Edison

9 Pages 2137 Words

Aside from his amazing history as an adult, Thomas Alva Edison lived an equally exciting childhood. Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. At the time, his father was owner of a successful shingle and lumber company. However, with new railroads being built through Milan, his father lost customers to the bigger companies that began to open. The Edison’s were forced to move to Port Huron, where he first began his education. When he was only seven years old his teacher, the Reverend G.B. Engle, considered Thomas to be a dull student and was terrible in math. After three months of school his teacher called him addled, which means confused or mixed up. Thomas stormed home. The next day, Nancy Edison brought Thomas back to school to talk to Reverend Engle. He told her that Thomas couldn’t learn. His mother became so angry with the strict Reverend that she decided to home-school him. After a while his mother, a former teacher herself, recognized his unusual abilities to reason. She quickly got him interested in History and Classic books. Thomas, however, was strangely attracted to the subject of science.
By the age of ten Thomas Edison had already been experimenting and by now owned a sizable quantity of chemicals. Unfortunately, his experiments were often quite expensive and he found it his duty to pay for them. Because he didn’t go to school, he had plenty of time to earn money by himself. When he was only twelve, he began selling newspapers on the Grand Trunk Railway; he even printed the newspapers himself. He spent everything he earned on books and chemicals. After about one year, his mother became so sick of the noises of exploding beakers, the smells of burning, and smoke filling the house that he was no longer allowed to perform his experiments at home. Luckily, he was given permission to move to his lab into the train baggage car. He would be able to experiment during the long five-hour layover in Detroit. ...