The Wizard of Menlo Park (24 page)

Edison in 1880, at the age of 33.

Mary Stilwell Edison, Edison’s first wife, in 1871, the year of their wedding.

Edison in Mathew Brady’s Washington, D.C., studio in April 1878, posed with a second-generation tinfoil phonograph.

The first-generation tinfoil phonograph in 1877.

Edison in 1888, at the age of 41, posed after spending 72 straight hours working in his West Orange laboratory on his “perfected” phonograph.

Edison with his second wife, Mina Miller Edison.

Edison’s Black Maria movie studio, mounted on turntable and equipped with hinged roof to utilize direct sunlight.

A man posed with a kinetoscope in 1895: Ear tubes provided sound that was synchronized with the images viewed from the peephole mounted on the top of the cabinet.

Advertisement for the Edison Concert Phonograph in 1899.

Thomas Alva Edison Jr., at the age of 21, in 1897.

Edison asleep on a laboratory bench in 1911.

In Vermont in August 1918, Edison poses with other members of camping trip (left to right): Edison, young Harvey Firestone Jr., R.J.H. Deloach (seated), John Burroughs, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone.

Edison ceremonially punches the laboratory’s time clock on his 74th birthday in 1921.