Electricity was never invented but today we remember some inventors who worked with electricity. Men like Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday and Thomas Edison are highly respected as the scientists who pioneered work in the field of electricity. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and is therefore properly revered as the “father of modern electricity”. Edison certainly did much important work in the area of electricity but another man played an equally important role in lighting the world through electricity and history has let his story fall into obscurity.
Nikola Tesla was originally an apprentice of Edison. He helped Edison in his shop and business. However, Edison’s method of creating electrical light in his light bulb, called “Direct Current” or ‘DC’ was challenged when Tesla broke off on his own and developed another way of powering the light bulb: ‘AC’ or “Alternating Current”. Tesla’s innovation threatened to undo the business empire which Edison had built with the help of finance tycoon John Pierpont Morgan. Tesla found an entrepreneur who was willing to take a chance on the new ‘AC’ form of electrical power: George Westinghouse. Westinghouse backed Tesla while Morgan backed Edison. A great rivalry had begun.
Edison’s first move was to discredit ‘AC’ and declare it unsafe. The way in which Edison set about to do this is part of Edison’s story that is seldom proclaimed far and wide. Edison promoted the killing of animals using ‘AC’ to prove that it was a deadly form of electrical current and was unsafe to light houses with. He even lead the process of developing the electric chair as a way to prove the dangers of ‘AC’. The first execution by electric chair was a botched nightmare and rather than spoiling the reputation of ‘AC’, it spoiled Edison’s own reputation.
Meanwhile, Westinghouse Electric Company had won a bid to power the great Niagara Fall Power Company which was building a hydro-electric structure on Niagara Falls. Despite their most desperate efforts, Edison and Morgan could not win the Niagara Falls bid. It seemed that Edison’s name would be forever lost in the pages of time and Westinghouse and Tesla would win the last laugh in this epic conflict.
The thing that saved Edison’s name and doomed Tesla’s name to oblivion was not science but ruthless intimidation. J.P. Morgan, Edison’s investor, threatened to sue Westinghouse Electric over patent violations. Knowing that his company could not pay for a law firm’s services, Westinghouse gave in. Morgan used ‘AC’ to power the Niagara Falls project and Edison, through no merit of his own, won the title “father of modern electricity.”
Edison’s company, General Electric, soon caught up in the ‘AC’ game and the work of Tesla was very much forgotten. Westinghouse and Tesla played an important role in the formation of America’s industry and the electric industry. Their story is critically important and needs to be remembered.