The Story of Thomas A. Edison
From the 1991 series "Famous Americans of the 20th Century," produced by Hearst Entertainment and distributed by Questar Video, Inc.
ISBN 0-927992-53-1

From the box: "Live action footage capturing the life of Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the movie camera.
Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio, into a world eager for new ways to release man from toil and tedium. During his life, Edison would give man the incandescent light, motion picture camera, phonograph, microphone, carbon telephone transmitter (which made Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone commercially practical), and more than 1,000 other inventions. Edison’s formal schooling was short, but he was inquisitive. His knowledge was acquired by independent study and training. At 11, he had his own chemical laboratory and had read Gibbon’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Sear’s History of the World, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, and the Dictionary of Sciences. At 12, he had his first job as a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad. At 13, he suffered hearing loss which would be permanent. During this period a dramatic event changed his life. He saved a station agent’s child from sure death by a moving freight car. The grateful father taught Edison telegraphy which inspired his interest in electricity, a word that would be associated with the name Edison forever. Edison travelled to Boston, working for Western Union. His first invention, a ballot counter, earned him nothing. Edison’s second invention, the Universal Stock Printer, earned him $40,000. He used the funds to open a factory in Newark, New Jersey, in 1870. Working 20 to 24 days, Edison built Menlo Park laboratories to devote more time to invention. The phonograph was Edison’s favorite and probably most original invention. Edison worked long and hard on the incandescent electric lamp. It burned brightly for the first time on October 21, 1879. Edison also believed that motion could be captured by a camera that would take repeated pictures in high speed, and on October 6, 1889, experimental motion pictures were projected; the first commercial picture was shown five years later on April 4, 1894. Edison then developed the fluoroscope and the alkaline storage battery. During WWI, Edison headed the Naval Consulting Board. His friend, Henry Ford, believed Edison to be the greatest genius the world had ever known. Edison died on October 18, 1931, at 84.”

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