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By: Kaleb Conkie
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Contributing inventions such as the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera. As well as improving the telegraph and telephone.
Thomas Edison had one challenge that could have destroyed his career. He had severe hearing loss. Later in his life it was made worse from middle ear infections. He was 100% deaf in his left ear and 80% deaf in his right ear.
Childhood
Thomas Edison was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio, but grew up in Port Huron, Michigan, after his family moved there in 1854. Thomas was taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by his mother who used to be a school teacher. He attended school for only a few months. However, one biographer described him as a very curious child who learned most things by reading on his own. As a child Thomas became fascinated with technology and spent hours working on experiments at his home.
Thomas Edison began his career by selling candy, newspapers and vegetables on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit. He got $50 a week profit by age 13 and most of the money went into buying equipment for electric and chemical experiments. Thomas's first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was in Stratford, Ontario at the Stratford Junction on the Grand Trunk Railway. He also studied qualitative analysis and conducted chemical experiments on the train until he left the job.
His favorite hobbies were reading and performing chemistry experiments in his basement lab, he often was taking things apart to see how they worked.
Family members
Parents of Thomas were Samuel Edison and Nancy Elliot Edison
Siblings of Thomas were Marion, William Pitt, Harriet Ann, Carlile, Samuel and Eliza.
Wives
Children
Mary Stilwell Edison (First wife of Thomas Edison)
(Daughter)
(Son)
(Son)
In 1871 Thomas Edison married his first wife who was 16 years old, named Mary Stilwell. Mary was an employee at one of his businesses. During their 13 year marriage they had three children, Marion, Thomas and William. Two years later after their divorce Edison married Mina Miller and stayed together until they died.
February 11, 1847
Birth place
Milan, Ohio, United States
Edison died of complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931, in his home. Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in Thomas's room shortly after his death.