Important dates in Thomas Edison’s life:
1847- Thomas Alva Edison is born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11
1854-The Edison family moves to Port Huron, Michigan.
1859-Edison gets a job as a candy butcher. He sets up a chemistry lab and a printing press on the train.
1863 to 1867- Edison works as a tramp operator in various cities of the Midwest and Canada.
1868- Edison becomes a telegraph operator for Western Union in Boston. He invents an automatic vote recorder.
1869- Edison moves to New York City, where he works for Samuel Law's Gold and Stock Reporting Telegraph Company. He becomes a full-time inventor.
1870- Edison opens a manufacturing shop and invention lab in Newark, New Jersey.
1871- Edison devises several important improvements in the stock ticker technology for Western Union. He marries his first wife, Mary Stilwell, one of his employees.
1873- Edison’s daughter Marion is born.
1874- Edison invents the quadruplex telegraph for Western Union, which can transmit four messages simultaneously.
1875- Edison invents the electric pen.
1876- Edison’s first son, Thomas Alva Jr. is born, he moves to Menlo Park, New Jersey, and establishes his first full-scale research laboratory.
1877- Edison invents the carbon transmitter to improve the telephone; he also invents the phonograph
1878- Edison’s second son, William Leslie is born.
1879- Edison develops the light bulb and a generator for electric lighting system.
1880- Edison develops the components of his electric lighting system.
1881- Edison opens new offices in New York City. He begins construction on the first permanent central power station, on Pearl Street.
1882- The New York power station opens and provides lights to a section of New York City.
1884- Mary Stilwell Edison (Edison’s first wife) dies.
1886- Edison Marries Mina Miller and moves to West Orange, New Jersey.
1887- Edison completes a new laboratory in West Orange.
1888- Edison’s third Daughter Madeleine is born.
1891- Edison demonstrates the Kinetoscope, the first movie viewer.
1893- Edison builds the Black Maria, his movie studio.
1894- The first Kinetoscope parlor opens to show movies to the public.
1896- Edison introduces his Vitascope, the first commercial motion picture projector in the United States.
1898- Edison’s second son, Theodore, is born.
1899- Edison begins to work on a storage battery.
1909- Edison markets his storage battery, which is used in a host of commercial applications.
1912- Edison puts his disk records on the market.
1931- Edison dies in West Orange, New Jersey, on October 18.
