Thomas Edison and Harim Maxim

8. On February 11, 1847 Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. He wasn’t really interested in school. His mom taught him to read and write. He always looked for a way to improve himself. In 1874 he built a telegraph and got forty thousand dollars once he sold it to the Western Union Telegraph Company. With this money, Edison set up his new complex in rural Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1876 ( Invention.Smithonian.com). He called it “ The Invention Factory.” In this factory, he had mechanist and physicists. This staff helped him with the invention of the light bulb leading to the Incandescent Lamp. With this invention people now had light at night. This was important to the Industrial Revolution because the lighting in worker’s space was better. (invention.Smithonian.com)

9. Hiram Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine on February 5th, 1840. He liked a lot of mechanical things even when he was young. “Hiram Maxim spent his teens as an apprentice to a carriage builder ( Dartfordarchive.com). In 1881 he moved from the United States to London to reorganize street offices because they hired him. He began his invention of the machine gun around the same time. The gun he built could fire six hundred bullets at first but then was developed to fire six hundred sixty six bullets a minute. The gun was cooled by a jacket holding one gallon of water around the barrel. Many people were using his guns by 1905. This invention was important because before it was built, wars were being bought by swords and horses etcetera. This invention was important to the Industrial Revolution because now wars could be fought easier and odds of people surviving a war were greater. Also, this gun encouraged invention of other guns. (Dartfordarchive.com).