Thomas Edison

Trivia

• His company was considerably late to become involved in the recorded music business. While he did invent the phonograph, his intention was to market it as a business dictation machine. The concept of recorded music never crossed his mind.
• Edison's son allegedly captured his last breath in a glass jar. The jar (and presumably, the breath) are on display at the reconstructed Menlo Park at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.
• Despite his company producing one of the earliest advertisements for cigarettes (Admiral Cigarettes), Edison became an ardent anti-smoking advocate; going so far as to say that he would not hire anyone who smoked.
• Invented the cylinder recorder (phonograph) but it was Emile Berliner who created the flat disc, Edison licensed the patent(s) from him.
• Invented the Kinetograph camera and the peephole kinetoscope viewer. The Edison Manufacturing Company's (really a very early "studio") earliest films were produced solely to demonstrate the use of the peephole viewer.
• His father, Samuel Edison, was of Dutch ancestry and his mother, Nancy Elliot, was of English decent.
• He was member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS)
• Elected to the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2007 for his services to technology (inaugural election). Official induction ceremonies held in May 2008.
• His attempts to force independent filmmakers to use his patented movie equipment resulted in an exodus of the film industry out West to a little town called Hollywoodland, now known as Hollywood.
• By 1876, he had amassed $40,000 through the sale of various telegraphic devices.

Quotes

• "Opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work."
• "School was repulsive to me."
• "My mother was the making of me. She understood me; she let me follow my bent. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint."
• (His last words, after lasping in and out of consciousness): "It is very beautiful over there."