Thomas Alva Edison's nickname, "The Wizard of Menlo Park," reflects his amazing inventive talent. Over his lifetime, more than 1,300 patents were issued in his name, far more than have been credited to any other individual in American history. Among the best known of his inventions are a stock-ticker machine, the incandescent light bulb, an automatic telegraphy machine, the phonograph, and the motion picture machine. Edison's one major accomplishment in scientific research was the discovery of the emission of electrons from a heated cathode, a phenomenon now known as the Edison effect.

Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847. He was the seventh and youngest child of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. and the former Nancy Elliott. Edison's parents had met in Canada, where the family had moved after the Revolutionary War. Sam Edison, in turn, had fled Canada in 1837 when an insurrection against the government in...