[Illustration: THE EDISON HOUSE AT MILAN, OHIO
_Here Thomas A. Edison was born on February 11, 1847._]
Never has there been an American inventor who has contributed more
abundantly than Thomas Alva Edison to the republic’s industrial
expansion, nor one who has achieved greatness under a heavier handicap
of early disadvantages. Born (1847) of a poor family in an obscure Ohio
canal village, Edison began his career at the age of twelve in the
occupation of a railway newsboy.
[Illustration: THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH
_It was with this machine that Edison in 1877 originally demonstrated
the fact that sound could be recorded and reproduced._]
It was as a telegrapher, which he became at eighteen, that his
inventive genius first displayed itself. One after another various
devices for improving telegraphic service flowed from his fertile
mind, until, after his astonishing success in inventing a duplex and
quadruplex telegraph, he was able to command the support of a group of
New York capitalists in carrying through a long series of experiments
that finally resulted in the invention of the now familiar Edison
electric light.
Had it been for only this one invention Edison’s name would be
gratefully remembered for all time. But to strengthen his claims on the
gratitude of his countrymen and of posterity there has since come from
his New Jersey laboratory a succession of inventions,--to name only
a few, the phonograph, the kinetoscope, the mimeograph, the storage
battery, and the “talking moving pictures,”--which have meant new
openings for capital, new opportunities for labor, and an incalculable
enlargement of the resources of the human race. Whitney, Fulton, Howe,
Morse, Bell, Edison,--clearly it is only simple historic justice to
rate these great inventors with the great statesmen, warriors, and
pioneers who in days gone by have won undying fame as makers of the
American republic.
[Illustration: EDISON LISTENING TO THE PHONOGRAPH]
_SUPPLEMENTARY READING_
[Illustration]
Leading American Inventors _George Iles_
Inventors _P. G. Hubert, Jr._
Four American Inventors _F. M. Perry_
Edison--His Life and Inventions _F. L. Dyer and T. C. Martin_
Bell’s Electric Speaking Telephone _George B. Prescott_
Samuel Finley Breese Morse _J. Trowbridge_
Life of Robert Fulton _T. W. Knox_
Memoir of Eli Whitney _D. Olmstead_
[Illustration]
_QUESTIONS ANSWERED_
Subscribers desiring further information concerning this subject can
obtain it by writing to
_The Mentor Association_
_381 Fourth Avenue, New York City_
[Illustration: ELI WHITNEY]
_GREAT AMERICAN INVENTORS_
_Eli Whitney_