In 1866, at the age of 19, Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where, as an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift, which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes—reading and experimenting.
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Edison obtained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed the Grand Trunk Herald, which he sold with his other papers. [26] This began Edison's long streak of entrepreneurial ventures
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Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, which were protected for 17 years and included inventions or processes that are electrical, mechanical, or chemical in nature. About a dozen were design patents, which protect an ornamental design for up to 14 years.
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Over his desk Edison displayed a placard with Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous quotation: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."[38] This slogan was reputedly posted at several other locations throughout the facility.
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The patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways".[55] It was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament
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Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous. As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886, Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating, "Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months
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His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder.
Up to that point, microphones, such as the ones developed by Johann Philipp Reis and Alexander Graham Bell
These early bulbs all had flaws such as an extremely short life and requiring a high electric current