Classroom

Young Al Edison was often sick. Scarlet fever may have damaged his hearing - although he often said it was a train conductor boxing his ears, or lifting him onto a train by his ears, that caused his deafness.

Whether he could hear well or not, Edison was no star pupil. His public school master called him “addled,” meaning mixed-up or confused. That made his mother, a school teacher herself, so angry that she pulled Al out of school and taught him herself.

Back then, a mother taking over as teacher wasn’t unusual. “Regular” school was often held only during the three non-farming months of the year, anyway.