[tinsmith]

There was a lot of revisionist history out there that painted Edison as this great inventor, when in fact, he was just a businessman who knew how to exploit for profit. I lived in the town where he grew up after his family moved from Ohio, and they still laud him here, with zero mention in any of the many museums of the individuals whose ideas he piggybacked, borrowed, and sometimes downright stole. It's almost fitting that Port Huron idolizes such an individual, since the town itself is swathed in a veneer of supposed boot-strap success stories, when, in fact, both politically and socially, it is remarkably backwards and ersatz. Edison sold candy to train passengers, and learned very early how to make a buck. He was a hack, otherwise, stumbling his way through other people's ideas while putting on a show of being some kind of marvel. That's it. That sums up the man's entire history.

[jhbadger]

He actually started out as a real inventor, but he ended up as someone like Steve Jobs -- the public face of a large corporation with thousands of people under him doing the real work.