The Louisiana Purchase / Edison's Light Bulb Patent

Under the direction of President Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the largest single land deal in the history of the United States, doubled the size of the young nation when Napoleon Bonaparte of France sold 600 million acres for $15 million, or approximately 4¢ per acre, after his dream for an empire in America had been dashed. Secured through the successful negotiating efforts of Robert R. Livingston, the United States Minister at Paris, and special envoy James Monroe, the acquisition eventually became Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Montana, or parts of those states. Thomas Alva Edison, an Ohio native and inventor, applied for and received patents from the United States government for more than a thousand of his ideas, beginning with a vote recording machine in 1869. On January 27, 1880, he received his light bulb patent for an improvement in electric lamps, an invention that would fundamentally impact the lives of people throughout the world; his other inventions included the phonograph, the microphone, the mimeograph, the electric pen, the wireless telegraph, and the alkaline storage battery.

Hyattsville, Maryland · United States