Learn about key events in history and their connections to today.
On Oct. 21, 1879, Thomas Edison devised a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. A New York Times reporter visited Edison there and wrote an article about it that appeared in the paper on Dec. 28, 1879. “The lamp which Mr. Edison regards as a crowning triumph is a model of simplicity and economy,” he said.
Edison was not the first man to create incandescent light. The English scientist Humphrey Davy built a powerful electric lamp in the early 1800s; The Englishman Joseph Swan received a patent on a bulb in 1878 that Edison studied while building his own.
Edison’s feat was creating a lamp that lasted longer and required less power than previous designs that were impractical for everyday use. He also, through his Edison Electrical Light Company (today, General Electric), built a system of power stations to deliver the electricity needed to run his bulbs; he discussed his plans for this in the same New York Times article.
Edison’s light bulb was one great achievement in his a brilliant career. Known as the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” Edison received more than 1,000 patents for his work and created or improved upon items like the phonograph, the motion picture camera and a battery for vehicles.
Connect to Today:
After the visionary co-founder and former chief executive of the Apple company Steve Jobs died on Oct. 5, 2011, the Silicon Valley-based author and San Jose State professor Randall Stross compared Mr. Jobs’s life, technology product pioneering, and even passing to Thomas Edison’s in an Op-Ed piece.
Do you think this is an apt comparison? Why or why not? In what ways are the inventors of today different from those of the past?