Electro-Dynamic Light Company

Last updated
Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York
FoundedJuly 8, 1878;146 years ago (1878-07-08)
Founders
Defunct1882 (1882)

The Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York was a lighting and electrical distribution company organized in 1878. The company held the patents for the first practical incandescent electric lamp and electrical distribution system of incandescent electric lighting. They also held a patent for an electric meter to measure the amount of electricity used. The inventions were those of Albon Man and William E. Sawyer. They gave the patent rights to the company, which they had formed with a group of businessmen. It was the first company in the world formally established to provided electric lighting and was the first company organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs.

Contents

Man, an attorney from New York City, supplied money for experimentation to Sawyer, an electrical engineer. This partnership developed into the Electro-Dynamic Light Company that brought in other investors that became partners. Sawyer devised a unique electrical distribution system where electrical power could be obtained anywhere in the city from an electrical generator with the turn of a switch to light up electric lamps to produce glowing light like a gas lamp. It was unique in that it produced this power without consumers having to maintain local galvanic batteries and at a fraction of the cost of producing the same lighting as from gas lamps. Other features of the system were that safety devices were built in to prevent the early destroying of the other electric lamps in the circuit should there be a power surge due to a lamp burning up early and leaving the distribution circuit. The patents for the Man and Sawyer system were in place before any other electrical companies had similar systems.

History

1878 filament electric lamp Sawyer electric lamp 205144.jpg
1878 filament electric lamp
Electro-Dynamic Electric Light System shows "J" electric generator, "k" main feeder lines, "m" & "o" sub-main lines, "n" & "P" branch lines then connecting incandescent light bulb lamps "Q" Patent 205, 305.jpg
Electro-Dynamic Electric Light System shows "J" electric generator, "k" main feeder lines, "m" & "o" sub-main lines, "n" & "P" branch lines then connecting incandescent light bulb lamps "Q"
Electro-Dynamic regulation system Lighting system 10,134.jpg
Electro-Dynamic regulation system
Electro-Dynamic safety switch system Safety switch system 10,134.jpg
Electro-Dynamic safety switch system

Albon Man, an attorney from New York City, and William E. Sawyer, an electrical engineer, officially formed the Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York on July 8, 1878. [1] [2] [3] This was by way of a partnership with Man supplying money to Sawyer for experiments. [4] This was the first formally established electric-lighting company in the United States [5] [6] [7] and was the first company organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs to put into a system. Man and Sawyer patented the first practical electrical distribution system for incandescent electric lighting and gave the patents to the company. The United States Electric Lighting Company was organized in 1878, weeks after the Electro-Dynamic Company. [2] [8] [9] Thomas Edison's electric lighting discoveries were first shown in September 1878. The Edison Electric-Light Company of New York was organized on October 17, three months after the Electro-Dynamic Company was formally established. [10]

The company had a patent for an electrical distribution system of which Sawyer filed June 27, 1877, and which was granted August 14, 1877. The following extracts from the specifications of his patent show the direction of his early work. The object of his invention was to supply the streets blocks or buildings of a town or city in a practicable manner with any desired quantity of electricity for the purposes of electrical illumination, electroplating, electric heating, and the running of electric motors. The strategy of the invention was to place the electrical generator in any convenient locality where there can be placed electrical wiring over or under ground to the streets blocks or buildings in which the electric current is to be utilized. The advantages of the invention was to enable householders or businesses to obtain a supply of electricity for any purposes without the care and inconvenience of maintenance of local galvanic batteries, that it reduces the cost of electricity considerably to consumers, and that it rendered practical lighting of buildings by electricity. [11]

The object of Sawyer's invention was to supply streets and houses with electricity for local use, the same as natural gas or water was supplied to streets and houses at the present time, so that whenever electricity was desired, it was available from a switched supply. A week later Sawyer obtained a second patent for an electric lamp or burner on August 21, 1877. The invention consisted of an arrangement and combination of parts whereby it enabled to place several electric lights with carbon filaments in a single circuit and to get rid of the use of arcing carbon points normally employed in electric lights at the time. The purpose of the electric current was to heat to incandescence a filament wire in a glass bulb that had an inert gas and a glowing light resulted. [11]

Other investor-partners of the Electro-Dynamic Company included Hugh McCulloch (Man's uncle), [12] William Hercules Hays, James P. Kernochan, Lawrence Myers, and Jacob Hays. [3] [13] Sawyer was around 28 years old and Man about 52 years old at the time the company was formed. They planned on lighting New York City with electricity for one-fortieth the cost of gas lighting. [14] [15] The new company started with capital of $10,000 cash and $290,000 of scrip. [3] It was formed for the purpose of the production of light and power by means of electricity for the lighting of streets and buildings. The company was to make all the equipment necessary to generate and distribute electricity. [16] The distribution of electricity produced by the company was not only for lighting, but for other purposes as well. [10] The company was the first in the United States specifically organized for the manufacture and sale of incandescent electric light bulbs. [17]

In 1878, the company demonstrated an electric light that was the invention of Sawyer and Man. An exhibition was set up in New York City on October 29, 1878. [18] The same exhibition was mentioned several weeks later in a newspaper of Princeton, Minnesota, [19] and Bismarck, North Dakota. [20] The lamp was described as a strip of pencil carbon graphite connected with two wires to an electric generator. The carbon strip was in a hermetically sealed glass bulb that was filled with nitrogen gas. When electricity was applied, the internal strip developed a temperature of between 5,000 and 40,000 °F (22,200 °C). Since there was no oxygen in the glass globe the carbon filament did not burn out and produced light instead when it got hot. [21]

The demonstration consisted of five electric light bulbs hanging from chandeliers in an office building at the corner of Elm and Walker streets. Wires came from the electric lights and went to an adjacent room where there was a generator set up to produce electricity. The wires passed through keyholes to the adjoining room. A key was put into the keyhole and turned to switch on the electric current. As the key was turned further around, the electric lights got brighter. This switch idea was demonstrated with all five chandeliers with the electric lamps. An electric meter to measure the amount of electricity used in an office or house for billing purposes was also demonstrated. [13]

What was unique to Man and Sawyer's lighting system patent No. 205,303, dated June 5, 1878, was that of a safety switch and current regulator, which was termed the lamp-lighter. Attempts to produce an electric lamp with a carbon filament had been made by others and it had been found impossible to prevent the filament from being destroyed with the application electrical current and the sudden change in temperature of the filament as a consequence of the full voltage applied at once. The lamp-lighter switch and regulator avoided this by automatically regulating the lamps electrical current. [3]

In an electric lighting system with an electric generator supplying current to several electric lamps in a Man and Sawyer electrical distribution system there was an independent electromagnetic safety switch of the electrical current. It acted automatically upon the occurrence of any sudden change of resistance condition in the system. A sudden change could be another lamp that burned out and was no longer in the circuit or an accidental short circuit, which then produced a sudden power surge to the remaining lamps still in the circuit. The lamp-lighter safety switch would notice this and instantly turn off the electricity. Then it set up a new combination series of resistors and switched the electricity back on gradually. That regulated the quantity or intensity of the electrical current going to the remaining lamps in the distribution system so that the other lamps would not be destroyed by the sudden power surge. [22] [23]

Patents were taken out by Man and Sawyer for the incandescent electric lamp and all the items needed for electric current distribution for electrifying a large number of lights. [13] The patents were for the benefit of Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York. [21] Man and Sawyer were involved in many legal actions between 1880 and 1884 to protect these patents for electric lighting and electrical power distribution. [24] [25] [26] One such patent was their invention of the incandescent electric lamp formed of carbonized paper. The patent was originally decided for Man and Sawyer on January 20, 1882. It was later referred back to the Examiner of Interferences on the request of Edison who indicated that he had new testimony to offer that was relevant and should be looked at. The Examiner of this time reviewed Edison's testimony at length and went over all the additional points. He held that Man and Sawyer must be adjudged to be the prior inventors of the electric light, as was already decided twice before. [27] He determined after a careful reexamination of the entire record it must be held that Man and Sawyer had put into practice the usage of the electric light at least by the autumn of 1878 and that earliest date the invention can be shown put into use by Edison is a year later. [28] [29] This settled permanently the long contested conflict over the question of who was first in the invention of the arch-shaped fibrous carbon filament electric lamp, which occupied the attention of the U.S. Patent Office for nearly five years to make this final determination. [30] The Electro-Dynamic Light Company was no longer in existence after 1882. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electric light</span> Device for producing light from electricity

An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic which secures the lamp in the socket of a light fixture, which is often called a "lamp" as well. The electrical connection to the socket may be made with a screw-thread base, two metal pins, two metal caps or a bayonet mount.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Edison</span> American inventor and businessman (1847–1931)

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Incandescent light bulb</span> Electric light bulb with a resistively heated wire filament

An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a filament that is heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb that is either evacuated or filled with inert gas to protect the filament from oxidation. Electric current is supplied to the filament by terminals or wires embedded in the glass. A bulb socket provides mechanical support and electrical connections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Westinghouse</span> American engineer and businessman (1846–1912)

George Westinghouse Jr. was an American entrepreneur and engineer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is best known for his creation of the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry. Westinghouse saw the potential of using alternating current for electric power distribution in the early 1880s. He founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1886. Westinghouse's business was in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who marketed direct current for electric power distribution. The Westinghouse company successfully marketed its AC system at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and went on to install the first large-scale commercial AC power generation plant at Niagara Falls by August 1895. In 1911 Westinghouse received the American Institute of Electrical Engineers's (AIEE) Edison Medal "For meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of lighting technology</span>

Artificial lighting technology began to be developed tens of thousands of years ago and continues to be refined in the present day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Woodward (inventor)</span>

Henry Woodward was a Canadian inventor and a major pioneer in the development of the incandescent lamp. He was born in 1832.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Swan</span> British physicist and inventor (1828–1914)

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for developing and supplying the first incandescent lights used to illuminate homes and public buildings, including the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1881.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War of the currents</span> Introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s

The war of the currents was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It grew out of two lighting systems developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s; arc lamp street lighting running on high-voltage alternating current (AC), and large-scale low-voltage direct current (DC) indoor incandescent lighting being marketed by Thomas Edison's company. In 1886, the Edison system was faced with new competition: an alternating current system initially introduced by George Westinghouse's company that used transformers to step down from a high voltage so AC could be used for indoor lighting. Using high voltage allowed an AC system to transmit power over longer distances from more efficient large central generating stations. As the use of AC spread rapidly with other companies deploying their own systems, the Edison Electric Light Company claimed in early 1888 that high voltages used in an alternating current system were hazardous, and that the design was inferior to, and infringed on the patents behind, their direct current system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heinrich Göbel</span> German-born American inventor

Heinrich Göbel, or Henry Goebel was a German-born American precision mechanic and inventor. In 1848 he immigrated to New York City, where he resided until his death. He received American citizenship in 1865.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lewis Howard Latimer</span> African American inventor (1848–1928)

Lewis Howard Latimer was an American inventor and patent draftsman. His inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, an improved process for manufacturing carbon filaments for light bulbs, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars. In 1884, he joined the Edison Electric Light Company where he worked as a draftsman. The Lewis H. Latimer House, his landmarked former residence, is located near the Latimer Projects at 34-41 137th Street in Flushing, Queens, New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Lodygin</span> Russian electrical engineer and inventor


Alexander Nikolayevich Lodygin, known after immigration to US as Alexandre de Lodyguine was a Russian electrical engineer and inventor, one of the inventors of the incandescent light bulb.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel McFarlan Moore</span> American electrical engineer and inventor

Daniel McFarlan Moore was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He developed a novel light source, the "Moore lamp", and a business that produced them in the early 1900s. The Moore lamp was the first commercially viable light-source based on gas discharges instead of incandescence; it was the predecessor to contemporary neon lighting and fluorescent lighting. In his later career Moore developed a miniature neon lamp that was extensively used in electronic displays, as well as vacuum tubes that were used in early television systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison screw</span> Lightbulb socket standard (E5-E40)

Edison screw (ES) is a standard lightbulb socket for electric light bulbs. It was developed by Thomas Edison (1847–1931), patented in 1881, and was licensed in 1909 under General Electric's Mazda trademark. The bulbs have right-hand threaded metal bases (caps) which screw into matching threaded sockets. For bulbs powered by AC current, the thread is generally connected to neutral and the contact on the bottom tip of the base is connected to the "live" phase.

William Edward Sawyer was an American inventor whose contribution was primarily in the field of electric engineering and electric lighting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Diehl (inventor)</span> German-American mechanical engineer (1847–1913)

Philip H. Diehl was a German-American mechanical engineer and inventor who held several U.S. patents, including electric incandescent lamps, electric motors for sewing machines and other uses, and ceiling fans. Diehl was a contemporary of Thomas Edison and his inventions caused Edison to reduce the price of his incandescent bulb.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John White Howell</span>

John White Howell was an American electrical engineer who spent his entire professional career working for Thomas Edison, specializing in the development and manufacturing of the incandescent lamp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holborn Viaduct power station</span> Worlds first coal-fired power station

Holborn Viaduct power station, named the Edison Electric Light Station, was the world's first coal-fired power station generating electricity for public use. It was built at number 57 Holborn Viaduct in central London, by Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Light Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Joseph Hammer</span> American engineer

William Joseph Hammer was an American pioneer electrical engineer, aviator, and president of the Edison Pioneers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison and Swan Electric Light Company</span> Light bulb manufacturer

The Edison and Swan Electric Light Company Limited was a manufacturer of incandescent lamp bulbs and other electrical goods. It was formed in 1883 with the name Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company with the merger of the Swan United Electric Company and the Edison Electric Light Company.

References

  1. "Sawyer's Electric Lamp". Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel. Fort Wayne, Indiana. November 13, 1878 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  2. 1 2 EE1890 1890, p. 72.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Pope 1894, p. 10.
  4. "Sawyer's New Incandescent Light for Illumination of Buildings". Chicago Daily Tribune. Chicago, Illinois. April 5, 1880. p. 7 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  5. Carnegie 2004, p. 196.
  6. Wrege 1986, p. 59.
  7. 1 2 Wrege, Charles D.; Greenwood, Ronald G. (1984). "William E. Sawyer and the Rise and Fall of America's First Incandescent Electric Light Company, 1878–1881" (PDF). Business and Economic History. 2d. 13. The Business History Conference: 31–48. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  8. WE1890 1890, p. 36.
  9. ER1890 1890, p. 9.
  10. 1 2 NAR1889 1889, p. 654.
  11. 1 2 Pope 1894, p. 6.
  12. Annual Reports and Charter, Constitution, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Bar Association Building, New York, 1892,
  13. 1 2 3 "Another Electric Lamp". Democrat and Chronicle. Rochester, New York. November 1, 1878 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  14. "Another Electric Light / An Inventor who Proposes Household Illumination at One-Fortieth the Cost of Gas". The Belvidere Standard. Belvidere, Illinois. November 12, 1878. p. 7 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  15. "An Inventor Who Promises Illumination at One-Fortieth Cost of Gas". The Tennessean. Nashville, Tennessee. November 3, 1878 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  16. "The Electric Lamp / An Invention which finds an Important Manufacturing Center in Brooklyn – The Company which is Prepared to Carry the Work to Consumption". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. October 14, 1883. p. 5 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  17. "Reports of Companies". Electrical Engineer: 72. 1890. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  18. "The Electro-Dynamic Light Company ready to Commence Operation". Chicago Daily Tribune. Chicago, Illinois. November 1, 1878 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  19. "A New Electric Light". The Princeton Union. Princeton, Minnesota. November 13, 1878 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  20. "A New Electric Light". Bismarck. Bismarck, North Dakota. November 18, 1878 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  21. 1 2 "A New Electric Light / The Electro-Dynamic Light Company / Ready to Commence Operations". The New York Times. New York City. October 30, 1878 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  22. Pope 1894, p. 12.
  23. United States 1882, pp. 1781–1782.
  24. Shaver, Lea (2012), Illuminating Innovation: From Patent Racing to Patent War, Lexington, Virginia: The Washington and Lee Law Review (Vol. 69, No. 4), p. 1917
  25. World_XLV 1905, p. 414.
  26. "An Injuction against United States Electric Light Company asked for". National Republican. Washington, D.C. November 11, 1883. p. 3 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  27. "Current Comment". Butler County Democrat. El Dorado, Kansas. August 9, 1883. p. 2 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  28. "The Commissioner of Patents". The Electrician. Williams & Company: 217. 1882. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  29. "Edison and Sawyer / A Statement Favorable to Mr. Sawyer". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. January 14, 1880. p. 1 via Newspapers.com Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg .
  30. Pope 1894, p. 63.

Sources