Talk:Thomas Edison

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Dclemens1971 (talk) 22:12, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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Herald newspaper, published by Thomas Edison for use aboard the Grand Trunk railway between Detroit and Port Huron, Michigan.

• ... that Thomas Edison developed a housing project with three-story houses cast in a single cement mold?

• Source: Baldwin, Neil (1995). Edison: Inventing the Century. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0-226-03571-0. pp 298-300

• • ALT1: ... that Thomas Edison made talking dolls (pictured)? Source: Baldwin, Neil (1995). Edison: Inventing the Century. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0-226-03571-0. pp.196-197
  • ALT2: ... that Thomas Edison started printing a newspaper (pictured) when he was 14? Source: Morris, Edmund (October 22, 2019). Edison. Random House p. 586
  • Reviewed: This nomination is being reviewed collaboratively as part of an academic project supervised by User:Assas CHEUNG, with contributions from User:1922Laurette and User:0194Tamatea. We checked the article’s newness and it fits the DYK timeframe. The length is above the required 1,500 characters. The article is supported by reliable and independent sources, and each paragraph is cited. The tone appears neutral and we did not notice any plagiarism or close paraphrasing issues. The hook is cited and accurately reflects the information in the article. It is short enough and reasonably interesting. Since the hook does not use an image, the picture fields do not apply. QPQ is not required. Overall, the nomination appears to meet the DYK criteria.

• • Comment: Doll image

    

    Edison Phonograph Doll 01

    . On second thought I like the doll one the best

Improved to Good Article status by Czarking0 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

Czarking0 (talk) 00:36, 11 December 2025 (UTC).

• Nice work on the promotion to good article status; I had seen you making progress on that on my watchlist for months. Before we begin it's important to mention that this article appeared on the main page in February 2025 for the on this day birth anniversary. I was worried at first that this would make the article ineligible for did you know, but WP:DYKNEW says that it's only when it's in the prose section of Selected anniversaries (OTD) that makes it ineligible, so this is fine.

The hooks need bold links so I've just added them. I've also just corrected the typo "story" to "storey". Anyway ALT0 and ALT1 match the article. ALT3 doesn't; the article says that he was earning a profit when he was 13, not that he started a newspaper when he was 13. I don't have the books for ALT0 and ALT1 so it would be great if you could give me some quotes to verify them. I have the ALT2 book, which says Earning an excellent income of forty to fifty dollars a week... which verifies the profitability but it doesn't say that it was his own newspaper. Page 586 mentions The Weekly Herald which he first published when he was 14.

Just fixed the image. It looks to be out of copyright, yes. As for the doll image, it is the person's own work but I honestly don't know how copyright applies to doll images so I'd have to find someone else to review it. ―Panamitsu (talk) 02:09, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the fixes! My understanding of the doll image is that the likeness of the doll is out of copyright since it is too old so images of it are fair game.Czarking0 (talk) 15:32, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

"Afterward he obtained the exclusive right of selling newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed the “Grand Trunk Herald,” which he sold with his other papers." Does this solidify the ALT2? If not we could amend the text from newspaper to newspaper business since one could argue that the profitability did not directly come from the newspaper.Czarking0 (talk) 15:36, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Open access version of the Baldwin book Czarking0 (talk) 15:47, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

@Czarking0: Ok thanks, ALT0 and ALT1 are verified. Yeah it seems that ALT2 still has the issue of a lack of a source saying that the newspaper was started when he was 13 and that it was profitable, so your re-wording idea does sound like a good idea and I'll probably approve once you provide this new wording. ―Panamitsu (talk) 21:12, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

@Czarking0: I like the new ALT2 but where is the source that says that he started printing his own newspaper at age 13? Page 586 of Morris's book says that Edison published his first newspaper on 3 February 1862, when he was 14 years old. ―Panamitsu (talk) 21:54, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

@Panamitsu: I see. I took 13 from the article I did not recheck the date when I wrote this, so with the way I worded it now it should be 14. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Czarking0 (talk • contribs)

Thank you. Approved. Have just updated the page in the ALT1 source from 584 to 586. ―Panamitsu (talk) 07:17, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 11 March 2026

change his name to Patricia youseff

according to the dictionary Adriana barrios was his wife and actually helped him create it and his kid mea Eloise sumulong broke the first light bulb that was created, leading them have to re make it ~2026-15643-19 (talk) 14:38, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please detail the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 15:32, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

birthday

i want to know his birth date ~2026-30431-37 (talk) 20:36, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-30431-37 The top of this article says "February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931". Panamitsu ✨ 21:06, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

Peer review

Thomas Edison

I've listed this article for peer review following discussion with @Noleander: for work towards FA.

Thanks, Czarking0 (talk) 00:01, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Comments from Noleander

• The PR requestor asked me (before this PR) for tips on preparing this article for a WP:FAC nomination. They asked for thoughts & ideas from a mentor-mentee perspective, so I'll focus on issues/shortcomings that might come up in an FA review, and present the issues as if the requestor is entirely new to FA and needs basic explanations.

• The lead should be longer. See MOS:LEADLENGTH. Most FA articles on major topics have Lead sections with at least 4 medium-big paragraphs. Since the TE article is Vital Article Level 3, and he is very famous, the lead should be on the bigger side.
  • Lead must summarize all the important parts of the article, ignore minor parts
  • No cites/footnotes in Lead
  • Minimize wikilinks in the Lead: they are permitted, of course, but avoid wikilinks to common words/objects ... instead put the links in 1st occurrence in the body text.

• Article size is 9,100 prose words: that is perfect size for an article on a major topic, per WP:SIZERULE. Make sure the size stays under about 9,600 at the time you nominate at FAC.

• Authorship tool shows you as the primary editor, which is good: https://xtools.wmcloud.org/authorship/en.wikipedia.org/Thomas%20Edison/

• Some (all?) of the images are missing alt text. It is more or less required for all images. See WP:ALT TEXT and WP:Manual_of_Style/Accessibility#Alt_text

• InfoBox looks good.

• Image captions need review/copy editing. E.g. "The trees are bare and the surrounding buildings are much smaller." Not sure why that sentence is in an image caption.

• Need to run the "Show Ref Check" tool on the article. It will point out errors such as p. 274-276) where the p should be pp. That tool is at User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck.js

• That same tool indicates that the city/location field is only present in about 1/3 of the books used as sources ... that "location" field is not required ... but the article should fill that field for all the books or none of them.

• Citation format: It looks like the article is mostly using the template {{harvtxt}}. That is permitted, but most FA articles nominated recently are using the similar {{harvnb}} (and its cousin: {{sfn}}. You should consider using the latter pair of templates, since it would make the TE citations look more like what FA reviewers are accustomed to seeing the past few years. You can do a global search-and-replace of harvtxt to harvnb and be done in a minute.

• Original: <ref>{{harvtxt|Baldwin|1995|p=36}}</ref>
• After change: <ref>{{harvnb|Baldwin|1995|p=36}}</ref>
• Best: {{sfn|Baldwin|1995|p=36}}

• Author links should be added: e.g. the source Baldwin, Neil (1995). Edison: Inventing the Century. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0-226-03571-0. is missing an "author-link" field. If the author of a book or journal article has a WP article, put that in the source. E.g. as:

| author-link = Neil Baldwin (writer)

Author-links are not required for FA. But the more of those elegant/professional/finishing touches that are in the article: reviewers will be more impressed and more disposed to provide a "Support" !vote. Note that author-links are only possible if the author has WP article.

• "Further Reading" section - these sections are not prohibited, and some FA articles have them, but I never include them in my nominations. Some reviewers might wonder "If these works are so important, why isn't the nominator using them as sources for the article?" Probably wisest to not let reviewers think that thought.

• Uniform capitalization style of source titles. Cites use a mixture of two capitalization styles:
  • Title case and Sentence case

WP:CITEVAR etc say that article should use a uniform capitalization style (and should ignore the cap. style sources use for themselves). It is okay to use one cap style for book titles & another for journal article titles.

FYI: there is a tool that will ensure that all source titles use same capt style: User:ZKang123/TitleCaseConverter. You can run that tool and it will convert all source titles to one style or the other.

• Citation style not 100% uniform. The article is using {{harvtxt}} template for books, but using raw "ref" markup for websites & journal articles. That mixture of styles is not prohibited by the WP MOS, or by FA conventions. But the best FA articles use the same cite template {{harvnb}}, or {{sfn}}, etc) for all sources: books, websites & journals. You should seriously consider converting all websites & journal articles from the "ref" markup ... convert them to use {{harvnb}} and/or {{sfn}}. Much like the "author-link" suggestion above, this is not required for FA nomination, but it is one more touch-of-class that would make reviewers think "of course this article is FA quality".

If you need detailed instructions on how to convert the cites let me know. Basically: you just convert all the website & journal cites to be the way the book cites are now. Would probably take 1 to 2 hours to do it.

• The article has no explanatory footnotes. See {{efn}}, {{notelist}} and Help:Explanatory notes. Most large FA articles have some explanatory footnotes: perhaps 2 to 20. I use them a lot. If you look in my Dam article (currently in FAC being reviewed) you can see the footnotes in the section at Dam#Footnotes. That article has over 60 footnotes, which is a lot. I've had reviewers suggest cutting the number down to under 40. But zero explanatory footnotes a Level 3 Vital Article may raise some eyebrows. Certainly there must be some factual tidbits or insights about Editson that will delight readers, but are not important enuf for the main body text?

• Perhaps the most important thing is to double check the sources to make sure all recent/important sources are used. If a reviewer, for example, found a major Edison biography that was not used as source for the article, that could be fatal for the nomination. Not because that bio may have new facts about Edison, but because it indicates that the nominator did not thoroughly search for the best sources. Many reviewers would consider that a show-stopper for FAC.

• That's all for now ... I think that should be enough for you to process for awhile. If you have any questions about the above, please ping me and I can clarify. Or, if you want more feedback, I can give more. I'd prefer to hold-off on going thru the prose of the article (and giving you feedback on specific words and sentences) until you've considered the "big picture" suggestions (listed above) and implemented the ones you think are useful.

• Done for now. Noleander (talk) 01:39, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

  Amazing feedback thank you. I will get to all this. Czarking0 (talk) 15:12, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

  Question about alt text, one of the media on the page is a twenty three minute video. I think I would really struggle to write alt text for something that long. Do you know any similar examples? Czarking0 (talk) 23:20, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

  Write a sentence or 2 summarizing the overall visual content if the video. Doesnt need to be very detailed. Noleander (talk) 23:24, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

  I wanted to ask about this concept of using the best sources. As an example FN1 which is from the library of congress. I would consider this a good source and I like that is can easily verify some of the simple facts about him. Maybe it is not the best source since Israel's biography (which I think is the best source and can make the case for if needed) probably also verifies these facts. Does the difference matter in this case? Czarking0 (talk) 17:25, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

  To maximize chances of FA promotion, it is always best to use the strongest, most reliable, most academic sources. Following that rule, one might avoid the Library of Congress source. On the other hand, that requirement for super-strong sources is relaxed when the source is used to support a non-controversial fact, such as a birthday, or name of spouse, etc.

  For example, in my Dam article now at FAC, I use five sources from online Britannica Encyclopedia, for example this one: https://www.britannica.com/technology/dam-engineering. In my Nile article I used a dictionary: https://archive.org/details/conciseoxforddic0000unse_t1j9 Neither of those are ultra-top quality, but I felt confident no reviewer would complain.

  For the FN1 example you ask about: that is about his birthplace, which is non-controversial, so the LOC source should be fine. On the other hand, that LOC website does not have an author, nor does it have a publication/creation date ... which makes it a bit fishy.

  As you can tell from my wording here (and above) a lot of editorial choices are not black-and-white: it is a matter of "how much extra work to you want to do to maximize the probability of passing the FA nomination?". Let's say it takes you 12 minutes to find a new source for Edison's birthplace and insert that new source. No multiply that by 200 similar choices. Personally, I tend to err on the side of being safe ... but I'm retired and have more time. If I was busy, maybe I'd try to cut corners more. Noleander (talk) 17:46, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

  Got it, and how do reviewers typically assess double sourcing? For example, FN6 is a more reader friendly source but I am backing it up with the top-quality Israel reference. Czarking0 (talk) 17:55, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

  I frequently use 2 or 3 cites for a single fact. If you look at the Dam article, I average 2 to 3 sources per fact. Many benefits of this: (a) helps me find sources to refer to if a reviewer asks a question about a sentence; (b) helps future readers of the article do research; (c) each source usually has a unique angle/insight, and collectively they give a fuller picture than a single source would.

  Some reviewers will complain about 2+ sources, particularly if the reviewer is doing the "source review" which requires them to validate the source. 2 or 3 sources per fact makes their job harder.

  I've seen reviewers point to the essay WP:Citation overkill which sort of says reduce # cites as much as possible. But that is a mere essay and is aimed at edit-warring situations. That essay also includes the statement: "Using multiple sources to support a particular fact or sentence in an article is sometimes appropriate, provided that each source provides a distinct and useful insight, and the multiplicity of sources does not introduce any bias, confusion, or undue weight." (at WP:CITETRIM). So be prepared to quote that part of the essay back at them. Noleander (talk) 19:02, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

  Is there a tool for converting reference styles? Czarking0 (talk) 21:46, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

  Not that I'm aware of ... but I'm not a WP tool expert. You can look in Wikipedia:Tools and Help:Citation tools. The latter has section Help:Citation_tools#Tools_to_improve_existing_citations which mentions tool Wikipedia:Citation expander.

  If all the sources in TE article already use a "cite journal" or "cite book" or "cite web" template .. then 95% of the work is done. The only remaining work shouldn't be too hard: just moving those templates (for websites & jounals) from the body text down into the References section (and replacing those templates in the body text with sfn or harvnb). I had to do that once with one of my older FA articles ... took me a couple of painful hours, but once its done, its done, and it is one less thing FA reviewers can complain about :-) Noleander (talk) 22:50, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

  Ok I have made a lot of progress on this, could you do me a favor and check my last couple edits for the point you talked about converting all the sources to be referenced like the books? I want to confirm I understood that correctly before doing all of them. Czarking0 (talk) 04:17, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

  @Czarking0 - The changes you made to use harvnb template look good. I see two potential improvements you should consider:

  
  

  1) These two are functionally the same:

  <ref>{{harvnb|Markel|2018|p=53}}.</ref>

  and

  {{sfn|Markel|2018|p=53}}

  Consider using the latter, since it is cleaner. A rare situation I may use harvnb template is if I want to add a note to the cite as in:

  <ref>{{harvnb|Markel|2018|p=53}}. The author emphasizes that Edison was not the inventor.</ref>

  although you can get a similar effect with the "loc" field of the sfn template:

  {{sfn|Markel|2018|p=53 |loc=The author emphasizes that Edison was not the inventor}}

  Note that the sfn template automatically adds a period at the end; harvnb does not.

  
  

  2) When using sfn/harvnb, you generally never use the "name" attribute of the "ref" command. For example, the article now has named "ref"s like this:

  <ref name="Baldwin 1995 51–52">{{harvnb|Baldwin|1995|pp=51–52}}</ref>

  <ref name="Baldwin 1995 51–52"/>

  But most editors that use sfn/harvnb do not do that. Instead they do this:

  {{sfn|Baldwin|1995|pp=51–52}}

  {{sfn|Baldwin|1995|pp=51–52}}

  This produces the same results down in the Citations section. Since you have to type-out the page numbers twice anyway, why even bother with "ref" or "name". Avoid them altogether. If you want unique notes in each of the cites you can do this:

  {{sfn|Baldwin|1995|pp=51–52|loc= Edison was living in New Jersey at the time}}

  {{sfn|Baldwin|1995|pp=51–52|loc= Westinghouse was involved in this decision }}

  
  

  In the long run, sfn is a lot simpler and looks cleaner, and improves FAC prospects. But it can take a few days to get the hang of it :-) PS: If you want to know how to do Cite Bundling with sfn/harvnb, let me know (or you can look in Dam or Bridge and see how I did it). Noleander (talk) 05:07, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks, regarding the ref naming, the literal names are an artifact of WP:AWB however, I think they are a good idea as it makes it easier to check where the same referenced in used in an article which I think has practical benefits. However, my question was focused on the way I added converted FN7 out of the ref markup format and made the Web sources section. Czarking0 (talk) 14:35, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

  Sorry, I guess I misunderstood your question. Regarding FN7, that is the Markel source, correct? The article has:

  <ref>{{harvnb|Markel|2018}}</ref>

  {{cite news |date=October 22, 201 ... |last=Markel ... }}

  which is fine. Personally, I would use sfn instead of harvnb, but harvnb will work. Some advanced tips:

  a) if there is a source without an author, then you'll need to use {{sfnref}} template. You can see examples in my Bridge article.

  b) As mentioned above, if a single body text sentence has 3+ citations, some FA reviewers will insist on cite bundling, so be prepared to refer to WP:CITEBUNDLE to package multiple cites into one superscript. Bundling is not required for FA status for 2 or 3 cite superscripts, but for 4+, it becomes an issue. Noleander (talk) 16:27, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Update

Hey @Noleander: I think I have addressed these comments. Are there any next steps you think I should take?Czarking0 (talk) 14:21, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

@Czarking0 - The article is looking great! Your next step is up to you. You can either:

1. Find another editor to do a Peer Review (best if they are familiar with FA criteria); or
2. Nominate it at WP:FAC.

The choice depends on how thick-skinned you are :-) Some FA reviewers can be pretty brutal; if you are concerned about that, consider another PR first. Or, just go for FAC and have fun. FAC is more tolerable if you go into it planning on implmenting every (sensible) recommendation that reviewers make ... but that is a personal choice that every nominator needs to make on their own. Worse case scenario is that the article fails FA, and you re-nominate it again. Some articles take 3 or 4 nominations before they succeed.

Also: Make sure you have not overlooked any major biographical sources on Edison: overlooking major sources is the best way to guarantee failure :-)

Also, I suggest you go thru WP:FACFAQ carefully to make sure you understand how WP:FAC works. Let me know when you post it at FAC and I will do a review. Noleander (talk) 14:39, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

@Czarking0 - FYI: Here is my personal checklist I use on an article right before nominating at FAC. This is tailored to my preferences, and I'm not saying you should do these specific checks. But it may give you some ideas on final checks before nominating: User:Noleander/FA_checklist#Checklist_before_nominating_an_article_for_WP:Featured_Article Noleander (talk) 14:45, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I see that many (all?) newspaper sources have no external links (URLs) to the newspaper: e.g.

• cite news |title=Madeleine Edison a Bride. Inventor's Daughter Married to J. E. Sloan by Mgr. Brann

|work=The New York Times |date=June 18, 1914}}

• cite news |title=Mrs. John Eyre Sloane Has a Son at the Harbor Sanitarium Here |work=The New York Times |date=January 10, 1931}}
• cite news |title=Charles Edison, 78, Ex-Governor Of Jersey and U.S. Aide, Is Dead |date=August 1969 |work=The New York Times}}

Normally, newspaper articles have a URL link to an archive of the newspaper. If you cannot find a URL, you can ask at WP:RX and volunteers there will provide one, usually. Noleander (talk) 14:54, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

FAC PR sidebar

@Czarking0: I have added this to the Template:FAC peer review sidebar to get more attention to this PR. Please consider reviewing other articles listed there. I also recommend that you review articles at WP:FAC now: this will help teach the FA criteria and build goodwill amongst other FAC reviewers, causing your article to be reviewed more quickly and less likely to be archived. Happy editing! Z1720 (talk) 15:55, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

RoySmith

This is your first FAC, I think? You've certainly picked an interesting place to get your feet wet! I'll work my way through this slowly, so expect me to be adding comments here in dribs and drabs over the next few days.

• You use {{inflation}} in some places where you talk about money, but not all. The one that caught my eye is He turned a $50-a-week profit by age 13, but you should run through the whole article to see if you've missed any.

• Given that edison was nearly deaf, it is surprising that he was able to work as a telegraph operator. You should at least mention how he was able to do this. On a related note, there's a famous bit of lore about how he and his wife used to communicate by tapping messages to each other in Morse code. One story I've seen is that he proposed to his wife in code. Another is that at the theatre, his wife used to tap out the dialog on his knee. I don't think you need to go into this in any detail, but it deserves a mention (properly sourced, of course).

• Hmmm, as I get into this, I'm afraid I have to say the style of writing is a problem. WP:FACR 1a requires that "prose is engaging and of a professional standard". Much of what I'm reading has a choppy feel to it. There's no real flow, just a sequence of disjoint sentences that don't connect to each other. This paragraph is especially awkward:

  From 1863 to 1869, Edison worked several night shift telegraphy jobs in Ontario, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Massachusetts. As an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. In Cincinnati, he lived with Ezra Gilliland, who he remained friends with for 25 years. He joined the National Telegraph Union and wrote for their magazine. In addition to spending his time tinkering, he studied Spanish. He created a reputation among the other young, male telegraph operators for being bright and trying new things, but on several occasions his tinkering interfered with his work.[21][22]

  It jumps around between multiple topics. First you list some cities where he worked. Then you jump to WU and AP, and after that you suddenly shift to who he lived with in Cincinnati. Then he's writing for a magazine, tinkering, and studying Spanish. None of these facts seem to have any relationship to each other.

• I'm looking at Carbon telephone microphone. In addition to more of the choppy writing style, there's a few specific problems that stand out:
  • His core idea was to use a stronger current ... stronger than what?
  • ... and vary it in proportion to the sound waves. Having an electrical signal that varies in proportion to the sound is the fundamental definition of a microphone. What made this different from what came before it?
  • a specially coated rubber served as the semiconductor.[45][46] The "as the semiconductor" construct makes sense if you had previously said that there was a semiconductor component to the device and now you're coming back to describe it in more detail. But this is the first mention of a semiconductor so there's no context.
  • There's another issue with talking about semiconductors. I think most people will have heard the term and even if they don't know anything about the physics will recognize it as being somehow related to transistors and computer chips. I do know a bit about semiconductor physics and stopped short at this point as I would not normally call carbon a semicondutor. A little research convinced me that it is indeed correct to call it that, but it's still a little misleading because in modern parlance when we talk about semiconductors we're talking about the quantum-mechanical magic that happens when you dope them with specific impurities, and this is indeed the sense that our Semiconductor article talks about them. But that's not what's going on here. In a carbon microphone, it's just that the carbon grains are pressed harder against each other so there's less contact resistance.
  • David Edward Hughes also published a paper ... I parse this as "Hughes did some stuff. In addition to that stuff, he also published a paper". But I think what you really meant was "At the same time Edison was working on the problem, so was Hughes. Hughes described his work in a paper ..."

• Moving on to Phonograph, I see a lot of the same wandering around of topics. This starts out talking about his invention but quickly digresses into "The Wizard of Menlo Park" and his famous 99 percent quote, neither of which have anything to do with phonographs.

I'm sorry, but I think this needs a lot of serious work to clean up and reorganize the prose before it can be brought to FAC. My apologies if this sounds harsh, but I'm trying to be realistic. RoySmith (talk) 15:27, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Source discussion

In the PR Noleander informed me of the FA requirement to use the best sources. I think I would do well to elaborate on the sources a bit. I'll start with this review of Morris' book

Edison , by author Edmond Morris, is the latest of a number of biographies penned on inventor Thomas Alva Edison that date back to 1910, when Frank L. Dyer, Thomas C. Martin, and William Meadowcroft teamed up to write the first authorized biography of Edison, Edison: His Life and Inventions, with collaboration, approval, and some text written by Edison himself.1 Ever since that time, many biographies on Edison have been written—with no fewer than five serious biographies published since 1995. This recent publishing activity is quite an evidence of a strong and continuing interest in Edison and his inventions that resulted in 1,093 U.S. patents—not to mention the 500–600 patent applications that were either abandoned or unsuccessful. It also begs the question, “What is new in Morris’s book, Edison ?

I believe this "no fewer than five serious biographies published since 1995" is important for this article. I will attempt to address each of these five serious ones.

Morris

I'll include this one first because, IMO, if you want to read one of these books for pleasure this is the one. It also has a nice audiobook production.

• This review does not give the strongest support for Morris as it asks the question "what is new?" However it does include it among the serious biographies. The reverse chronology is lambasted and the review states

  Morris’s book is difficult to read, not only because it is written in reverse chronological order, but because he does not understand the technology he is writing about and his writing is often confused. There is very little new in this book, and there are many errors and omissions of important topics and information. I cannot recommend Morris’s biography of Edison. Much better and more accurate biographies already exist—for example, the three mentioned previously, which were authored by Israel (1998), Josephson (1959), and Dyer and Martin (1910 and 1929).

I'll note that this review disagrees with several others about the success of Josephson's book. Dyer's 1910 book is widely regarded as non-neutral as it was editorially supervised by Edison himself. Czarking0 (talk) 15:06, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

• Another review did not appreciate the reverse chronology but lauded the author's credentials and "provides everything — absolutely everything — you’d ever want to know about the man popularly believed to be the greatest inventor of all time. Not just everything about Edison himself, but about his family, friends and important co-workers, his many inventions, extensive businesses and methods, his habits and opinions, his successes and failures and so on." How much each sources delves into the various lives of Edison's associates appears to be one of the major deviations between these sources.
• The NYT agrees that Morris includes everything but critiques the reverse chronology and suggests leaving out more material would make the book more successful.

Baldwin

Starting the 1995 period Baldwin, IMO, sets the tone for the serious modern biographies.

• One review discusses the historical rigor. Regarding the success of the biography "it worked".
• This review is positive but not too rigorous

Pre-Baldwin

Do other reviewers agree with the 1995 distinction? This review published months before indicates yes:

Oddly enough, Thomas Alva Edison, who led one of the best-known, best-documented lives of modern times, has never had a fully satisfactory biography. Matthew Josephson in "Edison, A Biography" (1959) and Robert Conot in "Thomas A. Edison: A Streak of Luck" (1979) came close but fell short of the mark. So, unfortunately, does this latest entry in the field.

Israel

Those familiar with Edison scholarship agree Paul Israel, director of the Edison archives, is the man to beat (or at least match) in biographical work. This NYT review of Morris calls out Israel specifically as "the most insightful".

• Another review mentions it as a exemplary source

Josephson helped remedy that deficiency with his Edison, a biography that has stood up remarkably well since its publication in 1959. Other talented historians have revised aspects of the story that Josephson told, but his lively book has continued to be the standard life of history's most renowned inventor-until, that is, the appearance of this exemplary biography by Paul Israel.

• This review calls Israel's work exhaustive and lauds it as a academic biography. I think the fact that his personal life is not always flushed out invites use of other sources at times.

  While certainly comprehensive, Israel's book also can be quite drab and technical --- by the end you'll never want to hear the term "polarized relay" again. And because of the emphasis on Edison's professional achievements, his personal life is not fully fleshed out. That is a shame, because Edison could be a gregarious prankster, and when Israel does insert more intimate information, the inventor comes to life.

Adair

Much shorter than the other books mentioned here, Adair focuses more on the technology.

Freeburg

“The Age of Edison” is not a detailed history of Edison’s role in the development of electric lighting but rather a grand overview of the invention’s sweeping repercussions on America’s very soul. Digging deeply into archives and old newspapers, Freeberg takes us on a captivating intellectual adventure that offers long-forgotten stories on the birth pangs of the electrical age that are amusing, surprising and tragic.

Davis

Review does not indicate this is the same quality of source as those mentioned above.

Stross

Given the number of Edison biographies already straining library shelves, a prospective biographer had better come armed with a novel thesis and a persuasive argument. In The Wizard of Menlo Park, Randall Stross, professor of business at San Jose State University, brandishes his thesis like a Saturday night special but then comes up shooting blanks—loud, but hardly effective.

References

Semi-protected edit request on 26 June 2026

Correct the typo: Change "Edison and his colleges had the opportunity to get enormously wealthy..." to "Edison and his colleagues had the opportunity to get enormously wealthy" MathyFolk (talk) 01:20, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

 Done Umby 🌕🐶 (talk) 02:00, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Remaining copyedit

@Panamitsu: your editing is absolutely brilliant. I did notice this paragraph in which I more or less said the same thing twice. I am thinking to restate this somehow. By 1907, Edison's cement company was a significant entity in domestic industry, but it remained unprofitable due to high competition. Edison tried to cooperate with other cement producers to jointly encourage the use of cement in construction, but the cement business did not become profitable until 1922. Czarking0 (talk) 14:33, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

@Czarking0 Thanks, nice nice. I'm also wondering if that health section I created is no good -- it feels awkwardly short and doesn't cover much of the deafness (as that's in the early life section). I'm also wondering if the text about Edison's family should be moved to a new article called "Edison family" as the text is definitely important enough to be on Wikipedia, but it's not all about Thomas Edison. (See Musk family, Walton family and Rockefeller family). Panamitsu (talk) 22:50, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

My test for what of the family content should be included on this article is "Did this significantly impact Edison directly". If you agree with the test and think it should be but further, then I'd like to apply that test on a case by case basis. I think the health section is reasonable. @Noleander: may have further insight. Czarking0 (talk) 22:54, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

The article is at 8,300 words, which is still below the 9,000 pseudo-limit of WP:SIZERULE, so more material could be added, if warranted. Family info seems, offhand, relatively unimportant for Edison: if there are 700 words available, surely there are other, more significant, things that could be discussed? To decide: apply WP:PROPORTION which says that the material in the article should roughly mirror how much the major sources devote to it. So if the major biographers spend, say, at most 5% on family & early life, then so too should the article. Noleander (talk) 23:52, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Czarking0 I still haven't finished reading the whole article but I've been slowly building up a few notes that I'm working through:

• I believe Edison spilled some chemical in a train as a teenager and caused a train fire. Add that.
• In the telegraphy section there is the text "but on several occasions his tinkering interfered with his work". Give an example of this if possible.
• What caused Edison invent the phonograph? Was he trying to improve the telephone and came up with the idea?
• Add the amount of filament materials tested, or just the number of light bulb prototypes, and maybe add the famous quote "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." (which I'm not sure if Edison even said)
• Give a further explanation of what the "Village of Light" was
• Explain that Edison and his colleagues had to invent an electrical distribution system to spread the light bulb, because electricity distribution wasn't much of a thing back then
• What does "He addressed lighting as a system." mean?
• In the motion picture section write that motion pictures had already been invented before Edison
• In the motion picture section make it clearer that early motion pictures did not have sound
• In the Menlo Park laboratory there is a caption with (left) and (right) which doesn't work on mobile as the images are stacked on top of each other. Not yet sure how to address this.

Panamitsu (talk) 07:46, 19 July 2026 (UTC)