Thomas Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application. Edison's name is registered on 1,093 patents. Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him wider notice was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey. His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. Despite its limited sound quality and that
Menlo-Atherton High School through the surrounding neighborhood. Menlo-Atherton is home to a professional-level 492-seat theater, the Menlo-Atherton Center for Performing Arts. It is home to the school play and musical; band, orchestra, guitar, and choir concerts; the Menlo-Atherton Student Film Festival; the Bear Arts Expo, a collaboration between all of M-A's arts classes; the Senior Fashion Show; and many other school events. It also hosts events related to the City of Menlo Park, which partially financed its construction, and is a regular venue of ensembles and music festivals including the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Music@Menlo. The Advanced Jazz Ensemble regularly travels to festivals