"the devil in the
wires,"
1901 Sears catalog -
electric belts.
display purposes.
Next challenge - good
electric motor.
Frank Sprague, 1888,
Richmond VA;
Electric streetcars
twice as fast as horse-drawn cars, cleaner, easily lighted & heated in
winter, more powerful.
Within 15 years, all but
1% of Richmond streetcars converted.
Davenport, Iowa tripled
profits after converting;
Suburbanization;
stratification by
class.
1850 Boston 3 mile
radius; 1900 ten-mile radius.
Atlantic City,
1917, electric
streetcars
carrying over 11 billion passengers per year along almost 45,000 miles of
track.
small town lines;
"interurban"
lines (Ames to DM)
alternating current
system, 1882, France;
George Westinghouse,
1886,
"battle of the
currents."
DC advantage in urban
area; had good motor.
AC good in rural
areas.
Public relations –
Edison demonstrations of AC’s high-voltage;
"Westinghousing,
the electrocutioner's current."
Nikola Tesla, born 1856
in Croatia;
studied electrical
engineering,
employed in telegraph
office,
polyphase AC motor,
1882 Paris Continental
Edison Company.
1888 demonstrated new AC
motor;
1893 Westinghouse
Chicago's Columbian Exposition - "White city"; electric railway,
electric elevators, & electric-powered boats, & electric moving
sidewalk.
General Electric's Tower
of Light.
Westinghouse system Niagara Falls, 1895,
1880s state universities
start teaching electric engineering;
new generation of
systems-builders, managers & entrepreneurs;
Samuel Insull, head of
Chicago Edison (Commonwealth Edison);
innovations -
ultramodern central power station, first large-scale steam turbine
generator.
dealing with demand,
load factors;
promotes use of
electricity: "A home without electric light is like a coat without a
lining - unfinished, incomplete."
1917, one-third of
Chicago households had electric power.
Midwest network of power
- 1920s 8% of America's total electric power.
Edison - phonograph,
grooved cylinder with tinfoil to catch vibrations engraved by
needle.
"I was never so
taken
aback in my life - I was always afraid of things that worked first
time."
1877 public
demonstrations;
intended use –
office & education;
1900, recordings by
Caruso, etc.
1889,
"kinetoscope" ("moving view")
telephone –
Bell’s patent 1876.
Western Union,
Edison
1876 Centennial
Exhibition – “My God, it talks!”
public exhibition
– ads: “Every man, woman and child should carefully examine the
workings of Prof. Bell’s speaking and singing Telephone, in its practical
work of conveying instantaneous communication by direct sound, giving the tones
of the voice so that the person speaking can be recognized by the sound at the
other end of the line. All
visitors desiring can make for themselves a practical investigation of the
Telephone, by asking questions, hearing the answers to their questions, and
listening to the singing conveyed through the Telephones from the other end of
the lien. Admission 15 cents. Come and See the
Telephone.”
Instructions:
“Speak directly into the mouthpiece, keeping mustache out of the
opening.”
party line – 2 to
12 households, – “listening in”.
White House 1878
Mark Twain, “here
we have been hollering ‘Shut
up!’ to our neighbors for centuries, and now you come along to complicate
matters.”
leasing fee $150/year in
NY, $100 Chicago;
ad: “telephones
are rented only to persons of good breeding and refinement.”
Ads 1910 – “Don’t write – personal
conversation is more powerful.
Call ahead for business – save time by making appointments. Save time by telephone. At a psychological moment, a telephone
can deliver a business message quickly.
The voice of success.”
central exchanges.
young, single,
American-born women –”telephone girl.”
“Voice with a
Smile”
Standardized training to
become part of system
Ultimately conversion to
dial system, automatic.
1930s fear of
technological unemployment.