eaf, he went on to become the world's greatest inventor of all times.
A year or two after he lost his job on the train, he was credited with saving a station agent's child who had wandered on the tracks of an on-coming train. As a reward for his bravery, the station agent offered to teach Edison how to operate a telegraph. Upon completion of his training, he worked as a telegrapher in various towns and cities in the United States.
One of Edison's first inventions was an electric vote recorder. It, however, brought him very little in the way of income. His next invention was a ticker tape printer which he sold for $40,000. With the money he received for this invention, he built a laboratory where he continued his experiments.
At this new laboratory he spent hundreds of hours trying to perfect the filament in an incandescent lamp so it would stay lit for long periods of time. He finally hit on the right combination and the incandescent bulb was born in 1879.
Another of his famous inventions was the Edison cylinder phonograph which he invented in 1887. The sound recordings on his phonograph record were recorded on a cylinder made out of tin foil. His first recording was "Mary Had A Little Lamb." With additional improvements, millions of Edison phonographs were built and sold throughout the world.
During Thomas Edison's lifetime he devoted his scientific knowledge to inventing things that would make things easier for ordinary people.
Although severely handicapped because of his hearing impairment, this didn't seem to slow Thomas Edison down. He somehow overcame his handicap and became one of the world's best known inventors - one you could say contributed more to society than any other man.
Although Edison's inventions were all made in the United States, they nevertheless had an impact on our district as well as in the rest of the world. His early cylinder phonograph provided hundreds of hours of entertainment to our early pioneers. His electric light bulb was used in almost every home. The storage battery made it easy to start our cars, and his inventions which perfected both the motion picture camera and movie projector made movies and televison possible. His carbon telephone transmitter improved the telephones used in our homes and businesses. All of Edison's inventions improved our way of life. No man has ever made a greater impact on so many lives than did Thomas Alva Edison - the greatest inventor the world has ever known.