The future shone brightly, at least when U.S. President Grover Cleveland pushed a button to switch on more than 100,000 incandescent light bulbs. That was on May 1, 1893, the day on which the “World's Fair” was opened in Chicago – and the audience was fascinated. Twelve gigantic generators supplied electric power to the spectacle, the machines emitting an infernal noise. 27 million people – a third of the total U.S. population – were visiting the “World’s Fair” at the time. Henry Prout, a contemporary witness and subsequent Westinghouse biographer, wrote that very few of those looking at this machine, viewing the large control panel in awe, so brilliant and perfect and seeing the beautiful light effects were able to realize that they were witnessing a historic moment, viewing the beginnings of a revolution.

Yet the “World's Fair” not only rang in a new era, it also marked the ending of another one: The so-called war of currents was decided, the name of the victorious company – Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company – prominently emblazoned in the machine hall. George Westinghouse and his business partner, technology pioneer Nikola Tesla, who hailed from Serbia, had won out. The age of modernity had begun – with alternate current being pushed by Westinghouse. Thomas Alva Edison, the advocate of direct current and hyped by many as the greatest inventor of his day had lost despite having applied all conceivable political, legal, and marketing tricks.

Initially, all indications had pointed to Edison, who was both business-savvy and visionary, winning the race. At the mere age of 21, he’d devised a duplex technology enabling two messages to be simultaneously transmitted via a single line. At the age of 30, he’d invented the phonograph. The audio recorder’s precursor became a world sensation and was presented to the President in the White House. Investors like entrepreneur J. P. Morgan were vying for the inventor’s attention. Just two years later, Edison developed the first fully functional incandescent light bulb, with emphasis on “fully functional” because, unlike frequently having been credited for it, he hadn’t invented it. For months on end, he and his team would experiment in Menlo Park to find a material that was suitable for use as a filament. In 1876, Edison had established a laboratory in the community in New Jersey that went on to became a site of continuous research.

The world’s first development center

Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory was the world’s first development department. Ideas were no longer conceived by lone inventors behind closed doors but as part of tightly scheduled team efforts. What a strategic stroke of genius that produced a continuous flow of patents for innovations or optimizations of existing innovations. In the United States alone, Edison filed 1,093 patents, and 1,239 abroad, albeit one should be aware of the following quote attributed to him: “Everybody steals in commerce and industry. I’ve stolen a lot but I know how to steal. They don’t know.”

In terms of optimizing the filament, Japanese bamboo ultimately produced the breakthrough as a suitable material in Menlo Park. The bulb produced light for up to 1,200 hours, became ready for market, and finally went into mass production in a dedicated factory. In that regard, it’s necessary to know that incandescent light bulbs were the key product for electrification.

Around 1880, electric power was still an all-new phenomenon, only bigger cities had electric street lamps, and private homes and public buildings were illuminated by gas lights. Only Edison’s incandescent light bulb and the first powerplants established by his company in the United States – in 1878, he founded Edison Electric Light Co. in New York to distribute direct current lighting – changed that. The catch, though, was the fact that you could earn a fortune with electricity because everyone wanted it but Edison already knew at that time that he could only transport his direct current at low voltage and thus across short distances of roughly one mile. More was not possible with the technology back in those days. At any distance larger than that, the bulb would just emit a low glow. In the United States’ vast expanses, that was more than disadvantageous.

Tesla – the unacknowledged game changer

To solve his problem, Edison turned to Nikola Tesla. The Serbian mathematician and engineer had started to work for him and was experimenting with direct current generators. Tesla’s task was to redesign them. To Edison’s surprise, Tesla told him point-blank that the future would lie in alternate current. He’d previously stated that at the Technical University in Graz (Austria) where he’d studied. His professor had just drily responded “that Mr. Tesla might be capable of doing great things, but never be able to achieve that.” Edison’s response to Tesla was similar. He found that Tesla’s ideas had some merit but were totally impracticable. Another aspect that put a burden on their working relationship was the lousy pay Tesla received. The 28-year-old had asked Edison’s manager Charles Batchelor for a pay increase from 18 to 25 dollars a week only to be told that there were loads of people working for 18 a week, that the woods were full of them. Edison later admitted that he should have listened to Tesla, but by then it was too late.

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“If your hate could be turned into electricity it would light up the whole world.”

Nikola Tesla

Tesla quit working for Edison after just a few months in December 1884. He tried to raise funds to start his own company and industrialist George Westinghouse got wind of that. Westinghouse had invented the compressed air brake for trains, made a fortune with it, and was more than interested in the electric power market. Plus, as a business-savvy pragmatist, he’d soon realized that alternate current was financially more lucrative and imported alternate current generators from Europe in 1885. In addition, he bought some of Tesla’s patents and hired him. For the so-called polyphase patents, used for an alternate current machine among other things, he purportedly paid 75,000 dollars – an incredible amount for conditions back then and showing that progress is always a question of chance as well: At the same time and separate from Tesla, Italian Galileo Ferraris had invented an alternate current machine as well. Had he sold it to Edison the war of currents might have had a different ending.

Years later, Tesla wrote, “George Westinghouse was, in my opinion, the only man on this globe who could take my alternating-current system under the circumstances then existing and win the battle against prejudice and money power. He was a pioneer of imposing stature, one of the world’s true noblemen of whom America may well be proud and to whom humanity owes an immense debut of gratitude.”  

Within a very short time Westinghouse started establishing alternate current generators across the country, with a prudent strategic focus on rural and suburban areas. In other words, exactly where Edison’s systems didn’t work – in addition, he offered electric power clearly cheaper than his opponent.  

The war of currents escalates

Westinghouse and Edison kept suing each other about patents for transformers or power distribution in general. Edison started having some serious concerns about his business and decided to play hardball.

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“Hell, there ain’t no rules around here! We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!”

Thomas Alva Edison

In 1886, in a private letter, he claimed that “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.” Afterwards, he launched some rather wayward PR activities, in other words, he started to publicly discredit Westinghouse.

To do so, Edison hired Harold Brown, an electrical engineer and activist of dubious repute. In public demonstrations, Brown would initially expose dogs and cats to direct current – which they’d survive – before connecting them to alternate current causing them to miserably die. The purpose of those procedures was to show how dangerous Westinghouse’s type of current allegedly was. Even more perfidious was Brown’s attempt – also commissioned by Edison – to cause damage to Westinghouse by the invention of the electric chair. When a law was passed in 1888 providing for the use of electric power as the only means of execution that was also owed to Brown’s lobbying activities. On top of that, a newly coined expression, i.e., »to westinghouse« meaning to die by electrocution, made the rounds. The first victim was 30-year-old William Kemmler. In 1890, the murderer of a woman was sentenced to death on an electric chair. The power for it was produced by one of Westinghouse’s generators, a decision preceded by Brown’s activities. Westinghouse not only was an opponent of the death penalty but had also vehemently opposed the utilization of his generator but all his efforts were fruitless. During the botched execution Kemmler’s agony took so long that Westinghouse subsequently commented, “They could have done better with an axe.”

When the city of Chicago was looking for a power utility for the “World’s Fair” in 1893 the bid submitted by Thomas Edison and his General Electric Company amounted to 1.8 million U.S. dollars and that of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation was 399,000 U.S. dollars. The decision was made and, once again, Westinghouse had successfully underbid Edison, winning the strategically important award of the contract because the sea of lights at the exhibition massively generated positive publicity. It more than likely caused 120-volt alternating current to become the standard in American and Canadian households and factories. Alternating current prevailed in the rest of the world too, albeit with more efficient 220 to 240 volts. That North America uses the lower and thus less hazardous voltage that Edison preferred as well may be another legacy of the war of currents in which skeptics of the technology kept weaponizing the hazards of the then still eerie power of electricity.