Thomas Edison was born Feb 11, 1847in Milan, Ohio. He was the youngest of seven siblings. His parents were middle class, though they were not wealthy. In particular, the family struggled when the railroad bypassed Milan, forcing the family to move to Port Huron, Michigan. Thomas Edison was an American inventor and businessman who developed and made commercially available – many key inventions of modern life. His Edison Electric company was a pioneering company for delivering DC electricity directly into people’s homes. He filed over 1,000 patents for a variety of different inventions. Crucially, he used mass-produced techniques to make his inventions available at low cost to households across America. His most important inventions include the electric light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, an electric car and the electric power station.