For most of human history and civilization we have lived without electricity – a point which I repeatedly remind my wife and which she surely is sick of hearing by now. Nevertheless, all of the benefits of electricity have arrived to humanity within the last 150 years. By the late 19th century, scientists and inventors had learned how to generate electricity and produce practical lighting. The trick was how to deliver it to an entire city. On September 4, 1882, Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Station began supplying electricity to customers in lower Manhattan, becoming the first permanent, commercial electric generating station in the United States.
The power plant generated electricity by burning coal and initially powered around 400 lamps to 82 customers. Although impressive for the time, the area it covered was small by today’s standards totaling roughly one quarter of a square mile. Six massive generators nicknamed Jumbo Dynamos produced direct current electricity that traveled through underground copper wires to the nearby buildings. The achievement was remarkable because Edison and his team did not succeed in producing just another device – it produced a system. The generators produced electricity, the underground cables distributed it, the meters measured the consumption, and the incandescent lamps converted the electricity into light.
The Pearl Street Station represents an important lesson in the history of science and technology: discovering the lasts of nature is only the beginning. The next important challenge is transforming that knowledge into something capable of improving everyday life. Within a few generations, electricity would revolutionize nearly every aspect of human life.
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