Until the late 1800s, electricity and electric appliances were scarce. People had to rely on sunlight during the day and gas lamps or candles at night to provide light. Machines were operated by hand cranks, steam engines, animals, or other non-efficient power sources. Workers in factories powered by coal driven steam engines were in constant danger. Businesses were inefficient; factories and offices could only be operated during the day because there was not an efficient way to light them at night. People could only communicate by letter, which was only as fast as the horse or train which carried it. Transportation and storage of food was difficult, because ice was the only way to cool food. Electricity was the key to solving many problems that peopl

Edison realized that a more efficient generator than what was currently in production would be needed to power a city's lighting demands. Most generators were only thirty to fifty percent efficient, in other words, less than fifty percent of the energy put into the generator was turned into electricity. Edison and his laboratory team eventually create the Jumbo Dynamo, which was nearly ninety percent efficient, and could power about twelve-hundred lights (Brittain 112-113). It produced direct current (DC), in which the electricity flows in one direction constantly, much like water in a pipe. Edison thought that the Jumbo Dynamo was efficient enough to use in a commercial power station, thus he began construction on his Pearl Street station, the first commercial power station.

The use of AC power for industrial purposes was perfected by Nicola Tesla. He devised a "polyphase" AC system that used an AC generator to produce several interlocked currents. These currents were exactly the same, but one "step" out of phase with each other. This explains the trio of wires on an AC power transmission tower. This polyphase AC current could be used in a very powerful polyphase AC motor designed especially for it. This motor and polyphase AC electric power made electricity very efficient and popular for use in factories. The first major uses for polyphase AC power began with the hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls. The plant at Niagara Falls used the power of water to generate its electricity, putting out fifteen-thousand horsepower verses the 900 at Pearl Street (Canby 73-76).

Edison finished construction on the Pearl Street station, in New York City on September 4, 1882, which paved the way for electricity distribution in America. The Pearl Street station contained six direct current (DC) Jumbo Dynamos producing about 100 kilowatts (kW) each, which could serve an area of about one square mile of the city (Canby 72). At the beginning, the plant powered only about five-hundred lamps, but by December of 1882, it powered more than five-thousand. The generators threw sparks and shook the earth, the meters overcharged people, but his system worked (Burchell 44). The problem with this plant was that it could not transmit electrical po

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Approximate Word count = 1526
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)