American inventor and businessman. (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. Contrary to received wisdom, he was not the first person to record sound. Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville got there twenty years before Edison but had no means (at the time) of playing the recordings he made.