Portland Public Library

The power makers, steam, electricity, and the men who invented modern America, Maury Klein

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. [511]-520) and index

illustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

The power makers

bibliography

182621506

Maury Klein

steam, electricity, and the men who invented modern America

The dramatic story of the power revolution that turned America from an agrarian society into a technological superpower, and the dynamic, fiercelynbsp; competitive inventors and entrepreneurs who made it happena riveting historical saga to rival McCulloughsThe Great Bridgeor LarsonsThunderstruck. Maury Klein, author ofRainbows End: The Crash of 1929, is one of Americas most acclaimed historians of business and industry. InThe Power Makers, he offers an epic narrative of his greatest subject yetthe power revolution that transformed American life in the course of the nineteenth century. The steam engine, the incandescent bulb, the electric motorinventions such as these replaced backbreaking toil with machine labor and changed every aspect of daily life in the span of a few generations. The power revolution is not a tale of machines, however, but of men: inventors such as James Watt, Elihu Thomson, and Nikola Tesla; entrepreneurs such as George Westinghouse; savvy businessmen such as 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, tumultuous, and ferocious battles in the marketplace. In Kleins hands, their personalities and discoveries leap off the page. The Power Makersis a dazzling saga of inspired invention, dogged persistence, andnbsp; business competition at its most naked and cutthroat tale of America in its most astonishing decades

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Prologue: A Show of Power: Philadelphia 1876 -- 1. The Machine That Changed the World -- 2. Conquering the Waters -- 3. The Greatest Engine of All -- 4. In Search of the Mysterious Ether -- 5. Let There Be Light -- 6. A Covey of Competitors -- 7. The Light Dawns p. 136 8. The Pearl Street System -- 9. The Cowbird, the Plugger, and the Dreamer -- 10. The Alternative System -- 11. Eventful Currents -- 12. Gaining Traction -- 13. Competition and Electrocution -- 14. Money, Mergers, and Motors -- 15. A Show of Lights: Chicago 1893 -- 16. The Niagara Fallout -- 17. Hard Times -- 18. The Future Arrives -- 19. Mastering the Mysteries of Distribution -- 20. The Empire of Energy -Epilogue: A Show of Possibilities: New York 1939 -- Electrical Circuits -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index