I have mixed feelings about the "correct" answer. Davy showed that wires glowed when enough current was passed through them. Does that count? Swan improved on that with his lightbulb lasting longer, but a few minutes life is incomplete. Edison finished the invention.
Me, I tend to give the credit for the invention to Edison, while acknowledging that he stood on the shoulders of others. It's how credit is done for most inventions.
You might give more credit to the hundred or so people (all the equivalent of our PhD graduates today) who were doing the actual work for him.
Edison's contribution was to pay them enough so they could eat and live, and point them at a project.
And Edison's an even more interesting example to bring up in a Jobs discussion because of the whole history between himself and Tesla (and if nothing else tells you about the man's character, the elephant-electrocuting nonsense during the current wars would tell you all you needed to know).
> Edison's contribution was to pay them enough so they could eat and live, and point them at a project.
Edison's long string of inventions suggest his contribution was far more than that. (And the money used to pay his staff came from his prior inventions, Edison was not born rich.)
> elephant-electrocuting nonsense
We find that reprehensible today. But people at the time did not, and it's better to judge him in the context of his time.
Me, I tend to give the credit for the invention to Edison, while acknowledging that he stood on the shoulders of others. It's how credit is done for most inventions.