This timeline places Thomas Edison’s inventions within the broader course of his life and businesses. Dates are selected as signposts rather than a claim that invention happened in isolated moments.
1847–1868: early life and telegraphy
- 1847: Thomas Alva Edison is born on 11 February in Milan, Ohio.
- 1854: The Edison family moves to Port Huron, Michigan.
- Early 1860s: Edison sells newspapers and other goods on the railway and experiments with printing and telegraphy.
- 1860s: He works as an itinerant telegraph operator, gaining practical experience with electrical circuits and communications equipment.
- 1868: Edison receives his first US patent, for an electrographic vote recorder.
1869–1875: Newark inventions and manufacturing
- 1869: Work on stock printers and telegraph equipment helps establish Edison as a professional inventor.
- Early 1870s: Newark workshops develop printing telegraphs, automatic telegraph systems and related equipment.
- 1874: Edison works on quadruplex telegraphy, which allows multiple messages to travel over one wire.
1876–1880: Menlo Park, sound and light
- 1876: Edison opens the Menlo Park laboratory in New Jersey, described in our Menlo Park guide.
- 1877: Experimental work produces the tinfoil phonograph, bringing Edison international fame.
- 1878: Edison turns sustained attention to electric lighting and a complete distribution system.
- 1879: The Menlo Park team demonstrates a durable high-resistance incandescent lamp.
- 1880: Patents, manufacturing preparations and demonstration systems advance the electric-light project.
1881–1889: electrical systems and West Orange
- 1882: The Pearl Street station begins supplying direct-current electricity in lower Manhattan. Read the electric-light history.
- 1884: Mary Stilwell Edison dies. Edison later marries Mina Miller in 1886.
- 1887: Work begins at the much larger West Orange laboratory complex.
- Late 1880s: Edison returns to recorded sound with improved cylinder systems and develops ideas for motion-picture recording and viewing.
1890–1909: films, records and difficult ventures
- 1891: Motion-picture camera and Kinetoscope developments are demonstrated and patented through the Edison organisation.
- 1893: The Black Maria film studio operates at West Orange. See Edison and Motion Pictures.
- 1890s: Edison’s magnetic iron-ore milling venture consumes enormous resources and ultimately fails commercially.
- 1896: Projected motion pictures are commercially presented under the Vitascope name.
- 1900s: Work continues on alkaline storage batteries, cement production, recorded sound and motion-picture businesses.
1910–1931: later work and public memory
- 1910s: Edison companies market Diamond Disc records and continue film and battery production.
- 1914: A major fire damages buildings at the West Orange works; production and reconstruction follow.
- 1915: Edison becomes president of the US Naval Consulting Board.
- 1920s: His public image increasingly centres on anniversaries, commemorations and the heroic story of American invention.
- 1929: The Golden Jubilee of Light celebrates fifty years since the Menlo Park lamp experiments.
- 1931: Edison dies on 18 October at Glenmont in West Orange.
For interpretation rather than dates alone, read Thomas Edison’s Legacy and What Did Thomas Edison Actually Invent?.