Overview
"I have it now!" Thomas Edison declared to the press in September 1878. These words announced that the famous inventor of the phonograph was on the cusp of his greatest achievement-the invention of an electric light. Edison overcame daunting obstacles, bested fierce competitors, and wrestled with self-doubt to perfect the invention that would revolutionize the way we conduct our lives. The Electric Light: Thomas Edison's Illuminating Invention tells the dramatic story of how Edison and the team of scientists at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, made the electric light a reality. It also explores the many ways in which this remarkable invention has shaped the United States by transforming nearly every aspect of daily life in America.Synopsis
"I have it now!" Thomas Edison declared to the press in September 1878. These words announced that the famous inventor of the phonograph was on the cusp of his greatest achievement-the invention of an electric light. Edison overcame daunting obstacles, bested fierce competitors, and wrestled with self-doubt to perfect the invention that would revolutionize the way we conduct our lives. The Electric Light: Thomas Edison's Illuminating Invention tells the dramatic story of how Edison and the team of scientists at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, made the electric light a reality. It also explores the many ways in which this remarkable invention has shaped the United States by transforming nearly every aspect of daily life in America.
Children's Literature
This entry in the "Milestones in American History" series details Thomas Alva Edison's 1879 invention of the incandescent lamp and his subsequent perfection of a practical electric light bulb. More a biography of the electric light than of Edison himself, the book nonetheless does give readers a personal sense of the man. Curiosity and ambition drove him as he grew from a boy who was fascinated by the telegraph to a young man who was the most famous inventor in the United States. Sonneborn does a fine job of describing the various technologies that played a role in the development of Edison's "illuminating invention." Vintage photographs and illustrations are used to good effect. A New York Times obituary of Edison, reproduced in a sidebar, puts his genius and persistence in historical perspective: "Thomas Alva Edison made the world a better place in which to live. . . .His inventive genius brooded over a world which at nightfall was engulfed in darkness, pierced only by the feeble beams of kerosene lamps, by gas lights, or, in some of the larger cities, by the uncertainties of the old-time arc lights. To Edison, with the dream of the incandescent lamp in his mind, it seemed that people still lived in the Dark Ages." Reviewer: Debbie Levy