Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847. According to some stories, he had a whopping three months of formal education, yet he obtained a record 1,093 patents in the United States during his lifetime. Who knows how he would have done without any public schooling! It seems like Edison had his hand in everything: telegraph equipment, movie projectors, phonographs, storage batteries, and most important, electrical lighting.
If Edison were alive today, he’d be spending most of his time in courtrooms defending his far-flung empire from charges of being a monopoly. Compared to Edison, Bill Gates is a piker. The list of Edison’s companies and partnerships worldwide goes on for pages and pages. He not only manufactured electric lamps (a.k.a. light bulbs) but also motors, dynamos, phonographs and phonograph records, and telephone equipment.
Edison helped form the nascent General Electric Company, one of today’s powerhouse corporations, when his Edison General Electric Company merged with the Thomson-Houston Company. Despite his many inventions and businesses, Edison was only financially comfortable. He was nowhere near as wealthy as some of his contemporaries such as Henry Ford.
If Edison were alive today, he’d be spending most of his time in courtrooms defending his far-flung empire from charges of being a monopoly. Compared to Edison, Bill Gates is a piker. The list of Edison’s companies and partnerships worldwide goes on for pages and pages. He not only manufactured electric lamps (a.k.a. light bulbs) but also motors, dynamos, phonographs and phonograph records, and telephone equipment.
Edison helped form the nascent General Electric Company, one of today’s powerhouse corporations, when his Edison General Electric Company merged with the Thomson-Houston Company. Despite his many inventions and businesses, Edison was only financially comfortable. He was nowhere near as wealthy as some of his contemporaries such as Henry Ford.
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