

In 1893, the United States had a serious economic downturn. High costs for mining, falling iron prices, and the expensive lifestyle of Mina and Edison’s children put Edison at risk of not having enough money. He was also sick because his diabetes was getting worse. He borrowed money from his father-in-law.

In 1901, Edison visited an industrial exhibition in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, and thought nickel and cobalt deposits there could help his electrical equipment production. He returned as a mining expert and is credited with discovering the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to mine the ore were not successful, and he gave up his claim in 1903.

Even though his mining company failed, Edison used some materials and equipment from the mining process to make Portland cement. Producing iron ore created a lot of waste sand, which Edison sold to cement makers. In 1899, he started the Edison Portland Cement Company to make his own cement and improve its production.

Making Portland cement requires heating limestone and other minerals to high temperatures. Edison designed a new system that used horizontal kilns 150 feet long, which allowed cement to reach the same quality after cooking longer at a lower temperature. This used less coal and reduced the need for manual labor. Edison reused materials from the Ogden mine to build his new system. He also sold the cement and later licensed his system to other cement makers in America, earning money from royalties until the 1920s.

Running machines in dusty environments caused problems, especially for dynamos, which needed cooling but could not be sealed. Edison invented a fan cooling system to bring in fresh air to cool the dynamos while keeping dust out.

In 1901, Edison tried to use his cement business to start a low-cost housing project. He wanted to build small towns where every American could afford a home. To lower costs, he designed a system to cast entire three-story houses from cement in one mold. He used this method to build homes for workers and promoted the idea publicly, but it did not attract enough interest to continue.

West Orange

The first labor strike against Edison happened in the spring of 1886. It was led by D.J. O'Dare of the Edison Tube Works. Workers in New York City usually worked nine hours each day, and Edison’s employees were among the highest-paid in the city. However, they did not receive extra pay for working additional hours. The strike asked for higher wages, overtime pay, and the right to form a union. Edison and other managers refused to discuss unionization because they feared losing control. By the end of the year, the different manufacturing plants in the city were closed, and Edison United Manufacturing Company opened a new factory in Schenectady, New York. The citizens of Schenectady helped pay 16% of the cost for the land to attract Edison’s business to their town.

Samuel Insull began working for Edison in 1881 as a secretary. He had previously worked at Vanity Fair. The two became friends, and Insull became a trusted assistant. Later, when Mary was dying, Insull helped the family with arrangements. Like all of Edison’s workers, Insull worked hard. When Edison United Manufacturing Company opened, he was one of two managers.

In December, Edison was unable to leave his home because of an illness called pleurisy. He recovered, but by May 1887, he needed emergency surgery to treat infections near his ear. He had more surgeries there in 1906 and 1908.

By 1887, Edison felt he had outgrown Menlo Park. He assigned Batchelor to build a new laboratory complex in West Orange. When completed, the new lab was more than ten times larger than the old one.

In December 1914, a fire killed one worker and destroyed thirteen buildings, causing $1.5 million in damage. The phonograph works were destroyed. Edison remained optimistic and ordered everything rebuilt using the latest technology. By January, the factory was producing records again. The fire’s effects were less severe because the factory regularly practiced fire drills.

In 1921, after Warren G. Harding became president, the American economy entered a recession. At this time, Edison had experience managing his businesses during tough times and had seen friends go bankrupt when they failed to handle financial problems. He fired thousands of workers, including executives. By fall, the economy improved, and business returned. However, this was a close call with bankruptcy.

Edison learned about X-rays in 1896 after Wilhelm Röntgen discovered them. He received a photo showing Röntgen’s hands with visible bones. The new technology interested Edison, and he tried to create an X-ray system using better glass and more electricity. During experiments, Edison discovered that X-ray images appear clearer on calcium tungstate screens and shared this with Lord Kelvin.

The basic design of Edison’s fluoroscope is still used today, but Edison stopped the project after nearly losing his eyesight and seriously harming his assistants, Clarence Dally and Charles Dally. In 1903, Edison said, “Don’t talk to me about X-rays, I am afraid of them.” The brothers often tested the fluoroscopy project on themselves. Clarence died at 39 from injuries linked to X-ray exposure, including a type of cancer.

In the late 1890s, Edison worked on creating a lighter, more efficient rechargeable battery. He aimed to make one that could power phonographs, but by the early 1900s, he focused on batteries for electric cars. At the time, lead-acid batteries were common but inefficient and protected by others’ patents. In 1900, Edison decided to develop an alkaline battery for electric cars. His lab tested 10,000 combinations of materials before choosing a nickel-iron design.

Waldemar Jungner worked on a similar battery design, which Edison likely knew about. Edison and Jungner had legal disputes over their patents as Edison tried to sell his battery. Edison received a U.S. and European patent for his nickel-iron battery in 1901 and started the Edison Storage Battery Company. In 1904, Edison worried about losing the patent battle and asked President Theodore Roosevelt to help. Roosevelt agreed, but the patent office still rejected Edison’s claim.

By 1904, Edison Storage Battery Company had 450 employees. The first batteries they made were for electric cars. A recall was issued because the batteries lost power after several recharges.

Henry Ford first met Edison in 1896 while working for Edison Illuminating Company. Edison supported Ford’s early work on cars, and Ford left in 1899 to start his first car company. By 1908, gas-powered cars like Ford’s Model T were becoming popular. Edison did not produce a fully developed battery until 1910: a highly efficient and long-lasting nickel-iron battery with lye as the liquid inside. However, the battery was not successful because electric cars were no longer popular, and lead-acid batteries had become standard for gas cars. Ford still supported Edison and lent him $1.1 million ($35.4 million in 2025) to continue battery research, but Edison could not create a battery that worked well enough for the market.

Motion pictures

In 1888, Thomas Edison and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, a photographer who worked for Edison, began working on a camera to "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear." They first tried using microphotographs on a cylinder. Edison focused on the parts of the camera that used electricity and machines, while Dickson worked on the parts involving light and film. In 1897, Edison was given a patent for a motion picture camera called the "Kinetograph." Much of the credit for this invention belongs to Dickson.

A prototype film camera was built using 19mm film with round images. The first successful tests with this camera were shown publicly on May 20, 1891, in a simple viewer.

Edison had bigger goals than just making a motion picture camera. He wanted to create a device called a "kinetophonograph" that could record both moving pictures and sound, with synchronized playback. In 1890, Dickson made the first film with sound, starring himself. However, keeping the sound and video matched proved very difficult, and Edison stopped developing the technology for commercial use.

In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope, also called a peep-hole viewer. This device was placed in penny arcades, where people could watch short films. The Kinetograph and Kinetoscope were first shown publicly on May 20, 1891.

In the last three months of 1894, an associate of Edison sold hundreds of Kinetoscopes in the Netherlands and Italy. In Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Kinetoscope was introduced by a company called Deutsche-österreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by Ludwig Stollwerck of a chocolate company in Cologne.

By 1895, Dickson began setting up his own business separate from Edison. The exact reason for this split is unknown, but it likely involved disagreements between the two men.

The first Kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at fairs in early 1895. A Belgian company called Edison's Kinétoscope Français was founded in Brussels on January 15, 1895, with the right to sell Kinetoscopes in Monaco, France, and French colonies. The main investors were Belgian industrialists. On May 14, 1895, another company, Edison's Kinétoscope Belge, was also founded in Brussels. A businessman named Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, who lived in London but worked in Belgium and France, started this business. He had connections with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. In 1898, he became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company in France.

In April 1896, Thomas Armat made a deal with Edison. Edison's company manufactured and sold the Vitascope, a film projector. The Vitascope was advertised as an Edison invention to help sales, but it was actually created by Armat and C. Francis Jenkins. Edison had tried to make his own projector but gave up after finding the Vitascope was better.

Edison's film studio made nearly 1,200 films. Most were short films showing things like acrobats, parades, and fire calls. Examples include Fred Ott's Sneeze (1894), The Kiss (1896), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910), and the first Frankenstein film (1910). Edison let Edwin S. Porter manage the creative side of the movie business. In 1903, the owners of Luna Park in Coney Island announced they would kill an elephant named Topsy. Edison Manufacturing filmed the event, Electrocuting an Elephant, as alternating current killed the animal.

As the film business grew, competitors often copied and showed each other's films. To protect his films, Edison sent copies of them to the U.S. copyright office on long strips of photographic paper. Many of these paper copies lasted longer and stayed in better condition than the actual films from that time.

In 1908, Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, a group of nine major film studios (often called the Edison Trust).

In 1913, movies used live actors and bands to add sound to films. At the same time, Edison believed his kinetophone technology could match sound and motion picture playback. Leon Gaumont was also working on similar technology. Both systems needed a skilled projectionist to adjust the video speed for sound.

In 1914, Edison fired Porter for unclear reasons. By this time, the technical challenges of silent, black-and-white film had mostly been solved, and storytelling no longer interested Edison. The kinetophone was hard to sell because it was difficult to use. Edison's movie business began to decline.

Edison said his favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He believed that "talkies" (films with sound) had "spoiled everything" for him. He said, "There isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf." His favorite movie stars were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow.

National security

During World War I, Thomas Edison proposed forming a science and industry committee to help the U.S. military with research and advice. He led the Naval Consulting Board in 1915, but he rarely attended meetings because he was deaf. One of the board’s tasks was to find a location for research away from Washington, D.C., to avoid delays caused by government officials. However, other members ignored his suggestion, and he focused instead on military technology experiments.

At the start of the war, Edison tested methods to improve submarine detection, but the Navy did not adopt them. He supported Miller Hutchinson in promoting a battery technology he believed was safer for submarines. A submarine crew had been injured when a battery leaked sulfuric acid, mixing with seawater to create chlorine gas. However, Edison’s nickel-iron batteries leaked hydrogen gas, which could be dangerous in submarines. In January 1916, a hydrogen explosion occurred on the USS E-2 during maintenance with Edison’s test battery, killing five people. Edison and Hutchinson claimed the explosion was caused by operator error, but some naval officials blamed them for overpromoting the battery. This event slowed battery sales but did not harm Edison’s relationship with the Navy.

In 1915, the United States used 75% of the world’s rubber but produced almost none. Edison and other business leaders worried about America’s dependence on foreign rubber supplies. Their concerns grew when the Stevenson Plan was introduced in 1921. Edison, along with Ford and Firestone, funded a laboratory with $75,000 to find a domestic rubber source.

Edison remained active in the press even as he aged. For his 80th birthday, he gave tours of his experimental garden and shared research on plants that could produce rubber. After testing 17,000 plant samples, he identified the Goldenrod plant, Solidago leavenworthii, as a source of rubber. By late 1929, he announced that this plant could yield 12% latex when bred properly. Edison used a methodical approach to select plants based on latex content, extraction methods, where latex is stored, growth speed, and ease of harvesting.

Edison’s work in the phonograph industry led him to hire chemists to develop coatings for records to prevent wear. He later licensed a material called Condensite, made from phenol and formaldehyde. At the start of World War I, the U.S. chemical industry relied heavily on European imports. A shortage of phenol, used for explosives and medicine, arose during the war.

To address this, Edison produced phenol at his Silver Lake facility using methods developed by his chemists. He built two plants capable of making six tons of phenol daily, starting production one month after the war began in Europe. He also built plants in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Bessemer, Alabama, to produce benzene, replacing German imports. Edison manufactured aniline dyes and other wartime products like xylene, p-phenylenediamine, shellac, and pyrax. These efforts became profitable due to wartime shortages. By 1915, his production capacity was fully used by midyear. Though Edison preferred not to sell phenol for military use, he sold surplus to Bayer, which sent it to Germany.

Final years

Henry Ford, a famous car business leader, lived near Thomas Edison at his winter home in Fort Myers. They were friends until Edison passed away. From 1914 to 1924, Edison and Ford went on yearly car camping trips. Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs also joined these trips. The trips helped promote Ford cars, Firestone tires, and Edison’s projects at the time. Reporters traveled with them to share news about the trips.

In 1926, at the age of 79, Edison gave the presidency of Thomas A. Edison, Inc. to Charles.

Edison stayed active in business until his death. Just months before he died, the Lackawanna Railroad began offering electric train service from Hoboken to Montclair, Dover, and Gladstone, New Jersey. The trains used an overhead catenary system with direct current, a method Edison supported. Though he was weak, Edison operated the first electric multiple-unit train from Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken in September 1930, driving it the first mile through Hoboken yard toward South Orange.

In his final years, Edison continued to chew tobacco daily, and his diabetes worsened. Edison died on October 18, 1931, at Glenmont and was buried on the property.

A small amount of Edison’s last breath is stored in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit. Charles Edison arranged for the test tube to be sent to Ford as a symbol of his father’s love for chemistry and his friendship with Ford. A plaster death mask and casts of Edison’s hands were also created.

Domestic life

On December 25, 1871, at the age of 24, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell (1855–1884), whom he met two months earlier. She worked at one of his shops. They had three children:

• Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965), nicknamed "Dot"
• Thomas Alva Edison Jr. (1876–1935), nicknamed "Dash"
• William Leslie Edison (1878–1937), an inventor and graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1900.

Edison usually spent more time in his laboratory than with his family. He did not spend much time with Mary, and she was closest to her sister.

Thomas Jr. was often sick as a child, but Edison left his care to Mary. Marion often visited the laboratory at Menlo Park during her childhood.

Thomas Jr. wanted to be an inventor but struggled with the skill. His actions caused problems for his father and business. In the 1890s, Thomas Jr. became involved in untrustworthy and dishonest businesses, selling products falsely labeled as "The Latest Edison Discovery." The situation worsened, so Edison took his son to court. Edison agreed to pay Thomas Jr. $35 per week (equivalent to $1,254 in 2025) in exchange for Thomas Jr. not using the Edison name. Thomas Jr. used other names, like Burton Willard. He struggled with alcoholism and depression. Thomas Jr. had a short, troubled marriage in 1899, which caused public embarrassment for him and his father. In 1931, near the end of his life, he worked for the Edison company after help from his half-brother, Charles.

When the Edisons moved to New York, they lived near Gramercy Park. Edison neglected Mary after their marriage began. She enjoyed shopping for fashionable clothes and attending parties. By 1882, doctors were worried about Mary’s mental health.

Mary Edison died at age 29 on August 9, 1884, from unknown causes. Possible causes include a brain tumor or a morphine overdose. Doctors often prescribed morphine to women at that time for various health issues, and some researchers believe her symptoms might have been caused by morphine poisoning.

In December 1884, Edison met Mina Miller at the World Cotton Centennial. She was the daughter of Lewis Miller, an inventor who made improvements to a wheat mower. He was a co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution and supported Methodist charities. Mina enjoyed a social lifestyle and followed a strict Methodist faith. She was a family friend of the Gillilands, and Edison met her several times in 1885 while working with Ezra in Boston. He joined her at a Chautauqua gathering in 1885, but their relationship was affected by the religious setting. Edison proposed to Mina after a trip in September.

On February 24, 1886, at age 39, Edison married 20-year-old Mina Miller (1865–1947) in Akron, Ohio. They had three children:

• Madeleine Edison (1888–1979)
• Charles Edison (1890–1969)
• Theodore Miller Edison (1898–1992)

Marion did not get along with Mina and moved to Germany in 1894. She returned in 1924 after divorcing her unfaithful husband.

In his second marriage, Edison was often neglectful of his wife and children. When he was present, he was very controlling. He left most household and parenting duties to Mina and her five maids. One exception was the Fourth of July, when Edison enjoyed the loud sound of fireworks. He made his own fireworks, adding a small amount of TNT.

Edison wrote love letters to Mina, expressing how much he missed her during his long absences.

Madeleine said she had few memories of her father. He was typically only home once a week during her childhood. She married John Eyre Sloane.

Theodore was named after Mina’s brother, who died in the Spanish–American War shortly before she gave birth. Her sister died in November of that year, and her father died the following February 1899.

Theodore studied physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After working for Charles while their father stepped down, Theodore chose to become an independent inventor and run his own lab.

Charles studied general science at MIT. He took over his father’s business after Edison’s death. Later, he served one term as Governor of New Jersey (1941–1944).

In 1885, Thomas Edison bought 13 acres of land in Fort Myers, Florida, for about $2,750 (equivalent to $98,542 in 2025). He built a winter home later called Seminole Lodge. The main house and guest house are examples of Italianate and Queen Anne style architecture.

Edison purchased a home called Glenmont in 1886 in Llewellyn Park, West Orange, New Jersey. He sold it to Mina in 1891.

Edison enjoyed boats, cars, and fishing. He drove only occasionally, but he owned several cars for research. These cars helped him bond with his son, Charles, whom he encouraged to drive even as a child.

Views

Historian Paul Israel described Edison as a "freethinker." Edison was greatly influenced by Thomas Paine's book The Age of Reason. Edison supported Paine's belief in "scientific deism," explaining, "He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, which other people often refer to as a deity." In an October 2, 1910, interview, Edison said:

Edison was accused of being an atheist because of these remarks. Though he avoided public discussion about the controversy, he clarified his views in a private letter:

He also said, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."

Edison explored and promoted ideas related to panpsychism, which is the belief that all things have a mind or spirit.

Edison's father was a Democrat who supported the secession of the Confederate States of America. Edison was a lifelong Republican, but he briefly supported Theodore Roosevelt during Roosevelt's third attempt to run for president as a Progressive Party candidate. Edison valued the Republican Party's support for industrial capitalism and tariffs.

Edison met several U.S. presidents. He met Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879 to demonstrate the phonograph and met Benjamin Harrison in 1890. In 1921, Edison met President Harding during the Firestone and Ford summer caravan. He met Calvin Coolidge in 1924 at Coolidge's home in Vermont. In 1928, Edison received the Congressional Gold Medal, and Coolidge spoke at the ceremony via radio. In 1929, Herbert Hoover met Edison at Seminole Lodge. Ten months later, Hoover traveled with Edison and Ford to Ford's reconstruction of Menlo Park.

Edison supported women's suffrage. In 1915, he said, "Every woman in this country is going to have the vote." Edison signed a statement supporting women's suffrage to counter anti-suffragist materials spread by Senator James E. Martine. His employment of women was notable at the time. He assigned women to factory jobs requiring nimble fingers, such as making brush wires for dynamos.

Nonviolence was central to Edison's political and moral views. When asked to serve as a naval consultant during World War I, he agreed only to work on defensive weapons. He later said, "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill." After a 1911 tour of Europe, Edison criticized "the belligerent nationalism" he observed in every country he visited.

In May 1922, Edison published a proposal titled A Proposed Amendment to the Federal Reserve Banking System, suggesting a currency backed by commodities. The proposal did not gain support and was later abandoned.

Awards

The following is a list of some awards given to Edison during his lifetime:

• In 1878, awarded an honorary doctorate by Union College
• November 10, 1881, Officer of the Legion of Honour
• In 1892, awarded by the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
• In 1889, the John Scott Medal
• In 1899, the Edward Longstreth Medal from The Franklin Institute
• In 1908, the John Fritz Medal
• In 1915, the Franklin Medal from The Franklin Institute
• In 1920, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal
• In 1923, the Edison Medal from the American Institute of Electrical Engineers
• In 1927, member of the American Philosophical Society
• May 29, 1928, the Congressional Gold Medal

Primary sources

• The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition
• The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, a 9-volume book collection; each volume is available for free download. Volume 1 (1847–1873) can be downloaded online. Volume 2 (1873–1876) can also be downloaded online.