heat, light, and motive power had been underway for some
time. The telegraph had been invented in 1845 and was
in general use for communications by the time of the
Civil War. The earliest electrical machinery had been
produced in the eighteenth century, and Sir Humphrey
Davy had succeeded in producing an electric light in 1809
Experiments in electric lighting and power
continued throughout the middle of the nineteenth century
but not until October, 1879 > was a commercially success
ful electric lamp developed, one that would burn many
hours and could be produced relatively cheaply. The
feat was accomplished, of course, by Thomas A. Edison,
who established the famous Peart Street generating
station in New York in 1882 and achieved wealth and
20
fame in the electrical industry. A description of the
subsequent expansion of the electrical industry as
anything short of phenomenal would be a serious under
statement. Tn 1906 almost 50 million electric lamps
were sold in the United States; and that particular
application of electricity represented but one part of
the whole product of electrical and related industries.
29
Fred A. Shannon, The Centennial Years, A
Political and Economic History of America from the Late
1870s to the Early 1890s. ed. by Robert Huhn Jones
(Garden City,New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.,
1967), pp. 241-43.