He was but fifteen when he became a telegraph operator. But his studies and experiments interfered so much with his duties that he was discharged many times. He worked in a number of cities of the United States and Canada. At the age of twenty-one he had built an automatic repeater, by which a telegraphic message could be transferred from one wire to another without the aid of an operator. By means of this messages could be sent direct to a much greater distance than formerly.
Edison finally went to Boston, as related herein, and thence to New York, in 1869. There he invented an improved printing telegraph for stock quotations, the ticker. For this he received $40,000.
Then he built a laboratory at Newark, New Jersey; but four years later moved to Menlo Park, and later to West Orange, New Jersey. All the time he continued his experiments and inventions. He lives now at Orange, and is as hard a worker as he was when a young man.
Among Edison’s more important inventions are his system of multiplex telegraphy; the carbon telephone transmitter; the phonograph; the incandescent lamp and light system; the kinetoscope; and the talking-moving-picture. In all he has had seven hundred patents granted to him.
In 1878 Edison was made Chevalier and afterward Commander of the Legion of Honor by the French government.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 29, SERIAL No. 29
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mentor: Great American Inventors, Vol. 1, Num. 29, Serial No. 29, by H. Addington Bruce