Thomas Edison was one of history’s greatest inventors, a man who gave the world not only electric light but other landmark innovations in sound recording and moving pictures.

He accumulated more patents in his lifetime than anyone had before, and filled over 4,000 notebooks with his work.

But how did this ordinary, home-schooled boy from the American mid-West overcome ill-health and hearing loss to change the world?

And was he really a lone genius, or did he rely on the work of others?

This is a biography of Thomas Edison.

A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins.

Written by Dan Smith. With thanks to Paul Israel, director and general editor of the Thomas Edison Papers at Rutgers University and author of Edison: A Life of Invention.

This episode was originally featured on Short History Of...

Noiser+ members get ad free listening, exclusive content, and early access to new episodes across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started, or visit noiser.com/subscriptions.

No part of this podcast may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. In accordance with Article 4(3) of the DSM Directive 2019/790, Noiser Ltd expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.