* * *
December 28, 1879
Menlo Park, New Jersey
No one needed a formal invitation to witness the Menlo Park exhibition. Edison’s blanket announcement didn’t discriminate as to who could show. As a result, people from all fields of occupation and socioeconomic classes made the trip. This was perfectly fine with Edison, who held claim that any- and everyone should be able to see the light. After all, his bulb was meant for affordable, practical use by all. What better way to drive that point home than by welcoming anyone who was interested?
People came.
And while some of the initial visitors were unreasonably disappointed that the street lampposts were at first not lit up on a real street—and instead were displayed in a bare Menlo Park field—the reaction was positive across the board.
* * *
The next day, more lampposts were lit along the street, satisfying those hard-to-please early visitors. Within two days, Edison’s promise had been fulfilled and ten streetlamps were shining brightly, allowing the growing crowd of visitors—which had quickly soared into the hundreds within a couple of days—to casually stroll along and stop in the laboratory, or at Sarah Jordan’s boardinghouse next door, which was fully furnished with lights, or at any of the other buildings lit up on the Menlo Park estate.
Impressed visitors came and went, all paying witness to the spectacle the great Edison had promised. The crowds grew as New Year’s Eve neared. What sort of tricks would the Wizard have up his sleeve for the echoing chime of the New Year?
As it turned out, Edison had planned a whole slew of tricks.
A laboratory assistant showed off the way an average bulb would be used in the typical household over a proposed thirty-year span of time, turning it on and off over and over to simulate the many comings and goings of multiple household members. The light never burned out.
A bulb was housed and illuminated underwater in a glass jar, delighting wide-eyed audience members with the shimmering water and shadowy ripples. The Wizard himself was part of the show, just “a simple young man attired in the homeliest manner, using for his explanations not high sounding technical terms, but the plainest and simplest language,” as the New York Herald described him.
On New Year’s Day in 1880, the full weight of Thomas Edison’s popularity pressed down on Menlo Park and on the laboratory itself, which was said to have shown signs of significant stress and wear with all the traffic and the beyond-maximum capacity. Inside the lab, light bulbs had been arranged in the shape of a miniature representation of Menlo Park, and this only added to the chaotic pushing and shoving as everyone tried to get a closer look. Hysteria took over, and Edison himself was forced to retreat to his private office in an attempt to quell the commotion his presence caused, like that of a modern-day pop star being clamored after by the public. The white flag was waved the next day when Edison, amid the pleas of his colleagues and business partners, closed Menlo Park to the public.
Now that Edison had the bulb, he knew it was time to take his invention beyond Menlo Park. Everyone around the world deserved to see the light.
One big problem remained: What source of power could be used?
They had invented the light bulb. But that didn’t mean anything unless they could develop a system to run it.
* * *
The light bulb was a brand-new invention. Sure, it was awe-inspiring and a monumental achievement, but housing light in a glass dome was a totally new concept. A host of problems came with inventing something that had no preexisting foundation. If Edison wanted to allow his new bulb to be used by all, that meant he’d have to create everything else to go along with it.
One main issue was that there were no outlets, sockets, or fixtures for this brilliant contraption. In other words, people wouldn’t have any way to use the breakthrough device. In modern-day society, if someone gives you a brand-new bulb, you don’t look at it with a quizzical expression, wondering how to make it work. You realize you have many options. If you’re indoors, you can look around and you’ll see a lamp or two, or maybe even five in a room. Or you can find a socket inside or outside any building and simply screw the bulb in, or do a little walk-through and use it with any of the many fixtures readily available. The humor of the saying “How many [insert subject of joke] does it take to screw in a light bulb?” plays on the ease with which the device can be used. Today, that is. Not in 1880, when Thomas Edison had just created the bulb and put on a show at Menlo Park.
Even worse, it wasn’t only the hardware Edison needed to invent. A whole system of electricity had to be designed and implemented. Wiring, outlets, and power sources and stations. Everything was yet to be created. This system also had to treat the volatile and mysterious science of electricity with the care and caution that was necessary to make it safe for the average person. If inventing the bulb was thought to be difficult, creating a complex and intricate system of electricity was about to make the incandescent bulb look like a child’s toy.
* * *
Direct current was Edison’s first and only love when it came to powering his magical bulbs. That stubborn boy who often refused to accept opinions contrary to his own saw no other manner in which electricity should be conducted and distributed, and at the beginning of 1880 Edison submitted his first patent application for a “System of Electrical Distribution.”
There were problems with direct current, especially in the planning stages, as Edison looked to light up New York City, specifically Lower Manhattan. The main problem was that direct current had a short life span in terms of distribution over longer distances (the farther away from the generator/dynamo, the weaker the electric power), which meant multiple large generators and power plants would need to be established every half mile to maintain an even power distribution throughout the city. This meant rural areas were essentially out of luck. For these areas, the solution would be smaller site-based power stations. This was not an initial concern, though, and the Menlo Park boys instead focused on what was needed to power Lower Manhattan, and in the process live up to a promise Edison had made years ago.
Worse yet, the elementary dynamos that existed at the time were not efficient enough to power on the scale Edison needed. These existing dynamos could power the arc lighting systems employed in 1880, but comparing an arc lighting scheme to that of supplying everybody in a given city with light—and powering other devices to come—was laughable. As with sockets and fixtures, here again Thomas Edison knew he’d have to invent something even more important: dynamos that were powerful and efficient enough to do the job.
In addition to the fact that direct current had a short range of distribution, it also required multiple wires. Telegraph and telephone wires already riddled the area like ugly spiderwebs all over environments like New York City, sagging just about everywhere, scaring people who were not at all knowledgeable about electricity. To Edison’s credit, he had the foresight to see that adding to the overhead maze would lead to nothing but problems. For this reason, his plan from the very beginning was to bury the wires underground. But this too came with problems, as workers needed to dig ditches all over the city, and the wires themselves had to be insulated.
Edison and his team knew they weren’t ready to rush into Lower Manhattan and work out the glitches—the glitches that came with every invention, not to mention such a grand one as this. To prepare for the full-scale effort and troubleshoot issues behind the scenes, Menlo Park became a practice field. Wires were laid out in fields around Menlo to represent roads, with some four to five hundred streetlights lining them. Wire was buried underground and insulated experimentally, which would be an early failure and force the crew to spend more time to properly insulate the veins of copper spread through the ground.
Meanwhile, other hungry businessmen and inventors were trying to push Edison from his spot at the head of the table. In October 1880, Edison heard from his old friend and reporter Edwin Fox, who had claimed to witness, out the window of his Manhattan office,
a team of workers in the building across the way busily creating bulbs much like Edison’s. If this were true, it meant someone else was pushing into Edison’s turf.
Edison would later discover that these bulbs were designed by Hiram Maxim and held a signature M-shaped filament, manufactured and sold by the United States Electric Lighting Company. There was no worry in Thomas Edison about someone essentially using his design, as he knew that was inevitable. What worried him was that Maxim and United States Electric were beating him to the punch in the New York City market. This could not happen—Manhattan was his.
A determined Thomas Edison looked to start his takeover of Lower Manhattan. He hadn’t even had a chance to truly explore the details of planning the process before running into a significant snag. His system required power stations with lines running underground to neighboring buildings. A lot of lines. To be able to dig and lay the crucial electrical lines, Edison needed permission from the corrupt government of New York City, the New York Board of Aldermen. Edison’s idea to win over the aldermen was to throw a massive party that would put his artificial light on display. After an extravagant party and light show featuring over four hundred lamps at Menlo Park in December 1880—with reportedly more glasses of champagne being handled than glass bulbs—Edison got his wish, though the price was still substantial in the end. He’d impressed government officials enough to gain permission to lay the important lines underground where he wanted them, all through Lower Manhattan.
* * *
Menlo Park had been the perfect place for Thomas Edison and his team of wiz kids to stay relatively close to the action of New York City while maintaining enough separation to stay focused on work. But almost losing Manhattan to Hiram Maxim was too close a call. It taught Edison something very important. If he wanted to light up New York City, he needed to be in New York City. Menlo Park might not have been incredibly far from the hustle and bustle of New York City business, but the light from the New Jersey invention factory wasn’t bright enough to reach the place he promised to light up. As long as he stayed in Menlo Park, the public would be in the dark about the promise of Edison’s light.
Less than a month after the Menlo Park exhibition for the city representatives, Edison Electric Light Company made the bold move of purchasing a four-story brownstone at 65 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for the specific purpose of being a constant showplace for what Edison Electric had accomplished and what it promised to soon deliver to all.
A gas-powered plant in the basement ran over two hundred Edison bulbs throughout the building, letting the place shine like Manhattan’s new North Star, luring people to the open-to-all exhibition. The brass of Edison Electric Light knew it was a genius marketing ploy. But only if it came with an ever-present Thomas Edison. They knew the key was to have their prized showman in their Fifth Avenue brownstone.
Many investors were nervous about proposing to Edison the idea of moving him from Menlo Park to the new Manhattan home base, since he had been extremely vocal about wanting to get back to work and turn away from the needy public eye. Some were certain he’d say—or shout—no. After all, it wouldn’t just mean he’d serve as window dressing, doorman, and glorified tour guide. It also meant turning over operational control of his invention factory to someone else.
Yet, to everyone’s surprise, Edison agreed to the move. He was willing to do whatever best helped Edison Electric Light and his precious bulbs.
In January 1881, Edison the inventor once again became Edison the salesman. After a full month of greeting all kinds of visitors—celebrities, scientists, investors, politicians, everyone—Edison brought his family from Menlo Park to Manhattan, housing them in a hotel across the street from the Fifth Avenue brownstone. Within three months, the rest of the workers and equipment followed suit and moved to New York City.
* * *
Now that New York City was the official home of Edison Electric Light, the real work of setting up a system to power Lower Manhattan began in earnest. The initial task, finding a place to build the first centralized power plant, supplied a reality check for Edison, who initially planned for a single-floor building around two hundred square feet in size. Early efforts included searching in the poorest area, where Edison assumed he could acquire a suitable plot of land and a structure for around ten thousand dollars. Instead, he discovered that none of the buildings were much more than twenty to thirty feet across. And even these properties held a price tag much loftier than the father of invention had anticipated. In the end, Edison settled on two buildings on Pearl Street and paid not $10,000 but an astronomical $155,000. Edison took it in stride. “I was compelled,” he explained, “to change my plan and go upward in the air where real estate was cheap.” The size limitations forced him to redesign what had called for two hundred square feet by building up instead of across. “I cleared out the building entirely to the walls and built my station of structural ironwork, running it up high.”
For the next two years, Edison would expand his business and work on making Pearl Street the power plant it needed to be. His business enterprise grew as he took on Edison Machine Works—housed in a separate building on the Lower East Side—to design and manufacture his dynamos, which had to be built completely from scratch to support the power needed. When the Edison Electric board of directors didn’t wish to get involved with manufacturing light bulbs, Edison and a few of his closest colleagues, including Charles Batchelor, created Edison Lamp Company. Indeed, Edison had gone all in with his plans to deliver electric light to the world.
Edison Machine Works
At the same time—less than half a year from the Menlo Park exhibition for the champagne-infused politicians—upward of four thousand applications for on-site “isolated” plants came rolling in. These consisted of small generating plants for the lighting of individual homes, factories, and businesses. Initially, Edison denied these requests and focused solely on his promise to light Lower Manhattan. Once he’d accomplished that, he would tend to the rest of New York City. By November 1881, though, Edison had been convinced to allow some applications to be approved, and the Edison Company for Isolated Lighting was established. Isolated plants were installed and accepted gratefully in various locations around the world, totaling over two hundred by May 1882.
Back in New York City, the process of lighting and powering Lower Manhattan dragged on. By the end of 1881, only a third of the district had been wired. It was clear this was going to take time.
Finally, on September 4, 1882, at 3:00 p.m.—four grueling years after Thomas Edison had announced his first news about the electric light—a switch was thrown, amid much pomp and circumstance, and Edison’s bulbs spread light around Lower Manhattan. As a reward to the first customers, the first four months of lighting were free of charge.
For two years the output of Pearl Street, along with the number of customers, slowly grew. But not without issue. All this high-powered machinery and all these devices were new—literally, they had just been created out of nothing—and problems developed.
To help solve the problems that cropped up, Edison, as he always did, turned to his trusted team, which had expanded like his business. In 1884, one new employee would have a brief tenure with Edison Electric but would linger like a thorn in Edison’s side for years to come.
* * *
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian immigrant brand-new to Edison Electric, and he was hungry to show his boss what he could do.
It didn’t take long for Thomas Edison to notice both Tesla’s eagerness and skill, so to test the new guy, he challenged him to fix the issues with Edison’s lighting system aboard the SS Oregon, which was docked in the East River, unable to make its voyage.
Tesla worked an all-nighter aboard the Oregon, determined to stay aboard until he had met Edison’s challenge.
The next morning at five a.m., Tesla saw Edison and Charles Batchelor walking toward him on Fifth Avenue. As Tesla recounted the experience: “When I told [Edison] I was coming from the Orego
n and had repaired both machines, he looked at me in silence and walked away without another word. But when he had gone some distance I heard him remark, ‘Batchellor [sic], this is a good … man.’”
Edison and his original dynamo
Nikola Tesla had shown up at a time of growth, commotion, and difficulty for Edison Electric. The company was taking on customers, adding buildings and institutions, and branching out. This, of course, meant more central stations were needed, and more power from their dynamos.
After Tesla had shown his worth, he waited for the right time to tell his boss he had a safe way to power many more homes and buildings with far less physical material expended. Alternating current, Tesla was certain, was the answer. It’s unclear when, exactly, Tesla had this conversation with Edison, as it varies from source to source. But gleaned from multiple sources, it’s clear Tesla did at one point hold an audience with Edison, during which he explained the many benefits of alternating current. These benefits included needing fewer power stations (one on the outskirts of town as opposed to needing one every half-mile with direct current), using less wire, and having much more power that could be distributed as seen fit, not just for lights but for any and every other electric device.
Edison seemed not at all interested, and it’s not clear how much of a chance Tesla had to discuss his scheme with his boss. According to Tesla, Edison was resolute that he had no intentions of even entertaining the notion of employing alternating current. Tesla explained that Edison claimed “there was no future to it and anyone who dabbled in that field was wasting his time; and besides, it was a deadly current whereas direct current was safe.”
Instead of theorizing over a deadly science like alternating current, Edison had another challenge for Tesla. He told him to work on the system they were using—direct current—and improve the dynamos and the efficiency of the system. According to Tesla, Edison had “promised me fifty thousand dollars on the completion of this task.”
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