Theodore Miller Edison (July 10, 1898 – November 24, 1992) was an American businessman, inventor, and environmentalist. He was the fourth son and youngest child of inventor

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

, and founder of Calibron Industries, Inc. He was the third child of Edison with his second wife,

Mina Miller Edison Mina Miller Edison (July 6, 1865 – August 24, 1947) was an American community activist and the second wife of inventor and industrialist Thomas Edison. She was a community activist in Fort Myers, Florida, known for her work advancing the use of ...

Biography

He was born on July 10, 1898, at Glenmont, the Edison home in

Llewellyn Park Llewellyn Park is a neighborhood in West Orange in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. It is a gated residential community of 175 homes, west of New York City. History Llewellyn Park was founded in 1853 by Llewellyn Solomon Haskell, ...

West Orange, New Jersey West Orange is a suburban township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 48,843, an increase of 2,636 (+5.7%) from the 46,207 counted in the 2010 Census.

. He attended

The Haverford School , motto_translation = , address = 450 Lancaster Avenue , location = , region = , city = Haverford , county = , state = Pennsylvania , ...

Haverford, Pennsylvania Haverford is an unincorporated community located in both Haverford Township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, and Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County, approximately west of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) ope ...

, and later the

Montclair Academy Montclair Kimberley Academy (MKA) is a co-educational private school for students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade located in Montclair in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. One of New Jersey's largest independent day schools, ...

Montclair, New Jersey Montclair () is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated on the cliffs of the Watchung Mountains, Montclair is a wealthy and diverse commuter town and suburb of New York City within the New York metropolitan area. ...

, from which he graduated in 1916. Theodore ended his education at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. He earned a physics degree in 1923 and remained there another year to pursue graduate studies. In 1925, he married Anna Maria (Ann) Osterhout, a graduate of Vassar College. After graduation, Theodore worked for his father's company, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., starting as a lab assistant. He later founded his own company, Calibron Industries, Inc., and built his own smaller laboratory in West Orange. He earned over 80

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

s in his career. In later years he became an ardent

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

and helped preserve

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a National Audubon Society sanctuary located in southwest Florida, north of Naples, Florida and east of Bonita Springs, in the United States. The sanctuary was established to protect one of the largest remaining stands ...

in southwest Florida. He was also an opponent of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

and advocate of

Zero Population Growth Zero population growth, sometimes abbreviated ZPG, is a condition of demographic balance where the number of people in a specified population neither grows nor declines; that is, the number of births plus in-migrants equals the number of death ...

. He lived in

and died from Parkinson's disease on November 24, 1992.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edison, Theodore 1898 births 1992 deaths American environmentalists American film studio executives American inventors American manufacturing businesspeople Businesspeople from New Jersey

Theodore Miller Theodore Miller (May 16, 1816 – August 18, 1895) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. Life Born in Hudson, Columbia County, New York, he was admitted to the bar in 1837. He was District Attorney of Columbia County from 1843 to ...

Montclair Kimberley Academy alumni People from West Orange, New Jersey Neurological disease deaths in New Jersey Deaths from Parkinson's disease