Suggested Readings. Wright, Children's Stories of American Progress, 268-298; Brooks, The Story of Cotton and The Story of Corn; Nida, Panama and Its "Bridge of Water," 63-187.
MEN OF RECENT TIMES WHO MADE GREAT INVENTIONS
THOMAS A. EDISON, THE GREATEST INVENTOR OF ELECTRICAL MACHINERY IN THE WORLD
His parentage
199. The Wizard of the Electrical World. Thomas A. Edison was born in 1847 at Milan, Ohio. His father's people were Dutch and his mother's were Scotch. When he was seven years of age his parents removed to Port Huron, Michigan.
EDISON SELLING PAPERS AFTER THE BATTLE OF PITTSBURG LANDING
Edison owed his early training to his mother's care. At the age of twelve he was reading such books as Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hume's History of England, Newton's Principia, and Ure's Dictionary of Science. The last-named book was too full of mathematics for him.