Thomas Edison: life of the week

Widely remembered as the ultimate American inventor, Thomas Edison's greatest talent may have been for self-promotion. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Ewan Morris talks to Eleanor Evans about how Edison built a brand around invention, clashed with rivals including Nikola Tesla, and used the press to secure his legacy. even when the science involved wasn't all his own. You published extensively on the history and culture of Victorian science. And so we're in safe hands today talking about our subject, Thomas Edison.

And I hoped we could start by situating Edison in this broader context a bit first. Can you take us into this age? What were the changes happening particularly in terms of science and technology that are important to understand before we go into his story? Edison is born in 1847. It's kind of interesting family.

They had been loyalists during the Revolutionary War, fled to Canada, and then managed to get involved in an insurrection in Canada in the late 1830s, so fled down south again, settled in the town of Milan in Ohio, later moving to Port Huron. Edison was born in 1847. This is a time of huge technological change across the Western world, certainly. Two key new technologies. the railways and the electromagnetic telegraph, both of which technologies of course are going to play a huge role in Edison's own life and Edison's career.

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