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Electric light

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Main article: Incandescent light bulb

Electric Light before Edison

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In 1840, British scientist Warren de la Rue developed an efficient light bulb using a coiled platinum filament but the high cost of platinum kept the bulb from becoming a commercial success.[1] Many other inventors had also devised incandescent lamps, including Alessandro Volta's demonstration of a glowing wire in 1800 and inventions by Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. Others who developed early and commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer,[2] William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan, and Heinrich Göbel. These early bulbs all had flaws such as an extremely short life and requiring a high electric current to operate which made them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially.[3]: 217–218  However, in England 1879, prior to Edison starting work on the electric lamp Joseph Swan invented an electric lamp with a vacuum chamber and carbon filament.[4]

Experimenting with filaments

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In 1878, Edison began working on a system of electrical illumination, something he hoped could compete with gas and oil-based lighting.[5] He began by tackling the problem of creating a long-lasting incandescent lamp, something that would be needed for indoor use. However, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb.[6] He addressed this problem with experimental research; market research, with Grosvenor Lowrey that forged connection with power investors, demonstrated mechanical electric generator, and planned power distribution; and grand public statements to promote his work.[7] Edison first tried using a filament made of cardboard, carbonized with compressed lampblack. This burnt out too quickly to provide lasting light. He then experimented with different grasses and canes such as hemp, and palmetto, before settling on bamboo as the best filament.[8] Edison continued trying to improve this design and on November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires".[9]

 
Edison's first successful model of light bulb, used in public demonstration at Menlo Park, December 1879

The patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways".[9] It was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1,200 hours.[10]

 
U.S. Patent #223898: Electric-Lamp, issued January 27, 1880
 
The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company's new steamship, the Columbia, was the first commercial application for Edison's incandescent light bulb in 1880.

Edison Electric Light Company is formed

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In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan, Spencer Trask,[11] and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. He said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."[12]

Edison hired Francis Robbins Upton a former student of Hermann von Helmholtz in 1878.[13] Upton received 5% of the company profits and eventually became the general manager after leading much of the research into electric lighting.[14][15] He wrote some of Edison's speeches and assisted with hiring decisions.[16]

Electric power distribution

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After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison developed an electric utility to compete with the existing gas light utilities.[17] To prove he was making progress, Edison hosted a board meeting which was illuminated by his system.[18] On December 17, 1880, he founded the Edison Illuminating Company, and during the 1880s, he patented a system for electricity distribution. The company was the first investor-owned electric utility.

For Edison, big business came with big publicity. He shut down public and reporter access to the laboratory at Menlo Park and tailored his image with interviews. He expanded his public involvement by funding the creation of Science which published its first volume in 1880. He was the chief editor but kept his role anonymous. The journal began as a mouthpiece for pro-Edison articles. He gave up the journal in 1883 due its lack of profit. It was subsequently lead by Alexander Graham Bell.[19]

To have more influence in New York generally and particularly to influence getting the right of to put underground electric lines, Edison Illuminating Company opened a second office on 65th Ave. The Edison Machine Works and Edison Electric Tube company opened in New York by the ned of the year.[20]


In January 1882, to demonstrate feasibility, Edison had switched on the 93 kW first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. This was a 110 V DC supply system, eventually supplying 3,000 street lights and a number of nearby private dwellings.[citation needed] On September 4, 1882, in Pearl Street, New York City, his 600 kW cogeneration steam-powered generating station, Pearl Street Station's, electrical power distribution system was switched on, providing 110 volts direct current (DC), initially to 59 customers in lower Manhattan,[21] quickly growing to 508 customers with 10,164 lamps. The power station was decommissioned in 1895.

Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, attended Edison's 1879 demonstration. Villard was impressed and requested Edison install his electric lighting system aboard Villard's company's new steamer, the Columbia. Although hesitant at first, Edison agreed to Villard's request. Most of the work was completed in May 1880, and the Columbia went to New York City, where Edison and his personnel installed Columbia's new lighting system. The Columbia was Edison's first commercial application for his incandescent light bulb. The Edison equipment was removed from Columbia in 1895.[22][23][24][25]

In 1880, Lewis Latimer, a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation, began working for the United States Electric Lighting Company run by Edison's rival Hiram S. Maxim.[26] While working for Maxim, Latimer invented a process for making carbon filaments for light bulbs and helped install broad-scale lighting systems for New York City, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London. Latimer holds the patent for the electric lamp issued in 1881, and a second patent for the "process of manufacturing carbons" (the filament used in incandescent light bulbs), issued in 1882. In 1885, Latimer switched camps and started working with Edison.[27]

On October 8, 1883, the US patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William E. Sawyer and was, therefore, invalid. Litigation continued for nearly six years. On October 6, 1889, a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid.[28] To avoid a possible court battle with yet another competitor, Joseph Swan, who held an 1880 British patent on a similar incandescent electric lamp,[29] he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to manufacture and market the invention in Britain.

The incandescent light bulb patented by Edison began to gain widespread popularity in Europe as well. Mahen Theatre in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic), opened in 1882, and was the first public building in the world to use Edison's electric lamps. Francis Jehl, Edison's assistant in the invention of the lamp, supervised the installation.[30] In September 2010, a sculpture of three giant light bulbs was erected in Brno, in front of the theater.[31] The first Edison light bulbs in the Nordic countries were installed at the weaving hall of the Finlayson's textile factory in Tampere, Finland in March 1882.[32]

In 1901, Edison attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. His company, the Edison Manufacturing Company, was given the task of installing the electric lights on the various buildings and structures that were built for the exposition. At night Edison made a panorama photograph of the illuminated buildings.[33]

Edison became the owner of his Milan, Ohio, birthplace in 1906. On his last visit, in 1923, he was reportedly shocked to find his old home still lit by lamps and candles.[34]

Edison Effect

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Attempts to prevent blackening of the bulb due to emission of charged carbon from the hot filament[35] culminated in Edison effect bulbs.[36] Edison's 1883 patent for voltage-regulating[37] is notably the first US patent for an electronic device due to its use of an Edison effect bulb as an active component. Subsequent scientists studied, applied, and eventually evolved the bulbs into vacuum tubes, a core component of early analog and digital electronics of the 20th century.[35]

Experiment demonstrating the Edison effect
 
One Edison effect bulb consisted of an evacuated bulb with an externally-wired electrode such as a metal plate in this example (variants used platinum foil or extra wire instead) isolated from the carbon filament (hairpin-shaped in this example).
 
Edison's circuit configured his bulb (large circle) such that its electrode was in series with an ammeter (A) to measure conventional current and a voltage source (separate from the power source heating the filament) to bias the electrode either positively (in which case electrons were attracted and flowed along the arrows from the filament through the partial vacuum to the electrode) or negatively (which resulted in no measurable current). We now know that in addition to carbon molecules, the filament was emitting electrons, which have negative charge and thus are attracted to a positively-charged electrode but not a negatively-charged electrode.

War of currents

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Main article: War of the currents
 
Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public events, as in this picture from the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition in 1897.

As Edison expanded his direct current (DC) power delivery system, he received stiff competition from companies installing alternating current (AC) systems. From the early 1880s, AC arc lighting systems for streets and large spaces had been an expanding business in the US. With the development of transformers in Europe and by Westinghouse Electric in the US in 1885–1886, it became possible to transmit AC long distances over thinner and cheaper wires, and "step down" (reduce) the voltage at the destination for distribution to users. This allowed AC to be used in street lighting and in lighting for small business and domestic customers, the market Edison's patented low voltage DC incandescent lamp system was designed to supply.[38] Edison's DC empire suffered from one of its chief drawbacks: it was suitable only for the high density of customers found in large cities. Edison's DC plants could not deliver electricity to customers more than one mile (1.6 km) from the plant, and left a patchwork of unsupplied customers between plants. Small cities and rural areas could not afford an Edison style system, leaving a large part of the market without electrical service.[39] AC companies expanded into this gap.[40]

Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous. As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886, Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating, "Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size. He has got a new thing and it will require a great deal of experimenting to get it working practically."[41] Many reasons have been suggested for Edison's anti-AC stance. One notion is that the inventor could not grasp the more abstract theories behind AC and was trying to avoid developing a system he did not understand. Edison also appeared to have been worried about the high voltage from improperly installed AC systems killing customers and hurting the sales of electric power systems in general.[42] The primary reason was that Edison Electric based their design on low voltage DC, and switching a standard after they had installed over 100 systems was, in Edison's mind, out of the question. By the end of 1887, Edison Electric was losing market share to Westinghouse, who had built 68 AC-based power stations to Edison's 121 DC-based stations. To make matters worse for Edison, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts (another AC-based competitor) built 22 power stations.[43]

 
Edison in 1889

Parallel to expanding competition between Edison and the AC companies was rising public furor over a series of deaths in the spring of 1888 caused by pole mounted high voltage alternating current lines. This turned into a media frenzy against high voltage alternating current and the seemingly greedy and callous lighting companies that used it.[44][45] Edison took advantage of the public perception of AC as dangerous, and joined with self-styled New York anti-AC crusader Harold P. Brown in a propaganda campaign, aiding Brown in the public electrocution of animals with AC, and supported legislation to control and severely limit AC installations and voltages (to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system) in what was now being referred to as a "war of the currents".[46] The development of the electric chair was used in an attempt to portray AC as having a greater lethal potential than DC and smear Westinghouse, via Edison colluding with Brown and Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to ensure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator.[47]

Edison was becoming marginalized in his own company having lost majority control in the 1889 merger that formed Edison General Electric.[48] In 1890 he told president Henry Villard he thought it was time to retire from the lighting business and moved on to an iron ore refining project that preoccupied his time.[49] Edison's dogmatic anti-AC values were no longer controlling the company. By 1889 Edison's Electric's own subsidiaries were lobbying to add AC power transmission to their systems and in October 1890 Edison Machine Works began developing AC-based equipment. Cut-throat competition and patent battles were bleeding off cash in the competing companies and the idea of a merger was being put forward in financial circles.[49] The War of Currents ended in 1892 when the financier J. P. Morgan engineered a merger of Edison General Electric with its main alternating current based rival, The Thomson-Houston Company, that put the board of Thomson-Houston in charge of the new company called General Electric. General Electric now controlled three-quarters of the US electrical business and would compete with Westinghouse for the AC market.[50][51] Edison served as a figurehead on the company's board of directors for a few years before selling his shares.[52]

  1. ^ Who Invented the Light Bulb? Archived June 15, 2020, at the Wayback Machine LiveScience, August 17, 2017
  2. ^ "Moses G. Farmer, Eliot's Inventor". Archived from the original on June 19, 2006. Retrieved March 11, 2006.
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  4. ^ Baldwin, p. 123-124
  5. ^ Howard B. Rockman, Intellectual Property Law for Engineers and Scientists, John Wiley & Sons – 2004, p. 131.
  6. ^ Ings, Simon (July 26, 2019), "The real history of electricity is more gripping than The Current War", New Scientist. Archived July 18, 2020, at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ^ Baldwin, p. 103-105, 107-108
  8. ^ Thomas A. Edison Papers Archived September 13, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences
  9. ^ a b U.S. patent 0,223,898
  10. ^ Flannery, L. G. (Pat) (1960). John Hunton's Diary, Volume 3. pp. 68, 69.
  11. ^ "Handbook of Research on Venture Capital". Colin Mason. Edward Elgar Publishing. January 1, 2012. pg 17
  12. ^ "Keynote Address – Second International ALN1 Conference (PDF)". Archived from the original on June 13, 2010.
  13. ^ Baldwin, p. 78-79
  14. ^ Baldwin, p. 78-79
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  16. ^ Baldwin, p. 78-79
  17. ^ Ahmad Faruqui, Kelly Eakin, Pricing in Competitive Electricity Markets, Springer Science & Business Media – 2000, p. 67
  18. ^ Baldwin pp. 106, 113.
  19. ^ Baldwin pp. 106, 120-121.
  20. ^ Baldwin pp. 128-129.
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  22. ^ Jehl, Francis Menlo Park reminiscences : written in Edison's restored Menlo Park laboratory Archived January 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Whitefish, Mass, Kessinger Publishing, July 1, 2002, p. 564.
  23. ^ Dalton, Anthony A long, dangerous coastline: shipwreck tales from Alaska to California Archived January 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Heritage House Publishing Company, February 1, 2011 – 128 pp.
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  25. ^ "Lighting A Revolution: 19th Century Promotion". Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on October 10, 2013. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  26. ^ "Lewis Howard Latimer". National Park Service. Archived from the original on February 7, 2015. Retrieved June 10, 2007.
  27. ^ Mock, Brentin (February 11, 2015), Meet Lewis Latimer, the African American who enlightened Thomas Edison, Grist. Archived July 18, 2020, at the Wayback Machine.
  28. ^ Biographiq (2008). Thomas Edison: Life of an Electrifying Man. Filiquarian Publishing. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-59986-216-3.
  29. ^ Swan, Kenneth R. (1946). Sir Joseph Swan and the Invention of the Incandescent Electric Lamp. Longmans, Green and Co., London. pp. 21–25.
  30. ^ "About the Memory of a Theatre". National Theatre Brno. Archived from the original on January 19, 2008. Retrieved December 30, 2007.
  31. ^ Michal Kašpárek (September 8, 2010). "Sculpture of three giant light bulbs: in memory of Thomas Alva Edison". Brnonow.com. Archived from the original on October 26, 2013. Retrieved December 31, 2013.
  32. ^ Kautonen, Mika (November 18, 2015). "A history of continuous change and innovation". Smart Tampere Ecosystem. Archived from the original on December 9, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
  33. ^ "Panorama of Esplanade by night". Library of Congress. 1901. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
  34. ^ "His Life". The Thomas Edison Birthplace Museum. Archived from the original on August 4, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  35. ^ a b Johnson, J. B. (December 1, 1960). "Contribution of Thomas A. Edison to Thermionics". American Journal of Physics. 28 (9): 763–773. Bibcode:1960AmJPh..28..763J. doi:10.1119/1.1935997. ISSN 0002-9505.
  36. ^ Preece, William Henry (1885). "On a peculiar behaviour of glow lamps when raised to high incandescence". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. 38 (235–238): 219–230. doi:10.1098/rspl.1884.0093. ISSN 0370-1662. Archived from the original on June 26, 2014. Preece coins the term the "Edison effect" on page 229.
  37. ^ US 307031, Edison, Thomas A., "Electrical indicator", published 1884-10-21 
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  49. ^ a b Bradley, Robert L. Jr., Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies, New York: John Wiley & Sons (2011), pp. 28–29
  50. ^ Essig, Mark (2009)Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death, Bloomsbury Publishing US, p. 268.
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