Updated June 07, 2013.

Disability:

Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Thomas Alva Edison:

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He was born into a middle-class family that provided for their child's unique personality and curious mind. Thomas was not a good student early in his childhood, and he was known to have a wandering mind. After three months of frustrating his teacher at the age of 7, Thomas's mother decided to home school him.

At age 11 Thomas learned to use the local library because he had such a huge appetite for knowledge. Initially he began reading everything in the library, starting with the last book on the bottom of the stacks all the way to the top. His parents, however, were able to convince him to be more selective in the books he chose to read. Eventually, young Thomas had more questions than the library books were able to answer, and his parents chose to hire a tutor to help answer those questions.

By the age of 12 Thomas was self-employed and was able to make enough money to fund his need of chemicals and laboratory equipment for his basement lab. He sold food and newspapers on the local railroad. One incident with an irate conductor ended with Thomas being hit severely on the head. It is believed that this incident caused some of the hearing loss and deafness that he had, which would later be worsened by a case of Scarlet Fever.

At the age of 15, Thomas had mastered the use of the telegraph machine and began work as a telegraph operator during the Civil War.

It would lead to his job working for Western Union.

During his 20's, Thomas moved to New York City and by a curious event fixing a ticker-tape machine for strangers, he secured a job working as a repairman for the sum of $300.00 per month. He felt he had finally arrived financially. During this time he worked on the telegraph and a stock ticker machine. Shortly after, he was paid $40,000 by a corporation for the patent rights he had on the stock ticker. Having such a large sum of money initially startled him, but a friend convinced him to put it in the bank and focus on to other things.

At the age of 29 he worked on the carbon transmitter, which assisted Alexander Graham Bell's invention, the articulating telephone, to work. Not long after this, he improved upon the light bulb and created the commercially available incandescent light bulb.

Throughout his life, Thomas Alva Edison patented 1,093 inventions.. He died on October 18, 1931 at the age of 84. His last words were "it is very beautiful over there..."