Biography - ET - Thomas Edison - Father of Movies, Electricity and Light Bulbs

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• published: 30 Jan 2013
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Thomas Edison -Inventor Welcome to the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today, Sarah Long and Bob Doughty tell about the inventor Thomas Alva Edison. He had a major effect on the lives of people around the world. Thomas Edison is remembered most for the electric light, his phonograph and his work with motion pictures. Thomas Edison's major inventions were designed and built in the last years of the eighteen hundreds. However, most of them had their greatest effect in the twentieth century. His inventions made possible the progress of technology. It is extremely difficult to find anyone living today who has not been affected in some way by Thomas Edison. Most people on Earth have seen some kind of motion picture or heard some kind of sound recording. And almost everyone has at least seen an electric light. These are only three of the many devices Thomas Edison invented or helped to improve. People living in this century have had easier and more enjoyable lives because of his inventions. Thomas Alva Edison was born on February eleventh, eighteen forty-seven in the small town of Milan, Ohio. He was the youngest of seven children. Thomas Edison was self-taught. He went to school for only three months. His teacher thought he could not learn because he had a mental problem. But young Tom Edison could learn. He learned from books and he experimented. At the age of ten, he built his own chemical laboratory. He experimented with chemicals and electricity. He built a telegraph machine and quickly learned to send and receive telegraph messages. At the time, sending electric signals over wires was the fastest method of sending information long distances. At the age of sixteen, he went to work as a telegraph operator. He later worked in many different places. He continued to experiment with electricity. When he was twenty-one, he sent the United States government the documents needed to request the legal protection for his first invention. The government gave him his first patent on an electric device he called an Electrographic Vote Recorder. It used electricity to count votes in an election. In the summer months of eighteen sixty-nine, the Western Union Telegraph Company asked Thomas Edison to improve a device that was used to send financial information. It was called a stock printer. Mr. Edison very quickly made great improvements in the device. The company paid him forty thousand dollars for his effort. That was a lot of money for the time. Source: Thomas Edison, 1847-1931: America's Great Inventor TEXT = http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2007-03/2007-03-17-voa1.cfm?renderforprint=1 MP3 = http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/specialenglish/2007_03/Audio/mp3/se-pia-thomas-edison-18-march-07.mp3

Biography - ET - Thomas Edison - Father of Movies, Electricity and Light Bulbs

• Report rights infringement
• published: 30 Jan 2013
• views: 14766

Thomas Edison -Inventor Welcome to the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today, Sarah Long and Bob Doughty tell about the inventor Thomas Alva Edison. He had a major effect on the lives of people around the world. Thomas Edison is remembered most for the electric light, his phonograph and his work with motion pictures. Thomas Edison's major inventions were designed and built in the last years of the eighteen hundreds. However, most of them had their greatest effect in the twentieth century. His inventions made possible the progress of technology. It is extremely difficult to find anyone living today who has not been affected in some way by Thomas Edison. Most people on Earth have seen some kind of motion picture or heard some kind of sound recording. And almost everyone has at least seen an electric light. These are only three of the many devices Thomas Edison invented or helped to improve. People living in this century have had easier and more enjoyable lives because of his inventions. Thomas Alva Edison was born on February eleventh, eighteen forty-seven in the small town of Milan, Ohio. He was the youngest of seven children. Thomas Edison was self-taught. He went to school for only three months. His teacher thought he could not learn because he had a mental problem. But young Tom Edison could learn. He learned from books and he experimented. At the age of ten, he built his own chemical laboratory. He experimented with chemicals and electricity. He built a telegraph machine and quickly learned to send and receive telegraph messages. At the time, sending electric signals over wires was the fastest method of sending information long distances. At the age of sixteen, he went to work as a telegraph operator. He later worked in many different places. He continued to experiment with electricity. When he was twenty-one, he sent the United States government the documents needed to request the legal protection for his first invention. The government gave him his first patent on an electric device he called an Electrographic Vote Recorder. It used electricity to count votes in an election. In the summer months of eighteen sixty-nine, the Western Union Telegraph Company asked Thomas Edison to improve a device that was used to send financial information. It was called a stock printer. Mr. Edison very quickly made great improvements in the device. The company paid him forty thousand dollars for his effort. That was a lot of money for the time. Source: Thomas Edison, 1847-1931: America's Great Inventor TEXT = http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2007-03/2007-03-17-voa1.cfm?renderforprint=1 MP3 = http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/specialenglish/2007_03/Audio/mp3/se-pia-thomas-edison-18-march-07.mp3