Power Struggles: Scientific Authority and the Creation of Practical Electricity Before Edison

In 1882, Thomas Edison and his Edison Electric Light Company unveiled the firstlarge-scale electrical system in the world to light a stretch of offices in a city. This was amonumental achievement, but it was not the beginning of the electrical age. The first electricgenerators were built in the 1830s, the earliest commercial lighting systems before 1860, and thefirst commercial application of generator-powered lights (in lighthouses) in the early 1860s. InPower Struggles, Michael Brian Schiffer examines some of these earlier efforts, both successful andunsuccessful, that paved the way for Edison. After laying out a unified theoretical framework forunderstanding technological change, Schiffer presents a series of fascinating case studies ofpre-Edison electrical technologies, including Volta's electrochemical battery, the blacksmith'selectric motor, the first mechanical generators, Morse's telegraph, the Atlantic cable, and thelighting of the Capitol dome. Schiffer discusses claims of "practicality" and"impracticality" (sometimes hotly contested) made for these technologies, and examines thecentral role of the scientific authority--in particular, the activities of Joseph Henry,mid-nineteenth-century America's foremost scientist--in determining the fate of particulartechnologies. These emerging electrical technologies formed the foundation of the modern industrialworld. Schiffer shows how and why they became commercial products in the context of an evolvingcorporate capitalism in which conflicting judgments of practicality sometimes turned into powerstruggles.

Michael Osman is a Ph.D. student in the History, Theory, andCriticism section in the Department of Architecture at MIT.