Lindsey Graham

Edison helped pioneer the very idea of organized innovation, building some of the first modern research and development laboratories in Menlo Park and later West Orange, New Jersey.

In the process, he established a model for how the modern world would go about the business of discovery.

To help us understand the man behind the myth, I'm joined today by Dr. Paul Israel, Director and General Editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University, and author of several books about Edison, including Edison, A Life of Invention.

Our conversation is next.

Paul Israel, thanks for joining me today on American History Tellers.

My pleasure.

So Thomas Edison was a tinkerer from a young age, but where did his curiosity come from?

You mentioned Edison's getting used to setbacks.

This became integral for his innovative approach, this iteration, this tireless perseverance.

How did Thomas Edison get involved in scientific inquiry like this?

How did he begin to learn how to innovate?

He also grew even more interested in telegraphy from his time working with the Grand Trunk Railway.

He became a telegraph operator in his teens.

Why don't you discuss a little bit about the wild world of telegraph operators then and how it might have shaped Edison's life of invention?

Let's talk about those experiments.

What were some of Edison's first inventions made, I guess, while he was a telegrapher?

So then in 1876, Edison graduates to setting up his workshop in Menlo Park, New Jersey, his most famous location.

He was only 30 years old.

Describe the place for us.

Before the electric light, the phonograph was Edison's most famous invention.