This book, designed for boys and girls, is published with my consent. [Illustration: Thomas Edison's signature] [Illustration: EDISON AT WORK IN ONE OF THE CHEMICAL ROOMS AT THE ORANGE LABORATORY] THE BOYS' LIFE OF EDISON BY WILLIAM H. MEADOWCROFT OF THE EDISON LABORATORY. AUTHOR OF "ABC OF ELECTRICITY," "ABC OF THE X-RAYS" WITH AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES BY MR. EDISON _ILLUSTRATED_ HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE Introduction............................. ix I. The Early Days of Electricity............ 1 II. Edison's Family.......................... 5 III. Edison's Early Boyhood................... 15 IV. The Young Newsboy........................ 21 V. A Few Stories of Edison's Newsboy Days... 32 VI. The Young Telegraph Operator............. 41 VII. Adventures of a Telegraph Operator....... 49 VIII. Work and Invention in Boston............. 75 IX. From Poverty to Independence............. 88 X. A Busy Young Inventor.................... 101 XI. The Telephone, Motograph, and Microphone. 117 XII. Making a Machine Talk.................... 129 XIII. A New Light in the World................. 135 XIV. Menlo Park............................... 145 XV. Beginning the Electric Light Business.... 153 XVI. The First Edison Central Station......... 161 XVII. Edison's Electric Railway................ 169 XVIII. Grinding Mountains to Dust............... 177 XIX. Edison Makes Portland Cement............. 187 XX. Motion-Pictures.......................... 195 XXI. Edison Invents a New Storage Battery..... 202 XXII. Edison's Miscellaneous Inventions........ 209 XXIII. Edison's Method in Inventing............. 216 XXIV. Edison's Laboratory at Orange............ 224 XXV. Edison Himself........................... 233 XXVI. Edison's New Phonograph.................. 240 XXVII. Edison's Work During the War............. 250 Events and Achievements of Edison........ 265 ILLUSTRATIONS EDISON AT WORK IN ONE OF THE CHEMICAL ROOMS AT THE ORANGE LABORATORY EDISON WHEN ABOUT FOURTEEN OR FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE MR. EDISON AT THE CLOSE OF FIVE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF CONTINUED WORK IN PERFECTING THE EARLY WAX-CYLINDER TYPE OF PHONOGRAPH--JUNE 16, 1888 THE EDISON ELECTRIC RAILWAY AT MENLO PARK--1880 EDISON AT THE OFFICE DOOR OF THE ORE-CONCENTRATING PLANT AT EDISON, NEW JERSEY, IN THE 'NINETIES THOMAS ALVA EDISON--1911 "THE INSOMNIA SQUAD" EDISON AT WORK ON RUBBER EXPERIMENTS. FROM A MOVING PICTURE TAKEN DECEMBER, 1928 INTRODUCTION This is the story of a great inventor, the most conspicuous figure of the age of electricity.