Joseph J. Cunningham, John Paserba
Over time, certain cities became associated with a primary industry: Detroit with automobiles, Pittsburgh with steel, and Chicago with railroads. In the history of electrical manufacturing, the two primary cities that come to mind are Schenectady, NY, for General Electric and Pittsburgh, PA, for Westinghouse. Indeed, Schenectady was so linked to General Electric that a line in the 1956 movie Earth Versus the Flying Saucers referred to “the largest generator Schenectady makes,” as it was assumed that audiences would understand the reference. However, at the birth and early infancy of the industry, it was New York City—specifically, lower Manhattan—that was a center not only of pioneer installations but of the business and component manufacturing as well.
While pioneer electric light installations were occurring across the country and around the world, the dense business and commercial center of lower Manhattan offered the best opportunity for new electric light and power systems (Figure 1). As for lighting, the business center of the city was an attractive potential market. A ready market for power in the form of electric motors was provided by the numerous small businesses that were crammed into a few city blocks: jewelers, printers, publishers, woodworkers, ship chandlers, and more. All of them used machines to perform their tasks, and machines required power. Steam was the standard, but it was complex and left much to be desired. While electrical equipment innovators focused initially on lighting, expansion into motors followed, often within a few months.
Transportation of heavy machinery was expensive; thus, it was desirable to have manufacturing, or at least assembly, near the users. Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street power station is the most famous of the pioneer systems; three distinct manufacturing operations were developed to support it. Electric motor pioneer Leo Daft constructed both component manufacturing and power generation systems in the area. Frank Sprague, an innovator of electric motors and railways, also began with facilities in the city. The Crocker-Wheeler Company, a major factor in the development of ac (such is usually attributed only to George Westinghouse), began with a factory in Manhattan. The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company also established a factory in New York City. Before exploring the efforts of those major firms, a look at some of the forgotten minor players is in order. While it is impossible to know just how many small independent companies existed, some made a mark before disappearing into history.
For this issue’s “History” article, Joseph J. Cunningham returns for the 12th time to our pages. In this article, Joseph shares the history of New York City at the infancy of electric lighting and power systems. During the treatment of this period of electric history, Joseph shares stories of the early pioneers of success, lawsuits, suicide, failures, knighthood, and a sidewalk gunfight.
Joseph has contributed to our “History” pages on topics including industrial electrification, electric utility power systems, and electric rail transportation. Joseph’s book, New York Power, was published in 2013 by IEEE History Center Press. We welcome back Joseph as our history author for this issue of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine.
John Paserba
Associate Editor, “History”
The first recorded pioneer on the New York City scene was the inventor William Sawyer, born in Brunswick, ME, in 1850. As a telegraph operator, he developed an interest in electric power and explored practical applications for it. In July 1878, Sawyer and financier Albon Man established the Electro-Dynamic Lamp Company. A complete system was demonstrated in a building at Elm and Walker Streets on 29 October of that year. Their plan was a system to supply power to buildings throughout the area for lighting, electroplating, motors, or heating. His engineering office at 21 Cortlandt Street hosted the development of a variety of technical components related to lighting that included a mechanical meter to record power consumption and an automatic cutoff (circuit breaker) for protection against damage from the failure of components. The Electro-Dynamic Company claimed to be the first to manufacture incandescent lamps on a regular basis. However, his lamps required a regulating device to prevent burnout, while Edison avoided that issue by the use of lamp filaments of adequate resistance.
In 1882, the Electro-Dynamic Company was supplanted by the Sawyer-Man Company, which engaged in successful litigation with Edison over the details of lamp patents (Figure 2). The primary success of his company was not enjoyed by Sawyer, however. He was troubled by alcoholism and a bad temper, and an ongoing dispute with a neighbor led to Sawyer shooting that neighbor, who lost an eye as a result. Sawyer was tried and convicted despite a claim of self-defense in which he alleged that the neighbor (a doctor) had displayed a gun. He was sentenced to four years but expected a pardon for his importance to the electric business. While awaiting a response to that plea, he died of internal hemorrhage in 1883 at the age of 33. Litigation with Edison was resolved the following year, when the patent examiner decided the issue in favor of the Sawyer-Man patent.
The best years of the Sawyer-Man Company were ahead; after success in the disputes with Edison, the company developed a line of lighting products (Figure 3). Sawyer-Man was then acquired by the United States Electric Lighting Co., which was then acquired in 1888 by Westinghouse. The Sawyer-Man patents became the basis of the “Stopper” lamp that illuminated the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The extensive Westinghouse exhibit at that fair established the company as one of the two leaders of the industry. The Sawyer-Man factory was located in midtown at 510–534 West 23rd Street (Figure 4), a property that later became a motor component factory of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company.
Leo Daft established the New York Electric Light Co. on Centre Street in 1879. An Englishman of varied talents and wide experience, he focused initially on lighting but later changed the direction of his effort to motive power for industry. He developed an extensive distribution system of power for industrial motors in dozens of industries in the area (Figure 5). At the start of 1884, the initial installations of his equipment by the Electric Power Co. of NY were located in two buildings at 13 and at 32–34 Spruce Street. Their success was such that his Daft Electric Light Company “Distributory” electric power system was installed in two stations operated by the Excelsior Power Company to supply power to numerous factories in lower Manhattan. The primary Excelsior Power Company power station was located at 33–43 Gold Street; the company was a successor to the Excelsior Steam Power Company (see “Forgotten Pioneer Leo Daft and the Excelsior Power Company” in the “For Further Reading” section). Daft located additional manufacturing facilities at 115 Broadway near Wall Street, but success came so rapidly that he was forced to move his manufacturing operations to New Jersey.
The United States Electric Lighting Co. was established in 1878 soon after the Electro-Dynamic Company was founded. It was formed to market the inventions of several inventors, especially the advanced arc light system of Edward Weston of New Jersey and the incandescent light system of Hiram Maxim. Hiram Maxim, an inventor from Sangerville, ME, later was best known for his machine gun but, at that time, had developed an incandescent light system at his office and factory at 43 Centre Street. He became the chief engineer of the United States Electric Lighting Co., and it was claimed that he installed the first electric lights in the city as early as 1879–1880 with an installation in the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway.
He engaged in litigation with Edison over the bulb concept, which was patented erroneously under the name of an employee. That patent was proven invalid, which left the concept open to Edison’s use, or so it was claimed. Maxim went to London in 1881 to organize the United States Electric Lighting Co. offices there; he became a British subject in 1899 and was knighted for his inventions in military weaponry by King Edward VII in 1901. United States Electric Lighting combined the Maxim and Weston patents into its product line (Figure 6) and continued to operate at 59–61 Liberty Street, a space that probably included some assembly work, at least until its acquisition by Westinghouse in 1888.
Another pioneer lighting company was formed by William Hochhausen, an inventor from Germany. After traveling the world, he settled in New York City in 1867. With a background in mathematics and physics, he pursued the development of telegraph and alarm systems and later generators for arc lighting and electroplating. By 1881, he had established, with Anthony Arnoux, the firm of Arnoux & Hochhausen to supply generators, arc lights, and electroplating equipment from a combined office, showroom, and factory space in a former stable at 227 East 20th Street. The 9 April edition of Scientific American carried an advertisement for the company’s products, but business must have been poor. It was revealed later that Arnoux, as treasurer of the company, had invested his personal funds and used his home as collateral to support the financially distressed company but apparently with no success. On 3 July, Arnoux sat down at his office desk and fired a 38-caliber bullet into his heart. An article in The New York Times the following day described a note to his wife that said his family would be better off without him. In other notes he declared the company had not been promoted well. Little seems to have been recorded subsequently with regard to the company or its fate.
Hochhausen persevered, and a new company, the Excelsior Electric Co. was organized that same year to develop, manufacture, and market his inventions (Figure 7). Though often confused with the Excelsior Power Company in several instances, including this author’s previous article on Daft (see the “For Further Reading” section), Excelsior Electric appears to have been maintained as a separate entity from the Excelsior Power Company. Excelsior Power had provided customers with mechanical power, first by shafts driven by steam engines, and then replaced that system with electric motors. The aforementioned installations of the Daft system on Spruce Street would appear to have been Excelsior Power Company installations, though the properties may have belonged to Excelsior Electric Co., but no definitive data have been found. The confusion is understandable for, at that time, Excelsior (in Latin meaning “ever upward”) was a name applied to many products and businesses. A century earlier, it had been adopted as the New York State motto; it was also the theme of a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier and was even used to describe a common packing material.
Hochhausen’s designs were claimed to be superior to Edison’s for the ability to combine incandescent and arc light systems and compensate for burned-out bulbs in a circuit. The Excelsior Electric Co. was located at 66–68 Duane Street, with lighting for office and loft buildings as its primary business. Hochhausen became embroiled in litigation with Edward Weston over water-cooled dynamos in a battle that ultimately led to the decline of Excelsior. It was acquired in 1890 by Thomson-Houston of Lynn, MA, one of the founding partners of General Electric. Thomson-Houston, a leader in the arc light industry, also acquired the Brush Electric Co. of Cleveland that had been founded in 1879 by Charles Brush, who is recognized by most historians as the most significant pioneer of arc lights. Brush, like Thomson-Houston and Edward Weston, was a pioneer who, so far as is known, did not establish manufacturing facilities in New York City, though all were commercially active there.
Thomas Edison needed space to manufacture components for his legendary Pearl Street power station. Lamp production had been established in Harrison, NJ, but heavy equipment assembly was best located near the point of installation. Aside from the elimination of the expense of transportation, close proximity of component manufacture to the location of use allowed rapid communication between factory staff and the installation and test crews. Such proximity was a vital concern, as much had yet to be learned with regard to the sustained operation of the components.
Three Edison manufacturing operations were established in Manhattan. The first was the Edison Machine Works at 104 Goerick Street (Figure 8), founded in March 1881 near the present site of the Williamsburg Bridge. It consisted of several buildings; the first was a heavy industrial building converted from a former iron works. There, the generators and related hardware were assembled; those included machines sent to Paris and also, probably, were sent to London for the demonstration plant at Holborn Viaduct, which preceded the Pearl Street operation by eight months. The factory also supplied generators of different sizes for varied applications. It employed several hundred men and was also used for the design and testing of new components. An additional property behind it was acquired for storage, as the demand for space grew so extreme that lathes were set up outside the main building and powered by belts from inside the building. Space limitations and labor issues led to a relocation to Schenectady in 1885, a move that formed the basis of the later General Electric Company facilities in that city.
That same month, the Edison Tube Works was established to manufacture the conduits used for the underground distribution circuits. Manufacturing began at 65 Washington Street and grew to require a staff of 100 men. The Edison Shafting Works was established on Wooster Street in 1884 to provide belts, pulleys, and other mechanical components and became part of the Tube Works late in 1885. Both merged into the Machine Works in December 1885.
A fourth company, Bergmann & Co., was founded by former Edison employee Sigmund Bergmann in 1881 to supply lighting fixtures, switches, fuses, and related components from a plant at 108–114 Wooster Street. The need for space forced a move to a large building at 292–298 Avenue B near East 17th Street, which was obtained as part of the purchase of the business of a competitor. The initial Bergmann plant may have shared the Wooster Street space of the Edison Shafting Works. Bergmann products were distributed internationally for Edison Lighting systems installed in other countries. As the Edison companies shifted production to Schenectady, the Bergmann operation was merged into the Edison Machine Works in 1886. That same year, the Edison United Manufacturing Company was established as a marketing agency with an office at the 65 Fifth Avenue address. Three years later, it was reorganized as the United Edison Manufacturing Company and, subsequently, as the Edison General Electric Company after acquisition of the Sprague motor company.
Frank J. Sprague, best known for his pioneer work with electric railways, developed, in 1884, a constant-speed industrial motor that was ideal for application to individual machines, and it soon surpassed the products of all of his competitors. Moreover, it was the only type approved for use on Edison’s lighting circuits, and Sprague became the leader in the field of motor development (Figure 9). The initial development and marketing of his motor was located at the Bergmann plant on Avenue B, but component manufacturing and assembly were dependent on the Edison Machine Works. After the move of the Edison companies to Schenectady was completed, Sprague leased space uptown in the Union Lead Works building on West 30th Street in January 1887. He eventually moved his operations to New Jersey, as had Daft before him. The Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company was merged into the Edison General Electric Company in 1889.
Manhattan was also selected for the factory of Ball Electric Light Co. of Toronto, Canada, to supply customers in the United States. Ball offered motors and an extensive array of arc and incandescent lighting systems in North America as well as internationally. Initially located at 18 Cortlandt Street, a large factory was constructed at 281–289 Ninth Avenue/400–416 West 27th Street, with New York offices located at 404 West 27th Street (Figure 10).
Lower Manhattan, however, remained the center for electrical companies through the 1880s. After Daft and Edison, the most significant pioneer to locate in that area was the Crocker-Wheeler Company, which manufactured generators and motors for both ac and dc systems. Crocker-Wheeler, founded by the partnership of Francis Crocker and Schuyler Wheeler in 1888, was located at 39 Cortlandt Street until space limitations forced a move of the factory to New Jersey. The most significant ac innovator after Westinghouse, with a more extensive product line than ac pioneer Thomson-Houston of Lynn, MA, (later the founding partner of General Electric), Crocker-Wheeler claimed to have exhibited more variations of equipment than Westinghouse at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
That event is generally cited as the point of the victory of Westinghouse in the competition with Edison’s dc proponents, but clearly Westinghouse was not alone in the promotion of ac systems, nor was the competition the simple two-party “clash of the Titans” battle portrayed in virtually every historical treatment. As a point of fact, there were a number of players on both sides of the ac versus dc dispute, and the issues were not so simple or as clear-cut as the popular versions allege. The Crocker-Wheeler factory move was completed by 1896, though lettering on the huge new factory proclaimed the Cortlandt Street address of its business offices. Unlike the competition, Crocker-Wheeler created an entire town, appropriately named Ampere, and the factory was said to be the largest and most technically advanced of the day.
In many instances, it is difficult to describe with certainty the businesses mentioned, for there is minimal information on record. That is especially true of the smaller companies that disappeared or were absorbed into larger entities. As in the case of the later myriad automobile, aircraft, and radio pioneers, the electrical innovators saw alliances made and broken, equipment reused or rebuilt, and facilities relocated—all such changes were usually attributable to disputes, patent litigation, or financial distress. Furthermore, the products varied substantially according to customer request, technical evolution, competition, component availability, and financial constraint.
In many instances, companies and innovators failed economically after devising workable schemes. A primary source of data for this article was descriptions, notices, and advertisements in trade publications, such as Electrical World, which was the leading trade journal of the day. Another source was the surviving catalogs of the companies. It is difficult to ascertain the accuracy of promotional materials as to the duration of the production and sale of a product and whether or not it sold in significant numbers. The picture is further distorted by the frequent lawsuits, patent infringement accusations (both real and alleged), and company acquisitions.
Innovation rarely comes from a single innovator at a single point in time, much as that theme may make an interesting story. Rather, it occurs when available knowledge, market demand, material, and technical development all reach the point where a new step or technological direction is feasible. In most instances, a number of informed people see the potential; some of those propose but fail to act, or they may lack the capital necessary to pursue development. A few develop practical hardware, and the best of those compete for business. The field of competitors is then winnowed by finances, opportunity, market interest, and product quality until only a few remain. Though the innovators mentioned here competed in New York City, their ultimate survival required successful competition with companies located elsewhere. In arc lighting, the most significant of those were the Brush Electric Co. of Cleveland, OH; the Thomson-Houston Company of Lynn, MA; and the Weston Electric Co. of Newark, NJ.
Those companies with the financial strength and the best product enjoyed success, but, eventually, all were acquired by larger companies with greater resources and deeper market penetration. The rare few, such as Crocker-Wheeler, remained independent to become strong players in the field. Still, it was those with extensive national or even international operations that became the leaders; in the United States, that was General Electric and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. Nonetheless, those overlooked (and now long forgotten) pioneer entrepreneurs and innovators that clustered in lower Manhattan in the 1880s played a major and sometimes a leading role in the launch of a new industry. Though forged in competition, their innovations advanced the United States to international prominence in the electric light and power industry.
The author would like to thank Mary Ann Hellrigel of the IEEE History Center for her generous assistance in determining the locations and details of the early Edison factories in New York City and also Michael Wares for his assistance in locating ancient maps of Manhattan in the period under discussion.
T. J. Blalock, “Ampere, New Jersey [History] ,” IEEE Power Energy Mag., vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 78–91, May/Jun. 2011, doi: 10.1109/MPE.2011.940407.
J. J. Cunningham, “Forgotten Pioneer: Leo daft and the excelsior power company [History] ,” IEEE Power Energy Mag., vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 108–120, Jul./Aug. 2018, doi: 10.1109/MPE.2018.2819038.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2023.3269552
Date of current version: 21 June 2023
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