Photobiographies
3 total works
He slept little at night and so would catnap during the day, anywhere he felt like, even stretching out on his lab table for some Z's. He worked with many assistants, whom he called "muckers," and together they would work round the clock to feverishly develop inventions and beat out their competition. One bout of this earned a group the name, "the Insomnia Squad." Edison even nicknamed his first children, "Dot" and "Dash" after the symbols in Morse code. Thomas Edison was a significant influence on a developing industrial nation, and he was recognized for his achievements even in his own time. When he died at the age of 84, President Herbert Hoover asked all Americans to honor him by turning off their electric lights for a moment of darkness. Edison filled more than 3,000 notebooks with sketches and notes, and the best of that material is captured here. Compelling period images of Edison at work and of his life and times round out a humanizing portrait of a great American.
This is the inspiring photobiography of Anne Mansfield Sullivan, a woman born into a life of daunting disadvantage and social obstacle. She grew up poor, with little education, the child of struggling Irish immigrants. By the age of eight, Annie was almost blind because of untreated trachoma. Following her mother’s death, the young girl entered an almshouse, where she spent four years among the most wretched of society’s outcasts. Her inquiring intellect and determination helped her escape this bleak detention, and she was sent to the Perkins School for the Blind.
There, at the age of 14, her education began, and her lively mind soon blossomed. After graduation, she was hired as a teacher for Helen Keller, a six-year-old girl who was blind and deaf due to illness. With patience and compassion, Annie reached into the dark, silent world of the little girl, opening her mind and soul to life’s beauty. She became "Helen’s eyes." Because of her inspired breakthroughs and accomplishments with Helen, Annie was soon known as the "Miracle Worker." Annie and Helen spent the rest of their lives togethertwo complex women with feisty personalities who achieved international acclaim.
Marfé Ferguson Delano’s evocative account of teacher and student breaking down barriers to enjoy the wonders of intellectual discovery is a profoundly moving story.
On the 100th anniversary of the publishing of the special theory of relativity, this National Geographic photobiography chronicles the life of one of the most brilliant scientists who ever lived.
Through compelling text and stirring archival photographs, the author recounts Einstein's life from his privileged childhood in Austria through the crucial years during World War II, and his death 50 years ago in Princeton, New Jersey. Young readers learn about Einstein's remarkable theories that still influence technologies of today and discover the causes he passionately supported such as disarmament and civil liberties.