Who Was Thomas Alva Edison?

One day in 1882, Thomas Edison flipped a switch that lit up lower Manhattan with incandescent light and changed the way people live ever after. The electric light bulb was only one of thousands of Edison’s inventions, which include the phonograph and the kinetoscope, an early precursor to the movie camera. As a boy, observing a robin catch a worm and then take flight, he fed a playmate a mixture of worms and water to see if she could fly! Here’s an accessible, appealing biography with 100 black-and-white illustrations.

Margaret Frith is the author of numerous children’s books, including several titles in the Who Was? series, such as Who Was Thomas Alva Edison?, Who Was Louis Braille?, Who Was Franklin Roosevelt? and Who Was Woodrow Wilson? She lives in New York City.