There are always the copies and the prototype, there are always the branches and the stem, there are always the streams and the spring, and there are always the inventors and the greatest of inventors. Thomas Alva Edison is remembered as being the godfather of all inventors and is viewed as being the icon in the field of inventions. This description is not strange when you connect his image with the light bulb. Imagine that the world is without light bulbs, how would life be? Dark? Gloomy? Melancholic? To this man we owe the bright nights; to this man we owe the phonograph; to this man we owe the motion picture camera; and to this man we owe more than 1,200 other contributions and inventions. THOMAS ALVA EDISON was born at Milan Ohio, February 11, 1847. Arthur E. Kennelly (1932) mentioned that Thomas Edison's ancestor were originally from Holland and in the year 1730 they moved to New Jersey. His father, Samuel, met Nancy Elliot, Edison's mother, in Ontario and he married her. The couple had seven children, Thomas Alva being the youngest. Edison's mother was a pretty clever schoolteacher and in his early life she would play an important role in shaping the boy to be the greatest inventor of all inventors. Thomas Edison lived in a small brick cottage in Milan, Ohio. This cottage still exists and it tells generations that poverty shouldn't hamper success. .
From his early life, Edison was free-thinker and his inquisitive nature put him in hard situations but it was the reason behind his extraordinary genius. Edison did not do well at school. Actually he used to describe himself as being "at the foot of the class" (Evans, 2004,p.5). He attended school for only two months and the reason behind this is that his teachers couldn't cope with his curious mind and hyper-active nature. His mother decided to withdraw him from school and she took on her shoulder the burden of teaching the boy by herself.