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
