The Second Industrial Revolution, Electricity Part 1

What's changed?

"Modern labor-saving devices eliminated drudgery, not labor. Before industrialization, women fed, clothed, and nursed their families by preparing (with the help of their husbands and children) food, clothing, and medication." "In the post-industrial age, women feed, clothe, and nurse their families (without much direct assistance from anyone else) by cooking, cleaning driving, shopping, and waiting."

Edison's Talking Doll 1890

"The voices of the little monsters were exceedingly unpleasant to hear!" - Edison

Faraday's Disc, 1831 (Direct Current)

Copper disk rotated between poles of a magnet. Electricity is now a useful new technology.

Tesla Coil, ca. 1891

Intended for the wireless transmission of electricity, produced high-voltage, low-current, high frequency Alternating Current

Thomas Edison, American 1847-1931

Inventor of first parctical light bulb and America's first research laboratory

Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but he invented the first ...

commercially parctical incandescent light

Harold Pitney Brown, Electrical engineer opposed to AC

conducted public demonstrations: electrocuted animals with AC, lobbied to limit AC to 300 volts, used the publicity to attack Westinghouse Electric Company, hired by Edison.

Latimer wrote the first book on ...

electric lighting in the US

Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American 1856-1943

electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, best known for alternating current (AC) electrical supply system

The first invented after industrial revolution is ...

electricity

Three major breakthroughs....

electricity, chemicals, and internal combustion

Many people were attempting to invent the light bulb but there were flaws:

expensive, too much current, extremely short life

Arc lamps provided many cities with their ...

first electric streetlights

Humphrey Davy arc lamp 1803 England

first incandescent light, used a bank of batteries and two charcoal rods

1943 Tesla, 85, died alone in his ...

hotel suite, in poverty and debt

Therefore, it stands to reason that electricity was ...

the first American industry whose innovation was directed by organized research laboratories

1893 World's Columbian Exposition

With Tesla's system, Westinghouse electrified the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago with alternating current, demonstrating its safety and reliability

Tesla and Westinghouse

1888: George Westinghouse licensed Tesla's patented AC induction motor and transformer. Westinghouse hired Tesla to be a consultant at Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co.

Edison electrocuted an ...

36 years old elephant.

Edison had over ...

100 patents

Wireless lighting

A gas-filled light bulb coated with phosphorus and illuminated without wires by an electromagnetic field from the "Tesla Coil".

Michael Faraday

British Physicist

Truly Time Saving?

Electric appliances seriously changed the life of the American housewife, but were they all for the best? The invention of washing machines and vacuum cleaners should have saved time on housework...but not necessarily!

"The only excuse for the use of the fatal alternating current is that it saves the company operating it (AC) from spending a larger sum of money for the heavier copper wires which are required by the safe incandescent systems. That is, the public must submit to constant danger from sudden death, in order that a corporation may pay a little larger dividend."

Harold P. Brown, Letter to New York Post

Menlo Park Laboratory today moved to ...

Henry Ford Museum, Detroit

Lewis Latimer-part of the team

Latimer's carbon filament made Edison's light bulb practical: longer-lasting, less expensive, more efficient

Wizard of ...

Menlo Park

First research laboratory

Menlo Park, NJ

Higher Expectations

Nevertheless, now-a-days there is something wrong with a woman's work is never done

Then there was ...

Tesla!

1924:

The average homemaker spent 52 hours a week doing housework

1964:

The average homemaker spent 55 hours a week on housework

Wardenclyffe Tower, Radiant Energy 1889, Long Island, NY

Was to be Tesla's First World Communication System

AC or DC?

Westinghouse and Edison became adversaries. Edison promoted direct current (DC) and Westinghouse promoted the more easily transmitted alternating current (AC). Thus, the "Current Wars".

Electricity moves ...

into the home

Second Industrial Revolution was due ...

not to the lone inventor, but to science and organized research