Thomas Edison (19th Century World War)

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11th, 1847 - October 18th, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman, who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and the motion picture camera. Edison's expertise in invention earned him the nickname 'the Wizard of Menlo Park'. Edison was the man to show the first motion picture films to tell stories (using many well known stories both real and fictional), establishing it as the movie's top objective.

Early Life
Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. (1804–1896, born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871, born in Chenango County, New York). His father, the son of a Loyalist refugee, had moved as a boy with the family from Nova Scotia, settling in southwestern Ontario (then called Upper Canada), in a village known as Shewsbury, later Vienna, by 1811. Samuel Jr. eventually fled Ontario, because he took part in the unsuccessful Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837. His father, Samuel Sr., had earlier fought in the War of 1812 as captain of the First Middlesex Regiment. By contrast, Samuel Jr.'s struggle found him on the losing side, and he crossed into the United States at Sarnia-Port Huron. Once across the border, he found his way to Milan, Ohio. His patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New Jersey; the surname had originally been "Edeson."undefined

As a child, Thomas was only in school for a few months. His teachers found him 'unteachable' and decided he couldn't learn. After Edison's mother heard this, she decided to educate him herself. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, Mrs. Edison lied to Thomas that Edison was 'special' and didn't need to go to school. Little did she or the schools realize the schools would be proven wrong by Edison's achievements.

As Edison's family moved around Canada and then moved to the United States, Edison took jobs, most notably as a telegrapher.

Marriage and Family
On Christmas Day, 1871, Thomas married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell, whom he met 2 months earlier when she worked at one of his shops. They had 3 children: Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965), Thomas Alva Edison Jr. (1876–1935), and William Leslie Edison (1878–1937). Mary died on August 9th, 1884. At age 39, Edison remarried to Mina Miller on February 24th, 1886. They also had 3 kids: Madeleine Edison (1888–1979), Charles Edison (1890–1969), and Theodore Miller Edison (1898–1992).

Inventing Career
One of Edison's earliest and most famous inventions was the phonograph, the world's 1st recording device. In 1877, the phonograph made its debut when Edison used it to record himself singing 'Mary Had A Little Lamb