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Perseverance. To get a light-filament he carbonized thousands of materials— shreds from a fan, red hair from an assistant's beard. Thousands of invention ideas he tried, worked on, cast aside. He said that when an experiment seemed impossible of solution, that was the time to show interest, not discouragement. His was a standard phrase of the era: "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."
Naivete, First words the first phonograph spoke were:
Mary had a little lamb. Even in old age, his mind seemed as fresh, eager and naive as that of the 12-year-old lad who had started hustling. He chortled before telling a joke. With innocent seriousness he would enter a public discussion with such pronouncements as "Prohibition is eternally correct." His love of asking questions was fully expressed in the terms of his scholarship examinations to choose youngsters to carry on his work (TIME, Aug. 12, 1929; Aug. 11, 1930).
Parks, Florida. When he sold his stock-ticker for $40,000 in 1870, he set up a laboratory in Newark. Later, he moved to Menlo Park, N. J. and still later to Llewellyn Park. He also established a winter laboratory at Fort Myers, Fla. In these places he worked on:
Carbon telephone transmitter.
Multiplex telegraphy.
The mimeograph.
Basic principles of radio.
The phonograph.
The dictograph.
Incandescent electric light.
Cinema and talking cinema.
In the production and use of these articles, world investments total more than $15,000,000,000. They have changed the course of this civilization. The places where they were created are thus historic buildings and Motorman Henry Ford has transported the inventor's oldtime laboratory whole, set it up at Dearborn, Mich. for his Edisonia Museum. Even Mr. Edison's footprints are preserved in the cement approach. In Llewellyn Park, N. J. Edison's busiest factories are. There during Wrartime he helped the U. S. develop sound submarine-detectors and chemicals for which the nation had been dependent on Germany.
Jubilee. That the sardonic writer may have been just, though badly characterizing, was suggested during the Golden Jubilee of the electric light bulb two years ago. The common man in many a land shut off his electric light and sat quietly in darkness for three minutes to honor Thomas Alva Edison, and doubtless had many a thought for which there had not been time before. When the world's lights, cinemas and roar commenced again, common men displayed their bad taste by effusions which culminated in George Michael Cohan's song which said:
"What a man he is,
What a grand old 'wiz'!"
Mr. Edison loved it all. He said: "I was simply overcome. ... I moved as if in a dream."