Thomas Edison the recordings could be played only a few times, the phonograph made Edison a celebrity. Joseph Henry, president of the National Academy of Sciences and one of the most renowned electrical scientists in the US, described Edison as "the most ingenious inventor in this country... or in any other". In April 1878, Edison traveled to Washington to demonstrate the phonograph before the National Academy of Sciences, Congressmen, Senators and US President Hayes. The "Washington Post" described Edison as a "genius" and his presentation as "a scene... that will live in history". Although Edison obtained a patent for the phonograph in
Thomas Edison years to treat a variety of causes, and researchers believe that her symptoms could have been from morphine poisoning. Edison generally preferred spending time in the laboratory to being with his family. On February 24, 1886, at the age of thirty-nine, Edison married the 20-year-old Mina Miller (1865–1947) in Akron, Ohio. She was the daughter of the inventor Lewis Miller, co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution, and a benefactor of Methodist charities. They also had three children together: Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947. Wanting to be an inventor, but not having much of an aptitude for it,