Thomas Edison – Inventor and Businessman

By the time Thomas Edison died in 1931, he had more patents for inventions than anybody before or since, an unbelievable 1,093 in America alone. He started General Electric, still one of the largest firms in the world, as well as thirteen other companies. He invented the phonograph, the first device that played recorded sound; introduced electricity across the USA and Europe and invented an effective light bulb; made many improvements to the telegraph; and produced the first movie camera and, so, can be called the father of the film industry.

The key to his success was not only organising a huge laboratory so that large teams of people worked on different projects at the same time, but also marketing his inventions to the American people and the world. In short, Edison was not just a creative scientist but a resourceful businessman.

Surprisingly, Thomas was not a success at school and left early. He never studied at university. Perhaps the most important moment in his life came when he saved the three-year-old son of a telegraph operator from the path of a runaway train. The man then taught Edison his occupation, which was, at that time, a very skilled and quite well-paid one. He did well at his new job but was sacked when his hobby of doing scientific experiments in the telegraph office at night caused him to drop sulphuric acid on the floor. This burnt a hole through the floor and then his boss' desk on the floor below. But soon after, although he was still in his early twenties, Edison came up with the duplex telegraph system so that two messages could be sent at the same time. As soon as he sold this, he marketed the quadruplex for four simultaneous messages. Journalists criticised him in the newspapers for making double the money by selling these one by one, but Edison did not mind.

The income from this and other inventions allowed Edison to invest in the building of Menlo Park, a huge laboratory which, in a few years, was big enough to fill two entire streets. Typically, he had shops selling his products on the ground floor, with the laboratories above. He employed teams of people so that he could move them from one project to the next as he needed them. This resulted in a fantastic rate of production. For instance, in the summer of 1876, Bell invented the telephone but did not manufacture it. Edison had it on sale by the spring of 1877.

Only six months later, he got a patent for the phonograph. Edison worked very hard himself, often boasting that he could work sixty hours without stopping, but he made his workers do the same. They usually did not finish till midnight, when Edison would invite journalists to the laboratory for whisky and dancing. In this way, he managed a very successful relationship with the press and made it seem as if everyone at Menlo Park was a member of a happy family. However, not one of his employees was allowed a patent – all those were Edison's! In other words, the man invented the method of inventing.

The working groups Edison set up had other advantages too. What was a problem with one experiment might well be a solution for another. On the other hand, Edison produced so many new inventions that he did not have time to market them all and often turned his attention to these again only when a competitor became interested in a similar device. This happened with the phonograph, for example. He went around the country giving demonstrations to astonished newspaper editors, Congress and even the President, before starting a nationwide public tour. He then forgot all about it for a decade.

But the number of patents Edison got was not only because he and his staff were so inventive. He often marketed small improvements to existing devices and then, when he had sold these, marketed further ones, just like with his duplex and quadruplex telegraphs. This gave him the reputation of being a rather dishonest businessman.

Edison's most cunning business practice was marketing his expensive DC (direct current) electricity over his competitor, George Westinghouse's, much cheaper AC (alternate current) model. In fact, AC had many advantages because electricity could travel across great distances, while DC only worked very close to power stations. Edison claimed that AC was too dangerous. To prove his point, he paid street kids 25 US cents to bring in dogs and cats, which he then electrocuted. He even did the same with Topsy, a circus elephant that had killed several people. Edison used AC to kill it and filmed the event. Even worse, he supported the introduction of the electric chair to New York – even though he was against the death penalty – using his competitor's AC. And all this he did just to show that DC was the only safe form of electricity supply – something he knew was untrue.

Edison is, of course, regarded as the father of the electric light bulb but this was not, in fact, the case. Humphry Davy, the British scientist, had shown at the beginning of the nineteenth century that electricity could be used to produce light. Researchers had worked on this for seventy years until Edison sold it to the general public.

Edison worked up to his death at the age of eighty-four from diabetes. He was famous for nearly all his life and, even today, every schoolchild knows his name. Of course, much of his reputation comes from his incredible energy and hard work, but he was also fortunate to be born just as America was coming out of a recession and becoming the most powerful and richest country in the world. In 1840, the population was 23 million but grew to more than three times that number by 1900. Agriculture, industry and transport systems all rocketed while Edison was working at his inventions. In fact, the man not only benefited from US development in this period but helped to drive it forwards.