The Henry Ford

Edison Chronology
1847	Thomas Alva Edison born February 11, in Milan, Ohio.	Thomas Edison, age 14. Edison proudly poses with his favorite invention, the phonograph Photo: P.B.3459 Mina Miller, ca. 1915 Photo: P.B.97671 Edison recreating the invention of the incandescent light bulb at Greenfield Village dedication, 1929. Photo: P.188.1256
1854	Moves with his family to Port Huron, Michigan.
1855	Attends school for three months.
1859- 1862	Works selling newspapers and candy on the Grand Trunk Railway between Port Huron and Detroit.
1863	Begins work as a telegraph operator wandering throughout the South and the Midwest.
1868	Finishes his years as a traveling telegraph operator and patents his first invention, an electric vote recorder.
1869	Announces his intention to become a full-time inventor, moves to New York City, and forms first business to manufacture telegraph equipment.
1871	Establishes his own factory and laboratory in Newark, New Jersey. Marries Mary Stilwell.
1874	Develops a Quadruplex system for the telegraph.
1876	Establishes laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1877	Invents the phonograph and a carbon transmitter for use in a telephone receiver.
1879	Develops the first truly successful electric incandescent light.
1882	Opens Pearl Street Central Power Station in New York City.
1884	Edison's wife, Mary, dies.
1886	Edison marries Mina Miller.
1887	Establishes laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey.
1888	Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter patent an improved phonograph called the "graphophone." Edison develops his own improved phonograph in response.
1889	Forms Edison General Electric, and invents kinetograph, an early motion picture camera.
1892	Sells his interest in the electricity companies with the formation of General Electric by the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston.
1899	Fails in his efforts to develop a commercial process of magnetic ore separation.
1910	Perfects a nickel-iron-alkaline storage battery.
1911	Organizes Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
1929	The Henry Fordopens in Michigan on the 50th anniversary of the electric light. Edison reenacts his invention of the light bulb at the reconstructed Menlo Park lab in Greenfield Village.
1931	Edison dies October 18, aged eighty-four.