List of contributions

Main article : List of Edison patents

Edison provided financial backing for Guglielmo Marconi's work on Radio transmission, and obtained several related patents

Edison purchased the Woodward and Evans patent for the electric bulb (incandescent light bulb) and improved the design

Tattoo gun (enabling technology)

[edit]

Improvements of Edison's work

Lewis Latimer patented an improved method of producing the filament in light bulbs.

Nikola Tesla developed alternating current distribution, which could be used to transmit electricity over longer distance than Edison's direct current due to the ability to transform the voltage.

Emil Berliner developed the gramophone, which is essentially an improved phonograph, with the main difference being the use of flat records with spiral grooves.

Edward H. Johnson had light bulbs specially made, hand-wired, and displayed at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City on the first electrically-illuminated Christmas tree on December 22, 1882.

Tributes

The town of Edison, New Jersey, and Thomas Edison State College, a nationally-known college for adult learners in Trenton, New Jersey, are named for the inventor. There is a Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum in the town of Edison.

The Edison Medal was created on 11 February 1904 by a group of Edison's friends and associates. Four years later the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to present the medal as its highest award. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu Thomson, and surprisingly to Tesla in 1917. The Edison Medal is the oldest award in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, and presented annually "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts."

Life (magazine) (USA), in a special double issue, placed Edison first in the "100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years," noting that his light bulb "lit up the world." He was ranked #35 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.

The City Hotel, in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, was the first building to be lit with Edison's three-wire system. The hotel was renamed The Hotel Edison, and retains that name today.

The Port Huron Museums, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young newsbutcher. The depot is appropriately been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum. The town has many Edison historical landmarks including the gravesites of Edison's parents.

The United States Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves-class destroyer, in his honor in 1940. The vessel was decommissioned a few months after the end of World War II.

In recognition of the enormous contribution inventors make to the nation and the world, the Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97 - 198), has designated February 11, the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Alva Edison, as National Inventor's Day