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| 1847 |
 Edison is born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11. |
| 1854 |
The Edison family moves to Port Huron, Michigan. |
| 1859 |
 Edison gets a job as a trainboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad, selling newspapers and candy. He sets up a chemistry lab and a printing press on the train. |
| 1863-1867 |
Edison works as a telegraph operator in various cities of the Midwest, becoming a first-class press-wire operator and experimenting with telegraph instruments.
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| 1868 |
Edison becomes a telegraph operator in the main Western Union office in Boston and files his first patent application for an automatic vote recorder for legislatures. |
| 1869 |
Edison retires as a telegraph operator to devote his time to invention. He patents several telegraph devices and moves to New York City, where he works for the Laws Gold Indicator Company. |
| 1870 |
Edison moves to Newark, New Jersey, and with money from a contract with the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, he opens a telegraph manufacturing shop where he also conducts his inventive work. |
| 1871 |
 Edison devises several important improvements in stock ticker technology.
On Christmas Day, he marries Mary Stillwell, one of his employees. |
| 1874 |
Edison invents the quadruplex telegraph for Western Union, which transmits four messages simultaneously (two in each direction). |
| 1875 |
Edison separates his laboratory from the manufacturing shop. He invents the electric pen, an early copying device, and works on various telegraph inventions. He also announces the discovery of "etheric force," not realizing that he has observed the behavior of radio waves; his controversial claim is not accepted by the scientific community. |
| 1876 |
 Edison moves to Menlo Park, New Jersey, and establishes his first full-scale industrial research laboratory, combining electrical and chemical laboratories with an experimental machine shop. |
| 1877 |
 Edison invents the carbon transmitter, a crucial improvement in telephone technology, and the phonograph, which he demonstrates at the offices of Scientific American on December 7. |
| 1879 |
Edison invents the carbon-filament lamp and a direct-current generator for incandescent electric lighting. A New Year's Eve demonstration of his system is held for the public at Menlo Park. |
| 1880 |
 Edison hires a larger staff to help him develop the components of his electric lighting system for commercial use and sets up a factory for the manufacture of electric lamps at Menlo Park.
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