The Westinghouse Electric Company of Pittsburgh was much strengthened by winning the contract to illuminate the Fair. With its finances secured, Westinghouse put on a large display of its latest machinery and lighting fixtures. One exhibit in the Electrical Building showed the work of Nikola Tesla in high tension alternating currents. Tesla himself came to demonstrate experiments, which were “so marvelous as to be almost beyond description.” The Westinghouse Company awed the crowds with its scintillating wall illuminations produced by electric sparks playing on glass plates backed by tin foil. Westinghouse also installed one of the large generators in the Machinery Building that gave power to the lighting throughout the fairgrounds.
Expanding Use of Electricity at the Close of the 19th Century
Before the coming of electricity, homes were heated by wood or coal fires, kerosene lamps lit up the rooms, and food was kept cold in iceboxes. Cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston were polluted with the soot and noise coming from steam locomotives and billowing out of the chimneys of private homes and factories. Electricity promised a quieter and cleaner environment. The generating plants were built far from urban areas and wires carried the electric power over long distances to the homes, offices, and factories, replacing deliveries of coal, wood, and ice. Small electric motors powered the kitchen ranges, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, fans, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, and heaters and made housework easier and homes cleaner. People had more time for leisure. Indeed “the telephone, the electric light and the electric motor were the three great fin de siècle inventions” (Andrews 1896).
Among the electric machines shown at the Fair were devices for cutting and engraving glass, dictating machines, diagnostic tools for medicine, and drills for dentistry and carpentry. The September 9, 1893, issue of American Scientific carried the following item:
In Ashburn, Me. Mr. Charles Dunn, one of the most progressive brick manufacturers in New England, has arranged an electric motor to do the work of horses in grinding. In all yards where horses are used it is an established fact that one of the greatest troubles experienced in the windlass and treadmill is the rapid decline of the horses, as the strain upon their shoulders is so great that they succumb in a very short time. Other New England manufacturers are adapting the use of electricity in their plants, and with such excellent results as to premise the opinion that it will soon become universal.
Street Trolleys
America’s first horse-drawn street railway was built in 1831 along the Bowery from Prince Street to 14th Street, linking Harlem to New York City. In 1853 New York was joined to Brooklyn by bridge and trolley. The stagecoaches that connected Boston with the surrounding towns gave way to larger omnibuses that carried more passengers. In 1856, rails were embedded into the main road linking Boston to Cambridge. Philadelphia began its horse-drawn trolley system in 1859 and Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Chicago and other cities soon followed (Middleton 1967). The horse powered trolley systems extended into the suburbs. The horsecars, as they were called, ran on metal wheels over rails. They were more efficient than omnibuses, gave a more comfortable ride, and were less of a strain on the animals. These horsecars traveled at six miles per hour. The work was hard on the horses and the towns had the daily task of removing manure off the streets. The John Stephenson Company of New York was a major builder of horsecars. These were sold to towns and cities across America and exported to cities around the world. The Stephenson Company had many competitors, including the Saint Louis Car Company, the Cleveland Bridge & Car Company, and the Philadelphia Car Works (White 1974).
Frank Julian Sprague is known as the “Father of Electric Traction” and was one of the key figures in the transformation of the streetcar from horse power to electric power. Sprague, born in Milford, Connecticut, in 1857, possessed keen mathematical abilities that took him to the U.S. Naval Academy. After leaving the Navy he worked briefly for Thomas Edison, and then formed the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company. The Sprague motor pulled lightweight streetcars connected by trolley-poles to the overhead electric wires. Sprague’s first contract was the electric streetcar system for Richmond, Virginia. The contract called for 12 miles of track, 40 streetcars, and an electric plant capable of generating 375 horsepower. The work was started in 1887 and completed a year later. The Richmond electric trolley project left Sprague deeply in debt, and he sold his company to Thomson-Houston of Lynn in 1888. Boston was the first major American city to move from horse-drawn to electric-powered trolleys. Boston had many private horse-trolley lines that were consolidated in 1888 into the West End Street Railway, which had 1,500 cars and 9,000 horses. In 1889, the directors of the West End Street Railway traveled to Richmond to examine Sprague’s system. They decided that Boston’s trolleys should be electrified, using overhead wires, rather than underground electric cables. The West End Street Railway contracted with Thomson-Houston to build the system with 77 dynamos, generating 2,119 horsepower to run 691 electric trolleys.
The success in Boston induced other cities to convert their systems from horse to electric-power. The transformation from horses to electricity was rapid. By 1896, electrically powered trolleys, moving three times as fast, had largely replaced the horse. Across America, horse-carriage and railroad car companies shifted to build the smaller and lighter street trolleys. J. G. Brill of Philadelphia was the largest of the streetcar builders. Competitors included the Laconia Car Company of Laconia, New Hampshire; American Car Company of St. Louis; Cincinnati Car Company; Kuhlman Car Company of Cleveland; and the Osgood-Bradley Car Company of Worcester, Massachusetts. These companies sold trolleys to cities and towns across America as well as to Europe, Asia, and Australia. General Electric was the leading supplier of the electric motors for the trolleys.
The Electric Horseless Carriage
In 1800, the Italian Allessandro Volta found a practical way of harnessing electricity, leading to the wet-cell battery, in which electricity generated from a chemical reaction passes from the negative to the positive electrode. In post–Civil War America batteries were widely used for railroad signaling and lighting. In 1891, William Morrison (1850–1927), a Scottish-born chemist who had settled in Des Moines, Iowa, visited the American Battery Company at 188 Madison Street, Chicago. Morrison built a surrey, with steel-clad wooden wheels and three sets of bench seats, each wide enough to seat four people. Packed under the seats were 24 storage cell batteries that required 10 hours to charge. When fully charged, the batteries generated four horsepower, enough to move the 3,000-pound vehicle, with 12 passengers, at a top speed of 20 miles per hour. The batteries ran only 50 miles before needing recharging. William Morrison’s battery-powered surrey, with its simple steering and braking mechanisms, was America’s first electric automobile. Morrison proudly showed his cumbersome vehicle at a parade in Des Moines in 1888. Now he was ready to show it to the world. The management of American Battery saw the potential of Morrison’s carriage and bought the rights to it. Equipped with ABC batteries, the company planned to showcase the carriage at the Fair by taking it out on regular excursions. The horseless carriage caused a sensation, but frightened the horses.
Two other companies showed their electric vehicles at the Fair. These were the Ward Electrical Car Company and the Keller-Dagenhart Company, which displayed its electric tricycle. Also on display were the early steam-powered automobiles. Thomas Edison and Harold Sturges of the American Battery Company got into a heated argument at the Fair as to which form of energy would eventually dominate. Edison saw the future in the internal combustion engine, while Sturges argued for the cleaner electricity. The answer came in November 1895 in a race sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald . Four gasoline and two electric cars competed and the winner was the throaty gasoline-powered car from Springfield, Massachusetts, driven by the Duryea brothers. Electric cars, nonetheless, were quieter, less polluting, and got better with advances in battery technology. Albert Pope built his fortune on the Columbia bicycle and then l
ost it on the electric automobile. The 1903 Columbia light electric runabout, the Mark XXXVIII, reached speeds of 15 miles per hour and could “mount any grade that can be climbed by a horse-drawn vehicle.” During its brief life the Columbia electric car sold for $900. Other companies, including General Electric, failed to find success with their electric cars.
The first battery-powered automobile made its appearance at the Fair. A few years later the electric car competed against gasoline powered cars. The Electric Vehicle Company of Hartford was a failed offshoot of Albert Pope’s Columbia bicycle company.
Electric Locomotives
The American railroad system, based on steam power, began with the industrialization of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States. By 1840, the nation had 3,106 miles of track, mostly in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts. The extension of the railroads followed the growth of the Midwest, especially Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana. Next, the railroads pushed further west. In 1856, Theodore D. Judah persuaded Mark Hopkins, Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, and Charles Crocker (known to history as the “Big Four”) to invest in the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. These four Easterners (Huntington from Connecticut, Hopkins, Crocker, and Stanford from New York) had moved to California to make their fortunes in the Gold Rush. Their Central Pacific railroad was completed in 1869, using thousands of indentured Chinese workers who were paid less than the white laborers. The Central Pacific replaced the slow stagecoaches and the mule trains taking the overland route, and the steamships that sailed from the eastern ports around Cape Horn on a 15,000-mile journey to San Francisco. The transcontinental railroad carried Easterners and new immigrants to the land grants and the new cities of the Midwest and the West. After the Civil War, railroad lines penetrated the South to form a vast nationwide network. By the start of the Fair, the nation was saturated with 200,000 miles of track with Chicago at its center. Chicago’s railroad network linked the industrial Northeast with the grains and meat of the Midwest, the coal and petroleum of Pennsylvania, the cotton of the South, and the gold of California.
The chaos of privately owned railroad lines converging on Chicago was eased after 1881 when the Union Station opened at the corner of Canal and Adams Streets. Every day hundreds of steam engines belched their way into and out of the station. The noise, smell, and pollution were viewed as signs of progress. After 1890, electricity was offered as an alternative for steam power. The General Electric Company showed its 30-ton electric locomotive at the Fair. This sleek and silent engine, fed by direct-current overhead wires, generated 12,000 pounds of traction and reached speeds of 30 miles per hour. Two years later the Westinghouse Electric Company showed its 46-ton electric engine, powered by alternating current. But it was the diesel and not the electric locomotive that largely replaced the steam engine.
General Electric demonstrated its electric locomotives at the Fair. Many companies were also building electric systems for streetcars at the time.
The Small Electric Motor and Home Appliances
In 1877, Thomas Edison discovered a way to record and reproduce sound. He set up the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company with an office in New York, but was so focused on the incandescent lamp that he sold his rights to the phonograph. Enterprising people took the phonograph to the Fair, attached rubber listening tubes to the machine, and charged 5¢ to listen to the recordings. Companies such as His Master’s Voice, Columbia, and the Victor Talking Machine Company made recording cylinders for the home market. These talking machines were initially wound by hand, but were later powered by electricity.
The room fan was among the first devices to work on electricity. In 1886 Schuyler S. Wheeler fixed a propeller at the end of a shaft attached to an electric motor. Wheeler had his inspiration from the concentric waves of water made by the propeller of ferryboats plying the Hudson River. If a propeller could move water, he reckoned, then it could move and cool the air. Wheeler took his idea to the Curtis & Crocker Electric Motor Company in New York and the electric fan was patented in December 1886. The prototype electric cooking stove on display in the Electricity Building was another source of wonder. The September 9, 1893 Scientific American noted that these stoves had no pipes, and emitted no dust or smoke and were elegant enough to adorn the parlor rather than stay in the dusty kitchen.
The wealthy Josephine Gans Cochrane hailed from Shelbyville, Illinois. She loved giving lavish dinner parties but was upset when her fine china was chipped or broken. Mrs. Cochrane desired a machine that would safely wash her dishes. Her need became urgent after her husband died, leaving her heavily in debt. Mrs. Cochrane measured her plates, cups, and saucers and designed a machine with a motor that would squirt hot soapy water to wash her china. Her idea worked and soon she was in business as Cochrane’s Crescent Washing Machine Company. Her company, which later became the Kitchen Aid Corporation, received a boost after it won an award at the Fair.12
The Elevator
Elisha Graves Otis (born 1811 in Halifax, Vermont) was a pioneer of the elevator. He began by inventing a hydraulic hoist to lift goods off the ground. The Otis Elevator Company combined with General Electric to develop electric-powered elevators with safety and braking devices (Goodwin 2001). Among his many competitors was the Sprague Electric Elevator Company of Philadelphia, established by Frank Sprague, the builder of the nation’s first electric streetcar system. During the last decade of the 19th century, buildings up to 20 stories high were beginning to dot the skylines of the great American cities. Built with steel frames, these tall buildings had electric-powered elevators, using a revolving drum to coil the hoisting ropes. This method was replaced early in the 20th century by the high-speed gearless traction electric elevator that made skyscrapers possible.
9. TRANSPORTATION BUILDING
The Transportation Building was 960 feet long and 256 feet wide. Its most distinguishing feature was its “Golden Door” entrance made up of a series of receding arches, all painted in gold leaf. Dankmar Adler (1844–1900) and his partner Louis H. Sullivan (1856–1924) designed the building. Adler was a Jewish civil engineer born in Germany, while Sullivan was Boston-born to an Irish father and a Swiss mother. Louis Sullivan studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before traveling to Paris. On his return to the United States, Sullivan saw his future in Chicago and joined Adler in 1883. Their partnership yielded some of Chicago’s greatest buildings, including the Stock Exchange and the Auditorium building. Completed in 1889, with 250,000 tons of hand-cut Maine and Minnesota granite, the immense Auditorium housed a 4,000-seat opera hall, an office building, and a grand hotel.
The exhibits of Great Britain, France, Germany, and other foreign nations were clustered on the south side of the ground floor of the Transportation Building. The British exhibit showed a model of the planned Forth Bridge in Scotland, and a copy of the 1828 “Rocket,” one of George Stephenson’s early locomotives. The Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company of Glasgow showed models of its past and future ships. The Cunard Steamship Company, sailing weekly to New York and Boston, displayed models of nine of its steamers ranging from the 2,050-ton Britannia, built in 1840; to their 13,000-ton Campania, completed in 1893. The Cunard boasted that in all its years on the high seas, it had never lost even a single passenger. The British exhibit also featured a full-scale locomotive from the London & Northwestern Railway, brought over from England especially for the Fair. The London & Northwestern claimed average speeds of 53 miles per hour, including stops at stations. The British displayed a model of H.M.S Victoria, which sank off Tripoli in the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of 400 men. The French exhibit presented its steamers arriving at New York, while the Germans showed a model of a swinging bridge in Berlin and gun trains used to haul their immense Krupp cannons.
The ornate Transportation Building was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis H. Sullivan. Its most striking feature was the entrance, made with receding arches painted in gold leaf.
America had also entered the steamship stak
es. William Cramp & Sons’ Ship & Engine Building Company of Philadelphia displayed a model of the steamer being built for the American Steamship Company based in the same city. The Harland & Hollingsworth Company of Wilmington, Delaware, showed its marine engines. In 1861, this Delaware company built the side-wheel steamer the USS Hatteras, which assisted in the blockade of southern ports during the Civil War. The Providence & Stonington Steam Ship Company displayed a model of the Fulton, the first steamer on Long Island Sound; and the Fall River Line exhibit showed a model of the steamer Puritan, which carried passengers between Boston and New York.
Tourism
At the close of the 19th century, few Americans could afford long vacations or the pleasures of foreign travel. The millions of visitors to the Fair delighted in the foreign exhibits and the sights along the Midway Plaisance with its Turkish village, Viennese coffee house, Cairo Street, Javanese village, and bamboo buildings of the South Seas. Here, indigenous peoples, dressed exotically in their nation’s traditional costumes, demonstrated their arts, culture, and cuisine. Several companies offering foreign and domestic travel packages to wealthy Americans were present in the Transportation Building at the Fair. The largest was Thos. Cook & Son of England, founded by Thomas Cook, who started out as an apprentice to a cabinet-maker. At the age of 17, he joined the local temperance society. In 1841, he arranged a railroad excursion for 570 passengers to a temperance meeting, charging each of them one shilling for the round trip of 23 miles, including lunch. Finding that he had a flare for organization, Cook established a business arranging group tours. He became famous by organizing the travel of 165,000 people to the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London’s Hyde Park. After his son John joined the business it became Thos. Cook & Son. In 1865, the company entered the North American market with offices in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The Chicago branch opened at 234 South Clark Street to take advantage of “that great railroad centre to all parts of the continent.” The company also had offices in the major European cities as well as cities in Asia and Africa. Thomas Cook died in 1892, the year his company issued 3,712,000 travel tickets.
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