💡 What do You Really Know About Thomas Edison?💡

What do you think of when somebody mentions Thomas Edison? The lightbulb, right? The light bulb is the very first thing I thought of. What else do you know about him, though? Well, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know much about him, other than his invention of the light bulb, the telephone, and phonograph. So, I decided to change that by doing a little more research on this iconic person.

Edison recorded 1,093 US patents. One thousand, ninety-three patented ideas this guy had. That is a pretty impressive number! It gets even bigger, though. Edison recorded 2,332 patents, total, 1,093 of them being in the US. Can you imagine having that many ideas?

Edison was nearly deaf. Although the reason why is a bit of a mystery, Edison began losing his hearing at a young age. Some say his ears were injured in an incident involving an angry train conductor, but others argue that that’s not true. Some even say he lost it from catching scarlet fever.  Regardless of what really happened, he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that he could not hear very well. He used to say that his loss of hearing drowned out the chitchat of others so that he could focus on his work.

He was passionate reader and writer. When Edison was young, he only spent 12 weeks in school, before his teacher told his mom that he was a ‘difficult’ child. So, Edison’s mom pulled him out of school and taught him herself. Basically, Edison was homeschooled. Through his homeschool years, he discovered how much he loved reading and writing. His hunger for knowledge lead him to read and study so many different books, and he became a very independent learner. Those are skills that he definitely used later on in his life. Edison also wrote and published a newspaper in his teens, but his greatest literary work of art was a science fiction novel.

Edison began chemistry when he was only nine.

When Edison turned nine, his mom gave him a science book which included a bunch of chemistry experiments that could be done at home. It didn’t take long for him to figure out how much he enjoyed doing them. Edison had soon turned his family’s basement into a laboratory. Frequently, his dad would attempt to get him out of that basement by offering him a penny, as sort of a bribe. Edison would agree to go up and read a book, but only because that penny would come in handy to buy more chemicals.

He saved a boy’s life at the age of fourteen.

Young Edison was at Grand Trunk Railroad when he saved a three-year-old boy, Jimmie MacKennzie, from a runaway train. Mr. MacKenzie, Jimmie’s dad, wanted to find a way to thank Edison. So, MacKenzie taught him how to operate the telegraph machine. Later on, Edison was able to get a job as a telegraph operator for the Western Union. Edison requested the night shift, thinking he would have more time to perform experiments. This proved to be a bad idea when Edison spilled acid on his boss’ desk. It ran all between the floor boards and beneath the desk, as well. Not surprisingly, Edison was fired that next morning.

Thomas Edison was a very interesting person. He did a lot more than just invent the light bulb. That’s for sure. I enjoyed researching and learning so much about Edison, and I hope that you enjoyed reading through this post, as well. Thank you for visiting my blog this Thursday, and I hope to see you back here next week!

💙 Shelby