Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 â€" October 18, 1931) was an
American inventor and businessman who has been described as America's
greatest inventor. He developed many devices in fields such as
electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and
motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the
motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb,
have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He
was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized
science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many
researchers and employees. He established 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 later established a botanic laboratory
in Fort Myers, Florida in collaboration with businessmen Henry Ford
and Harvey S. Firestone, and a laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey
that featured the world's first film studio, the Black Maria. He was a
prolific inventor, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as
patents in other countries. Edison married twice and fathered six
children. He died in 1931 of complications of diabetes.Thomas Edison
was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio, but grew up in Port Huron, Michigan
after the family moved there in 1854. He was the seventh and last
child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. (1804â€"1896, born in Marshalltown,
Nova Scotia) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810â€"1871, born in Chenango
County, New York). His patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New
Jersey; the surname had originally been "Edeson." Thomas Edison Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter