the inventor was more than 1,000 patents, the talented son of myland, ohio.entatives, the honorable paul d. ryan. [ applause ] >> so, when i heard that we were unveiling a statue of thomas edison, my first thought was, you mean we don't already have one here? when i heard which state was sponsoring the statue, my reaction was, oh, he was born in ohio. and then after i thought it over, i realized that makes absolutely perfect sense. ralph waldo emerson once argued that great men don't shape their time so much as they reflect their times. they give voice to long simmering frustrations and desires. they solve long-standing problems. they also in a funny way, they take on all the quirks and contradictions of their countrymen at their time. in other words, they are a walking embodiment of the spirit of the age. thomas edison was absolutely no exception. born in the middle of the 19th century, in the middle of the country, he spent his life in the middle of all the action. in his heyday, america was on the rise. america was really on fire. it seemed like we were in