Thomas Edison gave us the electric light bulb and is remembered as one of the greatest inventors of all time.
Paul Ronney: Without Thomas Edison we wouldn't even recognize the world as we see today. Every time we turn on a light switch or an electric motor we see the fingerprints of his innovation.
Born in 1854 in Milan Ohio Edison's first job was selling newspapers on the railroads. By age 15 he was a telegraph operator where he became interested in electrical science.
Robert Silverstein: Edison set out to be an inventor. He hadn't really gone to school to be a scientist or an engineer, but by the time he had set up his invention factory in Menlo, Park he was producing inventions the way we would produce machines.
Edison's first invention to sell was an improved stock ticker, which was a huge success. With his proceeds Edison created a research laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1876.
Robert Silverstein: The Menlo Park laboratory that Edison set up was the first of its kind. Today we would have called it an incubator, but at the time it was unique.
Paul Ronney: In 1880 Edison came upon a really practical incandescent bulb using a carbon filament and also an electrical generating system to distribute electricity to these light bulbs which, fundamentally, changed the way we lived; our society suddenly became a 24 hour society.
Thomas Edison acquired a staggering 1093 patents in his lifetime.
Robert Silverstein: The storage battery, the motion picture projector, the motion picture camera, the phonograph or record player as we call it nowadays.
In 1928 Congress valued Thomas Edison work at $15 billion when it awarded Edison the Congressional Gold Medal. When Edison died in 1931, at the age of 84, his estate was only worth $12 million due to decades of defending his patents in courts and the great depression.
Paul Ronney: Most of Edison's research was not to understand why something behaved in the way it did, but to try to understand how to make it better. Edison said that genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, and I think that we can all learn from that.