1-157-789 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Thomas Edison's improved form of JW Trowbridge's electric dynamometer, 1879. Edison (1847-1931) was a prolific inventor who registered over 1000 patents, many of which were related to the development of electricity. His inventions, in collaboration with his staff, include the automatic telegraph, the electric lamp, the phonograph (gramophone) and the kinetoscope, an early form of cinematography. From Scientific American. (New York, 1879).