In our world today, just imagine a city or a country without any power or the use of newer technology to help build these amazing cities and countries. Think about it, inventions like electricity, the light bulb, television and other great inventions. These inventions helped change the way people live there day to day lives for the better. Just think about the new technology and other inventions that helped pave the path from the 19th century to the 21st century. It only took one very smart man that helped change a turning point in probably the greatest period in progressive innovation of all time.
While researching on the internet and reading our textbook, there have been many great inventors but the one inventor that stands out to me is Thomas Edison. He was born in a time era that didn’t have any technological advancements. He was pretty much one of the main reasons why technology changed so rapidly. To me, he was the biggest influence on that era, compared to any other inventor.
Think about it, most of his inventions are still being used in the 21st Century, with even newer technology, which is crazy. All his great inventions helped contribute to more modern technology like Movies, Telephones, and records or CDs. We can only imagine how hard-working Edison was daily. It was said that he liked to split his days up into two parts. He works 8 hours in the morning and then works another 8 hours in the later afternoon.
This is why he was the turning point in the industrial era with the method of great inventions and his endless effect to create such great products.
Not to mention early life treated Thomas Edison rough when he got Scarlet fever combined with an ear infection that left him with hearing difficulties as a child and left him nearly deaf as an adult. When he first started school, it was a public school in Port Huron. He was only in school for a total of 12 weeks when his teachers were complaining that he was too difficult to teach and was always distracted. So, his mother thought it would be a good idea to pull him out of school and start to homeschool him and it actually worked out. He showed a lot of knowledge in every subject and loved to read about any subject. The biggest part he learned from being homeschooled was developing a skill of self-education and how to be independent. Which helped him through his whole life.
Thomas Edison started to use his skills at the age of 12 where he started his very own newspaper company. This is considered to be the first string of entrepreneurial ventures where he saw the opportunity and took it. It was his very first time succeeding and would not be his last.
Thomas Edison’s career started in 1869 at the age of 22, when he decided to move to New York City. During this time, he began to work and create many different types of inventions. The invention that helped get his foot into the door was the phonograph. He notice that it would be a good idea to improve the Universal Stock Printer. His Universal Stock Printer was so good and worked very well. A huge printing company decided to pay the rights to own the Stock Printer. They paid Edison 40,000 dollars and with this money he decided to quit his work as a telegrapher. He then started to become a full-time investor. After becoming a full-time inventor he was known as a first-rate inventor because he was continuously making great inventions back to back which was a big accomplishment for this period and had never really been done before.
Eventually, the public started to recognize who Thomas Edison was and all of his great Inventions. The Public then decided to give him a Nickname Called “ The Wizard of Menlo Park.” He was giving these nicknames because where his Laboratory was located it was next to a park called Menlo Park. The public thought it would be cool to nickname him after the park he worked near.
Another accomplishment which was huge during this era was creating his very own Laboratory. This Laboratory was created solely for Thomas Edison’s new Inventions and how to help improve other technology in that period. He couldn’t do all these tasks by himself so he thought it would be a good idea to hire employees. The employees would have a huge role in helping Edison carry out his research and mainly would have to help assist him with new inventions.
There was one employee that had a huge impact on all of Edison’s Inventions in the Laboratory. His name was William Hammer. The skills William had were an Electrical engineer in Edison Laboratory. In the past, William helped Edison with inventions like the telephone, phonograph and many others. Edisons and William’s biggest invention together was the electric light bulb created in 1879. It was the first light bulb to compete with gaslight products. Also, Edison helped bring the electric light bulb to mass production which was never seen before. In January 1880, Edison set out to develop his very own company, that would help give electricity to power and light cities around the world. The name of his company was called “Edison ILLuminating company”. He was the first company to have an investor-owned Electric utility. After the light bulb, Thomas Edison was known as the master of the trial and error method that led him to be able to judge a problem and be persistent in experimenting.
How did Thomas Edison’s inventions help make the 19th century more advanced and what were some of the inventions that helped better the lives of those people in that era? Most of his inventions made a profound impact on how people lived during that time and in today’s era. He invented things that we take for granted in today’s time. For example, electricity and appliances are some of his great inventions. It helped change the world in so many ways. With these inventions he was able to gain control over lights in homes and offices no matter what time of the day. His electricity lights brought lots of networks of wires to homes and offices which made it really easy to add appliances and other machines that require electricity. He was then able to create other appliances for households, offices and transportation based on his electricity.This is when the creation of electric refrigerators, climate control small electric motors and subways all become part of people’s day to day lives. He helps improve the economy in so many ways that people in that era have never seen before.
Another major success to helping the economy was having electricity in factors because the majority of the people in the industrial era worked in factors. Factors were now able to have people work even though it was dark outside. Electricity made people be able to continue to have somewhat of life after it got dark outside. People began to start going out at night and were able to have fun at which they couldn’t do before. Edison inventions allowed people to do things that, that were once not possible or people thought would be ever created. He made society a lot easier for people to live in and work in. It allowed people to start to see more of the world and realize all the changes that were happening during the industrial revolution. It was at that moment America realized it was the leader in technological innovation.
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