Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847 in Ohio and emerged as a leading American inventor, developing many pioneering devices including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting light bulb. He established America's first industrial research lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1876. There, he invented the phonograph in 1877 and developed an improved light bulb with a carbonized bamboo filament in 1880. By the late 1880s, Edison's research lab had helped establish electric lighting as a viable infrastructure, though alternating current would eventually come to dominate the industry. Edison received over 1,000 patents for his inventions before his death in 1931.