Where Is New Jersey?
Thomas Edison was a full-time inventor from the age of twenty-two. Starting in 1876, Edison and his team worked together in a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where they used scientific equipment for experiments. Edison called it the Invention Factory. In 1877, he had an idea for a machine that could record spoken messages. Edison drew a design for the recording machine and gave it to one of his team members to build.
Soon, the machine was ready. Edison turned a wheel on its side and yelled into a mouthpiece, “Mary had a little lamb . . .” Then he turned the wheel back to the starting point. To his amazement, he heard his voice saying the nursery rhyme! “I was never so taken aback in my life,” he said later, astounded at what he had heard.
Edison called his invention the phonograph. He and his workers built more and showed them off to the public. The president of the United States even invited Edison to the White House to demonstrate his invention.
The phonograph wasn’t the last big invention created in the state. Edison is one of many New Jerseyans who have helped change the world.
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