Biography of Edison - Youth Reading Material on World Historical Famous Figures (Inspirational Edition)

Author: Yanqiang Li
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, a small town in the Midwest of Ohio, United States. His father was a descendant of Dutch people, and his mother, who had once been a primary school teacher, was of Scottish descent. When Edison was seven years old, his father's roofing business went bankrupt, and the family moved to Glatiott in the northern suburbs of Huron, Michigan, to settle down. Shortly after moving here, Edison contracted scarlet fever and was sick for a long time. People believed this disease was the cause of his deafness. At the age of eight, Edison started school but was expelled after only three months, being scolded by his teacher as a "slow learner." From then on, his mother became his "home teacher." Thanks to his mother's excellent teaching methods, he developed a strong interest in reading. "He not only read extensively but also read ten lines at a glance and memorized everything he read." At the age of eight, he read the works of the most important playwrights of the British Renaissance, such as Shakespeare and Dickens, as well as many important historical books. By the age of nine, he could quickly read books with higher difficulty, such as Park's Natural and Experimental Philosophy. At the age of ten, he was passionate about chemistry. In his eleventh year, he experimented with his own telegraph. To earn money to buy chemicals and equipment, he started working. At the age of twelve, he got a job selling newspapers on trains, traveling between Huron Harbor and Detroit, Michigan. While selling newspapers, he also did business in fruits and vegetables, and whenever he had free time, he went to the library to read. He bought an old printing press and started publishing his own weekly newspaper, The, which was printed on the train. He used the money he earned to set up a chemistry laboratory in a luggage car. Unfortunately, once, chemicals caught fire, and he, along with his equipment, were thrown out of the car. Another time, while Edison was trying to board a freight train, a conductor grabbed both of his ears to help him up. This action led to Edison becoming deaf for life.