Empires of Light
Page 43
18.
W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 206.
19.
Tesla, My Inventions, p. 67.
20.
Ibid.
21.
Ibid., p. 70.
22.
Ibid., p. 34.
23.
Ibid., p. 70.
24.
George T. Ferris, ed., Our Native Land (New York: Appleton, 1886), p. 554.
25.
Tesla, My Inventions, p. 71.
26.
Ratzlaff, Tesla Said, p. 280 (“Letter to the Institute of Immigrant Welfare” dated May 12, 1938).
27.
Tesla, My Inventions, p. 72.
28.
O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 62.
29.
Edwin G. Burrow and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 1152.
30.
O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 64.
31.
Alfred O. Tate, Edison’s Open Door (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1938), pp. 146–47.
32.
“Tesla Says Edison Was an Empiricist,” The New York Times, October 19, 1931, p. 25.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Marc Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (Secaucus, N.J.: Birch Lane Press, 1996), p. 41; Tesla ad, Electrical Review, September 14, 1886, p. 14.
35.
Ratzlaff, Tesla Said, p. 280.
36.
Ibid.
37.
Tesla, My Inventions, p. 72.
38.
“Summary of Events for 1886,” Index to the New-York Daily Tribune for 1886 (New York: Daily Tribune, 1887), pp. iv–v.
39.
Ratzlaff, Tesla Said, p. 280.
40.
Seifer, Wizard, p. 40.
41.
Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 340.
42.
Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, p. 254.
43.
Ibid.
44.
O’Neill, Prodigal Genius, p. 65.
45.
H. Gernback, “Tesla’s Egg of Columbus,” Electrical Experimenter, March 1919, p. 775.
46.
Ibid.
CHAPTER 5
George Westinghouse: “He Is Ubiquitous”
1.
Steven W. Usselman, “From Novelty to Utility: George Westinghouse and the Business of Innovation during the Age of Edison,” Business History Review 66, no. 2 (1992), p. 287.
2.
Ibid., p. 289.
3.
Guido Pantaleoni, “The Real Character of the Man as I Saw Him,” April 1939, p. 5. George Westinghouse: Anecdotes and Reminiscences, vol. 3, box 1, file folder 8, George Westinghouse Museum Archives, Wilmerding, Pennsylvania.
4.
George Wise, “William Stanley’s Search for Immortality,” Invention & Technology (summer–spring 1988), p. 43.
5.
“The Stanley and Thomson Incandescent Lamp,” Electrical World, September 27, 1884, p. 118.
6.
Henry G. Prout, A Life of George Westinghouse (New York: Scribner’s, 1926), p. 5.
7.
Francis E. Leupp, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918), p. 287.
8.
Prout, A Life of George Westinghouse, p. 293.
9.
C. A. Smith, “A Lesson Without Words,” June 1939, p. 2. George Westinghouse: Anecdotes and Reminiscences, vol. 4, box 1, file folder 9, George Westinghouse Museum Archives, Wilmerding, Pennsylvania.
10.
Leupp, George Westinghouse, p. 294.
11.
Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), p. 94.
12.
Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875–1900: A Study in Competition, Entrepreneurship, Technical Change, and Economic Growth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 132.
13.
“A Nation at a Tomb,” The New York Times, August 9, 1885, p. 1:1.
14.
Reginald Belfield, “Westinghouse and the Alternating Current,” 1935–1937. George Westinghouse: Anecdotes and Reminiscences, vol. 1, box 1, file folder 3, George Westinghouse Museum Archives, Wilmerding, Pennsylvania.
15.
Stefan Lorant, Pittsburgh (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1964), p. 168.
16.
Joseph Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), p. 386.
17.
George T. Ferris, ed., Our Native Land (New York: Appleton, 1886), pp. 517–18.
18.
Prout, A Life of George Westinghouse, p. 302.
19.
Adelaide Nevin, The Social Mirror (Pittsburgh: T. W. Nevin, 1888), p. 93.
20.
Pantaleoni, “The Real Character of the Man as I Saw Him.”
21.
Usselman, “From Novelty to Utility,” p. 272.
22.
Wise, “William Stanley’s Search for Immortality,” p. 44.
23.
Ibid., p. 43.
24.
Ibid., p. 44.
25.
Belfield, “Westinghouse and the Alternating Current.”
26.
Bernard A. Drew and Gerard Chapman, “William Stanley Lighted a Town and Powered an Industry,” Berkshire History 6, no. 1 (fall 1985), p. 8.
27.
Ibid., p. 10.
28.
Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, p. 133.
29.
Belfield, “Westinghouse and the Alternating Current.”
30.
Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, p. 132.
31.
Belfield, “Westinghouse and the Alternating Current.”
32.
Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, p. 136.
33.
Drew and Chapman, “William Stanley Lighted a Town and Powered an Industry,” p. 11.
34.
Ibid., p. 1.
35.
Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, p. 137.
36.
Drew and Chapman, “William Stanley Lighted a Town and Powered an Industry,” p. 12.
37.
“Adam, Meldrum & Anderson, a Brilliant Illumination,” Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, November 27, 1886, p. 1.
38.
Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 346.
CHAPTER 6
Edison Declares War
1.
“In a Blizzard’s Grasp,” The New York Times, March 13, 1888, p. 1.
2.
New-York Daily Tribune, April 17, 1888.
3.
Francis E. Leupp, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918), pp. 143–44.
4.
“Wireman’s Recklessness,” The New York Times, May 12, 1888, p. 8.
5.
Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 346.
6.
Edison Electric Light Company Report of the Board of Trustees to the Stockholders at their Annual Meeting, October 25, 1887, p. 13. Thomas A. Edison Archives website, Rutgers University.
7.
Ibid., p. 18.
8.
Robert Conot, A Streak of Luck (New York: Seaview Books, 1979), p. 255.
9.
Francis Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, vol. II (Dearborn Park, Mich.: Edison Institute, 1938), pp. 832–33.
10.
W. Bernard Carlson and A. J. Millard, “Defining Risk within a Business Context: Thomas Edison, Elihu Thomson, and the a.c.-d.c. Controversy, 1885�
��1900,” in Branden B. Johnson and Vincent T. Covello, eds., The Social and Cultural Construction of Risk (Boston: Reidel Publishing, 1987), p. 279.
11.
Kenneth R. Toole, “The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, a Price War and a Copper Corner,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 41 (1950), p. 322.
12.
“Copper,” Electrical Engineer 7 (February 18, 1888), p. 42.
13.
Toole, “The Anaconda Copper Mining Company,” p. 324.
14.
Thom Metzger, Blood and Volts: Edison, Tesla and the Electric Chair (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1996), pp. 28–29.
15.
Terry S. Reynolds and Theodore Bernstein, “Edison and ‘the Chair,’” IEEE Technology & Society, March 1989, p. 20.
16.
Ibid., p. 21.
17.
Harold Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875–1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 153.
18.
Ibid., p. 154.
19.
Conot, A Streak of Luck, p. 253.
20.
“A Warning from the Edison Electric Light Co.,” February 1888, p. 31. Thomas Edison Archives website, Rutgers University.
21.
Ibid., p. 25.
22.
Ibid., p. 26.
23.
Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York: Wiley, 1998), p. 326.
24.
“A Warning from the Edison Electric Light Co.,” p. 72.
25.
John J. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla (New York: McKay, 1944), p. 67.
26.
Kenneth M. Swezey, “Nikola Tesla,” Science 127, no. 3307 (May 16, 1958), p. 1149.
27.
T. Commerford Martin, The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla, 2nd ed. (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995; first publication 1893), p. 9.
28.
Ibid., p. 10.
29.
Ibid.
30.
Robert Lomas, The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century (London: Headline, 1999), pp. 24–25.
31.
“Discussion,” Electrical Engineer, June 1888, p. 276.
32.
Ibid.
33.
Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, p. 277.
34.
Ibid., p. 278.
35.
Marc Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (New York: Citadel Press, 1998), p. 50.
36.
Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, p. 278.
37.
Nikola Tesla, “George Westinghouse,” Electrical World 26, no. 12 (March 21, 1914), p. 637.
38.
John T. Ratzlaff, ed., Tesla Said (Millbrae, Calif.: Tesla Book Co., 1984), p. 281 (“Letter to the Institute of Immigrant Welfare” dated May 12, 1938).
CHAPTER 7
“Constant Danger from Sudden Death”
1.
Letter from George Westinghouse to Thomas A. Edison dated June 7, 1888. Thomas A. Edison Archives website, Rutgers University.
2.
Letter from Thomas A. Edison to George Westinghouse dated June 12, 1888. Thomas A. Edison Archives website, Rutgers University.
3.
“High Potential Systems Before the Board of Electrical Control of New York City,” Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888), p. 369.
4.
People of the State of N.Y. Ex. Rel. Wm Kemmler vs. Charles F. Durston, as Warden of the State Prison at Auburn, N.Y. In Proceedings under Writ of Habeas Corpus commencing July 8, 1889. See Exhibit A, p. xiii.
5.
Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 315.
6.
Thomas P. Hughes, “Harold P. Brown and the Executioner’s Current: An Incident in the AC-DC Controversy,” Business History Review 32 (June 1958), p. 148.
7.
“Died for Science’s Sake,” The New York Times, July 31, 1888, p. 8.
8.
“Mr. Brown’s Rejoinder, Electrical Dog Killing,” Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888), p. 369.
9.
“Died for Science’s Sake,” p. 8.
10.
Josephson, Edison: A Biography, p. 347.
11.
People of the State of N.Y. Ex. Rel. Wm Kemmler vs. Charles F. Durston. Exhibit A, p. xvi.
12.
Letter from Harold P. Brown to Arthur Kennelly dated August 4, 1888. Thomas A. Edison Archives website, Rutgers University.
13.
Frank Friedel, The Presidents of the United States (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 1989), p. 52.
14.
Terry S. Reynolds and Theodore Bernstein, “Edison and ‘the Chair,’” IEEE Technology & Society, March 1989, p. 22.
15.
Ibid.
16.
“Surer Than the Rope,” The New York Times, December 6, 1888, p. 5.
17.
“Electricity on Animals,” The New York Times, December 13, 1888.
18.
George Westinghouse, “No Special Danger,” The New York Times, December 13, 1888, p. 5.
19.
Harold Brown, “Electric Currents,” The New York Times, December 13, 1888, p. 5.
20.
Kenneth Ross Toole, “The Anaconda Copper Mining Company: A Price War and a Copper Corner,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 41 (October 1950), pp. 326–27.
21.
Josephson, Edison: A Biography, pp. 355–56.
22.
Nikola Tesla, “George Westinghouse,” Electrical World 63, no. 12 (March 21, 1914), p. 637.
23.
Marc Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (New York: Citadel Press, 1998), p. 54.
24.
Charles F. Scott, “Early Days in the Westinghouse Shops,” Electrical World 84 (September 20, 1924), p. 587.
25.
John T. Ratzlaff, ed., Tesla Said (Millbrae, Calif.: Tesla Book Co., 1984), p. 272 (“Press Statement” dated July 10, 1937).
26.
John J. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla (New York: McKay, 1944), pp. 76–77.
CHAPTER 8
“The Horrible Experiment”
1.
“Jealousy,” The Buffalo Evening News, April 2, 1889, p. 1.
2.
“Electric Death,” The Buffalo Evening News, April 4, 1889, p. 1.
3.
“For Shame, Brown!,” New York Sun, August 25, 1889, p. 6.
4.
Letter from F. S. Hastings to Thomas Edison dated March 8, 1889. Thomas A. Edison Archives website, Rutgers University.
5.
“For Shame, Brown!,” New York Sun, August 25, 1889, p. 6. Letter from Harold Brown to Thomas Edison dated March 27, 1889.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Ibid.
8.
Thom Metzger, Blood and Volts: Edison, Tesla and the Electric Chair (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1996), p. 119.
9.
“For Shame, Brown!,” p. 6. Letter from Arthur Kennelly to Harold Brown dated June 19, 1889.
10.
“Expert Brown’s Views,” The New York Times, July 11, 1889, p. 6.
11.
“Power of Electricity,” The New York Times, July 16, 1889, p. 8.
12.
Ibid.
13.
“Edison Says It Will Kill,” New-York Daily Tribune, July 24, 1889; and “Testimony of the Wizard,” The New York Times, July 24, 1889, p. 2.
14.
Terry S. Reynolds and Theodore Bernstein, “Edison and ‘the Chair,’” IEEE Technology and Society, March 1989, p. 24.
15.
Neil Baldwin, Edison: Inventing the Century (New York: Hyperion, 1995), pp. 204–05.
16.
Ibid., p. 206.
17.
Proceedings of the Nationa
l Electric Light Association, August 6, 7, 8, 1889 (New York: J. Kempster Printing, 1890), p. 139.
18.
“For Shame, Brown!,” p. 6.
19.
“His Desk Robbed,” New York Journal, September 4, 1889.
20.
“Met Death in the Wires,” The New York Times, October 12, 1889, p. 1.
21.
“Like a City in Mourning,” The New York Times, October 16, 1889, p. 1.
22.
Thomas A. Edison, “The Danger of Electric Lighting,” North American Review 149 (November 1889), pp. 625–33.