Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison

Prolific inventor of the phonograph, a practical incandescent lighting system and much else, born in the canal town of Milan, Ohio.

Born February 11, 1847, Milan
Died October 18, 1931, West Orange, NJ

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: February 11, 1847, Milan (Erie County) source
Died: October 18, 1931, West Orange, NJ source
Buried: Thomas Edison National Historical Park, West Orange source
Also known as: Thomas Edison, Al Edison
Known as: Inventor
Organizations: Edison Illuminating Company, General Electric

Life story

Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847. His family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854, when he was seven.

He was taught by his mother, a former teacher, and learned on his own by reading and experiment. His first patent was an electric vote recorder in 1869.

He set up the Menlo Park laboratory in 1876, developed a practical light bulb in 1879, and ran the Pearl Street Station power system in New York in 1882.

He held 1,093 US patents and founded many companies. He died in New Jersey in 1931; his Ohio birthplace is now a museum.

Ohio ties

Milan (9 North Edison Drive) (1847-1854)
birthplace and early childhood home Erie County · source
Cincinnati (1860s (within 1863-1869))
night telegraph operator; lived with Ezra Gilliland Hamilton County · source
Akron (Oak Place) (1886)
married Mina Miller in the parlor of her father's home on February 24, 1886 Summit County · source

Timeline

1841 Samuel and Nancy Edison built the brick house in Milan where Thomas would be born. source
1847 Born February 11 in Milan, Ohio, the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. and Nancy Matthews Elliott. source
1854 The family sold the Milan house and moved to Port Huron, Michigan. source
1863 Began six years of itinerant night telegraph work in several states, including Ohio, where he lived with Ezra Gilliland in Cincinnati. source
1886 Married Mina Miller on February 24 in the parlor of Oak Place, the Lewis Miller home in Akron, with about 80 guests. source
1894 His sister repurchased the Milan birthplace. source
1931 Died October 18 in West Orange, New Jersey. source
1947 The Milan birthplace opened as a museum on February 11, the centennial of his birth, with his daughter Madeleine Edison presiding. source
1965 The Milan birthplace was designated a National Historic Landmark (added to the National Register in 1966). source
1973 Edison State Community College in Piqua was chartered and named for him. source
2016 Ohio's bronze Edison statue spent the summer at the Milan public library before replacing Ohio's William Allen statue in National Statuary Hall. source
2016 The National Statuary Hall statue of Edison is by sculptor Alan Cottrill. source

What Thomas is known for

Phonograph 1877
Incandescent lamp patent filed 1879, granted 27 Jan 1880
Held 1,093 US patents
1,093 US patents
Edison Electric Light Company (1878)
Edison Illuminating Company (1880)
Edison Portland Cement Company (1899)
Nickel-iron battery patent (1901)

Stories

A proposal in Morse code, a wedding in Akron

Edison met Mina Miller, the 19-year-old daughter of Akron farm-machinery maker Lewis Miller, through friends Ezra and Lillian Gilliland about a year after his first wife's death in 1884. He taught her Morse code and later proposed by tapping the question on her palm; she tapped back yes, provided her father approved. Edison wrote to Lewis Miller and won his consent. They married on February 24, 1886, in the parlor of Oak Place, the Millers' 1870 brick mansion in Akron, before about 80 guests. Akron lore says he courted her on carriage rides through nearby Glendale Cemetery. Oak Place survives as an apartment building.

Source

Ohio swaps a governor for an inventor

Since 1887 one of Ohio's two statues in the U.S. Capitol had been Governor William Allen. The Ohio General Assembly decided Allen's pro-slavery position and criticism of Lincoln made him a poor representative, and picked Edison instead. Funding delays dragged the swap out for years. In June 2016 the nearly 7-foot, 900-pound bronze of Edison holding a light bulb was taken from the Ohio Statehouse to spend the summer at the public library in Milan, his birthplace. It was then installed in National Statuary Hall in 2016, and the Allen statue went to Chillicothe.

Source

A canal-town childhood

When Edison was born, Milan was a busy grain port on the Huron River and the recently built Milan Canal, and its yards turned out 75 lake vessels between 1840 and 1866. The Edison house, a brick cottage built in 1841, overlooks the old canal. Local accounts say the coming of the railroad ended Milan's short boom, and the family left for Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854. A statue in Milan's town square shows young Tom with his mother, Nancy.

Source

Honors and things named for them

Edison Township, NJ
Thomas Edison National Historical Park, West Orange, NJ

Named for Thomas Edison

Edison State Community College (chartered 1973) (Piqua, Miami County) source
Edison Drive (Thomas Edison Birthplace address) (Milan, Erie County) source

Family

father: Samuel Ogden Edison Jr.
mother: Nancy Matthews Elliott
spouse: Mary Stilwell
spouse: Mina Miller
son: Charles Edison

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

1 Thomas Edison Birthplace Museum (National Historic Landmark)
Milan, 9 North Edison Drive Erie County · source
Statue of young Edison with his mother, Milan town square
Milan Erie County · source
Oak Place (Lewis Miller mansion, site of Edison's 1886 wedding) (private)
Akron, 142 King Drive Summit County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Thomas Alva Edison Birthplace Museum (museum)
9 Edison Dr, Milan, Erie County ZIP 44846 · Milan · Erie County · official page

Ohio places

Where Thomas Edison was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Born: Milan, Erie County (9-11 Edison Dr (Birthplace Museum; address from prior knowledge)) ZIP 44846 · Milan · Erie County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Thomas Edison, and what the record shows.

Often said Edison's family left Milan because the railroad bypassed the town.

The record Tourism accounts say the railroad ended Milan's canal-port prosperity and that the family then moved in 1854, but the sources read do not establish the railroad as the reason for the Edisons' move; Wikipedia's Edison article gives no reason. source

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

Thomas Edison in East Brunswick in the 1880 US Census.
Public domain
Full-page feature in The New York Times Magazine Section of October 2, 1910, "'No Immortality of the Soul' Say...
Public domain
Newspaper page from the Grand Trunk Herald, published by Thomas Edison.
Public domain
Advertisement for Thomas Edison's "Kinetophone", his early synchronized system for presenting sound with proje...
Public domain
Benjamin Count Rumford medal (1895) for discoveries in light or heat, bust side. Keywords: awards; Edison; Tho...
Public domain
Benjamin Count Rumford medal (1895) for discoveries in light or heat, inscription side. Keywords: awards; Edis...
Public domain
Button with Thomas Edison's name, honoring his 67th birthday. Keywords: birthdays; thomas edison; Edison; Thom...
Public domain
Carbon-resistance telephone transmitter, 1878, patent model by Thomas Edison. Exhibit in National Museum of Am...
Public domain
Catalogue of Edison-Lalande batteries, battery motors, measuring instruments, medical apparatus, etc. Publishe...
Public domain
Edison's endorsement of the kinetography report.
Public domain
Aktie der Cincinnati Edison Electric Company vom 19. April 1892, ausgestellt auf die Deutsch Bank (die Aktie v...
Public domain
Congressional Medal Keywords: awards; thomas edison; Edison; Thomas A.; (EDIS Historical Photo Series Name)
Public domain