Edison

The United States Electric Illuminating Company of Charleston started up South Carolina's first central station for incandescent lighting in October 1882 -- only one month after Thomas Edison opened his famous Pearl Street plant in New York City. In the following years, the company's parent firm was a major force in the growing electrical industry.

The Charleston company was organized in November 1881 for the purpose of "lighting cities, streets, stores, houses, buildings, warehouses, roads, avenues, etc., by the electric light, and for the sale of electro-motors, electro-plating machines and other electric apparatus." The organizers, a group of Charleston businessmen, studied the systems of electric lighting on the market and selected that of the United States Electric Lighting Company (USEL) of New York as the best one for arc and incandescent lighting. The Charleston company was then granted the sole license in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida for the patents of its parent firm, the USEL.

Founded in 1878 by the prolific inventor Hiram Maxim, the USEL soon established itself as Thomas Edison's chief rival in the field of incandescent lighting. The company made some of the earliest installations of this new technology using Maxim's patent on a carbon-filament lamp, which was similar to that invented by Edison in 1879. When Maxim left USEL in 1881 to pursue other lines of invention, the company purchased the Weston Electric Lighting Company in Newark, NJ, and the services of its founder Edward Weston. The inventor of a successful are-lighting system, Weston, as works manager and chief designer of USEL, developed a comprehensive arc and incandescent system which the USEL began to market in 1882.

The United States Electric Illuminating Company of Charleston was one of the first of the local firms formed to utilize this system. The company was headed by Frank S. Rodgers, a cotton dealer, as president, and Benjamin F. McCabe, a cotton press operator and real estate developer, as vice president and supervisor. Directors included a president of the Bank of Charleston and the local newspaper, an attorney, and other prominent businessmen.

The company purchased land at 94 Queen Street in Charleston in the summer of 1882 and completed the central-station building by the first of September. The plant began operating in October 1882 with a capacity of 60 arc and 200 incandescent lamps (Edison opened his Pearl Street Station in New York City in early September). Within a year, the Charleston company gained numerous private customers, strung wires along several streets and wharves, illuminated the exhibition room of Agricultural Hall, and supplied power to two nearby textile mills. The company also demonstrated its system of are lighting on a street in Charleston in 1883. The City Council, however, voted to retain gas lighting -- thus sealing the fate of the United States Electric Illuminating Company of Charleston. The company went out of business in 1884, and Charleston was not electrified again until two years later, when contracts were given to light principal streets by electricity and side streets by gas.

The building at 94 Queen Street was occupied by a variety of businesses until 1983, when it was renovated and made into an apartment building. The structure, which retains its original truss construction and much of its 19th- century exterior, is one of the few surviving artifacts of the pioneering United States Electric Lighting Company.

Tags

Electric

Edison

Incandescent Lighting

Carbon-Filament Lamp

United States Electric Illuminating Company

Image Credit

Courtesy IEEE

Image Caption

The United States Electric Illuminating Company central station at 94 Queen Street.

Edison Experimental Recording Phonograph

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:39:13 +0000

Edison Experimental Recording Phonograph

(not verified) Wed, 07/25/2012 - 03:39

Society

ASME

Main Category

Mechanical

Sub Category

Communications and Data Processing

Era

1870-1879

Date Created

1877

Location Country

Coordinates

40.786944, -74.237778

Address1

37 Honeysuckle Avenue

City

West Orange

State

Country

USA

Zip

07052

Website

https://www.asme.org/about-asme/who-we-are/engineering-history/landmarks/68-edi…

Creator

Edison, Thomas

Edison's simple and unprecedented instrument allowed for the first time the permanent recording and reproduction of sound, especially the human voice. On December 6, 1877, Edison put tinfoil around the cylinder, turned the handle of the shaft and, shouting into one of the diaphragms, recorded a verse of Mary Had a Little Lamb "almost perfectly." From this machine evolved the phonographs and record industries of the world. Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) has become an American folk hero for this and other innovations, which have increased the enjoyment of life for people throughout the world.

Tags

Image Caption

Edison with his early phonograph

Edison 'Jumbo' Engine-Driver Dynamo

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:39:13 +0000

Edison 'Jumbo' Engine-Driver Dynamo

(not verified) Wed, 07/25/2012 - 03:39

Society

Main Category

Sub Category

Era

Date Created

Location Country

Coordinates

42.303484, -83.233134

Address1

Henry Ford Museum

Address2

20900 Oakwood Boulevard

City

Dearborn

State

Country

USA

Zip

48124

Website

http://www.asme.org/about-asme/history/landmarks/topics-a-l/electric-power-prod…

Creator

Edison, Thomas

This dynamo, connected directly to a high-speed steam engine, was one of six that produced direct current at Thomas A. Edison's electric power station at 257 Pearl Street in New York City. The Pearl Street Station was the prototype for central station power generation. Edison set out in 1878 to provide an electrical distribution system to bring lighting into the home: His first filament lamp lit on October 21, 1879. With the help of Frances Upton and C.L. Clarke, Edison built his engine-driven dynamo for the 1881 Paris Electrical Exposition. And commercial operation of Pearl Street Station began on September 4, 1882.

When the plant was destroyed by fire in 1890, No. 9 was the only unit to escape destruction. It operated until 1893 when it was sent to the Columbia Exposition in Chicago. Since then, it has been rebuilt, re-exhibited, and retired several times. It was presented to the Ford Museum in 1930, where it is a partial replica and fully operational.

The Jumbo, named for its massive size after P.T. Barnum's elephant, signaled a major break with traditions in dispensing with ropes or belts to transmit power from the engine to the dynamo. Direct coupling of the two elements and high-rotative speed both reduced overall size and increased efficiency. The first electric bill was based on Edison's electrolytic meter.

Tags

Electrical Distribution

Engine-Driver

One of six dynamos from Edison's Pearl Street Station, the prototype for US central-station power generation

Image Caption

Edison jumbo dynamo

Corning Ribbon Machine

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:39:03 +0000

Corning Ribbon Machine

(not verified) Wed, 07/25/2012 - 03:39

Society

Main Category

Sub Category

Era

Date Created

Location Country

Coordinates

42.303583, -83.234078

Address1

The Henry Ford Museum

Address2

W Village Rd

City

Dearborn

State

Country

USA

Zip

48124

Website

http://www.asme.org/about-asme/history/landmarks/topics-m-z/manufacturing---1/-…

Creator

Woods, William

Corning Glass Works

While Thomas Edison perfected the first practical and durable filament in 1879, it was not until much later that electricity left the laboratory to become the universal source of light. This required a tremendous number of glass envelopes for light bulbs. In the 1890s the top speed of the finest glass-blowing team produced two bulbs a minute. In 1926 Corning Glass Works developed the ribbon machine, capable of producing up to two thousand light bulbs a minute. In principle, molten glass sags through a hole in a horizontal plate into a mold below and is expanded by air pressure to form an electric light bulb envelope. Continuous motion is achieved by moving a preformed ribbon of glass with precisely matched chains of orifice plates, molds, and blowheads. The ribbon machine, now operating the world over, was conceived by William J. Woods and designed in collaboration with David E. Gray.

Tags

Corning Ribbon Machine

Image Credit

Original Image: Courtesy Flickr/ellenm1 (CC BY 2.0)

Image Caption

Corning Ribbon Machine