Who is Thomas Edison? || Biography of Thomas Edison

Who was Thomas Alva Edison? He was an American inventor and innovator, who held over a thousand patents for gadgets and life-improving inventions. These included the electric lightbulb, the phonograph, and a large number of improvements to the telegraph.
In this video, we trace the story of Edison's life, from his humble beginnings as a poor home-schooled child with hearing loss, to his entrepreneurial adolescence, to his almost unbelievable success as an researcher, engineer, innovator, and inventor.
We would like to thank our Patrons on Patreon for their generous support of Socratica. They help us make these videos possible! Our sincere gratitude goes out to Tracy Karin Prell, Vishal Shah, Carlos Araujo, Markie Waid, Martin Stephens, Andrew Mengede, Juan Guillermo Henao, and Birds Eat Bees.
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More Biographies of Great Thinkers:
Socrates bit.ly/2GRmJYR
Plato bit.ly/2F57wTw
Aristotle bit.ly/2F2iWeK
Eratosthenes bit.ly/2oz0UXk
Euclid bit.ly/2oxZ9cZ
Galois bit.ly/2t5N8QI
Pierre de Fermat bit.ly/2F26g3G
Edward Jenner bit.ly/2FH41nw
Louis Pasteur bit.ly/2F2Yqek
Frederick Sanger bit.ly/2HUh5Xd
Santiago Ramon y Cajal bit.ly/2FF2Q84
As Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Our "Great Thinkers" playlist celebrates influential thinkers who have changed the world for the better.
You can see our entire "Great Thinkers" Biography series here:
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We recommend:
Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World
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Asimov’s Chronology of Science and Discovery - you can read it cover to cover, or just dip in randomly.
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Vintage Style Edison Light Bulbs
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Vintage Style Table Lamp - use with Edison Bulb
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Host: Liliana De Castro
Written and Produced by Kimberly Hatch Harrison
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Creative Commons Picture Credits:
Western Union Telegram
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:19...
AuthorL NatalieMaynor
Edison Stock Ticker
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ed...
Author: H. Zimmer
Edison's bulb used in Menlo Park demonstration
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ed...
Quthor: Alkivar
Edison Wax Cylinder Phonograph
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ed...
Author: Norman Bruderhofer
World's Columbian Exposition 1893
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Author: The Field Museum Library/ FlickrCommons
Steam Train Adventures
• Steam Train Adventures...
Author: Walt Loevy

[@Socratica]

One of the best parts of our work at Socratica is we get to learn about complicated, fascinating people like Thomas Edison. We'd love to hear who else you would like to learn about. Who should we do a biography on next?

[@MrDeejf]

George Washington Carver

[@markomaric6128]

Nikola Tesla!!

[@thomasjose1366]

Nikola Tesla

[@6anon]

you heard the men, we want tesla

[@joeramirez4849]

Teddy Roosevelt.

[@guillermocruz3717]

Mireyna Tomás Alva Edison Nacio en Sombrerete Zacatecas México . Por ahi hay muchas biografias en inglés para q lo sepa el mundo entero. 😚

[@deutschlanduberalles221]

Tomas Alva Edison wasnt born in USA! He was born in Zacatecas Mexico!

[@AmanSingh0699]

Edison - The guy who conned (the legend) TESLA

[@tanishakaur4728]

Thanks socratica team for making wonderful videos. Your videos are clear, pure and flawless. Thanks for your efforts and they means a lot to us.

[@batt-us]

Very cool, thanks for the video. Love your channel

[@jorgealvarado8590]

Mexican inventor. Alva isn’t a middle name but rather a last name. It wouldn’t be the first time history is twisted and manipulated.

[@joserevollar7196]

Jorge I totally agree with you, he born in sombrerete Zacatecas!

[@6anon]

Never get tired of Liliana De Castro A woman with such grace.

[@teddy_miljard]

I agree! ❣️

[@Vorstellungskraft1]

What do you call a stolen Tesla? An Edison.

[@odlawso69]

Actually, the master mind behind many o those breakthroughs was the great Nikola.

[@teddy_miljard]

Yes! ❣️

[@melissareed140]

Capp🧢🧢

[@melissareed140]

L ❤ Edison love the phonigraph nicola 👎🏼👎🏼

[@martinzthabo5341]

You should do a video on Nikola Tesla

[@andredemourasoares5452]

I’m from Brazil and I have trying learn English from you tube. I found your channel and it’s amazing. The best you tube channel I have ever whatched. Thanks a lot!

[@115-ananda4]

Thanks for make such video 💯💯

[@ahmetkenet]

Perfect video 👍

[@childdreams2813]

Thanks this will help with my presentation

[@colorwalk80]

You have a beautiful voice; It makes the story more interesting.

[@AlbertWood75]

Thanks for the explainaations!

[@amalgarai479]

very nice presentation

[@lingarajandil1152]

Thank you socratica

[@flip-yap8983]

Always awesome.

[@Socratica]

We loved the chance to learn more about this complicated person! :D Thanks for your kind comment.

[@ioioiioi]

Loved it

[@enkiimuto1041]

Great video! Can we have a video on Hubble?

[@trinhkimtuyen439]

Great video! Could you please share the transcript? I enjoy the video but I miss many words. My English is not very good.

[@hadi24haidar2]

You helped me with my assignment I'm going to get the best grade thank you

[@Socratica]

Good luck!! 💜🦉

[@kookiepatooti]

Respect Nikola Tesla.

[@teddy_miljard]

❣️

[@Salomessanctuary]

🖤💜❤

[@surajkumar-gx6gf]

Thanks socratica

[@Socratica]

Thank you, for watching!! :D

[@jgmworld4427]

your voice is soft and clear

[@successor6188]

Nice 💞

[@ark198989]

Wow that SOOOO cool

[@ajayjamesthomas7154]

thank you very much

[@dontcare8666]

Unknown facts covered 👍

[@nougla]

Great as usual.. Thanks.

[@cypherphage4294]

keep making more videos.....

[@cadenriggs5578]

You should do a biography on Theodore Roosevelt!!

[@Socratica]

Love this idea. We're so thankful for the US National Parks.

[@teddy_miljard]

Yes please! ❣️

[@escupetube]

Wow!

[@johnwalker6318]

Flushed with pride!!!

[@lucianavalentina3911]

The grieving factor is that I am in the grade of the children of Ellon musk after being in the grade of job of Ellon musk is the reason for love failure.

[@guitarraccoon1541]

What do you call the inventor of motion pictures? Louis Le Prince

[@davidpal1378]

please make videos on real analysis.like convergent , divergent sequence upper limit , lower limit etc.

[@johnwalker6318]

Light bulb moment!!! 💡

[@tracykarinp]

Ah! Fantastic! I grew up in New Jersey and had visited Edison's lab in West Orange, NJ several times! I enjoyed walking through his lab looking at all of the colorful bottles of chemicals that were still on the shelves. I had also visited the Black Maria and his manufacturing plant. My grandmother was employed by Thomas Edison. Thank you for creating this wonderful and informative video...it certainly brings back memories!

[@Socratica]

Tracy, that's amazing! Your grandmother must have had some great stories! We're looking forward to visiting the Edison National Historical Park one day - looks like a really wonderful place with interesting exhibits.

[@tracykarinp]

You'd really love the Edison National Park in West Orange, NJ and Menlo Park is only about a 20-minute drive away and has a museum and a tower erected in Edison's name. Highly recommend you watch the 1940's film *Edison the Man* with Spencer Tracy! When you visit Edison's lab, let me know and I can meet you there! Thanks again my friends!

[@teddy_miljard]

How old Edison is? 😉❣️

[@jimbolt5170]

Well done! Some thoughts about other great thinkers to profile- Ben Franklin-well known and versatile, but there is much about him that is myth. Could approach it from that perspective, maybe. George Washington Carver-not so well known. Galileo-if I have it right, he was persecuted for being a great thinker. Newton-Newtonian physics enabled the development of engineering, which enabled the Industrial Revolution, which enabled... You could also do something on the concept of a "Renaissance 'man'." These days, there is a lot of emphasis on choosing a dedicated focus for your life so that you can excel, and outcompete your peers, to win a spot at a prestigious school, so you can excel, and outcompete... and so on. The Renaissance man pursued a mix of art, science, music, sport, literature, and nature. I believe that these complemented one another and enabled him to think in ways that he would not have if he had solely pursued one to the exclusion of others (engaging both hemispheres of the brain, and all that). Just an idea.

[@cloudguru3018]

Tesla rules! Edison was ambitious tief!

[@teddy_miljard]

The murderer on an elephant 😔

[@Salomessanctuary]

@@teddy_miljard he actually paid children to theif and Tesla's neighbours dogs and cats and publicly electrocuted them. Insane.🙏

[@alessandropantaleone8045]

The truth is more astonishing of how the greater piece person to see. Is difficult to distinguish the true value through the chronologically history...

[@bukharinordin5036]

So emosional 😭😭😭👍

[@RailTV01]

Edison helped humanity more than Tesla could do in his 3 lifetimes. HVDC making comeback, Tesla bimbos forget their great lord is the one who mocked relativity quantum physics relativity radioactivity so on so on. He was a great showman and a engineer, Tesla and Edison never had issues, Tesla wrote fondly about Edison, it always was Westinghouse vs Edison. Edison lost his company, they cut his name from his own company. Most people don’t have capacity to understand these tech behind all, most blind Tesla fans can’t even understand Teslas own formulas.

[@markhugo8270]

The flax was rolled in "fuller's earth" and then fired in a kiln. Making a COMPOSITE! This is why it has strength and stability.

[@mathsnepal]

💯✌

[@aloisblondel4030]

j'adore le miel :)

[@fersarcorweiss5220]

Su nombre original era Tomás Alva Edison, y es mexicano, nació en un pueblo del estado de México, que con el paso de su infancia se mudó al estado de Zacatecas en México, y a la edad de los 11 años emigra a estados unidos. Eso que dicen que nació en estados unidos es mentira, ya que no tienen un registro de acta de nacimiento de aquel país.

[@guillermocruz3717]

Primo nacio en sombrerete Zacatecas sus padres se movieron de San Martín de las piramides hacia Sombrerete antes q el naciera al igual sigue siendo de Mex.

[@bibliotecaeternayvoladora]

@fersarcorweiss5220 Mejor que no sea mexicano porque es uno de los peores criminales de la historia.

[@ganeshpetla5029]

Good madam..

[@jgmworld4427]

Dear you are very intelligent porson

[@thisismariantoniapd]

Thomas Alva Edison had 6 children, but not all with Mary Stilwell. They had the first three together, and then Mary died after being very ill. Then Thomas A. Edison married Mina Miller, and they had three children together. His laboratories caught fire twice in his life, ironically, given the fact that he invented crucial components of fire alarms.

[@1953childstar]

Thank you !!! Since you are knowledgable about Thomas Edison, I thought I would share the fact that his youngest son Theodore, married my cousin ( Anna Osterhout ).. I am glad all of my "older relatives" have passed away, due to the current "fad" of stating Thomas Edison was "Mexican"..

[@vidanatural_oficial]

more python videos.. please.

[@nickrodrigues8082]

Vc fala inglês muito bem 😁

[@MrDeejf]

Nit-picky correction: The name of the town in Michigan where he lived as a boy is PORT Huron, not Point Huron. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Huron However, Liliana de Castro is a wonderful host, as always, so it's a forgiveable mistake. :)

[@Socratica]

Oh my goodness. Looks like we said it right in one place and whiffed it in the other. Our apologies to the good people of Port Huron! Thanks for *pointing* that out! :D

[@MrDeejf]

No worries. Just keep putting up videos featuring Liliana, and nobody gets hurt. ;)

[@MrDeejf]

As I have your attention, you probably came across some of this in your research, and it was definitely outside the scope of a short overview video, but Edison's mania for protecting his patents, by means both legal and not, drove a lot of innovation in the early film industry, and eventually drove the industry to Hollywood as a way of avoiding his hired thugs and lawyers. Should you ever do a series on something as trivial as Hollywood history, that could be useful. :)

[@muhammadanassiddiqui8228]

If this person had never been born, we would have had free electricity. Respect for Tesla

[@teddy_miljard]

Wow! ❣️

[@awancah7309]

hoax ...

[@maximusthegreatest]

How Sway?

[@ismaielwaheed4300]

Good One. 🤣

[@vitosilva1214]

Você deixar muito mal explicada a questão da saída dele da escola, dando ao entender que a mãe o tirou por vontade própria, quando na verdade a mãe não teve escolha já que a escola o mandou embora.

[@ark198989]

WOW

[@ho77iday]

Shout out to everyone who named their kid's "Dot and Dash", or after anything else they invented.

[@NajooTareen]

Woooo how beautiful you are and the way you speak is more beautiful then you...... i love you and the way you make me educated..... Alas you were my teacher.....

[@brainstormingsharing1309]

👍👏👍👏👍

[@Icanleave]

Thomas Edison or Nicolas Tesla? Alternative current was invented by Tesla as most of invention of Edison.

[@santiagocrack8786]

Bit Graham Bell dona invent the pone was Alexander Médicis

[@pushpagoswami9816]

Love at 1st sight thanks mam

[@celsorosajunior]

Thanks to Edison, we can watch Liliana's videos!

[@colesoldani2773]

Celso Rosa not really, thank Le Prince

[@MonkeyDLuffy-sb1oy]

Thanks to Edison, we now have to pay for electricity to watch videos!

[@Salomessanctuary]

@Mohammad L do you know what religion Edison was?🙏

[@awancah7309]

@@MonkeyDLuffy-sb1oy free electric?wow so fantastic from poor mind

[@MA-rc2eo]

And fist comment.

[@LeoVines]

Cadê os em português?

[@antel704]

Edison is great scient USA patriot, for better understanding he made "bread" for others to can play to made and making " cake." and "cookies".

[@robertschlesinger1342]

Edison was so revered as an inventor that Edison used this fame to play the ultimate April Fool's prank. This April Fool's prank involved announcements, which were picked-up by the press and radio media, that Edison had invented a means of communicating with the dead. This great prank was spread throughout much of the world, and widely believed - until it was revealed as an April Fool's prank. Best regards, Robert N. Schlesinger

[@Socratica]

Wonderful story!

[@mayelacalderon6938]

TOMAS ALBA EDISON NACIO EN JEREZ ZACATECAS MEXICO.

[@1953childstar]

Please... You are delusional !!! Thomas Edisons youngest son ( Theodore ) married my cousin ( Anna Osterhout )... Stop spreading lies !!!

[@johnwalker6318]

And the Dr fainted!!!

[@georgentwomenhigh4518]

i miss my childhood.thomas alava edison..first ive heard his name in school..science subject..so amazing guys..i want to go back the time when he create a ligth bulb

[@lovelife9352]

What?!He didn't, he stole inventions!Get yourself educated!

[@mauricio7218]

How's going.It's the most interesting history about this person. I have a presentation to English class in Brazil. It will help me to sum up.

[@PaulBillingtonFW]

Joseph Swan implemented his successful light bulbs before Edison succeeded. However, Swan did it for fun.

[@teddy_miljard]

When times go by, we can read stories how Edison invented fire? 🤭

[@silveriogomez8798]

Why he have last name Alva Spanish last name

[@logeshmadhav8930]

Edison was not an inventor, he is just a investor.

[@teddy_miljard]

He invented the electric chair. So sad 😔

[@rafaeljorgenunesbastos6605]

Liliana Castro Eu Gosto Muito de Aprender Com Você Eu Considero Você Como a Minha Professora a Mais Linda de Todas Que Eu Já Tive! ☺😆😍😙😘😚😻😹😸😼👀💘👍☝👌👏💖💝💘💗💕❤🈯㊗🉐🈺㊙❇✨🌠💌💍💐💒🌷🌹🍀🍃🌇🌆🌃🌌🌉🌎

[@agarrate-g5p]

He is from México. ALBA is the correct name.

[@1953childstar]

Stop these lies !!! Thomas Edisons youngest son ( Theodore ) married my cousin ( Anna Osterhout )....

[@jeffburdette2025]

I was born on Edison's birthday in 1970

[@Salomessanctuary]

😭😭😭😭and me on Hitler's 😭😭😭😫😢

[@darenalexander7532]

Tesla and edison both clever people but you forgot to add edison murdered/fried/electrocuted an ELEPHANT to death .!!!!

[@1953childstar]

The "Edison Moving Picture Company" photographed the elephant and Edison had nothing to do with the act.

[@Pubgedit_6161]

OKEYY

[@oscarvillela2029]

Hi born in Mexico hi wax mexican

[@1953childstar]

Stop the lies !!!! Edisons youngest son ( Theodore ) was married to my cousin ( Anna Osterhout )....

[@luigiionascu7056]

_i have love for great scientist thomas alva edison__archaicxn lord

[@guillermoromero2257]

Alva is a last name not a middle name. And it comes from spain

[@sinnyozzy]

Do Tesla next?

[@chrisokleshen8651]

no

[@edisonthrasher5927]

You have everything right except for his children He had 3 kids from his first wife and his second wife he had 3 more kids

[@teddy_miljard]

I'am the son of Tesla 😉❣️

[@1953childstar]

Very true !! Thank you for not telling people that he was "Mexican".. Edisons youngest son ( Theodore ) was married to my cousin ( Anna Osterhout ). I am thankful all my older family members have passed away, because they would not appreciate all the stupid accusations the Thomas Edison was "Mexican"...

[@shreenjandutta]

"Genius is 1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration." - Edison ♥

[@JC-xc8rx]

Tesla was the man. This one only a patents purchaser

[@tablitoCWB]

legendas em português seriam awesome!

[@eduardanunesbarroso8693]

Tesla sola!

[@stinkypotpie7539]

Edison stole from Louis La Prince and Tesla.

[@lucianavalentina3911]

They even don't get moved even after Ellon musk is found in street fights , the reason the reason of benefits. or is not comforted as his family practices his vulnerable childrens of benefits. or even after found in lady victims categories in movie stored, even then they don't get moved, what I request they contrary to that aggravates such condition. now get reflected for harms you did, your own harms.

[@lamlam-dx3zc]

I do not think this is the real story

[@gunzrloaded]

The good guys George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla...!!! The bad guys T. Edison and J.P. Morgan...!!!

[@satadhi]

Well he was like steve jobs, expect in selling stuff.

[@paulw2872]

He was born in Mexico.

[@ericapita3698]

he was mexican not american

[@1953childstar]

Stop the lies !!!! Thomas Edisons youngest son ( Theodore ) was married to my cousin ( Anna Osterhout )...

[@1953childstar]

@@JoseMedina-ob4mf You need an education. Thomas Edisons youngest son Theodore, married my cousin ( Anna Osterhout ).. You should know who you are abusing and telling to "SHUT UP"... I am an actual relative and you may have to deal with legal repercussions..

[@wanglock]

че