Following Sir Humphry Davy's experiments, several arc lights were invented, with greater or less degree of success, and about 1860 electricity was tried successfully for lighting in some lighthouses along the British coast. The widespread usage and the usefulness of the arc electric light, however, are due to Charles Francis Brush, an electrical inventor of Cleveland, Ohio, who in 1876 simplified the arc light so as to bring it into general use for lighting streets, large rooms, halls, and outdoor spaces. Brush was also the inventor of an electric-dynamo machine that has added to his fame. After the invention of the arc light, he took out more than fifty other patents. The incandescent electric light, for lighting residences and small rooms, came a little later as the invention of Edison.
Thomas Alva Edison is one of the most remarkable men of all times and places. Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon together did not benefit mankind as has this quiet American inventor. He was born at Milan, Ohio, February 11, 1847. His father was of Dutch descent and his mother was Scotch. The mother, who had been a teacher, gave him all the schooling he received. Early in life he showed great mental vigor and ingenuity. When he was twelve years old, he is said to have read the histories of Hume and Gibbon.
When Thomas was seven years old, the Edison family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. He soon became a newsboy on the Grand Trunk railway running into Detroit. He also became proprietor of a news stand, a book store, and a vegetable market, each a separate enterprise in Port Huron, employing eleven boys in all. His spare hours in Detroit, between the arrival and departure of his train, he spent reading in the Free Library. Before long he had bought a small hand printing press, some old type, and plates for "patent insides" from the proprietor of a Detroit newspaper, and using the baggage car for an office, he started the _Grand Trunk Herald_, the first and only newspaper ever published on a railway train. His inquiring mind led him one day to make some chemical experiments in the car. He overturned a bottle of phosphorus, set the car on fire, and as a result was not permitted to use it longer for a newspaper office.