Entrepreneur Era

Thomas Edison is an iconic figure throughout American history. He was relevant in the
1800s where he showed an early interest in experiments and building things. He ended up slowly
losing the ability to hear but it allowed him to focus on his work. Throughout his life Edison
worked many jobs but eventually focused on creating and experimenting. He is credited with
inventing the phonograph, motion picture camera, and the incandescent light bulb. The motion
picture camera dominated the filmmaking industry. In fact, the film scene in Hollywood was
founded off of people who were competitors of Edison and wanted distance from him according
to a La Forja article (Fortes 2024).
The time when Edison’s creation was at its best is often called the “Gilded Age” because
of all the industries that grew around this time. He was around for the creation of telephones,
electricity, and even cars. Not to mention he knew the people that created some of them too. He
ended up fitting right in with that crowd because they all had ideas they wanted to make real and
with some experimentation, which Edison loved, they could create something new and amazing
for the world. In addition to all the inventing, immigrants from all over the world were moving to
America as well. This led to some areas becoming more urban with too many living in the same
areas (Probasco).

Ideas, Innovation, & Influence

The influence of Edison still lives on today. Not only did he have so many patents in his
name, but he also created many companies and laboratories based off of those inventions he
made. Edison’s top creations included the phonograph, which could record voices and replay them back to you, the motion picture camera, the incandescent light bulb, the electrographic vote
recorder, which was supposed to help voting be easier, and an automatic telegraph, which could
have messages transmitted without an operator.
One important thing about Edison’s inventions was that he really wanted to help the most
people he could, but also give credit where credit is due. Once he perfected the incandescent
light bulb, he created electrical companies that experimented and learned how to bring the power
to whole cities (Life of Thomas Alva Edison).
Not only that but Edison actually worked with a lot of other inventors, and friends, and
helped them improve their products like Alexander Graham Bell with his telephones and another
friend Marconi who is the inventor of the wireless telegraph. He also knew some important
people in the world too. On top of Graham Bell, he also knew Henry Ford, John Rockefeller,
Marie Curie and President Hoover, who all attended the 50th year celebration of one of his
incandescent light bulbs (Life of Thomas Alva Edison & Thomas Edison’s Life).
Not all of his experiments were successful though. Some he didn’t even get authorization
to perform. After he got chosen to be president of a consulting board for the war and to attempt
to get ahead of the war issues, he attempted to try to solve the problems they were having with
rubber (Thomas Edison’s Life). This shows that no matter what position Edison was in, he was
going to find some way to try to improve something or invent something that can help.

Impacts

When looking through Edison’s story about his life it seems like he was mainly interested
in his work. The library of congress article mentions that he learned different trades like telegraphing and after working that job for a while went to focus on his inventing. That
eventually led him to getting another job fixing and enhancing printers and again he left to work
on his inventing. Within all of this focus on work he also somewhat ended up abandoning his
family and home life, which eventually led to him getting distanced from the children of his first
wife after she passed (Life of Thomas Alva Edison). As someone who has always looked for
happiness first, and associating that with the love surrounding me I would say that this seems
like a negative.
But, when you view it from the perspective of how his inventions and experiments
affected the world, it looks better. This is because of the fact that his improvements of already
made products like the lightbulb and printers, failures of his experiments and even improvements
of the tools he invented himself so that classic entrepreneurs work ethic that still exists today.
This is why failures are such an important part of being an entrepreneur. Without Edison’s
curiosity and passion for inventing and experimenting, many of those improvements could’ve
taken a lot longer and as quoted in the La Forja article, “the more risk there is in the equation, the
greater the probability of a larger reward” (Fortes 2024).
Edison was very successful in his endeavors. In fact, according to an article from the
library of congress, he opened multiple companies for his many different inventions including
Edison Machine Works, The Edison Electric Light Co, American Telegraph Works, Pope,
Edison and Co, and many more. He also ended up with over 1,000 patents to his name (Life of
Thomas Alva Edison). One of Edison’s inventions and projects, incandescent light bulbs, are
used everyday with better improvements from the ones he popularized. The beginning of
filmmaking was also created by Edison’s creation of the motion sense camera and later the
projector so what was captured can be played back (Life of Thomas Alva Edison).

Overall, Thomas Edison created so much for the world that gave others inspiration to
create things and improve things. Of course throughout his life people tried to take advantage of
him but he still managed to invent things that helped the world progress so far. Think about the
last time you went to the movies, or the last time you flipped a light switch. All of that is thanks
to Thomas Edison, who not only invented things but he also turned his inventions and
innovations into businesses and overall succeeded.

References

Fortes, José. “#39 Thomas Edison, Entrepreneurs and Risk = Hollywood.” La Forja, La Forja, 6
Oct. 2024, josefortes.substack.com/p/thomas-edison-entrepreneurs-and-risk.
“Life of Thomas Alva Edison: Biography: Articles and Essays: Inventing Entertainment: The
Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies: Digital
Collections: Library of Congress.” The Library of Congress,
www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-
recordings/articles-and-essays/biography/life-of-thomas-alva-edison/.
Probasco, Jim. “The Gilded Age Explained: An Era of Wealth and Inequality.” Investopedia,
Investopedia, www.investopedia.com/gilded-age-
7692919#:~:text=The%20Gilded%20Age%20lasted%20from%20the%20late,for
%20some%20and%20westward%20migration%20for%20others.
“Thomas Edison’s Life: United States.” Thomas Edison, www.thomasedison.org/brief-
biography.