Thomas Edison's House is located in Butchertown, historically known as a center of meat production. Edison was born in 1847 in Ohio, and moved to Louisville in 1866 working as a telegraph key operator for the Western Union. Later that year he planned to travel to Brazil but due to a riot the waterway was closed and he returned to Louisville.
He became fascinated with telegraphy, and his early inventions made improvements to the telegraph system. He was granted his first patent in 1868 for an electric vote recorder which was used in the U.S. Congress. Over his lifetime he was granted over a thousand patents for his inventions, and is probably best known for inventing the incandescent light bulb. The Museum has a variety of his prototypes and early lightbulbs.
The Museum also includes many other artifacts relating to Edison's inventions including both cylinder and disc phonographs, and a kinetscope, which was the first home motion picture projector. There is also a timeline of his inventions, and to put them in context, the significant events that happened nationally and around the world. His inventions had a profound effect on modern life - switching on a light watching a film or listening to music were all made possible due to his life of experimenting, ingenuity and invention.
The Museum has recently restored Edison's bedroom, and made other improvements to the house. In 2007 it celebrated Edison's 160th birthday with tours of the house and the 'famous' light bulb Tours of the house and its exhibits by volunteer guides are available.
