List of things named after Thomas Edison

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This is a list of things named after Thomas Edison.

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Places and people named for Edison

Thomas Edison commemorative stamp, first issued on the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1947 Thomas Edison, 3c, First Day of Issue.jpg
Thomas Edison commemorative stamp, first issued on the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1947

Several places have been named after Edison, most notably the town of Edison, New Jersey. Thomas Edison State University, nationally known for adult learners, is in Trenton, New Jersey. Two community colleges are named for him: Edison State College (now Florida SouthWestern State College) in Fort Myers, Florida, and Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio. [1] The Thomas A. Edison Science Hall at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey is also named in his honor. [2]

There are numerous high schools named after Edison (see Edison High School) and other schools including Thomas A. Edison Middle School. Footballer Pelé's father originally named him Edison, as a tribute to the inventor of the light bulb, but the name was incorrectly listed on his birth certificate as "Edson". [3]

In 1883, 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 upon Edison's return to the city on 1922. [4]

In 1954, Lake Thomas A Edison in California was named after Edison to mark the 75th anniversary of the incandescent light bulb. [5]

Edison was on hand to turn on the lights at the Hotel Edison in New York City when it opened in 1931. [6]

Three bridges around the United States have been named in Edison's honor: the Edison Bridge in New Jersey, [7] the Edison Bridge in Florida, [8] and the Edison Bridge in Ohio. [9]

In space, his name is commemorated in asteroid 742 Edisona.

Mount Edison in the Chugach Mountains of Alaska was named after him in 1955. [10]

Museums and memorials

Statue of young Thomas Edison by the railroad tracks in Port Huron, Michigan. The Blue Water Bridge can be seen in the background. Thomas Edison 1.jpg
Statue of young Thomas Edison by the railroad tracks in Port Huron, Michigan. The Blue Water Bridge can be seen in the background.

In Milan, Ohio, the house Edison was born in has been converted into the Thomas Alva Edison Birthplace museum. [11]

In West Orange, New Jersey, the 13.5 acres (5.5 hectares) Glenmont estate is maintained and operated by the National Park Service as the Edison National Historic Site, as is his nearby laboratory and workshops including the reconstructed "Black Maria"—the world's first movie studio. [12]

The Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum is in the town of Edison, New Jersey. [13]

In Beaumont, Texas, there is an Edison Museum, though Edison never visited there. [14]

The Port Huron Museum, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young news butcher. The depot has been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum. [15] The town has many Edison historical landmarks, including the graves of Edison's parents, and a monument along the St. Clair River.

In Detroit, the Edison Memorial Fountain in Grand Circus Park was created to honor his achievements. The limestone fountain was dedicated October 21, 1929, the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the light bulb. [16] On the same night, The Edison Institute was dedicated in nearby Dearborn.

He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1969. [17]

A bronze statue of Edison was placed in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the United States Capitol in 2016, with the formal dedication ceremony held on September 20 of that year. The Edison statue replaced one of 19th-century state governor William Allen that had been one of Ohio's two allowed contributions to the collection. [18]

Companies

Awards

The Edison Medal was created on February 11, 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. It is the oldest award in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, and is presented annually "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts".

In the Netherlands, the major music awards are named the Edison Award after him. The award is an annual Dutch music prize, awarded for outstanding achievements in the music industry, and is one of the oldest music awards in the world, having been presented since 1960.

Since 1997, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers has awarded the Thomas A. Edison Patent Award to individual patents that demonstrate a significant impact on the practice of mechanical engineering. [19]

Other items

The United States Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor in 1940. The ship was decommissioned a few months after the end of World War II. [20] In 1962, the Navy commissioned USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine. [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Edison</span> American inventor and businessman (1847–1931)

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Incandescent light bulb</span> Electric light bulb with a resistively heated wire filament

An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a filament that is heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb that is either evacuated or filled with inert gas to protect the filament from oxidation. Electric current is supplied to the filament by terminals or wires embedded in the glass. A bulb socket provides mechanical support and electrical connections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Westinghouse</span> American engineer and businessman (1846–1912)

George Westinghouse Jr. was an American entrepreneur and engineer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is best known for his creation of the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry. Westinghouse saw the potential of using alternating current for electric power distribution in the early 1880s. He founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1886. Westinghouse's business was in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who marketed direct current for electric power distribution. The Westinghouse company successfully marketed its AC system at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and went on to install the first large-scale commercial AC power generation plant at Niagara Falls by August 1895. In 1911 Westinghouse received the American Institute of Electrical Engineers's (AIEE) Edison Medal "For meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Woodward (inventor)</span>

Henry Woodward was a Canadian inventor and a major pioneer in the development of the incandescent lamp. He was born in 1832.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Swan</span> British physicist and inventor (1828–1914)

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for developing and supplying the first incandescent lights used to illuminate homes and public buildings, including the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1881.

Menlo Park is an unincorporated community within Edison Township in Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Holonyak</span> American engineer (1928–2022)

Nick Holonyak Jr. was an American engineer and educator. He is noted particularly for his 1962 invention and first demonstration of a semiconductor laser diode that emitted visible light. This device was the forerunner of the first generation of commercial light-emitting diodes (LEDs). He was then working at a General Electric research laboratory near Syracuse, New York. He left General Electric in 1963 and returned to his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he later became John Bardeen Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel McFarlan Moore</span> American electrical engineer and inventor

Daniel McFarlan Moore was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He developed a novel light source, the "Moore lamp", and a business that produced them in the early 1900s. The Moore lamp was the first commercially viable light-source based on gas discharges instead of incandescence; it was the predecessor to contemporary neon lighting and fluorescent lighting. In his later career Moore developed a miniature neon lamp that was extensively used in electronic displays, as well as vacuum tubes that were used in early television systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Henry Ford</span> Museum complex in Dearborn, Michigan

The Henry Ford is a history museum complex in Dearborn, Michigan, United States, within Metro Detroit. The museum collection contains the presidential limousine of John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln's chair from Ford's Theatre, Thomas Edison's laboratory, the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop, the Rosa Parks bus, and many other historical exhibits. It is the largest indoor–outdoor museum complex in the United States and is visited by over 1.7 million people each year. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 as Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1981 as "Edison Institute".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Goodrich Acheson</span> American chemist

Edward Goodrich Acheson was an American chemist. Born in Washington, Pennsylvania, he was the inventor of the Acheson process, which is still used to make silicon carbide (carborundum) and later a manufacturer of carborundum and graphite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum</span> United States historic place

The Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park, also known as the Menlo Park Museum / Edison Memorial Tower, is a memorial to inventor and businessman Thomas Alva Edison, located in the Menlo Park area of Edison, Middlesex County, New Jersey. The tower was dedicated on February 11, 1938, on what would have been the inventor's 91st birthday.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison Illuminating Company</span> Electric utility company by Thomas Edison

The Edison Illuminating Company was established by Thomas Edison on December 17, 1880, to construct electrical generating stations, initially in New York City. The company was the prototype for other local illuminating companies that were established in the United States during the 1880s.

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) was an American inventor and businessman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison screw</span> Lightbulb socket standard (E5-E40)

Edison screw (ES) is a standard lightbulb socket for electric light bulbs. It was developed by Thomas Edison (1847–1931), patented in 1881, and was licensed in 1909 under General Electric's Mazda trademark. The bulbs have right-hand threaded metal bases (caps) which screw into matching threaded sockets. For bulbs powered by AC current, the thread is generally connected to neutral and the contact on the bottom tip of the base is connected to the "live" phase.

This is a list of the longest-lasting incandescent light bulbs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Electric Research Laboratory</span> United States historic place

General Electric Research Laboratory was the first industrial research facility in the United States. Established in 1900, the lab was home to the early technological breakthroughs of General Electric and created a research and development environment that set the standard for industrial innovation for years to come. It developed into GE Global Research that now covers an array of technological research, ranging from healthcare to transportation systems, at multiple locations throughout the world. Its campus in Schenectady, New York was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Diehl (inventor)</span> German-American mechanical engineer (1847–1913)

Philip H. Diehl was a German-American mechanical engineer and inventor who held several U.S. patents, including electric incandescent lamps, electric motors for sewing machines and other uses, and ceiling fans. Diehl was a contemporary of Thomas Edison and his inventions caused Edison to reduce the price of his incandescent bulb.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Joseph Hammer</span> American engineer

William Joseph Hammer was an American pioneer electrical engineer, aviator, and president of the Edison Pioneers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison State Park</span> State park in New Jersey, United States

The Edison State Park is located in the Menlo Park section of Edison, New Jersey. It is located on Christie Street, the first street in the world to be lit up by lightbulb, just off Lincoln Highway, near the Metropark Train Station. It covers a total area of 37 acres (0.15 km2). The park commemorates the site where the famous inventor Thomas Alva Edison had his Menlo Park laboratory. In his laboratory, Edison invented over 600 inventions such as the incandescent electric light and the phonograph, the latter being the first object to record and play sound.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison and Swan Electric Light Company</span> Light bulb manufacturer

The Edison and Swan Electric Light Company Limited was a manufacturer of incandescent lamp bulbs and other electrical goods. It was formed in 1883 with the name Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company with the merger of the Swan United Electric Company and the Edison Electric Light Company.

References

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  10. "Mount Edison". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior . Retrieved March 25, 2020.
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