Thomas Edison

On Tuesday I got talking to a fellow librarian about our previous qualifications prior to librarianship. On hearing that I was a qualified engineer, he shifted the conversation to a documentary he’d seen about Thomas Edison and wanted my opinions.

I realised that as an Engineer, though not a practicing one, this was stuff that I really ought to have known. How stupid do I look, flouting my elec eng degree and not knowing a thing about Thomas Edison? I’ve been on Wikipedia all night, compiling this fact sheet:

Thomas Alva Edison (dubbed ‘Wizard of Menlo Park’ by an eager reporter)
B. 1847 (2 years before Chopin died) – D. 1931 (a year after my grandmother was born)

Born in Ohio and grew up in Michigan

Founder of General Electric

His sons, William and Theodore also became inventors at Yale and MIT respectively

Inventions
Tin Foil Phonograph: 1877
Electric-Light Bulb: did not invent but perfected the electric light-bulb by enclosing a carbon filament in a vacuum (although Joseph Swan in Britain had patented the same idea in 1978).
Made first public display in 1879 (interestingly the Mahn theathre in the Czech republic was the first public building to be permanently lit by electricity in 1882).

Electric distribution: Generated at Steam Power Plant on pearl street, Manhattan in 1882. Same year, Edison switched on london’s power plant at Holborn Viaduct.

Engaged in ‘current wars’ with Nichola Tesla and George Westinghouse. Edison believed in power transmission via Direct Current, citing the dangers of Alternating Current as reasons against its use.

To prove its danger, Edison employee (Harold Brown) was asked to invent the electric chair which Edison actively supervised (though he was opposed to the death penalty). Also used AC in the killing of Topsy the elephant at Coney Island (when Coney burned down, it was said to be ‘Topsy’s revenge’).

A genius, if ever there was one, he was a kind of 19th century Da Vinci. However, some accounts indicate he wasn’t a very nice man:

Nicola Tesla was his assistant, charged with improving the DC generation plants for a wage of £50,000. When Tesla successfully did so, Edison reneged on his promise, saying ‘when you become an American, you will appreciate an American Joke’.

Effectively bootlegged George Mellier’s A Trip to the Moon and distributed it in America, effectively bankrupting Mellier.

Quotes
‘Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.’
‘we will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.’