Download or read book Thomas Alva Edison an American Myth written by Wyn Wachhorst and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1981 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Edison written by Paul Israel and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2000-03-01 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ein Bestseller jetzt neu als Broschurausgabe! Die gebundene Ausgabe erzielte hervorragende Kritiken im Daily Telegraph, New Scientist, The Independent und in der Sunday Times - um nur einige zu nennen. Israel hatte erstmals Zugang zu Werkstatt-Tagebüchern, Briefen und mehr als fünf Millionen Seiten Archivmaterial. Auf der Basis dieser Informationen hat er die erste maßgebende Biographie von Edison verfaßt. Zum ersten Mal wird Edisons Karriere als Erfinder systematisch untersucht und bewertet. Im Detail wird erforscht, wie er u.a. mit der Erfindung des elektrischen Lichts, der Photographie und mehr als tausend anderen Dingen das 20. Jahrhundert prägte. Dies ist auch die erste Biographie, die Edison im Zusammenhang mit dem rapiden industriellen Wandel betrachtet, indem die Auswirkungen dieses Wandels auf seine Erfindungen beschrieben werden. Dieses Buch liefert eine Fülle neuer Informationen über Edison und seine Erfindungen. Eine interessante und spannende Lektüre. (y03/00)
Download or read book The Wizard of Menlo Park written by Randall E. Stross and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-03-25 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Edison’s greatest invention? His own fame. At the height of his fame Thomas Alva Edison was hailed as “the Napoleon of invention” and blazed in the public imagination as a virtual demigod. Starting with the first public demonstrations of the phonograph in 1878 and extending through the development of incandescent light and the first motion picture cameras, Edison’s name became emblematic of all the wonder and promise of the emerging age of technological marvels. But as Randall Stross makes clear in this critical biography of the man who is arguably the most globally famous of all Americans, Thomas Edison’s greatest invention may have been his own celebrity. Edison was certainly a technical genius, but Stross excavates the man from layers of myth-making and separates his true achievements from his almost equally colossal failures. How much credit should Edison receive for the various inventions that have popularly been attributed to him—and how many of them resulted from both the inspiration and the perspiration of his rivals and even his own assistants? This bold reassessment of Edison’s life and career answers this and many other important questions while telling the story of how he came upon his most famous inventions as a young man and spent the remainder of his long life trying to conjure similar success. We also meet his partners and competitors, presidents and entertainers, his close friend Henry Ford, the wives who competed with his work for his attention, and the children who tried to thrive in his shadow—all providing a fuller view of Edison’s life and times than has ever been offered before. The Wizard of Menlo Park reveals not only how Edison worked, but how he managed his own fame, becoming the first great celebrity of the modern age.
Download or read book Edison A Biography written by Matthew Josephson and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great folk hero in American history, Edison is viewed by the public as a facile inventor, the electrical wizard and the perfect symbol of the self-made and practical creator. But he was also a paradoxical figure: deaf, impoverished and with no formal education as a youngster, Edison nevertheless became a fertile and versatile inventor, accumulated fortunes for himself and others but remained indifferent to wealth except as a means towards more inventions. Edison’s key contributions include the carbon microphone, the electric light bulb, electricity distribution systems, the phonograph and the motion-picture camera. Edison’s methods were also remarkable: halfway between the craftsman-tinkerer of the early 19th century and the scientist of today, he established and ran pioneering research laboratories with large staffs, yet lacked training in mathematics or the basic sciences. Matthew Josephson’s Edison: A Biography won the Society of American Historians’Francis Parkman Prize in 1960. “This is an outstanding biography... [Josephson] establishes the developing relationship between finance and invention which constitutes the basis for Edison’s success... [He] has mastered the substance of Edison’s inventive activity and has written of it quite authoritatively and vividly.” — Thomas P. Hughes, Technology and Culture “... It is clear that there is reason to welcome yet another book about a man of whom so much has been written. It must have been precisely because so much in the Edison record is myth, fostered by adulators and by Edison himself that Mr. Josephson turned his skillful, corrective hand to a saga that may have seemed more familiar than it actually is. From his well-presented, well-written findings emerges a giant without whom much of life as we live it would simply not exist. It is a first-rate job that needed doing.” — John K. Hutchens, New York Herald Tribune “A well-researched account of the life of one of America’s authentic folk heroes--Thomas Alva Edison--an original creator with a genius for strategic invention... Thoroughly absorbing, this significant volume is a competent contribution to the history of American science, and gives not only a sharply drawn picture of this self-educated giant of invention, but also of the beginnings of the telegraph, electrical, record, motion picture and automobile industries, as well as the sociological changes that were wrought by Edison’s practical discoveries.” — Kirkus Review “A biography that is dignified, detailed, and objective, sprinkled with moments of humor, pathos, and drama... One of the chief virtues of this book is the care taken by the author to build up a realistic picture of Edison the man.” — F. Garvin Davenport,The American Historical Review
Download or read book American Myths Legends and Tall Tales 3 volumes written by Christopher R. Fee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 1265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating survey of the entire history of tall tales, folklore, and mythology in the United States from earliest times to the present, including stories and myths from the modern era that have become an essential part of contemporary popular culture. Folklore has been a part of American culture for as long as humans have inhabited North America, and increasingly formed an intrinsic part of American culture as diverse peoples from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania arrived. In modern times, folklore and tall tales experienced a rejuvenation with the emergence of urban legends and the growing popularity of science fiction and conspiracy theories, with mass media such as comic books, television, and films contributing to the retelling of old myths. This multi-volume encyclopedia will teach readers the central myths and legends that have formed American culture since its earliest years of settlement. Its entries provide a fascinating glimpse into the collective American imagination over the past 400 years through the stories that have shaped it. Organized alphabetically, the coverage includes Native American creation myths, "tall tales" like George Washington chopping down his father's cherry tree and the adventures of "King of the Wild Frontier" Davy Crockett, through to today's "urban myths." Each entry explains the myth or legend and its importance and provides detailed information about the people and events involved. Each entry also includes a short bibliography that will direct students or interested general readers toward other sources for further investigation. Special attention is paid to African American folklore, Asian American folklore, and the folklore of other traditions that are often overlooked or marginalized in other studies of the topic.
Download or read book Edison written by Edmund Morris and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Morris comes a revelatory new biography ofThomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history.
Download or read book Thomas Alva Edison written by Gene Adair and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-08 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details the life and work of Thomas Edison, who developed the electric light bulb and over 1000 patents for other inventions and innovations.
Download or read book Thomas A Edison written by Martin Woodside and published by Sterling Publishing Company. This book was released on 2007 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of America's most famous inventor Thomas Edison.
Download or read book Edison written by Edmund Morris and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris comes a revelatory new biography of Thomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews Although Thomas Alva Edison was the most famous American of his time, and remains an international name today, he is mostly remembered only for the gift of universal electric light. His invention of the first practical incandescent lamp 140 years ago so dazzled the world—already reeling from his invention of the phonograph and dozens of other revolutionary devices—that it cast a shadow over his later achievements. In all, this near-deaf genius (“I haven’t heard a bird sing since I was twelve years old”) patented 1,093 inventions, not including others, such as the X-ray fluoroscope, that he left unlicensed for the benefit of medicine. One of the achievements of this staggering new biography, the first major life of Edison in more than twenty years, is that it portrays the unknown Edison—the philosopher, the futurist, the chemist, the botanist, the wartime defense adviser, the founder of nearly 250 companies—as fully as it deconstructs the Edison of mythological memory. Edmund Morris, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, brings to the task all the interpretive acuity and literary elegance that distinguished his previous biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Ludwig van Beethoven. A trained musician, Morris is especially well equipped to recount Edison’s fifty-year obsession with recording technology and his pioneering advances in the synchronization of movies and sound. Morris sweeps aside conspiratorial theories positing an enmity between Edison and Nikola Tesla and presents proof of their mutually admiring, if wary, relationship. Enlightened by seven years of research among the five million pages of original documents preserved in Edison’s huge laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey, and privileged access to family papers still held in trust, Morris is also able to bring his subject to life on the page—the adored yet autocratic and often neglectful husband of two wives and father of six children. If the great man who emerges from it is less a sentimental hero than an overwhelming force of nature, driven onward by compulsive creativity, then Edison is at last getting his biographical due.
Download or read book Edison written by Neil Baldwin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-04-28 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appointment.
Download or read book Thomas Edison written by Amy Graham and published by Enslow Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the life and work of Thomas Edison, including his childhood, education, and invention of such items as the phonograph, light bulb, and kinetoscope.
Download or read book Darwinian Myths written by Edward Caudill and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2005-05 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caudill, whose Darwin in the Press (Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 1989) covered similar ground, here adds little to the corpus of rich literature on Darwinian evolution; his discussions of the theory's misapplications have been covered thoroughly by other researchers. He focuses here on documentation from the popular press, which, he argues, has been overlooked. In doing so Caudill ignores much of the extensive research by contemporary scientists and historians of science. Caudill also often refers to articles without author attribution, using phrases such as "a German doctor" or "a Harvard professor." The reader must go to the notes to identify the author and to assess Caudill's comments and criticisms. In addition. the book lacks continuity and flow, reading like a series of essays strung together under a theme of "myths." Tighter editing would have improved continuity, addressed inconsistencies in using birth and death dates, and corrected the unforgivable misspelling of the name Wedgwood. Not recommended.?Joyce L. Ogburn, Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, Va. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Download or read book Thomas Edison written by Paul Israel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-03-18 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most prolific inventor in American history, Thomas Edison played a major role in creating industries that have altered life around the globe: electric light and power, recorded sound and motion pictures. He also made significant innovations in telecommunications, battery technology, office machinery, the manufacture of Portland Cement, and processes for working low-grade ores. He was able to contribute to such a wide array of industries because he was not a lone inventor. At his workshops and laboratories in Newark, Menlo Park, and West Orange in New Jersey, Edison brought together teams of skilled research assistants and machinists. These teams allowed him to do more than any one person could do. In the process he transformed invention by making it part of a larger process of research, development, and commercialization that we now call innovation. That transformation—as much as any single invention—has become a crucial feature of the modern world. Includes a detailed chronology of Edison’s life and work. An introduction that provides an overview of Edison’s life and work. The A-to-Z section includes three hundred encyclopedic entries on Edison’s inventions, laboratories, business enterprises, public image and numerous individuals with whom he was associated. An extensive bibliography of Edison’s publications and select interviews; modern, contemporaneous, and juvenile biographies; and thirteen subject areas related to Edison’s work and influence. The index thoroughly cross-references the chronological and encyclopedic entries.
Download or read book The Age of Edison written by Ernest Freeberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of the electric light revolution and the birth of modern America The late nineteenth century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but more than any other invention, Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb marked the arrival of modernity, transforming its inventor into a mythic figure and avatar of an era. In The Age of Edison, award-winning author and historian Ernest Freeberg weaves a narrative that reaches from Coney Island and Broadway to the tiniest towns of rural America, tracing the progress of electric light through the reactions of everyone who saw it and capturing the wonder Edison’s invention inspired. It is a quintessentially American story of ingenuity, ambition, and possibility in which the greater forces of progress and change are made by one of our most humble and ubiquitous objects.
Download or read book Thomas A Edison and the Modernization of America written by Martin V. Melosi and published by Addison-Wesley Longman. This book was released on 2008 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas A. Edison and the Modernization of America is a captivating narrative which chronicles America's most formidable inventor and contributor to modern technology. Martin Melosi creates a dynamic historical narrative by relating Edison's personal history to larger cultural, political and economic trends. Melosi adeptly reveals the workings of Edison's mind as well as his inventions' lasting affect on the nation. Historians have often designated robber barons and large trusts as the face of the rapid economic and technological advances of the Gilded Age. However, this book exposes students to a more refreshing look at America's economic history, placing the inventor above the banker. The titles in the Library of American Biography Series make ideal supplements for American History Survey courses or other courses in American history where figures in history are explored. Paperback, brief, and inexpensive, each interpretive biography in this series focuses on a figure whose actions and ideas significantly influenced the course of American history and national life. In addition, each biography relates the life of its subject to the broader themes and developments of the times.
Download or read book The Cinema in Flux written by Lenny Lipton and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-07 with total page 795 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first of its kind, this book traces the evolution of motion picture technology in its entirety. Beginning with Huygens' magic lantern and ending in the current electronic era, it explains cinema’s scientific foundations and the development of parallel enabling technologies alongside the lives of the innovators. Product development issues, business and marketplace factors, the interaction of aesthetic and technological demands, and the patent system all play key roles in the tale. The topics are covered sequentially, with detailed discussion of the transition from the magic lantern to Edison’s invention of the 35mm camera, the development of the celluloid cinema, and the transition from celluloid to digital. Unique and essential reading from a lifetime innovator in the field of cinema technology, this engaging and well-illustrated book will appeal to anyone interested in the history and science of cinema, from movie buffs to academics and members of the motion picture industry.
Download or read book You Can Go Home Again written by Monica McGoldrick and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1997-06-03 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revelatory book, esteemed family therapist Monica McGoldrick explores why families behave as they do, using genograms (family trees) to illustrate family patterns. Mapped out over a three-generation span, repeated estrangements, alliances, even divorces and suicides, prove more than coincidental. McGoldrick uses the genograms of famous families - including the Kennedys, Hepburns, Beethovens and Brontes - the discuss the influence of birth order and sibling rivalry, family myths and secrets, cultural differences, couple relationships and the pivotal role of loss. Relevant questions to ask appear at the end of each chapter, helping the reader become researcher, uncovering information previously withheld, misunderstood or overlooked.
