ABSTRACT
Moving Usage Beyond Lighting For the first decade of the electric power industry, lighting represented virtually all electric usage. It still represents over 30%. Early electric companies realized that a big potential source of revenue was the sale of power to run large electric motors, which could be used for numerous industrial applications. Many of these first light companies quickly became more interested in large industrial sales than in retail sales of lighting to homeowners because of the higher revenues they could realize. They focused on selling both motors and electricity to factories, grain processing centers, water pumping plants, and the like. Electric motors were reliable, relatively quiet, needed no fuel, and did not require the plant to be located on a stream or river, as waterwheels did. More important, they were easy to operate and required relatively less maintenance than other power sources. Another industrial application that fascinated Edison and George Westinghouse, as well as other early inventors and advocates of electric power, was electric railways. Electric-powered locomotives were particularly suited to urban use, for what is called “people movers” or “mass transit systems” today. Electric trains produced no clouds of dense smoke, soot and cinders, as did the coal-fired locomotives of the 1880s. They were quiet, controllable so they could start and stop quickly, and they accelerated much faster than coal-fired locomotives. Electric railways and trolleys were an important element of early electrification. Their widespread use continues to this day throughout Europe. Widely employed in the United States until eclipsed by the popularity of automobiles, they all but died out by the 1960s, but are enjoying a strong comeback in the 21st century, a modern, “low-impact” solution to urban commuting. Although industrial usage soared to the point that many early electric utilities concentrated on it in the late 1880s and early 1890s, the residential and small business market was too big to ignore. Even before light companies began to set up shop, they recognized that electricity could perform other types of useful work besides providing light. Small electric motors could turn fans or replace the manual treadle of sewing machines, could power refrigerators, obviating the need for weekly ice deliveries, and they could also run washing machines, reducing the physical labor involved in all of these activities. Electricity could also produce heat, for toasters, clothes irons, and coffee percolators. In all such applications, it offered greater convenience and smaller appliance size than traditional methods, e.g., the alternative to a conventional oven being the far smaller electric toaster. Not much imagination or engineering skill was needed to invent a plethora of electric appliances, like toasters or sewing machines, which basically just applied electricity to traditional needs. But it took time for manufacturers to set up shop to produce such items, and for retailers to begin marketing them. It took
still more time for a few adventurous souls to buy them and discover that they worked well, and for word to spread that electricity was a superior way to get the job done. Thus, for the first quarter of the 20th century, electricity only spread slowly to other applications throughout households and businesses, where it was regarded as a premium means of doing work – more expensive but worth it for those who could afford it. For example, even as late as 1947, many families did not own a toaster, let alone a washing machine, the average cost of which was $240, or about $1,770 in today’s dollars. Once a great luxury of the post-war era, these appliances became items that cost less today than a generation ago.
