Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison's First Patent

Young Thomas Edison was home schooled by his mother in Milan, Ohio. He developed a hearing problem at an early age, this was most likely from a childhood illness like scarlet fever or a common untreated ear infection. Thomas's family was forced to move when something happened to the railroad near their home. The family moved to Michigan where Thomas found a job selling candy, newspapers, and vegetables on a train. His talent as a business man was now discovered. With all this business skill, he went on to found fourteen different companies, including General Electric, which is still one of the largest electric companies in the world, and is fully running. He found a new job working at a telegraphy business, but he was fired when he spilled sulfuric acid on his boss's desk. Now that Thomas had no money and no job, then he had no house and no work place for him to experiment. But luckily a man named Franklin Leonard Pope who also worked at the telegraphy business and later in life died of electrocution, allowed Thomas to stay in his house and continue experimenting. All of Thomas's free time lead to his first popular invention, the improved stock ticker. He showed this to Franklin who was very pleased with it. It just so happened that Franklin was a U.S. patent attorney. Thomas once again showed Franklin his second invention and got his first patent on the electric voter.After this Thomas never stopped experimenting and inventing, he patented 1,093 U.S. patents in his name, not including the patents he had in the U.K., France, and Germany. Thomas's most famous invention was the light bulb.