February 2008
Intermediate to advanced
192 pages
4h 1m
English
Edison the boy was an entrepreneur before he was an inventor, and his subsequent drive to invent was never cut loose from his original entrepreneurial impulse. For Edison, invention always responded to a perceived market and, in turn—provided that it was successful—expanded that market or created new, related markets.
Shortly after he went to work for the Grand Trunk Western Railway as a news butcher, young Tom Edison opened up a pair of stands at the Port Huron railroad station, one selling newspapers and periodicals, the other selling fruits and vegetables. He hired two boys to run the stands, but he finally decided to close both and concentrate exclusively on his train-board business, especially the sale of ...