Early Life | Thomas Alva Edison ( 1847-1931)
“To increase the sale of his papers, he telegraphed the headings of the war news to the stations in advance of the trains and placarded them to tempt the passengers. Ere long he conceived the plan of publishing a newspaper of his own. Having bought a quantity of old type at the office of the Detroit Free Press he installed it in a springless car, or ‘caboose' of the train meant for a smoking-room, but too uninviting to be much used by the passengers. Here he set the type and printed a small sheet about a foot square by pressing it with his hand.”
Early Life | Fleeming Jenkins (1833 -1885)
“Jenkin was fortunate in having an excellent education. His mother took him to the south of Scotland, where, chiefly at Barjarg, she taught him drawing among other things, and allowed him to ride his pony on the moors. He went to school at Jedburgh, and afterwards to the Edinburgh Academy, where he carried off many prizes. Among his schoolfellows were Clerk Maxwell and Peter Guthrie Tait, the friends of his mature life.”
Early Life | Charles William Siemens (1823-1883)
“As a child William was sensitive and affectionate, the baby of the family, liking to roam the woods and fields by himself, and curious to observe, but not otherwise giving any signs of the engineer. He received his education at a commercial academy in Liibeck, the Industrial School at Magdeburg (city of the memorable burgomaster, Otto yon Guericke), and at the University of Gottingen, which he entered in 1841, while in his eighteenth year.”
Early Life | Samuel Morse (1791-1872)
“At the age of four Samuel was sent to an infant school kept by an old lady, who being lame, was unable to leave her chair, but carried her authority to the remotest parts of her dominion by the help of a long rattan. Samuel, like the rest, had felt the sudden apparition of this monitor. Having scratched a portrait of the dame upon a chest of drawers with the point of a pin, he was called out and summarily punished.”
Early Life | George Stephenson (1781-1848)
“George Stephenson was eighteen years old before he learnt to read. He was now almost a full-grown workman, earning his twelve shillings a week, and having the charge of an engine, which occupied his time to the extent of twelve hours every day. He had thus very few leisure moments that he could call his own.”