The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern AmericaMaury 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. |
From inside the book
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... percent of the 127 patents granted for inventions in England between 1617 and 1642 involved devices for raising water, although only a handful conceived of fire as the means for doing so. Interest in science rose sharply in England ...
... percent of the 127 patents granted for inventions in England between 1617 and 1642 involved devices for raising water, although only a handful conceived of fire as the means for doing so. Interest in science rose sharply in England ...
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... percent. Shrewdly the partners decided not to license their engines but to charge a royalty amounting to one third of the savings on fuel realized by them. Mine operators willingly paid this sum to acquire an engine that not only ...
... percent. Shrewdly the partners decided not to license their engines but to charge a royalty amounting to one third of the savings on fuel realized by them. Mine operators willingly paid this sum to acquire an engine that not only ...
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... percent. Steamboat construction, equipping, and repairing became a major industry in itself, especially in the river cities of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville.52 Americans and foreigners alike recognized the important role played ...
... percent. Steamboat construction, equipping, and repairing became a major industry in itself, especially in the river cities of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville.52 Americans and foreigners alike recognized the important role played ...
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Contents
The Greatest Engine of | |
In Search of the Mysterious Ether 5 Let There Be Light | |
A Covey of Competitors | |
The Light Dawns | |
Gaining Traction | |
Competition and Electrocution | |
Money Mergers and Motors | |
Chicago 1893 | |
The Niagara Fallout | |
Hard Times | |
The Future Arrives | |
Mastering the Mysteries of Distribution | |
The Pearl Street System | |
The Cowbird the Plugger and the Dreamer | |
The Alternative System | |
Eventful Currents | |
New York 1939 | |
Electrical Circuits | |
Bibliography | |
Other editions - View all
The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America Maury Klein Limited preview - 2008 |
The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America Maury Klein No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
AC system Adams alternating current American April arc light August bankers became began boiler Bordeau Brush building central station Coffin company’s Corliss cost created December direct current dynamo early efficient Electric Light Company electric power electric railway Electrical Manufacturers Elihu Thomson Evans exhibit experiments factory Faraday firm Fitch George Westinghouse heat Henry Henry Villard Hertz History Ibid improved incandescent lamp industry installed Insull’s invention inventor Jehl July June laboratory later locomotive machine magnetic McDonald Menlo Park Michael Faraday million Morgan motor moved needed Niagara Power November October Oliver Evans operation Passer patent Pearl Street station percent Philadelphia Pittsburgh plant Power from Steam problem produced railroad Samuel Insull Sawyer scientists Sprague steam engine Street telegraph Tesla Thomson Thomson-Houston took transformer turbine utility Villard voltage Volts to Hertz Watt Westinghouse wires World’s Fair York Tribune York World’s Fair