Download or read book Frank J Sprague and the Edison Myth written by Harriet Chapman Jones Sprague and published by . This book was released on 1947 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Frank J Sprague and the Edison Myth written by Harriet Chapman Jones Sprague and published by Hassell Street Press. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frank J Sprague and the Edison Myth is a biography of Frank Sprague, a key figure in the early development of electric power and transportation systems. The book provides a detailed account of Sprague's life and work, including his long-standing rivalry with Thomas Edison. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book Frank J Sprague and the Edison Myth written by Harriet Chapman Jones Sprague and published by . This book was released on 1947 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Engineering Invention written by Frederick Dalzell and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009-09-25 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The technological breakthroughs and entrepreneurial adventures of Frank J. Sprague during the transformative years of the early electrical industry. Over the course of a little less than twenty years, inventor Frank J. Sprague (1857-1934) achieved an astonishing series of technological breakthroughs—from pioneering work in self-governing motors to developing the first full-scale operational electric railway system—all while commercializing his inventions and promoting them (and himself as their inventor) to financial backers and the public. In Engineering Invention, Frederick Dalzell tells Sprague's story, setting it against the backdrop of one of the most dynamic periods in the history of technology. In a burst of innovation during these years, Sprague and his contemporaries—Thomas Edison, Nicolas Tesla, Elmer Sperry, George Westinghouse, and others—transformed the technologies of electricity and reshaped modern life. After working briefly for Edison, Sprague started the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company; designed and built an electric railroad system for Richmond, Virginia; sold his company to Edison and went into the field of electric elevators; almost accidentally discovered a multiple-control system that could equip electric train systems for mass transit; started a third company to commercialize this; then sold this company to Edison and retired (temporarily). Throughout his career, Dalzell tells us, Sprague framed technology as invention, cast himself as hero, and staged his technologies as dramas. He toiled against the odds, scraped together resources to found companies, bet those companies on technical feats—and pulled it off, multiple times. The idea of the “heroic inventor” is not, of course, the only way to frame the history of technology. Nevertheless, as Dalzell shows, Sprague, Edison, and others crafted the role consciously and actively, using it to generate vital impetus behind the process of innovation.
Download or read book Frank Julian Sprague written by William D. Middleton and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-25 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[This] biography of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ details the life and times of an exceptional engineer, maverick innovator, [and] entrepreneur.” —NMRA Magazine Frank Julian Sprague invented a system for distributing electricity to streetcars from overhead wires. Within a year, electric streetcars had begun to replace horsecars, sparking a revolution in urban transportation. Sprague (1857–1934) was an American naval officer turned inventor who worked briefly for Thomas Edison before striking out on his own. Sprague contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators. His innovations would help transform the urban space of the 20th century, enabling cities to grow larger and skyscrapers taller. The Middletons’ generously illustrated biography is an engrossing study of the life and times of a maverick innovator. “The authors weave this biography through time, with technological and political details that make Sprague human, a creative soul pressing his ideas with a sports-like outcome—some wins, some losses, and some ties . . . I recommend this well-written book detailing the life of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ to explain the development of what we so casually take for granted.” —Trains “No one has previously used Sprague’s personal papers in a published biography . . . Recommended.” —Choice “Frank Sprague . . . is a major historical figure who for decades lacked a significant biography. This void has been ably and engagingly filled in this book by the dean of electric traction authors, William D. Middleton, and his son, William III.” —Classic Trains
Download or read book Insull written by Forrest McDonald and published by Beard Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a reprint of a previosly published work. It dewals with Samuel Insull, who was Thomas Edison's private secretary and founded the business of centralized electric supply. He organized the Edison General Electric Company.
Download or read book American Independent Inventors in an Era of Corporate R D written by Eric S. Hintz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How America's individual inventors persisted alongside corporate R&D labs as an important source of inventions. During the nineteenth century, heroic individual inventors such as Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell created entirely new industries while achieving widespread fame. However, by 1927, a New York Times editorial suggested that teams of corporate scientists at General Electric, AT&T, and DuPont had replaced the solitary "garret inventor" as the wellspring of invention. But these inventors never disappeared. In this book, Eric Hintz argues that lesser-known inventors such as Chester Carlson (Xerox photocopier), Samuel Ruben (Duracell batteries), and Earl Tupper (Tupperware) continued to develop important technologies throughout the twentieth century. Moreover, Hintz explains how independent inventors gradually fell from public view as corporate brands increasingly became associated with high-tech innovation. Focusing on the years from 1890 to 1950, Hintz documents how American independent inventors competed (and sometimes partnered) with their corporate rivals, adopted a variety of flexible commercialization strategies, established a series of short-lived professional groups, lobbied for fairer patent laws, and mobilized for two world wars. After 1950, the experiences of independent inventors generally mirrored the patterns of their predecessors, and they continued to be overshadowed during corporate R&D's postwar golden age. The independents enjoyed a resurgence, however, at the turn of the twenty-first century, as Apple's Steve Jobs and Shark Tank's Lori Greiner heralded a new generation of heroic inventor-entrepreneurs. By recovering the stories of a group once considered extinct, Hintz shows that independent inventors have long been—and remain—an important source of new technologies.
Download or read book Edison written by Paul Israel and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2000-03-01 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ein Bestseller jetzt neu als Broschurausgabe! Die gebundene Ausgabe erzielte hervorragende Kritiken im Daily Telegraph, New Scientist, The Independent und in der Sunday Times - um nur einige zu nennen. Israel hatte erstmals Zugang zu Werkstatt-Tagebüchern, Briefen und mehr als fünf Millionen Seiten Archivmaterial. Auf der Basis dieser Informationen hat er die erste maßgebende Biographie von Edison verfaßt. Zum ersten Mal wird Edisons Karriere als Erfinder systematisch untersucht und bewertet. Im Detail wird erforscht, wie er u.a. mit der Erfindung des elektrischen Lichts, der Photographie und mehr als tausend anderen Dingen das 20. Jahrhundert prägte. Dies ist auch die erste Biographie, die Edison im Zusammenhang mit dem rapiden industriellen Wandel betrachtet, indem die Auswirkungen dieses Wandels auf seine Erfindungen beschrieben werden. Dieses Buch liefert eine Fülle neuer Informationen über Edison und seine Erfindungen. Eine interessante und spannende Lektüre. (y03/00)
Download or read book The Power Makers written by Maury Klein and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maury Klein is one of America's most acclaimed historians of business and society. In The Power Makers, he offers an epic narrative of his greatest subject yet - the "power revolution" that transformed American life in the course of the nineteenth century. The steam engine; the incandescent bulb; the electric motor-inventions such as these replaced backbreaking toil with machine labor and changed every aspect of daily life in the span of a few generations. The cast of characters includes inventors like James Watt, Elihu Thomson, and Nikola Tesla; entrepreneurs like George Westinghouse; savvy businessmen like J.P. Morgan, Samuel Insull, and Charles Coffin of General Electric. Striding among them like a colossus is the figure of Thomas Edison, who was creative genius and business visionary at once. With consummate skill, Klein recreates their discoveries, their stunning triumphs and frequent failures, and their unceasing, bare-knuckled battles in the marketplace. In Klein's hands, their personalities and discoveries leap off the page. The Power Makers is a dazzling saga of inspired invention, dogged persistence, and business competition at its most naked and cutthroat--a biography of America in its most astonishing decades.
Download or read book Edison written by Ronald Clark and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-12-17 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is almost a century since Thomas Alva Edison, the world's greatest inventor, gave the world electric light - and exactly one hundred years since he built the first successful phonograph (forerunner of the gramophone). The man who declared that "genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration," and who on average lodged a patent every two weeks of his adult life, was the most famous American of his day. Only now, however, is it possible to present him clearly against the background of his times and to access fairly his achievements and his often controversial business and working methods. In Edison: The Man Who Made The Future, first published in 1977, Ronald Clark describes the inventors early untutored upbringing, his struggles in the industrial jungle which grew up in the aftermath of the American Civil War, and his vital contributions to what became the motion picture industry. A prolific inventor in his own right, he was also a developer of other men's ideas. A pacifist, he became President of the U.S. Naval Consulting Board in the First World War. Thrusting, enquiring, and determined to leave his mark on history, he was, perhaps, the archetypal American of his era.
Download or read book The Human Tradition in Urban America written by Roger Biles and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2002 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces problems and concerns facing different groups of urban Americans at different times through biographical readings.
Download or read book The Race Underground written by Doug Most and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew more congested, the streets became clogged with plodding, horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 crippled the entire northeast, a solution had to be found. Two brothers from one of the nation's great families-Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York-pursued the dream of his city digging America's first subway, and the great race was on. The competition between Boston and New York played out in an era not unlike our own, one of economic upheaval, life-changing innovations, class warfare, bitter political tensions, and the question of America's place in the world.The Race Underground is peopled with the famous, like Boss Tweed, Grover Cleveland and Thomas Edison, and the not-so-famous, from brilliant engineers to the countless "sandhogs" who shoveled, hoisted and blasted their way into the earth's crust, sometimes losing their lives in the construction of the tunnels. Doug Most chronicles the science of the subway, looks at the centuries of fears people overcame about traveling underground and tells a story as exciting as any ever ripped from the pages of U.S. history. The Race Underground is a great American saga of two rival American cities, their rich, powerful and sometimes corrupt interests, and an invention that changed the lives of millions.
Download or read book Edison written by Edmund Morris and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Morris comes a revelatory new biography ofThomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history.
Download or read book The Making of American Industrial Research written by Leonard S. Reich and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-22 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book draws important lessons from the early days of industrial research in America.
Download or read book Thomas Edison written by Paul Israel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-03-18 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most prolific inventor in American history, Thomas Edison played a major role in creating industries that have altered life around the globe: electric light and power, recorded sound and motion pictures. He also made significant innovations in telecommunications, battery technology, office machinery, the manufacture of Portland Cement, and processes for working low-grade ores. He was able to contribute to such a wide array of industries because he was not a lone inventor. At his workshops and laboratories in Newark, Menlo Park, and West Orange in New Jersey, Edison brought together teams of skilled research assistants and machinists. These teams allowed him to do more than any one person could do. In the process he transformed invention by making it part of a larger process of research, development, and commercialization that we now call innovation. That transformation—as much as any single invention—has become a crucial feature of the modern world. Includes a detailed chronology of Edison’s life and work. An introduction that provides an overview of Edison’s life and work. The A-to-Z section includes three hundred encyclopedic entries on Edison’s inventions, laboratories, business enterprises, public image and numerous individuals with whom he was associated. An extensive bibliography of Edison’s publications and select interviews; modern, contemporaneous, and juvenile biographies; and thirteen subject areas related to Edison’s work and influence. The index thoroughly cross-references the chronological and encyclopedic entries.
Download or read book George Westinghouse written by Quentin R. Skrabec and published by Algora Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a biography of Westinghouse, genius inventor from railroad and gas distribution equipment to the corporate model of invention and research. He surpassed Edison in electricity pioneering and in managing workers too; but they both lost their companies in the panic of 1907. The bank always wins.
Download or read book The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells written by Rebecca Rego Barry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-02-13 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells is the first biography of one of the “lost ladies” of detective fiction who wrote more than eighty mysteries and hundreds of other works between the 1890s and the 1940s. Carolyn Wells (1862–1942) excelled at writing country house and locked-room mysteries for a decade before Agatha Christie entered the scene. In the 1920s, when she was churning out three or more books annually, she was dubbed “about the biggest thing in mystery novels in the US.” On top of that, Wells wielded her pen in just about every literary genre, producing several immensely popular children’s books and young adult novels; beloved anthologies; and countless stories, prose, and poetry for magazines such as Thrilling Detective, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s, and The New Yorker. All told, Wells wrote over 180 books. Some were adapted into silent films, and some became bestsellers. Yet a hundred years later, she has been all but erased from literary history. Why? How? This investigation takes us on a journey to Rahway, New Jersey, where Wells was born and is buried; to New York City’s Upper West Side, where she spent her final twenty-five years; to the Library of Congress, where Carolyn’s world-class collection of rare books now resides; and to many other public and private collections where exciting discoveries unfolded. Part biography and part sleuthing narrative, The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells recovers the life and work of a brilliant writer who was considered one of the funniest, most talented women of her time.
