Engineering Invention: Frank J. Sprague and the U.S. Electrical Industry

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ENGINEERING INVENTION

EN GINEERING INVENTIO N Frank J. Sprague and the U.S. Electrical Industry

FREDERICK DALZELL

The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

© 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please email special_sales@ mitpress.mit.edu. This book was set in Bembo by Graphic Composition, Inc. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dalzell, Frederick. Engineering invention : Frank J. Sprague and the U.S. elecrical industry / Frederick Dalzell ; foreword by W. Bernard Carlson ; afterword by John Sprague p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-04256-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Sprague, Frank J. (Frank Julian), b. 1857. 2. Inventors—United States—Biography. 3. Electrical engineers—United States—Biography. 4. Electric utilities—United States— History—20th century. I.Title. TA140.S7D35 2010 621.3092—dc22 [B] 2009011083 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Foreword by W. Bernard Carlson Acknowledgments xi

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INTRODUCTION: TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY 1

21

1

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

2

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888: SPRAGUE ELECTRIC RAILWAY AND MOTOR COMPANY AND THE RICHMOND UNION PASSENGER RAILWAY 59

3

ASSESSING RICHMOND: BEYOND INVENTION

4

RESTLESS AND RISING: SPRAGUE AND SPRAGUE ELECTRIC ELEVATOR COMPANY, 1890 TO 1898 113

5

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL: MULTIPLE UNIT, THE SOUTH SIDE ELEVATED RAILROAD, AND THE FORMATION OF SPRAGUE ELECTRIC COMPANY 145

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CONTENTS

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ELUSIVE CONTROL: THE CONTEST WITH GENERAL ELECTRIC 173

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MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION: EMINENCE AND THE CHALLENGES OF “RETIREMENT” 201 AFTERWORD: THE BARN BY JOHN SPRAGUE

Notes Index

237 263

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FOREWORD W. Bernard Carlson

Disruptive technologies have played a decisive role in American history. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, Thomas Edison’s phonograph, and the Wright brothers’ airplane not only changed how people lived, worked, and played but created entirely new industries. In more recent times, we have seen how the integrated circuit, the personal computer, and the Internet have also changed daily routines while disrupting the status quo of economic and social life. Yet disruptive technologies are based on a fundamental paradox. Revolutionary inventions are often unexpected—they seem to come out of nowhere—but these inventions succeed only when they are connected to existing business practices, capital, manufacturing know-how, and marketing channels. For wild ideas to become widely used products, the revolutionary and unexpected must be linked to the familiar, the tried-and-true. One of the marvels of the

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W. BERNARD CARLSON

American economy is that, for over two centuries, it has been able to stimulate new ideas while delivering the resources needed to shape these ideas into successful products. But how are disruptive technologies created and ultimately tamed? On the one hand, Americans love to celebrate heroic inventors and entrepreneurs and to talk about how disruptive technologies are the result of hard work,Yankee ingenuity, and luck. On the other hand, we know that mass-produced products only come about when large-scale organizations—either private corporations or the state—mobilize significant amounts of capital, science, and manufacturing capability. As the pioneering sociologist Max Weber would have argued, disruptive technologies require both charisma and bureaucracy. In this new study, Fred Dalzell shows us how disruptive technologies are created and tamed by narrating the life of the inventor and entrepreneur, Frank J. Sprague. By tracing how Sprague introduced several radical inventions—electric streetcars, elevators, and the controllers needed to operate electric trains—Dalzell explores the challenges that Sprague faced in converting his ideas into products. As he invented new technology, Sprague also had to create new companies, find capital, and build relationships with customers. Most notably, Dalzell reveals how Sprague’s ability to “stage” new technology—to build persuasive demonstration systems—permitted Sprague to win over investors and customers. At the same time, while he recounts how Sprague acted decisively as a creative inventor-entrepreneur, Dalzell also shows us where larger forces—urbanization, the rise of big business, and the dynamics of capital markets—constrained Sprague’s actions and ultimately tamed his unruly creations. Overall, Dalzell shows how disruptive technologies are shaped by both the

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charismatic individual and the bureaucratic corporation. As Americans confront the economic challenges of today, Dalzell’s study of Frank Sprague offers valuable lessons into the innovation process, lessons that can help create the disruptive technologies that will be vital to the American economy in the years ahead.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

During the long process of researching and writing this book, John L. Sprague (grandson of Frank J. Sprague) provided invaluable assistance in the form of ideas, recommendations, contacts, and access to material not readily available from public sources.These included his personal recollections, family papers, and especially the six letterbooks (now available at the Williams College Chapin Library) that were presented to Frank Sprague on his seventy-fifth birthday in 1932. While respecting my independent critical analysis absolutely, he has corrected any number of factual errors in early drafts. My friend and mentor Davis Dyer supplied continuous guidance in framing (and re-framing!) the project, as well as constant encouragement in seeing it through. Without his support, this book would never have been completed.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

W. Bernard Carlson offered input and contextual perspective at an early stage in the project, and vital encouragement along the way as my ideas slowly cohered. Robert F. Dalzell, Jr., has read drafts of chapters and provided helpful input, combining the rigor of a scholar and the sensitivity of a father. Electrical / Railway Engineering Historian Joseph J. Cunningham lent his encyclopedic knowledge of Sprague’s inventions and their enduring relevancy. Robert J. Lobenstein, General Superintendent of Power Operations for the New York City Transit (subway) System, also provided critical insight, testifying to the enduring legacy of Sprague’s multiple unit control systems in New York’s subway to this day. Robert W. Walker, Director of Operating Capital Project for the Metro-North Railroad, provided information on numerous systems, where Sprague’s work continues to hum. M. Julian Pepinster, President of the Association d’Exploitation du Material Sprague, offered detailed information concerning the Sprague-Thomson subway cars used in the Paris Metro Line, Le Sprague. Piers Conner, former President of the London Underground Railway Society, also lent invaluable expertise, including a series of articles published in the (London) Underground News starting in 2005. Finally, Mary-Elise, Abby, and Molly have added vital love, support, and faith.To everyone who helped, but particularly to these last three: Thank you. Frederick Dalzell Newton, Massachusetts

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INTRODUCTION: TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

In 1883, Electrical World declared with characteristic appetite that the latest technological wonder dazzling the public was already old news. Thomas Edison and his partners had just brought the world’s first central power station on line at Pearl Street in New York City, only a few years after the Wizard of Menlo Park had unveiled his incandescent light to rapt audiences. As chronicler and booster of all things electric, Electrical World had been relentlessly promotional. Now, the journal’s editors proclaimed, it was time to look ahead to the next technological triumph, the next set of heroic inventors, the next round in an accelerating cycle of wondrous innovation: “The electric light has long ceased to be a curiosity or even a novelty. It has become a common every-day affair.To the scientist, to the electrician, it looms up even as a thing of the past. The question to which he now turns is: What shall we do next? The inventor, who finds his services

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INTRODUCTION

no longer in such great demand in the field of electric lighting, also considers the same question.What shall it be?”1 It was a brash summons, heady and hyperbolic, but Electrical World was writing for a highly charged readership. An expectant public awaited electrical invention. Technical innovation of all kinds, on all fronts, was coming to seem not only inevitable but imminent. And this assumption was generating a swelling sense of opportunity. Aspiring inventors and entrepreneurs were testing new electrical technologies and launching new electrical start-up companies. One of these aspirants was Frank Julian Sprague. An intense, fiercely ambitious young electrical engineer who had recently joined Edison’s burgeoning team of collaborators, Sprague had been soaking up everything he could learn about this emergent technology. As a student at the U.S. Naval Academy, as an avid visitor to several international exhibitions that showcased new electrical inventions, as (briefly) an apprentice to Moses Farmer (pioneer of arc lighting in the United States), and now as an employee of Edison, Sprague had made his way determinedly into the middle of the excitement. For several years, he had been filling notebooks with invention ideas. He was preparing his own bid at heroic invention. As for the question “What shall it be?” Sprague had reached the same conclusion offered by Electrical World, which predicted: “The answer is ‘the electric railway’! That, in our opinion, is the great achievement that will next come to the surface to proclaim the grand properties of the force at our command and the genius of those whose task it is to deal with their utilization.”2 This was precisely where Sprague intended to stake his claim. By the time EW alerted its readers to the opportunity, he had already sketched out preliminary blueprints. He was poised, he was fiercely convinced, on the brink of big things.

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Indeed, Sprague was beginning what would be a remarkably fertile career of invention and innovation.3 Between 1884 (when he broke with Edison to begin assembling his own designs for electric motors) and 1902 (when he sold his third company to General Electric), Sprague designed and commercialized a string of electrical technologies. From pioneering work in self-governing motors (motors that worked at constant speeds despite varying loads), he moved into the development of electric railway systems (including networked aspects of the technology, such as motor, railway car, and carriage architecture; control systems; and power transmission solutions). This work coalesced in Richmond, Virginia, in 1887 as the world’s first functional, full-scale electric railway system. From there, Sprague turned to the apparently promising (but technologically more contested) field of electric elevators, exploring ways to apply his work in electric motors and control systems and supplant the steam-powered lifts then in use. In the middle of this work, he intuited and began engineering a multiple-unit control system (MU, he called it) that, when installed on urban elevated railway lines (and eventually, subway and mainline railroads), would wire systems for mass transit on an urban scale of operation. By the time Sprague went into semiretirement at the turn of the twentieth century, his technical work was thoroughly embedded in the industrial urban landscape. As inventions or artifacts, Sprague’s designs and solutions were largely invisible, buried inside complex technological networks and systems. But as vital components of those networks, they were humming busily, carrying traffic, reorganizing geographies, and refashioning the material and cultural patterns that defined daily lives. Sprague thus participated in a remarkably prolific burst of innovation that, in a few dozen years over the late nineteenth century, transformed

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INTRODUCTION

the technologies of electricity. He circulated among, learned from, shared ideas with, and competed within a community of peers that became famous in their lifetimes, legendary in later years, and fascinating as episodes in the history of technology: Thomas Edison, Elihu Thomson, Nicolas Tesla, Charles Brush, Elmer Sperry, George Westinghouse, and William Stanley. And those were just the luminaries. Working among them, with them, and against them, vying for attention and opportunities, was a minor host of would-bes and almosts. A rich cluster of new technologies emerged from this environment, forming within a highly compressed framework of iterative innovation. Within the space of several decades, breakthroughs in telegraphy and telephony, arc lighting, incandescent lighting, direct-current power generation and transmission, phonographs, and alternatingcurrent power generation and transmission took form as artifacts and stabilized as technological systems. And those are just the technologies that achieved successful innovation—that “took.” Any number of other ideas, designs, and inventions failed to stabilize themselves in the marketplace or the material culture, connect to their contexts, and achieve adoption. It was not just the technology that was changing, though. The processes and possibilities by which the technology was made—and made to happen—also underwent profound, rapid transformation during Sprague’s career. He came of age at the coevolution of major shifts in the social, economic, and cultural landscape. He joined the fray just as big business took form, firms began to organize industrial research capabilities, and scientists and engineers internalized and institutionalized professional identities. The development of the industrial corporation (itself a cluster of organizational and financial technologies) became a powerful engine of technology formation.

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TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

Product development became a platform for invention and a vehicle of innovation. And scientists and engineers began to organize themselves into professional associations. These transformations helped organize the technology, sort it out, and assemble it in workable forms. And organization proved increasingly important in the case of electrical technologies, for these were technologies that could not be designed and built in isolation, marvel by marvel, novelty by novelty, apparatus by apparatus. Designs and solutions tended to be iterative. Inventions came to signify highly complex clusters of technologies assembling interlocking components. Technical progress toward any given system was also iterative, incorporating numerous designs and solutions. The technology, in other words, was networked, requiring the process of innovation to become networked.To take one of the most evident examples, Sprague couldn’t “invent” an electric railway until a system of power generation and transmission had been invented and built out.4 In all of these events, Sprague participated, promoted, parlayed— and at the same time negotiated, sometimes uncomfortably. His sense of technology and his cultural assumptions about concepts such as invention and progress were shaped in the mid-nineteenth century in an era of technology making that was already giving way as he started work. He instinctively held to the concept of technology articulated by Electrical World when it called on the “genius” of those capable of summoning “the grand properties of the force at our command . . . to the surface.” That concept would be challenged, though. Sprague would have to learn how to reconcile it with very different modes of technology. Sprague created a career that offers, in short, a rich case for historical study—a case that this book uses to examine a cluster of closely

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INTRODUCTION

related issues. Sprague’s story situates the historian at the heart of the formation of the electrical industry (the second industrial revolution), in the early, formative stages of the first U.S. industrial corporations, and at a fertile nexus of technology and economic growth. Operating amid all these forces, Sprague stayed in constant motion, inventing and venturing, pursuing one opportunity after another. ECONOMIC CONTEXT: THE BUSINESS OF ELECTRICAL INNOVATION

In 1870, the U.S. government marked the emergence of a new industry when the federal census listed a set of four manufacturing firms engaged in the production of “electro-magnetic machines.” The business was tiny. With a total capitalization of $16,500, the industry aggregated about as much capital as the manufacture of cigar boxes (ten establishments, $16,500 total capitalization) or beehives (twelve firms, $18,900 in financing).5 Yet it was poised on the brink of rapid growth. Ten years later, census takers broke out the manufacture of telegraph equipment as a separate category (forty firms, $636,458 in capital) and tallied an additional three dozen firms competing in more generalized “Electrical Apparatus and Supplies” (deploying $873,300 in capital). Even more significantly, with the Brush Electric Company beginning to promote arc lighting systems and Edison and his backers moving from successful demonstration of incandescent lighting to preparations for the construction of a pilot power station, three firms received separate listings under the category “Electric Lights” ($425,000 in capital).6 The changing census designations revealed an industry in the throes of rapid definition and articulation. By 1890, after a decade of

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TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

entrepreneurial ferment, the number of firms competing in “Electrical Apparatus and Supplies” had climbed to 189. Investors had piled in, too: the capital behind these firms had swelled to just under $19 million.7 Ten years later, notwithstanding a sharp economic slowdown followed by a halting, slow recovery, the industry had come of age. The census of 1900 tallied no fewer than 580 businesses engaged in the production of “Electrical Apparatus and Equipment,” representing a total capital investment of just over $83 million. By this time, too, the pressures of expanding scale and scope were also refashioning the terms of ownership and management. Only 167 of the nearly 600 electrical manufacturing companies were individually owned and operated; more than half (311) now took the form of incorporated companies.8 The number of companies proliferated rapidly. Paradoxically, over the same period, the industry consolidated.The total number of firms multiplied, but several companies quickly grew to colossal size, attained first-mover status, and became industry heavyweights. In 1899, Edison and his partners merged what had been a loose clump of companies into Edison General Electric Company.Three competitors were contending for industry leadership at this point.Two of them merged several years later when EGE joined forces with Thomson-Houston Electric Company in 1892 to form General Electric. Meanwhile, on a parallel track, Westinghouse ramped up and out to attain comparable proportions. As Alfred Chandler has pointed out, it took only ten years from the opening of the Pearl Street power station for industry leaders to emerge.9 The scale of business, on this tier of the industry, reached massive proportions.The formation of GE in 1892 combined EGE’s $10.9 million in sales with Thomson-Houston’s $10.3 million.10 By 1902, when Sprague was preparing to sell off his third company, General Electric

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INTRODUCTION

(which would absorb Sprague’s venture) was doing over $30 million in sales,11 and only Westinghouse was offering serious competition. Other companies in other industries also grew colossal during this period. Across the economic landscape, in fact, an improved infrastructure, the emergence of a functionally national market, and the development of powerful new technologies of production were transforming the parameters of industrial enterprise. This was the era when railroads and telegraph lines knitted the country together and business became “big business.” So, for example, in industries as diverse as steel making, meatpacking, wheat and cereal milling, and the manufacture of consumer goods ranging from cigarettes to kitchen matches to soap, the implementation of new continuous process techniques created efficiencies of scale that drove rapid, brutally efficient industry shakeouts.12 But the electrical companies scaled up for different reasons in response to distinct industry dynamics. As W. Bernard Carlson has pointed out, electrical manufacturing offered only limited opportunities for efficiencies of scale.13 The industry did not achieve major breakthroughs in continuous process manufacturing. Most electrical equipment, particularly major components such as dynamos, turbines, and large motors, required individual or batch machining and assembly. GE’s gigantic works at Schenectady, New York, and Westinghouse’s at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, became hangars filled with works in progress rather than assembly-line operations. If the economies of scale proved elusive, however, economies of scope soon became critical.What companies like Thomson-Houston, Westinghouse, General Electric, and Sprague’s various ventures were making and marketing were systems—highly complex arrays of apparatus, embodying clusters of rapidly evolving technology. To sell

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TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

electric lights, Edison and his partners needed to build or sponsor the building of power stations.To promote the building and usage of power stations, in turn, they needed to expand usage of electricity, and so they pushed into other applications, including electric motors and railways. Legally as well as technically, putting products on the market required gaining control over interlocked bundles of technology—in particular, over patents, the applicable boundaries of which were ambiguous and overlapping. To sell their products, moreover, the major firms found it necessary to assemble substantial marketing organizations, deploying technically skilled agents in major urban markets across the country and abroad. Developing full product lines became a key way of leveraging all of those investments. For a host of related reasons, the major competitors expanded horizontally into adjacent electrical markets. As electrical technologies matured and grew commercially viable, consequently, they tended to gravitate into the hands of the largest enterprises.14 These pressures rapidly drove up the costs of doing business in the electrical industry. It took a large and growing amount of capital to build out the new systems and networks (a prospect that included, at least indirectly, the financing of local power station construction), to develop or acquire the necessary technologies, and to bring the advantages of scope and an established market presence to bear. In 1880, as noted, the total capital invested in electrical manufacturing (excluding telegraph apparatus but including lighting) amounted to only a little under $2 million. Over the next decade, that sum bulked up to $19 million in “electrical apparatus” and $34 million in “electric light and power,” as major financiers began assembling blocks of investors and building businesses to scale.15 The turning point came in the late 1880s, when several large companies began absorbing

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INTRODUCTION

rivals to expand their product lines and fill their technology portfolios. Marshaling the financial backing of the Boston brokerage firm Lee, Higginson & Co., Thomson-Houston embarked on a wave of acquisitions between 1888 and 1892 to prepare for competition with Edison General Electric, which for its part drew on the resources of financiers Henry Villard and J. P. Morgan to underwrite its own acquisitions. The merger of Thomson-Houston and EGE to form General Electric in 1892 culminated the process. In effect, the Boston and New York financiers had taken measure of the new technologies and emerging industry dynamics and elected to pool their resources in a single investment, capitalized in 1892 at $25.4 million.16 Thus the industry became a dynamic new arena of investment, though not a familiar or tightly structured one. There was, as yet, no established financial market for industrial equities. The stockmarkets of the day were still oriented toward government securities and railroads, and inventors still preferred bonds to stock. Here, too, the people constructing the electrical companies had to break new ground and devise novel solutions to unfamiliar problems.They were the first industrialists outside the railroads and related businesses to go to capital markets for funds. Much as inventors like Frank Sprague and Thomas Edison were crafting new technologies, the financiers and investors who threw their lot behind them were crafting new capital relationships—new ways of assembling investors and owning business.17 THE HIGH-TECHNOLOGY IMPERATIVE

Above all, survival and growth in the electrical industry required skillful management of innovation. It was a technology business— indeed, a high-technology business, meaning that it churned con-

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TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

stantly with technological changes that fed those firms that learned how to adapt continuously and punished those firms that grew technologically stale. Again, the U.S. Census marked and quantified the development. “A steady stream of new and radical ideas” was flowing into this sector, Special Agent Thomas Commerford Martin reported in an industry analysis in 1900. In part, the flux reflected a shifting focus, a constantly expanding sphere of application. The 1850s had seen a surge of innovation in telegraph technologies; the 1860s, in dynamo construction; the 1870s, in numerous new devices such as stock tickers and burglar alarms; the 1880s, in lighting; and the 1890s, in “the vast exploitation of the electric railway.” Like a chain reaction, electricity had migrated from field to field—or rather, widened from field to field, for while new areas of application opened, ongoing technological developments continued to overhaul older ones. The sheer number of patents generated in all the commotion was impressive. Martin cited data indicating that between 1870 and 1895, the U.S. Patent Office issued over 3,500 patents in the field of electric lighting, over 3,000 in telegraphy, nearly 2,500 in telephony, and over 2,000 in electric railways. The total figure for electrical inventions of all kinds surpassed 17,500 over that twenty-five-year span. And the rate of invention showed no signs of slowing. Indeed, it was accelerating. Authorities issued nearly 6,800 electrical patents of one kind or another from 1896 through the first half of 1900, the census reported,“evidencing a great rise in the activity with which electrical inventors were still prosecuting their endeavors in the newer fields of discovery and application.” Here indeed was an industry “subject to rapid and violent changes.”18 In this respect, the electrical industry—along with a handful of other lines of business, notably telecommunications (a closely related

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INTRODUCTION

industry, technologically speaking) and chemicals—represented a new phenomenon in American business history.True, technological adaptation challenged many companies doing many kinds of business in the late 1800s.The advent of railroads and refrigeration, for example, upended and thoroughly rearranged the meatpacking industry. Conversion from Bessemer to open-hearth steelmaking triggered violent restructuring in the steel industry.The implementation of automatic, all-roller gradual-reduction mills created the machinery for rapid consolidation in the flour milling industry. In these and numerous other cases, firms either mastered new technologies and capitalized on the disruption they wreaked or found themselves engulfed. Yet as profoundly disruptive as these episodes of technological transformation were, they were singular events for any given generation in the lives of most businesses. Most industries adapted to a wave of new technology and then resettled. In the electrical industry, on the other hand, the press of change was relentless, the imperative to innovate and adapt constant. The early telegraph companies were the first to come to grips with the implications of this new reality. Initial breakthroughs followed by a round of refinement achieved, by the mid-1800s, a technology robust enough to form the basic platform for large business.The telegraph companies were, in fact, the first businesses to achieve national scopes of operation in the United States.19 But even after the empire builders consolidated their networks in the form of imposing corporate giants, technological developments continued to roil the strategic landscape. Duplex and then quadruplex telegraph capability, for example, made the basic technology far more potent, rattling loose the barriers of entry and creating windows of opportunity for new entrants. Well into the 1880s, the business remained technologically

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TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

volatile. Indeed, infamously, the emergence of telephonic technologies during ongoing telegraphic development complicated strategic calculations, with far-reaching implications. Western Union was offered Bell’s patents and rejected them. This was high technology, difficult to stay on top of and too dangerous to ride complacently.20 Similar volatility shaped and continuously reshaped the electrical equipment industry that started to emerge in the 1870s. Competing lighting technologies—notably, the contest between Brush’s arc lighting and Edison’s incandescent lighting (and Edison’s, by the way, was not the only incandescent lighting entrant)—had to be sifted, while a multitude of competing dynamo designs, motor models, and power-generation schemes presented themselves, and a debate surfaced in the 1880s over direct current versus alternate current. And these were only the most prominent among the multitude of technology decisions and strategic challenges (or, depending on one’s point of view, opportunities) facing industry contenders. To remain competitive, companies like Westinghouse and General Electric had to do more than just put new technologies on the market. They had to constantly refresh the technologies that they already had on the market and anticipate or at least be prepared to respond effectively to swarming external technological threats. They had to master or at least manage the challenge of continuous innovation. This challenge made the electrical companies vanguard enterprises. The solutions they improvised and devised for commercializing, capitalizing, structuring, and managing technology and business became formative aspects of the modern industrial corporation. General Electric, in particular, laid groundwork that was foundational.The formation of GE, as business historian Alfred Chandler observes, marked a turning point in American business history. GE represented the first

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INTRODUCTION

major consolidation of machinery-making companies in this country, one of the earliest companies to erect a centrally administered plan of organization with embedded middle management, and the first American company to build a major industrial research laboratory (in 1900). It was also a charter member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the first nonrailroad industrial investment to earn the backing and brokerage of J. P. Morgan.21 More than any other single U.S. company, GE pioneered the modern industrial corporation. FRANK SPRAGUE: INVENTION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Yet GE did not, either by itself or in concert with Westinghouse, account for, generate, or manage to channel all of the energies unleashed by electrical innovation. Electrical technology was too tumultuous, the markets too fluid, the opportunities too expansive to be brought easily or entirely under general control. Even as the industry giants scrambled to gather emerging technologies under their umbrellas, new technologies continued to heave into view, many of them disrupting the competitive landscape significantly. In short, the industry was continuously churned at a subterranean level by what sociologist /economist Joseph Schumpeter has famously termed “creative destruction.” This critical aspect of the story—this multitudinous, chaotic, entrepreneurial force within it—is nearly as difficult to capture historically as it was to tame corporately. Naturally and perhaps inevitably, most historians of the early electrical industry have been drawn to those individuals who emerged as its triumphant winners and those companies that became its colossi.The figure of Thomas Edison towers in our historical imagination, flanked by a relatively small sup-

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TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

porting cast including George Westinghouse, Elihu Thomson, and perhaps Nikola Tesla.There is less and less room for others on the podium, as the history recedes. Correspondingly, in institutional terms, accounts of General Electric and Westinghouse stand in to tell the tale. So, for example, the recent mainstream account by Jill Joness dramatizes and telescopes the story as Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World.22 Yet this mainstream version of the history leaves substantial lapses in coverage and significant gaps in understanding. As Joness’s title suggests, it tells us more about electric lights than it does about electrical motors. More generally, it tends to describe the process of industry definition as one of shakeout, consolidation, the imposition of professional management, and the tightening of corporate control— all of which formed important dimensions of the story, but none of which fully plumb the entrepreneurial energy seething beneath.The story of the electrical industry cannot be told without describing the broad, powerful forces that were shaping the major corporate enterprises emerging from this crucible—or without accounting for agents like Frank Sprague. Sprague and GE (including its predecessor companies) went through a long, storied, complex relationship with each other. At various times, Sprague was an informally affiliated strategic partner (of the Edison interests), an executive officer (of EGE), an in-house technology consultant (of both EGE and GE), a competitor (again, of both EGE and GE), an acquisition (several times over), a customer, and a supplier. At virtually every stage, he was a virtually ungovernable force—a brilliant engineer and compulsive entrepreneur who never existed comfortably within the corporate structures that GE assembled around itself. He sensed that he did not belong, in some

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INTRODUCTION

fundamental way, within an institution like the one that GE rapidly became. He drove himself, instead, to achieve something more dramatic and more personal. He saw himself, in fact, much in the role that Electric World cast in 1883 when it called forth “the great achievement that will next come to the surface to proclaim the grand properties of the force at our command and the genius of those whose task it is to deal with their utilization.” He saw himself as a heroic inventor. Academic historians of technology and business have grown instinctively skeptical of the notion of heroes. Indeed, from the outset of his first venture, Sprague found himself struggling to manipulate forces well beyond his control or capacity. He was guided by a deep conviction in the inevitability of technology itself. As an engineer, he assumed that if a technology were simpler and more efficient, then it would carry the day against any resistance or any extrinsic obstacles. As a businessperson trying to commercialize his technologies, on the other hand, he learned that innovation rarely proved so simple. Nevertheless, he and others like him played vital roles in the technological transformations that companies such as GE would eventually claim and try to control.Throughout his career, Sprague took on larger, better-established, better-financed rivals. And in each case, he managed to bring them to terms, forcing them to buy out his companies and incorporate his technologies. If GE represents the grand, corporate consolidation that capped what historians have called the second industrial revolution as well as a pioneering force in the advent of the United States’ first high-tech economy, then Sprague represents the roiling violence, dislocation, and adaptation beneath the surface. For all of his engineering precision, he was an agent of creative destruction. And if none of his ventures achieved what

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TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

Chandler describes as first-mover status as businesses in their own right, all of them became vital components in the larger enterprises that absorbed them in the process of attaining or defending their first-mover status. The narrative that follows tries to capture this complex dynamic. It focuses on sectors and figures within the electrical industry that have been obscured and overshadowed. It tells a story of venturing during industry formation and of doing business during massive economic changes. It tells a story of innovation at a time when innovation became the basis of enterprise. It tells a story of invention in an era when personal convictions of the potential for heroic invention helped to drive significant technological transformation. TECHNOLOGY CONTEXT: ALIGNING INVENTION WITHIN CONTEXTUAL CONSTRUCTION

Recent scholarship in the history of technology has complicated the project of biography. The conceit that technology springs into being in some pure, unmediated way directly from the vision of heroic inventors has been challenged—indeed, thoroughly debunked. Historians now emphasize that technologies are social constructions, neither technically determined nor passively received. They are shaped by economic agendas and cultural contexts in processes that extend (in both directions) well beyond the vision or control of the purported inventors who manage to stake claims to them. For example, in analyzing the emergence of electrical technologies in the late nineteenth century, Thomas Hughes frames the subject as the evolution of electrical systems, stressing the broad scale of events and extrapersonal dynamics that gave momentum to technological

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INTRODUCTION

development. “Technological affairs contain a rich texture of technical matters, scientific laws, economic principles, political forces, and social concerns,” Hughes observes.“The historian must take the broad perspective to get to the root of things and to see the patterns.”23 In a similar vein, David Nye cautions against becoming seduced by the image of “the heroic ‘lone inventor,’” a figure that “has largely disappeared from scholarship.”24 When he turns to electrification circa Sprague, Nye concerns himself not so much with how technologies were first conceived or designed as with how they were received and, in the process, given larger meaning. Nye posits technology as an organic phenomenon that takes form in continual negotiation. Accordingly, in a chapter devoted to the electric railway (Sprague’s first major technology project), Nye credits Sprague with being the first to assemble the key technical solutions that together constituted a single, successful system. But the electric railway was not Sprague’s alone to call masterfully into being or to define ultimately as a technology and an artifact, Nye reminds us. As it went into operation, the railway became more than “merely functional transportation.” Like all technology, it acquired meaning “through its being experienced as part of many human situations which collectively define[d] its meaning.”25 Fair enough. Analytical approaches such as Hughes’s and Nye’s have undeniable merit. Indeed, they enrich the study of the history of technology. It is not the intent of the study that follows to overturn contextualist perspectives on the subject. Rather, this biography tries to situate a single inventor within the larger contextual dimensions of technology formation. Returning to a biographical point of view does open new perspectives on the process of technology formation. Inventors may not have

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TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

been as heroic or masterful as they imagined, but they were most definitely inventing, and they were imagining themselves inventing. In fact, neither Hughes nor Nye proposes ignoring figures like Sprague— or Sprague himself. Technologies are socially constructed, but they are also built by individuals and small teams working on the ground, trying to solve technical problems and also to achieve technological impact and transformation. As Sprague’s career makes evident, innovation required not just inventing but building, manufacturing, commercializing, promoting, marketing, professionalizing, and institutionalizing—all of which Sprague undertook energetically, influentially, and with a striking (though uneven) degree of success. He recognized that his ideas had to be engineered to become technologies, and he threw himself repeatedly into the effort. In his twilight years, Sprague’s peers recognized and lauded precisely this aspect of his career. Maurice Coster (vice president of Western Electric International) put his finger on an important dimension of Sprague’s career when he described him as “the greatest constructive electrical engineer of the age.” Frederick Feiker (of the U.S. Department of Commerce) characterized Sprague as “an inventor-coordinator.” And H. H. Westinghouse, singling out a particular technology (the multiple-unit control system), observed “not only” that “the apparatus . . . exhibit[ed] a high order of inventive genius” but also that the invention owed itself to “the capacity of the inventor to establish its practicality.”26 More specifically, Sprague found that his technologies needed to be staged—converted into performances, trials, and contests that were technical and at the same time deeply personal. These dramas became heroic constructions that figured centrally in Sprague’s conceptions of his career. Repeatedly, he framed invention as an arena in

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INTRODUCTION

which a new technology was (at least implicitly) challenged, demonstrated, and thus triumphantly vindicated. This staging dimension of technological engineering appealed powerfully to Sprague’s own convictions about invention. It also resonated with contemporary audiences, promoting technological adoption. The stagings that Sprague engineered figured centrally in dramatizing not just a series of inventions but, ultimately, the process of inventing. A biography of an inventor in the early electrical industry may seem like a revisionist or old-fashioned effort, but it remains one worth pursuing. As a case study, Sprague’s career creates an opportunity to recalibrate the possibilities for individual agency within the broad, impersonal currents of recent scholarship. It opens an “internalist” perspective on the history of technology that, when read in conjunction with bird’s-eye contextual points of view, remains essential to fully understanding the dynamics of innovation. Sprague’s career ultimately amounts to a narrative with an inventor as a protagonist who imagined himself as a hero in a social context that he perceived to be unusually open to heroic possibilities. From the perspective of social and cultural historians, heroic invention may have been a conceit, but it was a potent conceit that exerted strong influence and became a real force in the history of these technologies. “The life of the engineer is all more or less of a romantic nature,” Sprague insisted late in his career, speaking to an audience of young engineers.27 The sentiment may say more about Sprague than it does about the “life of the engineer,” but it remains nevertheless a rich and revealing insight into the period and the larger process of technology formation.

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1

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

When people met Frank Julian Sprague, they tended to notice first the sheer intensity of the man. “A virile and aggressive person,” General Electric executive E. Wilbur Rice (a sometime adversary, sometime colleague) called him. “You wanted what you wanted when you wanted it and were going to get it,” fellow engineer (and early collaborator) W. H. Sawyer reminisced. “He seems to be full of wire springs that constantly coil and uncoil inside of him,” another colleague observed. “His eyes are bright and full of motion. His face is alive with insistency and driving force. It is the face of a fighter who is unable to recognize defeat. His sentences end with a click, like the snapping of a switch. He roams, lightfooted, about the room and appears to be literally magnetized.”1 Indeed, something fiercely compulsive and powerfully propulsive drove Sprague. He invented and ventured incessantly—in electric motors, railways, elevators, train systems, signals, and dozens of sideline

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projects. He achieved a string of technological breakthroughs, undertook successive rounds of entrepreneurial building, and assembled a succession of companies that earned him (and cost him) fortunes several times over.Yet he never seemed to feel satisfied or finished for long. Something worked within Frank Sprague to send him obsessively, again and again, to the proving ground of invention and the theater of venturing. Sprague sustained his projects by fits of manic energy and framed them as episodes of high drama—drama that Sprague himself, more often than not, created as he invented. At various points in his career, Sprague left autobiographical accounts of his youth. As a scientifically trained engineer, he might well have distrusted any effort at biographical analysis along “softer” psychological or cultural lines. But certainly the engineer would have appreciated that to understand what drives an engine, the mechanism has to be taken apart and put back together again. What had wound those “wire springs” that were constantly coiling and uncoiling in Frank Sprague? The question reaches beyond Sprague himself, for his work was ultimately bound up in a generational phenomenon. Over the last several decades of the nineteenth century, electrical inventions proliferated and electrical innovation churned at a highly accelerated rate, attracting inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and other agents and accessories. At the heart of this activity, a major new category of technology acquired what historians have characterized as technological momentum,2 a development in which Sprague and his peers figured centrally. Large social, economic, and cultural forces shaped the direction and outcome of their work. But at the same time, inventors and entrepreneurs (and would-be inventors and entrepreneurs) were

22

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

working actively on the ground, individually and in teams, to generate, sustain, and help steer that momentum. FAMILY BACKGROUND

Sprague was born in Milford, Connecticut, on July 25, 1857, to Frances Julia King and David Cummings Sprague. Both of his parents came from old Yankee families that had settled in New England in the seventeenth century. Ralph Sprague, a patrilineal ancestor, had been one of the founders of Charleston, Massachusetts, and became one of its most prominent citizens. Subsequent generations lived primarily in Massachusetts, many in Malden, as landowners, farmers, and millers. Some were devout, and many played locally notable civic roles in their communities. (Ralph’s son, John, became a captain in the Malden militia and fought in King Philip’s War in 1676.) Others were adventurers, like Uncle Joshua, who headed west to seek his fortune in the California gold fields and crossed the plains in a prairie schooner.Two Sprague men—Frank’s father and his father’s brother, George Washington Sprague, died in railroad accidents.3 Perhaps Frank’s later interest in trolley and railway safety and control came from the fact that he lost both an uncle and his father in train accidents. None of Frank Sprague’s forebears seems to have exhibited scientific or inventive inclinations. They were respectable citizens and middle-class property holders in a world that was largely agricultural and preindustrial. Frank J. Sprague’s parents began to make the transition to a different economic and social environment. One of ten children, David Sprague took a job as superintendent of a hat factory in Milford just before Frank was born.Young Frank was named after his mother, Frances. An

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older brother, Seaver, died in infancy, and a younger brother, Charles, joined the family in 1860. What had been an entirely normal existence collapsed in early 1866, however, when Frances Sprague died.The impact of his mother’s death on Frank, who was eight years old, must have been devastating. Certainly it undid his father, who within a matter of months withdrew from the stricken family and went west to seek his fortune. Young Frank and Charles were passed into the care of relatives who lived in North Adams in the hills of western Massachusetts. Years later, a poignant recollection of Frank Sprague’s departure from Milford surfaced. “One day word came that sudden death had taken the mother of one of our little boys,” a classmate remembered.“Soon after, the father decided to move his family from Milford and the little boy came for his books. I can see him now, a pathetic figure standing in the doorway, with spelling book, reader and slate under his arm, while we at the teacher’s bidding all shouted in unison: ‘Goodbye, Frank.’”4 NORTH ADAMS

David Sprague’s departure must have seemed like abandonment, and Sprague’s subsequent relationship with his father was cool.5 The move may have been a blessing in disguise, though. The two boys were put in the care of one of David’s sisters, Elvira Betsy Ann Sprague, who lived in North Adams, Massachusetts, where she made a living as a part-time schoolteacher. Aunt Ann was thirty-eight, intelligent, and unmarried when Frank and Charley came to live with her (she married Samuel Parker several years after the boys arrived). An early 1850s photograph depicts a severe and unsmiling young woman with a round face, high forehead, and jet black hair parted in the middle

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MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

and pulled back tightly behind her head. Her dark eyes are penetrating. She was strict, by Sprague’s account, and exacting on matters such as politeness, good manners, honesty, and cleanliness. Yet her sternness was tempered with affection, and he became devoted to her. “She was a woman of the finest New England type and striking beauty,” he would later attest. “Living in a modest, frugal way as an occasional school teacher, with great sacrifice she devoted herself to her charges with sanity of judgment, but with high regard for much needed oversight. She was indeed a stern disciplinarian, but I think that something vital must have been instilled in me by this devoted woman which race inheritance alone could not account for.”6 Life with Ann appears to have restored domestic stability and some measure of emotional security to the boys. In later years, Sprague described Aunt Ann as an exceptional foster mother and North Adams as his first home. Other relatives may have helped Ann care for the children. Ann’s father (and Frank’s paternal grandfather), Joshua Sprague, had settled in North Adams in 1836 and set up shop as a builder and carpenter. Of Joshua’s ten children, at least half lived in North Adams. His oldest daughter, Lucy, married Henry Whitney and had seven children, including Martin Whitney, who worked in the Print Works (later the Arnold Print Works).7 Yet if other Spragues helped out with the boys, they apparently made little emotional impact on Frank: nearly everything he later said or wrote about his life in North Adams focused on the life that he and Charley had with Aunt Ann. The only hint that other family members might have been involved in their upbringing can be found in some personal notes that he wrote just before he died. In later accounts, he indicated that he lived “most of the time” with Aunt Ann,8 yet the 1870 U.S. Census indicates that both Frank

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CHAPTER 1

and Charley were living with a first cousin, Martin Whitney and his family, on Prospect Street and no longer with Aunt Ann on Eagle Street. This appears to have been a temporary arrangement, which took place sometime after she became Ann Parker, since later town records show Charley living at Aunt Ann’s house during the 1880s long after Frank had left and even after Aunt Ann died in 1884.9 During Frank’s early years in North Adams, the town was a community in transition. From a small and relatively isolated village outpost in the hilly northwestern corner of Massachusetts, the place was transforming into an industrialized and economically expanding community by the mid-nineteenth century, when Frank and Charley arrived. Abundant sources of waterpower, particularly the Hoosac River, attracted a variety of industrial enterprises.The Windsor Print Works, a cotton mill, introduced textile manufacturing in the region early in the nineteenth century.That venture had collapsed in the Panic of 1857, but others followed. The largest and most successful of these was the Arnold Print Works, a relatively sophisticated textile manufacturing business that John, Harvey, and Oliver Arnold moved from Rhode Island in the 1860s. Listed as “Calico Print Manufacturers” in business directories of the day, the Arnolds’ mill operated complex machinery and employed a skilled workforce. Dunn & Bradstreet’s agent calculated the firm’s profits in 1874 at $100,000, indicating a substantial and successful establishment.10 North Adams during Sprague’s boyhood was a somewhat isolated inland town, then, but it was by no means an agricultural hamlet. In addition to the textile mills, other small to midsize manufacturing businesses thrived. These included shoe manufacturers, dyeing businesses, and numerous ancillary industrial establishments such as makers of leather belting,“manufacturers’ supplies,” lime and cement,

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MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

rope and cordage, and so on.This was a community connected to and embedded in a wider marketplace.The town boasted three hotels and several oyster dealers. North Adams stores sold “Fancy Toilet Articles,” gloves and mittens, gas fixtures, locks, “Meridan Plated Ware,” millinery goods, hats and caps,“Parisian vases and statuettes,” patent medicines, “carriage trimmings,” and a multitude of other commodities.11 Sprague joined the economic bustle. “While attending . . . High School,” he later recalled, “I tried to add to the [household’s] meager income, selling lemonade from a can carried by a shoulder strap, or apples from a basket to shoe shop workers, as well as collecting newspaper and doctor’s bills and soliciting orders for papers and book bindings.”12 Such jobs would have required him to circulate throughout town. Given his subsequent work in motors and other mechanisms, it is easy to picture him drawn to the machinery of the town’s textile mills or perhaps more generally to the larger impressions that they suggested—of energy, of enterprise, of motive power harnessed, of complex mechanisms meshed in coordinated systems. The local episode that Sprague himself singled out as a formative experience, though, was the engineering spectacle of building the Hoosac Tunnel. THE HOOSAC TUNNEL

An ambitious underground passage boring nearly five miles through the base of the Green Mountain range to open direct rail linkage from North Adams east to Boston and (via Troy and the Hudson River) south and west to New York City, the Hoosac Tunnel was in its day a massive undertaking and a newsworthy engineering accomplishment. Schemes for constructing a tunnel of this sort dated back as far as 1819 (when it was conceived as a canal project), and digging began in

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CHAPTER 1

1851.When the railroad undertaking the project ran out of funds, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts took over, but the state ran out of funding when construction was less than one-third complete. Intervening priorities (not the least of them the Civil War effort) preoccupied the Commonwealth.Then just as the Sprague brothers arrived in North Adams, the project revived, this time under the energetic and resourceful leadership of Walter Shanely, a Canadian engineer.13 For the next six years, as Frank Sprague grew from boyhood into adolescence, work on the tunnel steadily progressed. Shanely imported state-of-the-art machine drills to burrow into the mountains’ slate and mica core, employed elaborate compressed air systems, and pioneered with nitroglycerine blasting techniques. An average of five hundred workers toiled on the project at any given time. By the time they were done, costs on the project had risen to $17 million, an astronomical figure for the period, and nearly two hundred men had died in workplace fatalities, most of them in violent accidents. A final blast in 1873 completed the initial digging. According to contemporary accounts, “as the deafening thunder from the explosion” of the final blast “died away, a shout announcing the successful opening between the headings rang from the crowds assembled in the sections. The wildest enthusiasm prevailed; a headlong rush followed, each eager to be the first that should step through the opening.”14 In February 1875, the first train of cars passed through the tunnel. “A royal pathway has been made,” declared a journalist observer.15 Sprague would have been sixteen years old and in his last year in high school. It is hard not to imagine him deeply engaged in the project’s progress. “I was particularly interested in the [tunnel project],” he later recounted,“courting the acquaintance of the engineers

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MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

in charge and the contractor, Walter Shanely, [who] later proved a most valued friend.” Perhaps it was witnessing the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel that drew Sprague to the central problem of making rail transportation work. The episode certainly planted a distinctly bold and heroic impression of engineering in his imagination. TO ANNAPOLIS

Sprague, meanwhile, had his own pathway out of North Adams to excavate. After finishing his primary education in the local public schools, he entered Drury Academy, a local private preparatory school where he received his first formal introduction to the sciences. Intelligent and hard-working, he excelled in mathematics and attracted the attention of several local patrons. In 1874, the superintendent of Drury Academy urged Sprague to travel to Springfield, Massachusetts, to take a competitive examination for admission to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.When Sprague arrived in Springfield, he learned that the examination was not for West Point but for appointment as a cadet to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, from the district of Congressman Thomas Dawes. Undaunted (and in any event in no position to pick and choose his opportunities), Sprague sat for the examination. Competing “against a large field of boys, the majority of whom had had greater educational advantages,”16 he won. To help finance his enrollment at Annapolis, several North Adams citizens (unfortunately now unidentified) loaned him $400.17 The choice of Annapolis may have been reached circumstantially, but it proved fateful and fortuitous for Sprague. It carried him out of North Adams, of course, but more significantly, it equipped Sprague for invention and primed him for innovation.

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Historians tend to characterize the U.S. Navy in the decades immediately following the Civil War as an institution that was indifferent and indeed hostile to innovation. Elting E. Morison, for example, has described the 1870s as an interlude of “little science, less technology, little invention and fewer ideas” for the U.S. Navy. Annapolis, by implication, is easily overlooked as an institution of higher learning. But Morison’s characterization is not entirely fair. Innovation and technological trials were nourished within the navy during this period, including significant work in torpedoes, electric dynamos, and naval architecture.18 The United States Naval Academy participated in and helped to nurture some of this spirit. The curriculum included not only seamanship, navigation, naval strategy, and tactics but also relatively sophisticated science and technology-oriented coursework. Sprague’s arrival in 1874 coincided with the appointment of a new superintendent, Rear Admiral C.R.P. Rodgers, who oversaw an overhaul of the curriculum, including adding upper-level electives in mathematics, mechanics, physics, and chemistry. In 1878 (the year of Sprague’s matriculation), Annapolis received international recognition as the “best system of education in the United States” when it earned the Diplome de Medaille d’Or.19 Courses at the Academy were conducted by the recitation method and supplemented, at upper levels, by problem-solving exercises. After entering a classroom, midshipmen “drew slips” with written problems or questions and “manned the boards,” working out answers on blackboards around the room.20 The program was rigorous. In 1877, “plebe” Harry Phelps wrote home reporting: “I stayed at the library all yesterday afternoon and I find that they have nearly every book that there is. I have been writing up a ‘skinny’ [slang for physics and

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MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

chemistry] lecture all this afternoon and I will have to bone calculus as soon as I get through this letter.” A few weeks later, Phelps elaborated: “The lessons are easy but we have so much outside work that all our time is taken up.We have to copy up note books, write skinny lectures every week and work a problem in descriptive.”21 The program may have entailed considerable make-work, but it also focused students on problem solving, creating a potent blend of theory and practice. In one famous example, Albert A. Michelson, an instructor in physics and chemistry who joined the faculty in 1875, set up a classroom project to measure the speed of light by terrestrial measurement using equipment on hand, such as a heliostat and a mirror.22 (In 1907, Michelson, who moved to the Case School of Applied Science in 1882, became the first American to win a Nobel Prize; his was in physics.) Sprague entered the Academy on September 29, 1874, in a class of 104 and graduated four years later as a “passed midshipman.” He was ranked seventh (in a final enrollment of fifty) and earned honors in math, chemistry, and physics. At Annapolis, he later recounted, “I developed something of a flair for mathematics, and particularly for naval architecture and physics, the latter under the teaching of that great Admiral, William T. Simpson, one of the Navy’s most brilliant officers.”The formal academic training in both physics and mathematics provided him with a sound theoretical approach to grasping electrical technologies. At the same time, the practical, problem-solving framework prepared him for the concrete, mechanical challenges of invention, including assembly, improvisation, and refinement of designs. Sprague came out of Annapolis equipped with both a fundamental grasp of scientific electrical theory (circa 1878) and a resourceful capability for “craft knowledge” (in the sense of hands-on trial and error) as a means of working toward technical solutions.

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Exactly how much formal instruction in electricity the Academy offered is not entirely clear.Virtually no higher-education programs offered programs dedicated specifically to the physics of electricity or electrical engineering. In the classification of the period, electricity was typically covered within chemistry. Still, the subject featured in various problems and lectures, and years later Sprague recalled “taking an electricity course” at the Academy.23 Indeed, the program at Annapolis seems to have led a number of young men to work in the field. “One of the most striking features of recent electrical development in America,” Electrical World observed in 1888, “has been the close connection between the United States Navy and the various electrical industries. It was humorously remarked the other day that no electrical establishment now considered itself complete that did not number at least one former navy man on its staff, and that electricity would not have been so far advanced here but for the fact that the United States Navy was not large enough to afford occupation to all the brilliant young officers trained at Annapolis.”24 TOWARD ELECTRICITY

Sprague would be one of these “young officers.”“I hope and feel that you have a very bright future before you,” Sprague’s father wrote, formally and somewhat awkwardly after learning that his son would be attending Annapolis. “Who can say but you may carve out a name in the country’s history equal to a Perry or Farragut.”25 The prospects for a naval career were not promising in the 1870s, though, as the navy downsized from its Civil War dimensions. Sprague, in any event, was drawn in other directions. In the summer of 1876, he found a consuming focus for his talents and ambition when he traveled to

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Philadelphia with several classmates to visit the Centennial Exposition. By his own account, the trip was a pivotal episode that put him on the path of electrical invention as a career and a life’s work. Sponsored by the U.S. Congress to celebrate the nation’s one hundredth anniversary and held in Philadelphia from May to November 1876, the Centennial Exposition was one of a series of international exhibitions that staged displays of economic, cultural, and technical accomplishment. Hundreds of thousands of spectators from across the country and around the world attended. The Exposition’s central buildings included an iron and glass Main Building (occupying a twenty-acre footprint), a Machinery Hall (fourteen acres), an Agricultural Hall, a massive Art Gallery (also called Memorial Hall), and many smaller buildings. A multitude of attractions and exhibits filled these structures. Industrial machinery was arrayed in artful displays. (“There is the sense of too many sewing machines,” William Dean Howells wearily observed. “A whole half mile of sewing machines seems a good deal; and is there so very much difference between them?”) Agricultural exhibits piled lush cornucopias of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Costumed tableaus depicted cultures and people from around the world in room-size set pieces. New mechanical inventions and other technologies were exhibited, demonstrated, tested in competitive trials against each other. Sprague was drawn particularly to Machinery Hall. He likely paused to admire the Hall’s most prominent exhibit, where a 1,400 horsepower Corliss steam engine powered many of the Hall’s mechanical displays and awed visitors. (Here Howells was more impressed, marveling at the engine’s “vast and almost silent grandeur. It rises loftily in the centre of the huge structure, an athlete of steel and iron with

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not a superfluous ounce of metal on it; the mighty walking-beams plunge their pistons downward, the enormous fly-wheel revolves with a hoarded power that makes all tremble, the hundred life-like details do their office with unerring intelligence.”)26 Sprague gravitated toward the Exposition’s electrical exhibits. There was a lot to take in.The Western Union Telegraph Company set up a large display featuring sounders, registers, relays, keys, insulators, and other apparatus. Duplex and quadruplex telegraph machines demonstrated their capacity to transmit and receive two or four messages simultaneously. The Western Electric Manufacturing Company exhibited a complete set of railway signaling equipment.Various British firms displayed cables and other apparatus that were used in transatlantic submarine telegraph cables. Electric burglar alarms, fire alarms, and household annunciators also vied for attention. On one especially momentous occasion (which, nevertheless, drew less publicity than the Corliss engine), Professor Alexander Graham Bell of Boston demonstrated three of his new telephone devices, inspiring an “astonished and delighted” panel of judges to proclaim the invention “perhaps the greatest marvel hitherto achieved by the electric telegraph.”27 Sprague was probably unable to attend Bell’s demonstration. (He recorded no recollections, at least.) On the other hand, he certainly studied another, equally significant display in Philadelphia—the electric dynamos exhibited by both the Gramme Electric Company and Farmer-Wallace that supplied the power for arc lighting that illuminated part of Machinery Hall.The Farmer-Wallace dynamo, designed by Moses Farmer and manufactured by Wallace & Sons, represented state-of-the art technology in that the machines were self-excited, meaning that they used permanent magnets to produce a magnetic field. Even more impressively, Farmer’s design enabled the dynamo

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MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

to feed part of the current that it generated in the coils of its rotating armatures back into the coils of the electromagnets, increasing the magnetic strength. It was much more powerful than other designs—a quality demonstrated conclusively in an “official examination of Magneto-Electric Machines” in June, which pitted several dynamo designs against each other, measuring how much power they generated for the Exposition’s arc lighting. Whether or not Sprague managed to be on hand for the “official examination,” the dynamo exhibits evidently made a big impression: Within a few years after graduating from Annapolis, he found his way into Farmer’s laboratory in the navy’s Newport Torpedo Station (where Farmer was stationed as the electrician). More generally, the Centennial Exposition created a sense of technology that Sprague imbibed deeply and definitively. In Philadelphia, the cadet joined the crowd marching along a grand, panoramic view of progress. Inventions, mounted on pedestals and put to work, glittered and dazzled. “Technology” within this framework took on a seemingly abstract, disembodied form. Apparatuses were set off and exhibited as artifacts—spot-lit, disassociated from immediate context, and yet at the same time showcased in tableaus signifying the inexorable progress of civilization. The effect was to create a staged enactment of self-evidently new and seemingly inevitable technology. On Sprague as on so many around him, the impact was potently theatrical and deeply compelling. At Philadelphia in 1876, electricity was still a largely latent idea. It lurked on the threshold of popular awareness, occupying a position within Machinery Hall that was a few stages removed from center stage. The Centennial Exposition, as historian David Nye has observed, was “the last great exposition based upon steam power.”

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Within a few years, at future fairs, electricity assumed pride of place in main-stage attractions, positioned “quite conspicuously at the apex of an evolutionary framework.”28 Three ensuing fairs over the next half dozen years marked the transition—and figured centrally in Sprague’s career.The Corliss engine may have garnered more press than the electricity exhibits, but Sprague saw clearly what the next big thing was going to be and fixed his sights on participating in it.Within a few years, he would be serving on a panel judging electrical exhibitions. Within a few years after that, he would be staging exhibitions of his own. He returned to Annapolis full of zeal, meanwhile,“putting in a good deal of time on possibly impossible inventions” whenever he found the opportunity, stealing out of his quarters “during study hours,” he later recalled, to “seclud[e] myself in a blacksmith’s shop, where I was busily engaged cutting into telephone discs, some ferrotype plates which I had wheedled out of the official photographer.”29 GATHERING CURRENTS: SPRAGUE IN CONTEXT

The specific circumstances of Sprague’s background, youth, and education doubtless shaped his subsequent career in idiosyncratic and significant ways .The experience, for example, of losing one parent at an early age (or both, if one counts the withdrawal of Sprague’s father from his two sons’ lives) must have had a major effect on him. Being installed in a second household that was economically strained and perhaps occasionally emotionally unreliable could help to explain the man’s drive—the intensity of Sprague’s ambition and perhaps as well the streaks of insecurity and iconoclastic stubbornness that characterized much of his career. As an inventor and as an entrepreneur,

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Sprague often seemed to seek out confrontation, manufacture it, and use it to pursue a personal form of vindication. The larger social context is also instructive, though.When Sprague’s circumstances are lined up against those of contemporary parallel figures, significant patterns appear. By the time he arrived at adulthood and the brink of bigger things, Sprague was preparing to plunge into a crowding field of technological ferment. “Ours is the age of electricity,” observed the editors of Electrical World in 1883: “everywhere electricity is fast becoming the all-inspiring, all-controlling influence. It may be said to be ‘fashionable’ in the extreme just now as the most popular agent at the disposal of man. It fills everybody with interest and curiosity.” Indeed, new technologies in telegraphy, in arc lighting, in incandescent lighting, in electric motors and railways, in telephony and phonographs and motion pictures, in power generation and transmission—in a host of experiments and applications—were appearing everywhere. They were transforming the material landscape and attracting inventors and entrepreneurs—would-be “Wizards”— by the dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands. Between 1870 and 1895, the U.S. Patent Office issued over 17,500 electrical patents.30 Sprague, in short, was preparing to join a significant generational phenomenon. In addition to being an “age of electricity,” the editors of Electrical World continued, “ours is also an ‘age of inventors.’”31 Sprague was to be part of a movement—scrambling for position among what Electrical World characterized (in 1883) as “a whole tide of immigration.” This influx of talent, ambition, and energy itself generated a potent, if not exactly quantifiable, measure of technological impetus. Sprague and his peers were intent on invention. They were primed for innovation, and they helped to catalyze a culture that enabled, recognized, and drove technological transformation. They pooled their

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efforts, learned and stole from each other, argued with each other, and competed against each other—and in the process sustained the momentum that was building behind technological churn. The core population driving this phenomenon was diverse and difficult to characterize or categorize collectively. Nevertheless, some broad generalizations suggest themselves.To begin with, Sprague and many of his peers came out of distinctly industrial environments. Sprague grew up in mill towns among the textile manufacturing establishments that were emblems of the first industrial revolution. As a curious boy, he may well have had gained access to the machinery that powered North Adams’s textile mills. In any event, they dominated his immediate landscape. A striking number of other electrical inventors came out of similar landscapes. Hiram Maxim (b. 1840) apprenticed as a coachbuilder and then worked in his uncle’s machine works at Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Charles Brush (b. 1849), who played a pioneering role in arc lighting, was the son of a woolens manufacturer in Euclid, Ohio.32 Charles J.Van Depoele (b. 1846) was working as a furniture manufacturer in Detroit when he began experimenting with electrical apparatus.33 George Westinghouse (b. 1846) worked for his father’s agricultural implements manufacturing business, haunting the machine shop and conducting mechanical experiments.34 Elmer Sperry (b. 1860), Alexander Meston (b. 1866), and Charles Meston (b. 1868) (the Mestons founded Emerson Electric Company) worked as young men for the railroad car manufacturer Michigan Car Company in Detroit.35 The electrical innovations that these people introduced came out of a distinct milieu. This generation’s technology, as Thomas Hughes observed of Sperry’s work, was “expressed through the conception and construction of things.”36 Many of their innovations, in fact, were

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designed and prototyped in the machine shops and workshops that adjoined factories, and these factories thus became both platforms of technology-making and engines of economic expansion—emblems of mechanical and technical possibility. Although Sprague was an American, a significant number of his peers worked in or immigrated from European countries. Leo Daft (an early inventor of electric streetcar systems who immigrated from England as a young boy), Charles Van Depoele (Belgium), Nikola Tesla (Croatia), Elihu Thomson (England), and the Meston brothers (Scotland) all settled in the United States, either as boys or young men. Other inventors remained in Europe and did important work there— perhaps most notably, Werner Siemens in Germany. And Sprague, like many of his contemporaries, crossed the Atlantic repeatedly to pursue projects and sustain the process of innovation. The electrical revolution was a distinctly transatlantic phenomenon that benefited from cross-pollination. These inventors came from a wide range of educational backgrounds. Sprague’s college education at the U.S. Naval Academy allowed him to enter the field with more formal training and a stronger theoretical grasp of electricity than many. Others arrived similarly advantaged.Tesla worked his way through electrical engineering courses at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz and at the University of Prague. William Stanley attended Williston Academy in Massachusetts, followed (briefly) by a period at Yale University. Elihu Thomson, after studies at Central High School in Philadelphia, attained the position of “professor of chemistry” (in what resembled a high school setting more than a university) and began inventing in collaboration with another faculty member, E. J. Houston.37 Charles Brush earned a chemistry degree from the University of Michigan and set himself

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up as a chemical consultant in Cleveland before embarking on innovation in dynamos and arc lighting. On the other hand, the science was still raw and the field still unorganized, which allowed amateurs with far less formal education to make their marks in the field. Edison worked his way toward “wizardry” largely by dint of assiduous self-education, reading classic works by people like Michael Faraday and tinkering incessantly with apparatus. Sperry was educated at the Courtland Normal School and afterward continued to read and attend lectures.38 The field of invention that Sprague encountered as he came out of Annapolis, in other words, was beginning, but only beginning, to become professional and permanent. Electricity was moving from the phase of novelty and stage show into a force that could be harnessed within larger systems that could generate powerful applications. Sprague and his peers made this cluster of inventions into a distinct program of academic study, a tightly organized profession, a cluster of invention and business ventures, a sector of investment, and ultimately an industry—in short, an economic and social system that was capable not just of generating innovation but of sustaining it. TOURS OF DUTY

By the time Sprague emerged from Annapolis (he later recalled),“the creative urge had the full possession, and in the following two years . . . I was guilty of nearly three score inventions.”39 Few of these designs got beyond the drawing board. Most remained unbuilt and undeveloped. Sprague at this stage was creating abstractions, not artifacts; technical ideas, not technologies. As he himself later acknowledged,

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“many of these inventions were really worth while, but neither naval duties nor available money made possible their development then.” He was already inventing but only beginning to confront the more complicated, multifaceted dimensions of constructing or engineering technology. Over the next few years, bursting with ideas, Sprague searched for ways to launch a career and develop his designs into artifacts. The range and pace of his efforts at invention in the years immediately following Annapolis indicated a strong theoretical grasp of the basic science and a busy technical imagination. But finding ways to build out his designs, prototype them, test them, translate them into commercial prospects, refine them technically, promote them, make them viable and persuasive as technological alternatives, and cultivate acceptance for them: all of that was less familiar. Sprague spent the next few years not just inventing but looking for points of entry, useful contacts, and ways and resources for carrying his ideas past the stage of abstract invention. He would cobble together a critical period of improvised apprenticeship. And in the process, he began to piece together ways to engineer not just electricity but also innovation. The hurdles before him were formidable, but the timing was fortuitous. Sprague was coming on the scene at a distinct point of technical inflection in a cultural context that was primed for the introduction of new technologies, particularly electrical ones. A series of incidents shaped Sprague’s early technological projects. These tightly clustered developments helped to generate a vital measure of momentum behind Sprague’s work and, indeed, the development of electrical technologies and systems generally. Notable among these developments was the ascendance of the electrical inventor as a figure of fame and influence. The emergence

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of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, staged in events such as the Centennial Exposition, was already whetting the popular appetite for electrical marvels. Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph several years later ratcheted enthusiasm to yet a higher pitch—captivating the popular imagination, catapulting its inventor to celebrity status, and throwing open the process of invention as a public spectacle. Edison did not merely tolerate journalistic coverage of his inventions; he courted it. As a telegrapher, he had worked closely with newspapers. He appreciated their powers of promotion and was comfortable in journalists’ company. Affable, accessible, and quotable, he made good copy. And he readily invited journalists into the process of invention—showing them around his laboratory, demonstrating apparatuses, and describing how they worked. In the middle of projects and indeed as he first set to work on them, he did not hesitate to predict confidently (and sometimes prematurely) that he would solve the technical problems they presented in, say, six months (as he did, for example, when he took up the challenge of adapting his phonograph design to developing a hearing aid technology—a prediction that proved rash).40 And as he closed in on breakthroughs, he rushed announcements to press, even before he had fully worked out or refined his designs. (“I have it now!” he declared to a reporter of the New York Sun in September 1879 of the incandescent light, though significant technical problems remained unsolved at that point.)41 In short, Edison made a very public performance of invention, cultivating an atmosphere of excitement that fed (and was fed by) an avid press and readership. By the late 1870s, dozens of magazines and newspapers were covering Edison and Menlo Park, New Jersey. Recent scholarship in the history of technology has picked away at the conceit of heroic invention. Technology, historians point out,

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is rarely if ever fashioned by a single will or vision. It takes shape organically in relation to its larger technical, social, cultural, and political contexts. “Invention,” in these broader dimensions, almost always entails a period of refinement and a process of development in which numerous players, including other inventors and engineers, economic agents, public policy makers, and consumers all participate. The final product ends up being a many-layered construct—all of which is true, and all of which would have direct bearing on the work of Bell, Edison, Sprague, and their colleagues. Nevertheless, the concept of the heroic inventor played a critical, galvanizing role in driving the technology of Sprague’s generation— and worked a powerful influence on Sprague personally. The myth gripped the popular imagination, encouraging anticipation of new technologies, and it gave vital impetus—psychological and social— to those aspiring to take up the role of heroic inventor. It drove people like Sprague to experiment, to design, to venture.The concept may have been a conceit, but it generated real (if not quantifiable) motive power. “Menlo Park is the electrical Mecca,” Newark Daily Advertiser observed. “Thitherward will the pilgrims of science turn their expectant eye, . . . [to] Mr. Thomas A. Edison, the high priest of the temple.”42 The year 1878 marked Edison’s ascendancy as a mythical figure in the popular imagination. That year, the New York Daily Graphic bestowed on him the title of “Wizard of Menlo Park.” And 1878 was also the year that Sprague emerged from Annapolis and embarked on his own career of invention. On the way from Maryland to North Adams, Massachusetts, for leave before his final cruise, Sprague made the pilgrimage to Menlo Park to call on Edison. Edison received the midshipman courteously and took him on a tour of the laboratory.

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Edison was reaching the threshold of momentous technological transformations. The year 1878 also marked his visit to William Wallace at Ansonia, Connecticut, to inspect Wallace’s and Moses Farmer’s work on electrical generator designs. Wallace and Farmer had designed what they called a “telemchon,” a generator that was capable of lighting eight arc lamps. As crude as the design was, Edison perceived at once the significance of a distribution system that supplied electric power from a central generator to multiple apparatuses.When he returned to Menlo Park, he threw himself into work on an incandescent light—the beginning of a larger project that ultimately encompassed a central power station, a grid, and the first major electrical system architecture.43 AT SEA

At this critical juncture, when Sprague was on the threshold of joining the excitement, he found himself taken off the scene and transported to the other side of the world. After completing class work at the Naval Academy, midshipmen undertook a two-year cruise before returning to Annapolis for examination and a final rating. Sprague was assigned to the Asiatic squadron and the USS Richmond. “A year ago yesterday I left Boston,” he wrote to a friend from Manila, Philippines, in December 1879. “Who would have thought that I would be in this port, four or five hundred miles and more in the Tropics, spending my Christmas ’neath a burning sun. But so it is.”44 For Sprague, the posting was a mixed blessing—more accurately, a frustrating displacement. He traveled to exotic ports (including Gibraltar, Naples, Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila, and Nagasaki) and earned extra money filing dispatches from Asia for the Boston Herald. But the

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voyage removed him from the United States (as well as Europe, which would have been preferable to Asia) at a time of gathering technological momentum and historic episodes of invention. He was separated by thousands of miles, for example, from Edison’s very public breakthrough in incandescent lighting. Sprague felt the distance keenly. He chafed at the interruption in his efforts to participate directly in the technological ferment and searched futilely for ways to escape his assignment. “I have introduced a new application of a lately discovered principle, the same as used in Edison’s carbon telephone, and I hope to meet with success,” he wrote to a young woman named Frances Scott in summer 1879 (six months into the cruise). “Since there is not a satisfactory governor in the service, and as, furthermore, it is of great importance that there should be, I rely on being able to be ordered home on that plea, if on no other.” His desire to return to the United States was urgent by this point: “I must,” he wrote, “and if living, I will be in the United States next summer, if it is possible to get there.”45 Sprague’s correspondence with Frances Scott had by this point developed a warm and perhaps a romantic rapport, creating an unusually intimate view into the young man’s plans and aspirations. Sprague ached to achieve and to be recognized. “Why do I tell you this?” his letter continued. “It seems natural to confide my ambitions to you, perhaps because I feel some ways, that you have at least a silent sympathy in my work, if not a confidence in its successful accomplishment. That confidence, none can have as I possess it, and I cannot blame them. Let me have but breath, and I will prove to all, that I have not spoken quite in vain.” The urgency of his ambition is plain, and beneath it, there is an undercurrent of insecurity. Sprague for much of his career was repeatedly driven by the feeling that he had to “prove” himself and the value of his ideas “to all.”46

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Meanwhile, with what materials he could scrounge together and with the focus of a resourceful and disciplined technical imagination, Sprague invented—or imagined—electrical inventions. He sketched them and drew them on paper.While at sea circuiting the Pacific, he filled 169 pages of a notebook with plans, diagrams, and schematics. These were the “nearly three score of inventions” that he later referred to, and they chronicle a feverish mind at work. The range of apparatus is striking. Sprague drew out blueprints of lighting applications (“Electric Light, Yokohama plan,” “Electric Light, self-regulating and independent of current variation,” “Self regulating Electric Light, Similar to that of July 17, in main principle”), telegraph equipment (“Duplex telegraph,” “Single current recorder, Quadruplex system,” “Arrangement of Printing Telegraph Using Magpict System and Varying Current of Multiplex System, with Inductible Coil,” “Shunting Resistance Coils, Quadruplex Telegraph,” “Vibratory Telephonic Octuplex,” “Facsimilist, or Writing Telegraph,” “Proposed Decaplex,” “Data for Quadruplex System”), motor and generator components and systems (“Electric Motor,” “Diagrams for Steam Turbine,” “Electric Governor,” “Reversible & Adjustable Commutator,” “Sections of Armature Ring with Armature,” “Diagram of Action of Electric Motor,”“Constant Force Electric Governor”), and a multitude of other miscellaneous inventions. A few had naval or shipboard applications (“Marine Governor,” “Reversible Pump,” “Water Cooler and Filterer”). Many others looked far beyond the USS Richmond and the Asiatic squadron. Some of these inventions were loosely sketched. Others were highly detailed and carefully drawn. Sprague dated most of them (the span runs from May 1879 through February 1880) and usually indicated a location (“Richmond,” “at sea,” or the names of specific ports). A

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number of them he had witnessed by shipmates, clearly anticipating or at least keeping open the possibility of eventually developing them as proprietary claims. Taken as a whole, the notebook conveys a vivid impression of inventive fecundity. The work demonstrates that Sprague had by this point acquired a technically sound grasp of electrical engineering and a wide-ranging awareness of recent applications—even though he had a limited store of equipment and material at his disposal with which to model or test these inventions. They were taking mental shape as his mind turned over what he had learned and (presuming he had access to texts, journals, or papers, which seems likely) what he was still picking up. The voyage must have been an exhilarating period for the midshipman—and a supremely frustrating one, too, because most of this work necessarily remained abstract. He had no laboratory or machine shop at his disposal on board and probably only minimal equipment. Alongside this remarkable bloom of imaginative ideas, the more prosaic nautical pages—descriptions and drawings of sails, yards, masts; notes on navigation; and log data for the cruise—are easily overlooked. This was the kind of stuff that usually appeared in volumes titled “Midshipman’s Note Book.” Still, this material reveals important aspects of Sprague’s outlook. He never considered himself much of a seaman, but one senses that Sprague took at least indirect lessons from his naval experience.The ships (and other sailing vessels) on which he served were themselves complex technological systems that meshed highly articulated social organisms (crews, ranks, roles) with intricate technical apparatuses (sails, rigging, hull) that were capable of navigating natural, oceanographic force vectors (winds, tides, currents). Midshipmen were taught to think concretely, abstractly, and above all

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systemically. The connection between these aspects of Sprague’s apprenticeship and the episodes of system building that were to come is entirely conjectural, but those future episodes of electrical invention would require analogous feats of orchestration. SHORE STATIONS

Sprague did not manage to extract himself from the Asiatic squadron until March 1880, when he was ordered to return to Annapolis for examination. Over the next several years of his naval career, he took various shore assignments, angling constantly for ways to continue working on his electrical inventions. He managed to get a short leave, for example, to “experiment . . . with a new type of arc light mechanism” at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.47 Here he made initial contact with several important people in the field, including Dr. Henry Draper,William Wallace, and Professor Moses Farmer. The Farmer connection proved particularly important a few months later when the vessel to which Sprague was assigned, the USS Minnesota, was restationed to Newport, Rhode Island, which provided Sprague with access to the Newport Torpedo Station, where Sprague found opportunities to continue his research. Established by the U.S. Navy in 1869, the Newport Torpedo Station had grown into a naval research and development center for the study of technologies with potential naval applications. A staff of twenty-five manned the station, including a chemist, a “pyrotechnist,” and Moses Farmer, the facility’s electrician. In Farmer, Sprague encountered a mentor, a highly accomplished inventor, and something of a kindred spirit. A civil engineer and teacher

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originally, Farmer had been delving in electrical investigations since the 1840s, developing in the process a series of telegraph inventions, an electric fire alarm system, a method for electroplating, an incandescent light (employing a galvanic battery for power), and a miniature electric train that he built in the yard of his house. Most significantly, Farmer in 1866 had designed a “self-exciting dynamo” (which fed some of the current from the generator back into a coil around the magnet).Years later, Sprague recognized the important contributions that this “distinguished scientist” made to the field.48 Working partly under Farmer’s guidance (though largely on his own), Sprague during this period developed the design that would result in his first patent, for a “Dynamo-Electric Machine” (filed October 4, 1881, and issued August 26, 1884). Aiming (as Sprague himself put it in the patent application) “generally at compactness, efficiency, economy, and steadfastness of the current generated,”49 Sprague’s design put the field magnet inside the armature (rather than in an external magnetic field assembly), enclosing the coils with “an outside shell of iron wire and inwardly projecting ribs.”50 The novel construction impressed Farmer, who supported the young midshipman when Sprague applied to the navy for permission to attend an international electrical exhibition in Paris in 1881. Despite Farmer’s endorsement, permission was denied. Sprague seized a second opportunity, however. After arranging an assignment on the USS Lancaster in the Mediterranean squadron, he reached Europe and promptly took a three-month leave—too late to reach Paris but in time to attend another electrical exhibition in London early the next year. He arrived, he later recounted, “with about $20 and the necessity of presenting urgent needs to the U.S. Despatch Agent.” Reaching the Crystal Palace, he secured an

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appointment on the Exhibition’s Jury of Awards as secretary for the panel testing gas engines, dynamos, and electric lights. CRYSTAL PALACE: “THE ENGINES OF THE FUTURE”

Sprague eventually submitted a meticulously precise report to the navy on the Crystal Electrical Exhibition. The midshipman credibly surveyed the technologies on display and neatly summarized the state of the art circa 1882 as it had been assembled for display in London. Sprague explained the mechanical, chemical, and physical principles at work in various apparatus designs, tabulated and quantified the results of rigorous, carefully controlled testing, and ranked their performance. He indulged in no romantic rhetoric about wizardry or the sublime here but spoke in the cool, scientific voice of a professional engineer. Yet the entire report was nevertheless imbued with a strong belief in the transformative power of the technology that it was assessing. As a secretary of a panel of judges, Sprague was sorting out performance—and in the process, he revealed important underlying assumptions about technology and the dynamics of innovation. So, for example, in the section covering the performance of gas engines displayed at the Exhibition, Sprague began with an assessment of existing engine technologies—notably, steam engines. Here, Sprague asserted, was a technology that faced imminent, inevitable obsolescence: “While very perfect as a machine, its economy is very low, and always will be.” The basic technology was inherently inefficient, Sprague explained: “the very best engines” managed to convert only between nine and thirteen percent of the coal energy they consumed into mechanical power. In short,“the steam engine has nearly reached its maximum theoretical efficiency.”51

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An unspoken assumption was at work here, and it was common to many of Sprague’s peers and indeed to their entire generation—a faith in linear progress and technological determinism. New technologies, when they offered superior performance and technical advantage, would in the natural course of things supplant older ones. Briskly, matter-of-factly, and confidently, Sprague redirected readers’ attentions in more promising directions: “We must look, then, to other forms of heat engines in the hope of higher economy,” he concluded. The steam engine had proven serviceable in its day. Now, its dusk was approaching as newer, more efficient technologies became available—as if summoned by society’s need for them. As Sprague described the situation: “such are the promises of other methods that scientific men already predict that in the coming century at farthest the steam-engine will take its place among the things of the past, and the engines of the future will be probably neither the solar or the hot-air engines, but either a flame engine . . . or the gas engine.” (Sprague added, as if to ground the whole discussion back in solid, empirical terms: “Of these forms I will speak of one type only, as it is with this that I have any practical experience.”)52 In dismissing the steam engine as a technology that was facing imminent and inevitable obsolescence, Sprague was expressing a general consensus that had begun forming in scientific and engineering circles several decades earlier. “The necessities of the age require a new motive power,” Mining Magazine had declared as early as 1853. “The steam engine has become burdensome to man; it has had its day; the progress of the age requires a more portable and powerful agent.” Historians Louis Hunter and Lynwood Bryant sound almost as though they are paraphrasing Sprague (though they are not) when they observe, “By the 1870s . . . there was general awareness among

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informed engineers of the theoretical and practical limitations of the steam engine and a growing interest in proposals for improving the process of converting heat energy into mechanical power.”53 And as things turned out, the prediction in this case was largely accurate: gas engines have proven more serviceable than steam engines. The deeply rooted assumptions that framed Sprague’s pronouncements indicate that he saw himself as being part of one technological age that was on the cusp of another. He subscribed to a distinctly nineteenth-century notion of progress, and he believed in the power of technology to evolve on a “pure,” technical basis of what worked “best.” Old technologies, in the scheme of things, would become obsolete. New technologies would take their place, and “scientific men” would judge, sort, and guide the transformation. Similar language and the same basic convictions colored Sprague’s account of the lighting technologies that were exhibited at the Crystal Palace. “I consider that the incandescent lamp is the lamp of the future for all purposes except where very large and powerful lights are desired at one focus,” Sprague pronounced, “and that the arc lamp will surely be replaced for general lighting purposes.” Following a brief technical explanation of the physical principles at work behind both arc and incandescent lighting, he provided an account of the recent emergence of successful (meaning, as far as Sprague was concerned, technically sound and commercially viable) incandescent lighting designs. Earlier would-be inventors (“Starr, King, Staite, and others”) had worked on the problem. Solutions proved elusive, however, until “Edison and Swan began the investigations which have wrought the great change which the last four years has witnessed.” Edison’s work—specifically, the attempt to employ platinum wire—had “marked the era of a great advance,” in Sprague’s

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view. Subsequently, Edison had discarded platinum in favor of carbon filaments—a decision that Swan reached independently and more or less simultaneously. “Since then both inventors have worked for the perfection of the incandescent lamp,” Swan concentrating on refining his lamp designs while Edison (Sprague noted approvingly) “sought to make domestic lighting of the most practical character by also working out a most elaborate system.”54 WORKING FOR EDISON

Clearly, Sprague was drawn to the idea of developing and building that “most elaborate system,” meaning not just the light bulb or the lamp but the central power station and grid that would feed them electricity. He recognized that this larger system architecture would become the core infrastructure of the technology. And when he saw a chance to work on it, he leapt at the opportunity.While in London, Sprague met Edward H. Johnson, one of Edison’s business partners and managerial lieutenants who was in England to supervise the exhibition of incandescent lighting entry at the Crystal Palace. Johnson, impressed by Sprague’s technical knowledge, recommended him to Edison. A short, awkward interim followed. Johnson encouraged Sprague to resign his commission in the U.S. Navy, which he did (with a year’s leave) in March 1883.55 But back in the United States, Edison delayed. “I hear nothing from you as to young Sprague,” Johnson prodded Edison in April. “An ensign in the U.S. Navy doesn’t have enough surplus pocket money to allow him to loaf long. Beside, he is not one who can endure it long. He is very anxious to get to work.” Sprague, Johnson added for effect, had already received “good offers from outside parties . . . but will not go into anything except Edison.”56

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“I received your favor of the 11th this morning and at once cabled you ‘Send Sprague,’” Edison replied.“I propose using him in connection with the establishment of the ‘Small Town Plants.’”57 Work in Edison’s Construction Department was not Sprague’s first choice. He and Johnson had been discussing the possibility of putting Sprague to work on other development projects. Sprague “was telling me a few days ago about some excellent ideas he has in re to electric motors and railways, & was asking me to advise him in the matter,” Johnson had informed Edison. But Edison’s operation needed skilled electrical engineers to work on power station construction.“I arrived home on the day the Brooklyn Bridge opened,” Sprague later reminisced,“and promptly reported to my employer, who seemed to think that a salary of $2,500 was per year unduly munificent.”58 He was sent first to Sunbury, Pennsylvania, to assist with the final stages of installing Edison’s pilot overhead three-wire system and then to Brockton, Massachusetts, to oversee construction of the first underground three-wire system. The assignment stationed Sprague in the field rather than at Menlo Park near Edison and moreover put him under the supervision of Samuel Insull (one of Edison’s lieutenants), an arrangement under which Sprague soon began to chafe.59 Nevertheless, the work proved an invaluable experience. It put Sprague on the ground and immersed him in the challenges of constructing a functional system. Installation entailed a host of technical adjustments and refinements, most of which were minor and some of which Edison weighed in on from New Jersey as the system took physical form. Soon Sprague was figuring out how to wire particularly narrow streets, how to cope with the objections of neighbors (and competing telegraph interests) to putting up new poles, and how to structure usage so that the system would not just work but operate profitably.

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All of these extratechnical aspects of the project were vital to the success of the system and ultimately the technology itself, taking the technology from the stage of invention into the wider work of innovation. And they prepared Sprague for future projects of his own. Arguably, he managed successfully to construct a full-scale electric railway system in Richmond,Virginia, in just a few years in no small part due to lessons that he had acquired managing similar work for Edison during this period. Meanwhile, Sprague also found opportunities to make academic contributions to Edison’s operation. Discovering that the Construction Department had been determining the size of a given system’s mains and feeders by constructing scale models and testing the equipment in miniature, Sprague proposed a more efficient and elegant solution.Taking a planned layout for Ithaca, New York, as a test case, he devised a formula for making the necessary calculations mathematically. “I proceeded,” he explained, “on the theory that there should be a like maximum drop of potential at the low voltage points of all mains, and that feeder resistances should be inversely proportional to the loads they had to carry.” When this method proved sound and converted what had been the work of days into a matter of hours, Sprague inherited responsibility for running the calculations to map out future installations.60 MOTORS

Sprague’s apprenticeship with Edison thus gave him opportunities to exercise both his academic training and his engineering skills. It also provided him with enough apparatus and free time to pursue independent projects. And the work at Brockton, in particular, surrounded

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Sprague with access to a nearby machine shop as well as a supply of electrical materials and components. Restless and ambitious, he surveyed his options and prepared to build. He chose to develop his electric motor designs. Other electrical applications—telegraphy, lighting, and dynamos—were beginning to look too crowded to permit the kind of dramatic breakthrough and heroic impact of invention that Sprague was seeking. He was looking for bigger, bolder fields of enterprise. His work on power plant systems, meanwhile, implied that broad new categories of electrical application were opening—categories that looked both heroic and feasible from an engineering point of view. Not yet in a position to accomplish substantive work on a large-scale project such as an electric railway, Sprague could at least work on smaller apparatus. If he did pull out his USS Richmond notebook, it was his motor designs that he studied most intently. The motors that Sprague assembled during this period (the last few months of 1883 and the first few months of 1884) drew in part on existing motor designs as well as Sprague’s dynamo ideas. Like all motors, they operated on the basic principle of exposing a current sent through a wire (creating one magnetic field) to another magnet, generating mechanical power as the two magnetic fields repelled each other. Sprague made important breakthroughs, however, as he broke down and reengineered the electrical forces that were at work inside the apparatus. At sea on the USS Richmond, he had displayed (and probably further developed) an uncanny ability to map the abstract electrical forces working in electrical designs. As he worked on the motor problem, this ability produced a critical insight: Sprague realized that on a constant circuit, the mechanical effects of the motor action—

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variations of speed and power output—could be controlled by (in his words) “inverse variation of the strength of the magnetic field to determine the differential of the line and motor electromotive forces.” Using a pair of magnetizing field coils,“one of high resistance across the line for the main field excitation and another of a few turns in opposition to it and in series with the armature,” Sprague devised a motor with reverse wiring in proportions that would equip it to operate at the same speed regardless of the size of the load that it was carrying.61 This design represented an entirely new approach to motor design, with significant implications for application. Because they were “selfregulated,” Sprague’s motors could be bent to such speed-sensitive tasks as industrial uses and transportation. And they revealed what was becoming a distinctive approach to the challenge of invention. In his subsequent patent application, Sprague explained that he had developed the idea by first devising and following what he called “Sprague’s laws” aligning E (initial electromagnetic force), e (counter electromagnetic force), m (magnetic movement of the motor’s main shunt coil), and u (magnetic movement of the differential series coil).62 Characteristically, Sprague had developed the theory from mathematical principles, made dynamo and motor prototypes, measured their performance, and adjusted his “laws” accordingly. THE BREAK AND THE BRINK

By April 1884, Sprague was feeling that he was poised on the threshold of substantial technological accomplishment. He may well have been looking for some way to withdraw gracefully from Edison’s employ. Matters soon came to a head when Edison (perhaps gathering

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wind of Sprague’s motor work) asked him (in Sprague’s words) to “take up certain problems relative to the transmission of power.”The request put Sprague in a quandary. He had been pursuing “experimental work” in this area, he revealed to Edison, and “advanced far enough to wish it entirely apart from whatever duties are owing to you.” In other words, Sprague wanted this work to be recognized as his own rather than considered the product of Menlo Park or Edison. “You will surely understand me,” Sprague continued, “when I say that I desire to identify myself with the successful solution to this problem.” Indeed, he admitted, he was “actuated by the same spirit with which you attacked the electric light, with the result of making yourself world-famous.”63 There it was, stated as baldly as Sprague ever admitted: he wanted, he hungered for, the acclaim of heroic invention. He yearned to become “world-famous.” Sprague had nurtured that ambition for some time, at least since emerging from Annapolis and likely well before. It had led him through a brief, busy, improvised period of apprenticeship. And now it had carried him to the brink—of inventing in his own name, of independent venturing, of innovation in the wider world.

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GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888: SPRAGUE ELECTRIC RAILWAY AND MOTOR COMPANY AND THE RICHMOND UNION PASSENGER RAILWAY

In April 1883, one year before Frank Sprague broke with Edison, Electrical World had predicted that “the electric railway” would be “the great achievement that will next come to the surface to proclaim the grand properties of the force at our command and the genius of those whose task it is to deal with their utilization.”1 Sprague himself was keenly aware of the opportunity. “Electricity was in the air,” he later remembered of this period in his life, “and a belief was growing that it would eventually take the place of horse-power on street cars.”2 The technological potential of electricity (and some of its potential problems) first struck him in 1882 when he was riding on London’s Metropolitan District underground railway. Steam-driven and encased in tunnels, the Metropolitan’s “dingy, smoky” trains certainly stood to benefit from electrical conversion.What really animated the idea of the project as Sprague turned it over in his mind, though, was visualizing how to feed an electric current into and through the

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system.The motors would be set up on the cars, Sprague figured, and the cars somehow connected to a central power source. Initially, he considered using the railway’s running rails as conductors, with an “automatically tensioned mid-located wire, or ‘working conductor’ connected ladder wise to a main conductor”3 on the tracks running between the rails. That architecture looked problematic, though, when Sprague observed “the complication of switches on certain sections of the road.”4 Weaving a main conductor through a railway’s twists, turns, crossovers, and on- and off-sidings would be cumbersome. Then Sprague had another idea.“I visioned,” he later recounted,“the freedom of movement of a car between two contact planes, . . . [with] an overhead conductor following the center lines of all, the circuit of the motors being completed through the wheels and an overhead selfadjusting upward-pressing contact.”5 By Sprague’s later account, that flash of insight—that “visioned” stroke of electrical engineering— sparked the idea to break the plane and redesign the system (mentally, of course) in three rather than two dimensions. He did not yet have a motor that was capable of doing this kind of work (no one did) or suitable trains. Even the power station component of the system was still under development. “For a moment” Sprague entertained “the wild thought of resigning from the Navy and undertaking this laudable but under the then conditions impossible project,” he later recounted. Several years later—with one Edison power station up and running in New York City, others (two of which Sprague was helping to build) going up in other locations, and his own work on motors beginning to yield new levels of performance—Sprague returned to the idea of an electric railway. Between 1884 and 1890, he threw himself into efforts to design and construct a workable system. In Richmond,Virginia, in

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1887 and 1888, he built it in full-scale—and in the process, staged the technology. This staging began the process of its adoption, a process that Sprague extended through an aggressive campaign of promotion and marketing. And along the way, he worked out the technical solutions that made an electric railway function and the broader, extratechnical solutions that transformed the technology into a commercially viable prospect. In other words, Sprague simultaneously designed an electric railway system and engineered its technological adoption. This latter challenge took the form of building out the technology as a business venture—a capitalized enterprise that was capable of commercializing and ultimately financing the costs of installation across the landscape.This technology had to be built, sold, and paid for, which entailed the formation of new alignments of invention, business, and finance. Electrical railways remained unproven as a business proposition, both to make and sell and to buy and run, and systems capable of doing so were just beginning to coalesce. There was no “business model” (to borrow an anachronistically modern term) for this sort of thing.The technology and its practitioners had not yet attracted anything like the capital that would be required to build fullfledged systems. None of the mechanisms of production, marketing, or financing that actual construction required had been assembled, and these as yet scattered resources were substantial and manifold. There was, in short, a substantial amount of innovation to be engineered, alongside the technical, electrical engineering. Nevertheless, Sprague’s first venture, the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM), was a success. Between 1884 and 1890, working its way from bootstrap capitalization, almost total obscurity, and jury-rigged solutions for production and distribution, SERM established itself as the leading firm in the field of railway electrification.

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The venture skirted financial disaster more than once. Eventually, Sprague undertook a bold, bet-the-company gambit in an effort to establish the viability of the technology and break open the electric railway market. The maneuver nearly wrecked the business, but after harrowing episodes, he created the attention and momentum that he needed to pry open the opportunity to invent. Meanwhile, he invented. By the time that Sprague got his chance— or, rather, engineered his chance—to build out a full-scale electric railway system in Richmond, Virginia, in 1887, he had worked out the rudiments of his motor and railway design on paper and in smallscale prototype runs. Getting cars up and running and putting them to work carrying passenger traffic systemwide, regularly and reliably, took a second round of inventive effort. Some elements of the original design performed admirably. Others broke down, requiring urgent troubleshooting, redesign, and reinvention. Under enormous pressure, Sprague and his small team of engineers and mechanics assembled, took apart, and reassembled motors, railway cars, and electrical track components.The effort took nearly a year, but Sprague emerged with a major technical achievement. In the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, Sprague set in motion not just electrically powered streetcars but a full-scale electric railway system. And as he did so, he also assembled the elements from which he would craft his own narrative of heroic invention. THE SALIENT FORMING

The idea of using electricity (as opposed to horses, mules, or steam engines) to power local railway systems had been in the air for decades. As early as 1834, a Vermont blacksmith named Thomas Daven-

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port began the process of inventing an electric railway system by mounting a small motor on wheels and running it around a small circular railway. Other isolated experiments repeated the feat on larger scales in following decades. Moses Farmer, for example, put an experimental car into electrical motion in Rhode Island at the Newport Torpedo Station in 1847. None of these initial efforts amounted to much more than trial projects, however, largely because they relied on batteries as fuel sources and therefore remained severely limited in capacity. Only in the late 1870s, with the emergence of more efficient dynamo technologies, did centrally powered electrified railway networks become a commercially and technologically viable prospect.6 The turning point came in 1879 in a cluster of disconnected developments. At the Berlin Exhibition in Germany, Werner Siemens installed a “modern motor” (Sprague’s phrase)7 on a railway car, fed it with current from a stationary dynamo, and carried passengers along a track a third of a mile long. Meanwhile, working more or less simultaneously (and independently of each other) in the United States, several American inventors were making progress along largely the same lines. Stephen Field managed to establish the first formal American claim to the idea, filing a caveat with the U.S. Patent Office in 1879 and a patent application the following year. Siemens filed a patent application in 1880, as did Thomas Edison. Sprague later characterized Edison as being “perhaps nearer the verge of great electric-railway possibilities than any other American” in 1880.8 The track that Edison built at Menlo Park, New Jersey, ran over a mile, sending current through the rails of the track to the wheels of cars that reached speeds of forty miles per hour. Edison invited various railroad investors and managers to inspect the project and drew Henry Villard into plans for a joint venture developing the technology.

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The demands of building out his electric light and power stations soon consumed both Edison’s and Villard’s energies, however.9 In key technical respects, meanwhile, other would-be inventors of electric railways ran into problems as they tried to scale up their designs. In some cases, motor designs were not up to the heavy task of hauling large cars. Many of the “motors” for these prototype designs, including Edison’s, were in fact dynamos that were jury-rigged for the job. All of these projects pumped the necessary current through railway tracks, creating “live” rails that posed potential hazards. Most efforts rigged up cumbersome chain or belt drives to transmit power from motors to axles. And all of these early designs (including the designs of Siemens, Field, and Edison) used locomotives to pull passenger cars. The initial round of efforts at electrification, in other words, inherited existing railway architectures, substituting electric motors for steam engines or horse teams. Even so, by the early 1880s, it seemed possible, even probable, that electrification would transform railway networks. As technological momentum built behind Edison’s power and lighting systems, the impetus to develop adjacent direct current electrical applications intensified. Sprague himself picked up on the opportunity, as did other would-be inventors. Observers were predicting “a vast amount of money for the inventor who produces a motor” capable of driving electric railways, and a number of inventor-entrepreneurs were racing to seize the prize.10 Among these, the most important figures in 1884, when Sprague entered the field, were Charles Van Depoele, Leo Daft, and the team of Walter Knight and Edward Bentley. Van Depoele, a Belgian immigrant who originally was a cabinet maker, incorporated the Van Depoele Electric Light Company in Chicago in 1881, backed by

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Chicago capitalist Aaron K. Stiles. Despite its name, the firm shifted in 1882 from an initial focus on arc lighting to motors and electric railways, setting up a test track for pilot experimentation near its factory. The following year, Van Depoele assembled an operational demonstration in the form of a locomotive powered by a thirty horsepower dynamo that ferried passengers to the Chicago Industrial Exhibition. By the time that Sprague was organizing Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company, Van Depoele had set up a second pilot railway in an exhibition in Toronto and was preparing to extend that line to link with one of the city’s existing horse-car lines.11 Bentley and Knight were also making progress on their own electric railway designs. Following initial development within the shops of the Brush Electric Company in Cleveland, the two inventors secured a contract in 1883 to electrify a mile-long section of the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. By July 1884, Bentley-Knight trains were up and running as the first commercially operated electric railway in the United States (although one that was electrically powered along only one mile’s worth of track). In September 1884, the venture organized as the Bentley-Knight Electric Railway Company and unveiled plans to electrify the entire East Cleveland line.12 Daft, too, was jostling for position. After establishing the Daft Electric Light Company in Greenville, New Jersey, he began supplying motors to several industrial clients in the region. Despite his firm’s name, Daft, like Van Depoele, Bentley-Knight, and Sprague, targeted electric railways as an emergent technology and was running several small-scale pilot projects by the end of 1884, including one on Coney Island and another on a section of track in Boston.13 Sprague, in short, was entering a rapidly developing field of invention and enterprise. Electric railways represented a highly anticipated

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technology. By the time SERM was launched, several competitors had already designed pilot projects and attracted local seed capital. Even as Sprague began to cast about for partners and financial backing, his rival inventors were assembling prototypes, impressing local audiences, and attracting guarded interest from financiers and street railway companies. Major investors were still waiting for clear front runners to emerge, although the field was taking shape. Both the industry and the technology were in formative and very plastic stages.The situation remained fluid. All of Sprague’s competitors (at least after Edison dropped out of the field) were essentially start-ups that were built around single inventors who were working with local sources of capital, funding operations that had not yet scaled up to industrial proportions. Pilot projects had been put into operation, but a platform set of technology standards or a consensus system architecture had not yet coalesced. More basically, the underlying technology remained abstract, untested, and unlocated. No one had taken on the challenges and unknowns of actually building out a full-scale system that was embedded in a real landscape and was functioning profitably. This point underscores how much of this technology remained unconstructed. Motors were being bolted onto cars and sent running on tracks, but those tracks were essentially unconnected loops that were removed from wider environments. These closed systems were novelties and promises, not products that were available in the marketplace. Momentum was building behind the technology, but it had, literally, nowhere to run. The new technology did, however, have new power sources that could be tapped. The successful installation of central power station systems after 1880 was accelerating technological innovation and de-

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velopment. Historian Thomas Hughes has identified the environment that surrounded Sprague and his competitors as a “reverse salient” that formed at a critical point in the evolution of the larger technological system. Edison’s direct current power and lighting systems were gathering compelling momentum. As such systems evolve, Hughes explains, critical problems emerge that threaten to check growth.These reverse salients in turn draw inventors, engineers, and other innovation agents to work out solutions in an effort to maintain the evolution and growth of the larger system. Sprague, Hughes concludes, provides “a superb example of a critical-problem-solving inventor and engineer who was obviously informed about reverse salients.”14 Hughes’s metaphor provides an important contextual perspective on the broader dynamics that surrounded and shaped Sprague’s work. The opportunity for invention was indeed being shaped by social circumstances. External as well as internal forces were at work here. But from Sprague’s perspective, the situation assumed a different aspect. The inventor considered himself to be breaking away from Edison’s gravitational pull. He considered himself to be forging a new field of enterprise and a new technology on his own terms—and very much on his own. He felt himself to be undertaking invention heroics. SPRAGUE LAUNCHES

Sprague entered the field brimming with confidence and scrambling for resources.“When I separated from Mr. Edison in 1884 and formed my own company,” Sprague confided years later,“it was at considerable risk.”15 Indeed, he was abandoning a promising position in Edison’s entourage at the very nexus of technological developments and plunging into a churning field of competing start-ups and technological

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upheaval. He was twenty-seven years old, had no capital and few resources, and would be challenging rivals who were already building out their own designs and establishing themselves in a rapidly forming market. Yet Sprague focused on the opportunities that he sensed were before him, not the risks. He sensed the momentum that was building behind the technology and believed in the possibility of heroic invention. He may have lacked the resources that his competitors were amassing, but Sprague had technical ideas and a few critical resources to tap. The prototype that he had assembled in Brockton, Massachusetts, represented a significant breakthrough in electric motor design and a highly saleable product, and Sprague was confident in his ability to build an electric railway system around it. He would have to move fast, create chances to put his inventions to trial, and get to market. He had to build a business, in other words, to continue developing his designs, construct a working system, and make a name for himself. He had to venture in order to invent. The most pressing need, as Sprague emerged from Edison’s shop, was financial backing. He capitalized his venture at $100,000, but he had nothing like that sum at his disposal. Sprague sold a few shares to several friends, raising funds “which quickly went for personal needs.” Then he turned to Edward H. Johnson, one of the partners who managed Edison’s lighting company, for substantial backing.The two partners struck a verbal agreement in which Johnson agreed to fund Sprague’s expenses “for a portion of the profits.”16 Johnson did not bring much money to the table.Though Sprague was later vague about the figures, he appears to have launched SERM with roughly $16,000 of paid-in capital.17 But Johnson represented more to Sprague than merely venture capital. He was a resourceful

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marketer, skilled manager, and well connected, having worked with Edison in various capacities since the 1870s. By 1884, Johnson was running the Edison Electric Light Company and serving in executive capacities in several other Edison-affiliated firms.18 Johnson did not relinquish his Edison positions when he partnered with Sprague. He took on SERM as a side project, assuming the title of president and fostering Sprague’s work with periodic cash infusions (via Edison connections) and occasional strategic direction but minimal direct managerial participation. Nevertheless, Sprague’s new partner played a key role in the enterprise. Johnson brought shrewd business savvy to the venture. He positioned SERM for strategic partnership with the Edison companies and connected Sprague, at least indirectly through Edison, to potential financiers such as J. P. Morgan and Henry Villard. More generally, Johnson’s role conferred an invaluable imprimatur on SERM. Even as a figurehead (and his role went beyond a titular one), Johnson provided Sprague from the outset with a currency that he needed nearly as desperately as he did cash—credibility. For credibility was Sprague’s other consuming priority as he prepared to launch his company. He was entering a burgeoning new market, a field of rapidly multiplying competitors, and a fierce battle to establish technological standing. Even as he and Johnson hammered out a financial structure for their company, Sprague went to work promoting himself and his inventions. Fortunately, he had a familiar forum close at hand. On September 2, 1884, the Franklin Institute opened an International Electrical Exhibition in Philadelphia, the biggest event of its kind to date in the United States. Seizing the chance, Sprague contributed a display exhibiting several “self-regulating motors . . . to run at constant speed under varying loads” and a “motor for Electric Railway purposes, with self-contained means for varying

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the mechanical effects, as speed and power and means for reversing direction of rotation.” One of Sprague’s motors powered a loom. The appearance of nonsparking direct-current motors that operated at constant speeds (as opposed to slowing down when pulling heavier loads) represented a significant breakthrough in the field, and Sprague came out of Philadelphia with several important endorsements. Most notably, the Wizard of Menlo Park offered up a handsome testimonial.“The problem of transmission of electrical force has been pretty well worked out,” Edison declared to reporters covering the Exhibit. “A young man named Sprague, who resigned his position as an officer of our Navy to devote himself to electrical studies, has worked the matter up in a very remarkable way. His is the only true motor. . . . His machine keeps at the same rate of speed all the time, and does not vary with the amount of work done, as others do.”19 Thus fortified, the partners formally launched the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company on November 24, 1884. At an initial meeting, the firm’s shareholders (essentially, Sprague and Johnson, at this point, with several other minor holders), appointed three “trustees”—Johnson, Sprague, and John Tomlinson. SERM then convened its first board meeting, electing Johnson president, Sprague treasurer, and William Hammer secretary. Sprague was in business.20 BREAKING IN: BOOTSTRAP STRATEGIES IN A NETWORKING ECONOMY

Despite the endorsement from Edison, Sprague did not emerge from Philadelphia as the leading figure in the United States in electric motor technology. Higher-profile names received greater attention at the Philadelphia exhibition. The Van Depoele Electric Light Company

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mounted “a very extensive exhibit” that included an array of electric motors at Philadelphia (according to Electrical World). The Daft Electric Light Company displayed a series of motors of its own (including one that drove a Cotterell press printing the Electrical World—a deft promotional move). Competing motors from Stockwell,Weston, Brush, Knight-Bentley, and Ayrton & Perry also vied for attention in the Exhibition Hall.21 Together, these displays described an emergent but rapidly heating field of competition that surrounded Sprague. SERM, meanwhile, remained little more than a paper company and a one-man R&D project.“One small room sufficed for our business requirements,” Sprague remembered later.22 The venture did, however, hold a critical advantage over its rivals—its affiliation with the Edison interests. Although Sprague left Menlo Park to strike out on his own, he had not left Edison,Villard, and company entirely behind. The fact that Johnson, a key Edison executive, took on at least nominal oversight of SERM suggests that something more intricate was developing. And Johnson soon reinforced the linkages connecting the network of ventures.To create instant capacity for production, he arranged to outsource SERM’s manufacturing to Bergmann & Company Electrical Works, a New York–based firm that had been supplying electrical equipment to the Edison companies (lamp components, fixtures, and so on) since 1876.23 The move enabled SERM to get into business without having to build, buy, or lease plant capacity. It also signaled Johnson’s instinct to nest SERM, at least informally, within the loose cluster of companies that comprised Edison’s various electrical ventures at this stage. Johnson, not coincidentally, was also a partner in Bergmann & Company—as was Edison himself. Partnership made sense both for Sprague (who was in no position to finance a factory) and for the Edison companies. In the early

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1880s, Edison’s people were too hard-pressed to develop motor technologies and markets themselves; they had their hands full building out their lighting and power station systems. On the other hand, once a power station was built, the operators—the franchisees who took ownership of the local stations—were naturally anxious to promote power usage, particularly in the daytime hours, when few lighting customers were drawing on power. Expanding the menu of electrical applications thus made Edison’s lighting and power systems more readily marketable. SERM fit symbiotically into the long-term strategic plans that were coalescing around Edison. Indeed, seen from the perspective of Edison and his partners, Sprague and SERM represented an intriguing strategic play. The technology was unsettled. It was difficult to decide what specific designs would create which specific applications, opening which markets. Although they had their hands full at the time, Edison’s partners certainly recognized the potential in Sprague’s designs. If this particular inventor did in fact manage to solve this particular set of technical problems, he could potentially unlock the markets that lay beyond. Under these circumstances, maintaining friendly relations and, if possible, an embedded financial and operational relationship made strategic sense. Given both the stakes involved and the extent of the unknowns, lending Johnson’s managerial talents on a part-time basis amounted to putting an insider on the scene. SERM offered Edison et al. a contingency venture, something akin to a spin-off venture, letting Edison and his financial partners put development in play with a minimum of investment and a potentially huge payoff. The historical record does not allow for precise accounting, but various sources indicate that Edison-affiliated investment would play a key role in sustaining SERM at several critical junctures, including

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its precarious infancy in 1884 and 1885 and after a technological breakthrough in 1887 during an attempt to scale up railway production. Charles Batchelor (one of Edison’s assistants and business partners, who managed the Edison Machine Works from 1884 to 1888) bought in.24 So too did Sigmund Bergmann (running Bergmann & Company Electrical Works, which manufactured much of Edison’s equipment).25 Edison was exaggerating, but not wildly, when he asserted in 1909 (writing to Samuel Insull): “My recollection re trolley is that we built all the motors etc. . . . & in fact financed the pioneering of the Trolley.”26 What was taking shape around Sprague, SERM, and any number of other ventures jostling for position with related and competing technologies would be strikingly familiar to a later generation of technology entrepreneurs—a networked high-technology economy. The technological ferment was volatile and fluid. Capital remained cautious. Where would definitive, successful innovation come from? Which of the aspirant new technologies would stick? Which design and which cluster of patents would manage to align start-up resources, stabilize technically, attract a critical mass of financing and then customers, and establish itself as the platform architecture of the new technology? There was no way of controlling the rapid and unpredictable technological shifts, the entrepreneurial energies, or the strategic unknowns. In this environment, the best strategy was to remain flexible, disperse one’s risks, and spread one’s plays—to structure loosely in ways that permitted coordinated action but left options open. One way for a cluster of potential investors and informal partners to lend support without sinking substantial funds was to help generate marketing momentum. In May 1885, the Edison Electric Light

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Company issued a circular to its power station licensees endorsing Sprague’s motor as “the only practical and economic Motor existing today” and recommending its active promotion in the field. Edison himself reinforced the message, repeating and amplifying the personal endorsement that he had delivered at Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Sprague contributed to the gathering promotional impetus, publishing a series of detailed articles in Electrical World that described the design and operational principles of his motors.27 Things were cranking up. In May 1885, Sprague heard from A. H. Rennie, a contractor for Edison’s Electric Light Wiring at Pearl Street who had agreed to act as an agent for the new venture. “Today broke the ice & made sale of one of your motors,” Rennie wrote. “Had to shade a little in making connections, etc. How soon can you let me have the motor?”28 BUILDING THE MOTOR BUSINESS

By mid-1885, SERM was booking sales and delivering motors. It was a small beginning but a critical point of entry. Although Sprague and Johnson ultimately intended to design and market electric railway systems, the bulk of their business through SERM’s early years of operation came in electric motors that were designed for stationary purposes (mainly powering warehouse elevators and industrial machinery). Much as he had improvised production capacity by outsourcing manufacturing, Johnson jury-rigged distribution by setting up arrangements with independent sales agents who either made their initial sales without any product or (as the business grew) carried their own inventory.29 Sprague was still essentially buying time,

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accumulating a performance record, and meanwhile developing the motor elements of his railway system. The first few months were touch and go. Sprague betrayed how uncomfortably narrow the firm’s margin of operation was in a letter to a customer (a manager of an Edison power station in Pennsylvania) in mid-June 1885. SERM had shipped William Brock a motor several weeks before “under special conditions as to trial and price” and as yet received no payment, Sprague complained. “The special price ($189) was offered solely on condition of prompt cash sale” once the motor had tested satisfactorily.30 The fact that SERM was shipping product on spec and offering “special price[s]” for “prompt cash sale” was as revealing as Sprague’s anxiousness to receive payment. Also telling was the fact that the customer was one of Edison’s power stations. The motor business eventually stabilized, however. The Edison Company endorsement carried enormous weight. (“Probably no reference we could make would be as strong,” Sprague replied in answer to a query from a potential customer in July 1885.)31 And the motor itself, in various sizes and permutations, performed admirably. Over the next six months, SERM grew into a humming little business with an expanding customer base and a cash flow that was sufficient to pay the roughly $600 per month that Sprague needed to cover salaries, patent fees, overhead, and “some payments to the machine works.”32 Continued growth through 1886 brought SERM to critical mass sometime around January 1887, when Sprague issued a catalog listing his most powerful and effective motors to date, including models ranging up to twenty horsepower.33 Business in the New England region, energetically developed by agent George E. Harding in Boston, was

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especially strong; Sprague motors from one-half to fifteen horsepower were driving elevators, mill machinery, printing presses, and other industrial equipment in Boston, Lawrence, Pawtucket, Fall River, and Springfield. Farther afield, SERM had found customers in New York City, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, and St. Paul. A few foreign orders had come in, as well, from Canada, Argentina, Milan, and Berlin.34 Encouraged, Sprague and Johnson made arrangements to expand. In January 1887, the company increased its capital stock from $100,000 to $1 million (both figures still nominal, at this point)35 and made arrangements to lease factory space within the Union Lead Works building on West 30th Street in New York. AN INTERLUDE

One notable event interrupted Frank Sprague’s busy venturing and invention, at least briefly. In early 1885, during a short vacation in New Orleans, he met and immediately began courting Mary Keatinge. The daughter of William Keatinge (who owned an engraving company) and Harriette G. Keatinge (who, notably, was one of the pioneering woman physicians in the United States), Mary had already been married once. After a brief engagement, Sprague (then twentyseven) and Keatinge (twenty-one) married on April 25, 1885.36 The couple moved to New York, and Sprague promptly threw himself back into business. In all likelihood, the young bride saw relatively little of her husband in the coming years.The couple had a son, Desmond, in 1888. Mary seems to have taken little direct interest in Sprague’s work, however, while Sprague, in these years of his life, seems to have taken little interest in anything but his work. In any event, the couple divorced, amicably, in 1895.

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DEVELOPING A RAILWAY MOTOR SYSTEM

By early 1887, SERM had established itself as a leading provider of electric motors, and Sprague’s electric railway experiments were rapidly outgrowing their blueprint and workbench origins.The company planned to devote its new facilities within the Union Lead Works “to the manufacture of special types of motors,” a reporter learned, as well as “experimental work. Mr. Sprague will spend a large portion of his time in the factory.” Sprague “schemed out” (in his words)37 the basic architecture of his railway system in 1885. He employed shunt-wound motors of his own design, which enabled the cars to return current to the line as they reduced speeds. Motors were mounted in pairs on each car of his train, rejecting the locomotive system that Daft, Field, Edison, and other inventors had been using. Sprague placed the motors underneath his cars, wheelbarrow-style, rather than inside the carriages. This made the motors harder to access for maintenance or control purposes but enabled Sprague to gear the motors directly to the axles, removing the need for inefficient and unreliable chain drives.This approach also freed up more room within the motor cars, increasing capacity.38 The result was an architecture that marked a significant step forward in electric railway technology. Sprague’s railway motor designs were better engineered than his rivals’: the motors sparked less and (as with his stationary motors) maintained constant speed regardless of the load they were carrying. A superior, series-parallel control system allowed cars to be controlled from either end.To transmit power from the motors to the axles, Sprague rigged up double-reduction gears that were pinion-driven and meshed with gears that were added to the axle.

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(Later the double-reduction gears were replaced by more efficient single-reduction gears.) At the same time, the inventor sketched (though he was not yet able to build or test) plans for a power supply system that delivered current via an overhead feed line to the motor. To collect this current, Sprague’s design hung the motor beneath the railway car (or “truck”) carriage between the transom (with two bearings) and axle (with a third bearing). (At this stage, Sprague used small wheels as current collectors, spring-loaded to maintain constant contact with the centrally positioned current rail.) These basic features—including the undercarriage motor mounting, the current delivery system, the motor control apparatus, and the motor brushes (which were fixed in position)—were to become basic architectural elements of traction systems in the United States and Europe throughout the twentieth century. Indeed, the essential elements of the design remain in use today. Sprague unveiled the system blueprint in a paper to the Society of Arts in Boston in December 1885, making a pitch for installation in the Manhattan Elevated Railway. The following year he conducted a series of tests demonstrating a prototype in New York City, first on a tiny track running between several buildings at a sugar refinery on East 24th Street and then on a section of the 34th Street Elevated Railway. By the end of 1886, refined versions were driving cars up and down grades and along curves, stopping and starting midgrade without shocks or jars and without using handbrakes, absorbing what the inventor characterized as “severe and exceptional strains.” These pilot demonstrations attracted tentative interest and further capital commitment from Edison-affiliated sources. After witnessing a trial demonstration in early 1886, for example, C. E. Chinnock, who ran Edison’s Pearl Street power station, offered to purchase a one-sixth

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share in SERM for $30,000. Sprague declined the offer, despite the fact (as he later told the story) that “I probably did not have money enough to pay my board for a month.”39 Several months later, when Johnson managed to pique the interest of industrialist /investor Cyrus Field, Sprague assembled a more elaborate demonstration on the 34th Street branch of the Manhattan Elevated Railroad. Still impressed, Chinnock returned with more attractive terms—$25,000 for a onetwelfth share.This time Sprague took him up on the investment.40 Another demonstration went less well, however. As Sprague moved his experiments to the Manhattan Elevated Railway, Johnson rounded up key executives, including financier Jay Gould, for a visit. “Keenly alive [Sprague would later recall] to the importance of the visitor, and confident in the possibilities of the machinery,” the inventor drove the car himself. Unfortunately, when he suddenly reversed the current, he blew a safety catch, triggering a loud explosion and a shower of sparks. Startled, Gould attempted to jump off the train. The only injury was to his dignity, but that turned out to be a serious blow: the Manhattan Elevated Railway declined to consider electrification for several years afterward.41 In fact, Gould’s pride was not the only issue at stake.The hesitation of the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company to plunge into electrification made it clear that hard strategic realities were still inhibiting the potential market for electric railway systems. Through the mid-1880s, none of the major streetcar lines, in fact, proved willing to risk the substantial capital expense of electrification. Notwithstanding the boosterish enthusiasm of promoters like Sprague, street railway operators were adopting a wait and see attitude. The businessmen who owned and ran lines needed to see more than motors driving cars. They needed to see a large-scale system in operation.

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They required hard numbers—data on how a system performed over the long haul and what it would cost to operate. By early 1887, it was becoming clear that Sprague would have to somehow stage the technology—in operation on a system scale—to overcome lingering technological inertia. THE RICHMOND OPPORTUNITY

The opening came from an industry outsider, a new streetcar company in a small southern city that was looking for a way to make an unworkable project work. In the winter of 1886 to 1887, a group of New York investors led by Maurice B. Flynn reached Richmond,Virginia, scouting for a factory site. Sizing up the city, Flynn detected an unexpected opportunity: Richmond was served by only one street railway, an inadequate horse- and mule-car line. In short order, Flynn formed a syndicate of investors and obtained a franchise from municipal authorities to build and operate a twelve-mile road along a prescribed route. As the project moved into the construction phase, however, serious problems emerged.The steep grades and sharp turns of Richmond’s topography, its unpaved streets, and its clay soil rendered the route a “horse killer” that was ruinously expensive to operate by traditional technologies. Unable to build a standard streetcar line, Flynn cast about for alternatives. Recalling the publicity surrounding Sprague’s experimental runs in New York City, he approached the young inventor. Flynn, however, was not prepared to underwrite development of a full-scale system. The Richmond Union Passenger Railway was, like SERM, a start-up venture, thinly financed though run by a shrewd and opportunistic set of capitalists. Flynn may have found himself in

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a difficult position on the ground in Richmond, but he recognized the leverage that he held over Sprague, who urgently needed an opportunity to stage his technological designs. The Union Passenger Railway drove a hard bargain. SERM was to provide a fully equipped system, complete with a steam and electric central station plant (375 horse power capacity), forty cars, and eighty motors. The system was to run along a track of twelve miles, mounting grades of up to eight percent. SERM was to bear all risk and expense upfront; Sprague would be paid $110,000 only after the system was up and running with thirty cars in operation at a time. “In terms, price, and guarantees,” Sprague would later observe, it was a contract “which a prudent business man would not ordinarily assume.” Sprague was taking a massive risk. He was contracting to build “nearly as many motors as were in use on all the cars throughout the rest of the world.” He was binding himself to develop a system in which a basic motor design had been worked out but in which innumerable technological problems remained unsolved. He was giving SERM only ninety days to deliver on a project that dwarfed anything it or any other worldwide competitor had accomplished to date. He was betting the company, committing SERM to up-front expenditures far beyond any resources actually on hand.“Failure in Richmond,” he recognized, “meant blasted hopes and financial ruin.”42 He had not even been to Richmond to tour the site, yet he signed without hesitation. The overtones of heroic invention, which Sprague himself would craft and cultivate in subsequent telling and retelling of the tale, clearly color the account.43 Biography, recovering the story, tends to slip into the same narrative patterns. Still, those patterns convey an essential quality of Sprague’s frame of mind and the frame of mind of those who joined his venture.The myth of heroic invention worked powerfully

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as one of the internal forces helping to drive this technology. Years later, one of Sprague’s assistants relished the memory of the mood: “We were all intoxicated—drunk with the work inspired by your indomitable energy, your penetrating intelligence, your bold pioneering through obscure problems. Out of the woods you emerged, flags flying, as we captured Richmond, Wilmington, Scranton, St. Joe. Great days! Technical difficulties, financial difficulties, professional jealousies, nothing could daunt the man.”44 Nostalgia and the rhetorical expectations of the occasion (the remarks came in a gala celebration marking Sprague’s seventy-fifth birthday) colored the characterization. Still, the memory seems vivid enough. Sprague had a small grace period before the ninety-day timetable began while the tracks were laid in Richmond. Preparing for the onslaught that he knew was coming, he hired two assistant engineers. Ensign S. Dana Greene had just graduated from Annapolis, and Lieutenant Oscar T. Crosby was a recent West Point graduate. Neither man had much experience in electrical engineering, but they quickly picked up working knowledge. Greene, stationed in Richmond, and Crosby, at the Edison Machine Works in Schenectady, New York, both demonstrated critical “pluck, enthusiasm, and endurance,” Sprague later observed, as “difficulties multiplied” in the frantic months ahead. The team needed all the time they could get. “We had only a blue print of a machine and some rough experimental apparatus,” Sprague later admitted, “and a hundred and one essential details were undetermined.” He still had to figure out how to gear his motors independently to each axle, for example; how to suspend the motors under the car; how to rig controls operable from either end of a car; how to wire “a four-hundred-and-fifty volt constant-circuit, with track and

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ground return, under conditions which were stated by electricians to be impracticable.”45 “We are working from lose sheets, only partially finished, because of the rush of work which is on our draughtsmen,” Sprague informed Johnson in late March. “We are making changes in the machines; and it would be suicidal to send these half finished drawings of machines about which we are not yet certain to the Machine Works.”46 Then, as if he needed to heighten the drama that was building around him, Sprague contracted typhoid fever. For three critical months, as contractors finished the tracks in Richmond and SERM’s deadline countdown began, Sprague convalesced in bed and then embarked (because his wife feared he would plunge back into work otherwise) on an extended trip out west. Only in September did he manage to make his way to Richmond. What he found there, when he surveyed the ground for the first time, was disheartening. The sheds built to house the cars were little better than shacks.The tracks were a mess—poorly jointed, unevenly laid in Richmond’s red clay, and insecurely fastened. Curves on the road were dangerously sharp, some with radii of as little as twentyseven feet. Most alarming of all, however, was the topography. Richmond’s grades rose as high as ten percent, significantly more than Sprague had contracted to climb.“I shall never forget my feelings,” he would write much later, “when, after inspecting the car sheds at one end of the line, I reached the foot of the steepest hill.” “THE INSTRUMENTS”

The first order of business was to determine whether cars would be able to scale the grade. At this point, Sprague was not even sure that

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the weight of the cars on the rails would give them enough traction to climb without backsliding. Back in New York, he gathered his team for consultation. Someone proposed installing a cable mechanism on the steepest hill, winching cars up using a separate electric motor, at which point Johnson, sitting in on the session (and doubtless growing concerned about cost implications), broke in: “Guess the best thing to do is to find out whether the car can get up the grade at all.”47 Sprague returned to Richmond to make the critical experiment as soon as a car could be outfitted with several motors. Hoping to keep a low profile, he waited until nine o’clock in the evening before climbing aboard with the superintendent representing the railway syndicate and a few other employees to begin the ascent. The motors strained dangerously, but the car held the rails up the first hill, up a second, and around several curves. By the time they reached the city center, Sprague knew that his motors “must be pretty hot.” He stopped, hoping to give them time to cool, but when he tried to start them up again, the passengers felt “a peculiar bucking movement,” and Sprague knew that the engines had burned out. The cover of darkness, meanwhile, had not prevented a crowd of onlookers from gathering. Coolly, “unwilling to admit serious trouble,” Sprague turned to Greene and stated “in a tone that could be overheard by those near, that there was some slight trouble with circuits, and he would better go for the instruments, so that we could locate it.” Greene, catching on, went off into the night while Sprague turned off the lights on the car and sat down to wait. Gradually, the crowd began to disperse. “After waiting a long time for Greene’s return with those ‘instruments,’” Sprague later recalled, “inwardly praying that he would be late, he came in sight with four of them—big, powerful mules, the

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most effective aids which could be found in Richmond under the circumstances.”48 The successful ascent allayed fears that SERM’s cars would be unable to climb Richmond’s hills, and the team managed in the process to avoid what would have been an unfortunate public relations setback. But at the same time, the experiment exposed serious mechanical flaws in Sprague’s motor design. The motors were too small and underpowered and moreover would need intermediate gearing. “Thoroughly at a loss what to do,” he later confessed, Sprague retreated to Providence, Rhode Island, where he exhorted machinists at Brown & Sharpe to put “as many men and as much money and material at my command for 24 hours a day as will be needed until I recover the position we have lost.”49 Overhauling the motor design continued through 1887. To introduce double-reduction gearing, the engineering team had to shift the motor on the axle to create space for a new cast axle gear with inside shrouded teeth that engaged with an intermediate pinion and gear, mounted on a stud anchored in one of the motor’s keepers.This apparatus had to mesh accurately with the motor pinion. It was a difficult mechanical job and only the first of what turned out to be a series of technical setbacks and improvised solutions. Sprague’s customer, the Richmond Union Passenger Railway syndicate, was soon “clamoring for operation,” while SERM’s team worked their way through what the inventor called “a witch’s cauldron of troubles.” The motors’ commutators—spinning drums of bare copper segments that pressed against the brushes—proved particularly troubleprone. In the shop, they performed adequately. Subjected to operating conditions on the tracks, however, they broke down constantly— burning, blistering, and, if not cleaned and filed down immediately,

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short circuiting the motors. Sprague attacked the problem by taking apart burned out and pitted elements, studying them, trying different bronze and brass alloys in place of the copper bars, moving motor circuits to try to disperse arcing damage, and reengineering the metal brushes that rubbed against them. Nothing substantially improved performance. At one point, desperate to get the problem under control, Sprague had the copper bars ripped out of every motor on the line (“somewhat hurriedly,” he later confessed),50 reequipping them with special bars and commutators of hard cast brass, which seemed marginally less likely to burn out. In fact, Sprague never satisfactorily solved this particular problem. The Richmond brushes had to be checked after every half trip. Worse, because the rough contact bars sheared off the ends of the brushes, material costs climbed. In the thick of development, Sprague later admitted, “we were using about nine dollars’ worth of brass per day.” Paying this kind of operating expense was painful, but as things stood, SERM could not afford not to pay: “the road must be kept in operation somehow,” the inventor maintained, “while other experiments were being made.”51 So the commutator problem remained unsolved. (Subsequent technical refinement on other roads proved the superiority of carbon brushes, a solution pioneered by Charles Van Depoele.) Fortunately, other problems yielded to solution. The team managed, for example, to jury-rig an impressively effective system of overhead contact.The question of how to supply current to the motors was one of the biggest unknowns going into Richmond. Many leading authorities, including Edison, argued that current should flow through the rails. Sprague (like others working on actual systems) rejected this solution, convinced that “third rails” (to borrow

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an anachronistic term) would inevitably cause accidents, undermining popular acceptance of railway electrification. Instead, he favored an overhead system in which a single, small trolley line ran over the center of the track to carry current. It was reinforced by a main conductor and supplied at distribution points by feeders from the central station, with return current flowing through reinforced rails tied into the street mains. The mechanical problem became keeping cars connected to the wire. At first, Sprague outfitted cars with vertical poles, running from the centers of the cars to the line overhead. One of his draftsmen, Eugene Pommer, worked up a better design—an inclined pole that pivoted around a trunion supported over the center of the car, with tension springs holding the trolley wheel against the wire. PRESSURE BUILDS

By late January 1888, after intense work in machine shops at Brown & Sharpe in Rhode Island and the Edison works in Schenectady and repeated trips back and forth to Richmond, Sprague’s team was nearly ready to put cars into regular operation. “I am completely overwhelmed with work,” Sprague wrote a friend on January 15, “so much so that I hardly know whether I stand on my head or on my heels at times.”52 He was racing frantically, but time was already running out: the deadline spelled out by SERM’s contract with the Richmond syndicate slipped by, forcing Sprague and Johnson to renegotiate with Flynn and his partners. That encounter was tense. The two sides met on January 23. The syndicate, which was not yet earning significant revenues, was prepared to take full advantage of the additional leverage it now held. “After more or less sparring,” Sprague reported to Greene, “Johnson

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cut the Gorgian [sic] Knot by asking Flynn bluntly how much he wanted off the contract—just how many dollars—saying he wanted to know just how much we had to carry.”The answer was, a lot. Flynn got the final price for the system knocked down from $110,000 to $92,000. Far more seriously, half of that sum became payable in bonds of the railway rather than cash.53 Sprague griped about the new terms—“about $8,000 more than they would have any moral right to claim,” by his accounting—but he and Johnson were cornered. Everything now depended on getting twenty cars up and running reliably for thirty days (the new condition for payment). “Bend every effort to the equipment of the cars,” Sprague directed Greene; “as regards terms of settlement, keep mum.”54 The company was coming under intense financial pressure. The costs of developing the Richmond system had already outstripped revenues from the motor business. In January, both Sprague and Johnson were forced to take out personal loans, secured by their SERM stock, to keep the project moving forward.55 The next month, local papers in Richmond and New York announced “the opening of the electrical line of the Union Passenger Railway.” This coverage, evidently prepared by Sprague and his colleagues,56 proclaimed that the project was an unqualified success and reported that SERM’s cars were managing grades fully loaded, without sanding the tracks, in wet and icy conditions. Behind the scenes, however, glitches and bugs continued to plague the motors and cars. The commutator problem was giving Sprague’s team “the Devil’s own time,” and cars were frequently jumping the tracks. After the initial, scripted burst of promotion, Sprague advised George Prescott, “I do not want too much publicity to be made of the thing down there yet.”57

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By mid-March, the pressure was growing acute. When Greene reported to Sprague that they had thirteen cars running smoothly, Sprague responded with weary congratulations that betrayed the seriousness of SERM’s condition. “We must get twenty cars moving at the earliest possible moment and keep them there at all hazards,” he implored, directing Greene to “at once cut down every available man that it is in your power to get rid of. . . . Every dollar which can possibly be saved there must be saved, and every bill which you can well avoid any immediate payment of wants to be staved off.” The firm’s finances had reached a crisis point. In a postscript underscoring his anxiety, Sprague added: “DON’T PAY A BILL THAT YOU CAN HELP UNTIL AFTER APRIL 1ST.”58 Fending off creditors, scrounging for operating capital, eking by, SERM made its way into April, when Greene and the team in Richmond at last managed to put twenty cars into regular operation, allowing Sprague to notify the Richmond syndicate that the system’s thirty-day trial was underway.“Of course, it now becomes us,” Sprague wrote Greene, “to have as few accidents that we can avoid as possible.” His nerves were clearly strained. When Greene telegrammed the New York office to “send the new trolleys as soon as possible,” without explaining why, Sprague complained: “A telegram means expedition. . . .We are left to infer that everything has suddenly gone wrong, and that rattles us.”59 A final push saw the trial through. For a grim moment in early May, it looked as though Flynn would claim that the system was still not performing satisfactorily and withhold payment. Sprague fumed, accusing Flynn and the syndicate (the details are murky) of trying to seize the railway’s property from the other investors. By this point, the railway had been collecting fares and carrying passengers for three months,

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the inventor pointed out, earning its investors $18,000. SERM’s cars and motors had averaged nearly eighty miles of operation a day, totaling 11,000 miles carrying 40,000 passengers a week, on average. Clearly on edge, Sprague speculated that Flynn intended “to have all the cars run in except a few, and then publish all over the country that we had failed, and to get the Daft Company to put their machines in.”60 Whatever Flynn may have been up to, on May 15 the Richmond Union Passenger Railway Company formally notified Johnson “of our acceptance of the electrical equipment of the Richmond Union Passenger Railway.”61 SERM had made it up the hill.

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ASSESSING RICHMOND: BEYOND INVENTION

Viewed in historical perspective, the Richmond Union Passenger Railway represented as much a cluster of technical solutions and adaptations as it did a distinct stroke of heroic “invention.” Sprague had not developed all of the technical design, nor had he achieved the technology in a single “eureka!” episode of genius. Sprague had sketched as much of the system as he could on paper, assembled the pieces, and then adapted his ideas in the course of building it out on the ground. As he did so, he had in mind the plans and projects by rival inventors. Certain technical aspects of the system, moreover, continued developing in the aftermath of Richmond, as Sprague and other engineers refined the initial design. Nevertheless, the Richmond project marked a turning point in the evolution of the technology. Sprague had accomplished a formidable feat of technological engineering and a dramatic staging of the innovation. At Richmond,Virginia, Sprague designed, built, and

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sold the first electric railway to operate successfully as a full-scale system. In the process, he established the basic platform architecture— including carriage-mounted motors slung underneath cars on either end “wheelbarrow” style, with series-parallel controllers, current delivered via overhead wires, and tracks forming return circuits—on which future trolley systems would be based for the next hundred years. Most critically, he had assembled the whole as a system—with tracks, power lines, motors, cars, and an extended line of tracks—that operated in the real world of an urban landscape, a community of commuters, and a commercial marketplace. As Nikola Tesla observed nearly half a century later, Sprague had launched “a true pioneering enterprise inaugurating a new epoch.”1 To the extent that any single individual invented electric trolley trains, Sprague did at Richmond. The fact that he had managed to stage the technology so publicly and compellingly, moreover, catalyzed the process of adoption. The installation of a fully operational electric railway system in Richmond conclusively demonstrated the functionality of the technology. Vigorous promotion from Sprague subsequently broke the market wide open. In early 1887, when he had taken on the project, eight electric or partially electrified railways were operating in the United States, running a total of sixty-five cars on some thirty-five miles of track, none of them operating on the scale that Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company achieved in Richmond. Sprague established definitively that the technology could be made to work on the scale of a full urban system and at a fraction of the operating cost of a horse-drawn railway. Over the next three years, several hundred electric railways began construction in the United States. As the technology spread, however, it outgrew the financial control, proprietary grasp, market management, technical manipulation,

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and cultural meanings of Sprague’s operation at Richmond. What began as (at least in Sprague’s view) a dramatic feat of heroic invention multiplied and ramified. Electric railways became part of a larger industrial and urban landscape and in the process mingled in a confluence of contextual technological meanings. These aspects also form a vital dimension of the history of this technology. CAPITALIZING

In terms of performance and cost of operation, electric railways offered clear advantages to horse-drawn railways. As historian David Nye has pointed out, horse cars were expensive to maintain, requiring multiple animal teams and high upkeep costs. (Horses, Nye observes, “annually ate their value in feed,” needed stable hands, blacksmiths, and veterinarians, and wore out every four years or so.) Moreover, electric cars averaged twenty miles per hour, twice the speed of the horse cars, and extended over wider spans of operation. Cable cars offered a third technological alternative, though they were expensive to build and operate. In short, once Richmond put the new technology on display, astute capitalists could cost out the advantages. Sprague was promoting but not blandishing when he touted Richmond’s numbers. So long as potential streetcar operators could gain access to sufficient capital, innovation made eminent and evident economic sense.2 Sprague and his partners fully expected to exploit the commercial possibilities that their gambit had created. Late in April 1888, with cars running reliably in Richmond, Sprague summoned S. Dana Greene back to New York for a week-long strategy session with Edward H. Johnson and Oscar T. Crosby. “We wish to go over a very great many things looking to future work, which is now going to be

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very largely increased,” Sprague explained, “and we want to get all the combined knowledge and experience of the crowd together.”3 With Richmond under its belt, SERM was apparently poised for breakout success.The time was “ripe,” Sprague wrote, “for this Company to launch forth.” SERM had passed through “the most critical period of its existence, and by reason of its successful fulfilment [sic] of an unprecedented contract, its reputation as the foremost motor company in the country has been fully established.”4 Capitalizing on the opportunity that Sprague had opened, however, created a new round of challenges. SERM was already financially overextended, as were both Sprague and Johnson personally. Later Sprague estimated that the company had absorbed a net loss of $75,000 developing and delivering the Richmond project.5 In January 1888, straining to keep development going, both executives had taken out personal loans for $45,000 and $40,000 respectively, pledging SERM stock as security. Payment from the syndicate covered close to half that sum. Sprague tallied just over $40,000 “in cash and notes” in the company treasury in May, along with $46,000 of Richmond bonds. Meanwhile, “hundreds of thousands of dollars of business are within our reach,” Sprague wrote Johnson,“and we must have capital to push it.”6 Johnson went to work lining up new investors. Edison came in, along with railroad baron Henry Villard: together the two bought up twenty percent of SERM’s common stock (previously unissued) and all of its preferred stock. J. P. Morgan also took a block of common shares. Sprague touted Richmond energetically, whipping up publicity for the project—trying “to boom things,” as he put it—both in the popular press and in electrical and railway circles.7 Inquiries and then orders flowed in: “business is rushing, and increasing all the

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while,” Sprague exulted to his brother in July 1888.8 SERM revenue climbed from just under $30,000 in 1887 (all of that representing only motor sales) to nearly $365,000 in 1888 and $1.5 million in 1889. By the time that SERM had ramped up to peak production a year after Richmond, the company had over 300 machines under order and was delivering them at a rate of four or five a day.9 As the market broke open, the competitive landscape surrounding SERM rapidly reformed. Daft gave way, and Bentley-Knight soon fell behind too. But SERM did not manage to claim the field for itself. A formidable new competitor emerged. Back in January 1888, Charles Van Depoele had approached Sprague and Johnson and offered to sell out to them. With SERM’s hands full, Sprague passed on the offer, letting the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, based in Lynn, Massachusetts, acquire Van Depoele. This development had decisive implications.Thomson-Houston, under the management of Charles A. Coffin, had already battled aggressively for markets in arc lighting, incandescent lighting, and alternating current equipment. Coffin was a fierce and wily competitor, and in getting hold of Van Depoele’s assets he gained control over important electric railway patents, including a critical one for the overhead trolley system.Thomson-Houston went head to head against SERM, fighting for virtually every contract.10 Initially, SERM held its own. Exploiting his first-mover advantage, Sprague secured roughly half of the 200 electric railway projects that went into construction between 1888 and 1890, according to the calculations of historian Harold Passer.11 But Coffin countered with several advantages of his own. His company enjoyed the backing of powerful investors, including Boston financier Henry Higginson, whose sponsorship gave Coffin access to wealthy investors in Boston. This reservoir of capital enabled Thomson-Houston to accept the bonds

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of railway lines as payment for its equipment—a strategy that SERM could not afford.12 Moreover, Thomson-Houston enjoyed powerful political influence in key local markets. The fact that his company’s major investors were well-connected in large northeastern municipalities gave Coffin and his colleagues leverage in securing contracts. By 1889,Thomson-Houston was beginning to overtake SERM. The competitive situation, including both Sprague’s initial advantage and Coffin’s effective counter tactics, played out in microcosm as the two companies battled for the biggest prize in the field—Henry Whitney’s West End Street Railway in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1887, the West End was the nation’s largest urban railway system, running 1,700 cars behind 8,000 horses along more than 200 miles of track.13 The line was bearing heavy operating costs, however, and Whitney was laying plans to convert to a cable system when he heard about the Richmond project and traveled down to Virginia for a visit. Sprague, alert to the opportunity, hurried there to meet Whitney’s party and lead them through a tour of the system. His guests were curious but cautious. The general manager of the West End expressed reservations, wondering how the system would bear up when large numbers of cars bunched up badly—as happened on a daily basis in systems as large as Boston’s.To reassure the railway executives, Sprague prepared a demonstration, assembling twenty-two cars and arraying them in a close-packed row along a section of the line. He had never before tried to start that many cars at once and knew that the load was going to put a serious strain on the system. Pulling the engineer aside and telling him “to load the feeder safety-catches, to raise the pressure to five hundred volts, and to hold on, no matter what happened,” Sprague gave the signal. “Twenty-two motormen started their cars at the end of a section of line designed for four distributed cars,” he

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later recounted. “The lights went down and the potential dropped to about two hundred volts. But it gradually rose, and all the cars were soon merrily running out of reach of signals.”14 Round one to Sprague. Whitney returned to Boston persuaded that the West End should electrify. SERM received a contract to supply equipment. THE DYNAMICS OF ADOPTION

Attracting customers like the West End Railway was essential for SERM’s viability, allowing Sprague to continue developing, marketing, and building out his version of an electric railway system. More generally, the support of capitalists like Henry Whitney played a decisive role in sustaining the momentum behind the technology. Whatever the technical merits of Sprague’s system, eventual adoption ultimately hinged on deeper, largely extrinsic social and cultural factors. Any new technology has to overcome an inherent inertia to gain acceptance. In the case of the electric railway, successful innovation was going to require nothing less than the reconfiguration of existing city and town transit systems and, indeed, geographies.Whether electrifying an existing line or building a new one, installing an electric railway represented a substantial undertaking, entailing complicated political maneuvering as well as expensive investment.15 All of this took the process of developing and further defining the technology increasingly out of Sprague’s hands as the number of electric railway projects multiplied.The company needed customers, but even more basically, the technology needed to attract the support and active agency of financiers, politicians, local operators (the railway companies), and ultimately consumers (the trolley riders) to become

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reality. Sprague’s successful entrepreneurship carried the technology through initial deployment, early commercialization, and the first round of technical refinement. Beyond these steps, though, there was little he could do to make electric railways continue to happen. In the final analysis, adoption overcame technological inertia because electric railways succeeded as social constructions. In this case, the technology and the process of social construction fed into and off of each other.The development of electric railways fit into larger plans and projects. As the effective reach of metropolitan living, working, and commuting expanded, developers perceived and grasped the opportunity to buy property along planned routes, build new swathes of commercial and residential real estate, and sell it off at profit. Coming just as developers were acquiring the financial capacity to put such ambitious projects into effect, the infrastructure technology achieved rapid adoption. Within less than two decades,“walking cities” built electric railways and became what urban historians have referred to as “networked cities.”16 The decision by Whitney and the West End Railway to adopt Sprague’s design underscored how widely dispersed and deeply layered the process of technological adoption became as Sprague set out to drum up customers. Whitney and his partners were by this point tangled in contentious negotiations and fierce competitive struggles with local rivals over whether the West End would be permitted to undertake the construction and extensions that would give the railway comprehensive metropolitan coverage in Boston. All kinds of economic and political interests were in play. Competing lines were trying to block the West End. Existing independent lines were trying to keep it at bay.The construction of (steam-driven) elevated lines in New York City had triggered intense debate in Boston and at the state government level about whether “els” should be erected in the Hub.

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The issue was coming to something of a head by 1888 and 1889 as the implications of Sprague’s accomplishments in Richmond, Virginia, spread. Whitney and the West End had pressing reasons to sponsor and champion Sprague’s work. In public hearings before the Massachusetts state legislature, railway officials, attorneys, and allies marshaled the technological promise of electrification as a lynchpin argument in their bid for public support. Lines had to be remunerative, they argued, or they would fail, abandoning their cumbersome infrastructures to become eyesores and roadblocks embedded in the city. Electrified railways, however (and only electrified railways), would enable the West End and its customers to avoid this fate. Spokespeople for the West End cited statistics (possibly Sprague’s own) indicating that electric railways cut route times in half and carried four times as many passengers as railways driven by existing technologies.17 Ventures such as the West End Street Railway, in other words, mobilized electrification—and in the process both invested in it and promoted it to the general public.Thus, in an afternoon of speeches at “ladies day with the Cambridge Club” in April 1889, Professor Elihu Thomson was brought in to lecture on “Electricity in Harness.” “We speak of electricity as a mysterious power,” Thomson proclaimed, “but before long children will contemplate the works of electricity with as little wonder as they now do the water which flows from our faucets.” Following Thomson, Whitney then addressed the audience, urging political support for the West End’s efforts to secure permission to extend its electrification construction through Cambridge.18 The specific dynamics of electric railway construction varied from locale to locale. One distinctly American aspect of the process that held true in many places across the United States, however (an aspect that probably helped to accelerate adoption), was the privatized context

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of construction. In America, as historians have observed, electric railway construction became projects that were undertaken and therefore driven by private railway companies—capitalized enterprises that either upgraded facilities from horse-drawn omnibus to electric railway equipment or replaced those earlier antecedents with electric alternatives. In Europe, by contrast, municipal-owned lines mediated the process of technological adoption. This distinction had dramatic implications. European municipalities tended to build electric railways slowly, contentiously, and ambivalently after protracted public debate and under relatively tight public regulation. American railways, by contrast, encountered less effective regimens of public regulation and therefore more easily overrode safety concerns or environmental objections. In John McKay’s words: “electrification shot through the American street railway industry like current through a copper wire. Within two short years after Sprague’s Richmond installation, onesixth of all street railway track in the United States was electrified.”19 INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT AND CORPORATE ABSORPTION

Elihu Thomson’s presence beside Henry Whitney at that “ladies day” at the Cambridge Club had not been coincidental. His own company, Thomson-Houston, was also bidding in competition with SERM for work on the West End Railway—and bidding successfully, as things turned out. Exploiting the political leverage that his Boston financiers gave him, Coffin managed to wrest a major piece of the West End project from Sprague. Thomson-Houston “now have about five hundred thousand dollars invested in railway interests,” Sprague wrote Johnson in February 1889 after traveling to Boston and talking to people there. “In New England, and especially in Boston, they have

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exceedingly strong affiliations, and I think it will be necessary to make some deal with them as regards the Boston work.” Indeed, Sprague was strongly urged to consider combining with Thomson-Houston and other players in more general strategic terms.“If they are a party of the combination [along with SERM and the Edison interests], I think we can raise in Boston not less than one million dollars cash for the organization,” Sprague informed Johnson. “It would be a combination of the New York and Boston financial interests with whatever strength can be gained by affiliations. . . . I have been advised in Boston that the very wisest thing for us to do is to make this combination.”20 “Combination,” indeed, was rapidly acquiring compelling strategic logic across the electrical industry.The aggressive arrival of ThomsonHouston signaled the emergence of a new stage of evolution for larger electrical firms. Between 1888 and 1891, Thomson-Houston spent $4 million acquiring competing and adjacent firms, absorbing seven arc lighting and street railway manufacturers (including Van Depoele and the Bentley-Knight Electric Railway Company). Westinghouse also undertook rapid horizontal expansion, moving into incandescent lighting (by acquiring the United States Electric Lighting Company and the Consolidated Electric Light Company) and into arc lighting (by picking up the Waterhouse Electric Light Company). Edison and his financial partners, meanwhile, were preparing to draw together their scattered ventures in a single corporate structure. In April 1889, they combined the Edison Electric Light Company, the Edison United Manufacturing Company, the Canadian Edison Manufacturing Company, and several smaller auxiliary businesses to form Edison General Electric (EGE) Company.21 Behind all of these moves lay the growing recognition that competing in this industry, building out systems, and more generally

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sustaining technological momentum would take both scale and scope. Installing lighting and railway systems and the power stations that were needed to run them required massive amounts of capital. Only by financing their customers could equipment manufacturers like SERM get major projects off the ground. As Sprague found out, electrical manufacturers had to be prepared to accept the bonds of power and railway companies in payment for equipment—which meant being able to transform those bonds into liquid forms of operating capital. In the absence of established markets for these kinds of transactions, the backing of well-connected financiers who were able to tap everlarger resources became crucial, and figures such as Higginson, Villard, and Morgan came to the fore of the industry. This development was momentous—as epochal as the new electrical technologies that it was midwiving. The deepening commitment of figures like Morgan signified profound shifts in the organization of the electrical industry and in the arrangements structuring technology, investment, and business generally. Financiers had been wary observers and dabblers in 1884, when Sprague launched. By 1888, as the electric railway market broke, they were being drawn in to something much larger—a wider migration from investments such as government securities and railroads into industrial ventures. The participation by Morgan, who would soon become the preeminent capitalist of the industrial corporate era, was especially significant. He, his partners, and his clients were beginning to internalize the microeconomic metrics of mass production, mass distribution, and mass marketing. At the same time, they were gaining confidence in the stability of the new electrical technologies that people like Sprague were assembling. At the confluence of these two developments, they were beginning to fashion new techniques (in-

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deed, new technologies) of investing in, managing, owning, and operating industrial enterprise. As business historian Alfred Chandler notes, “the electrical manufacturers . . . were the first American industrialists not intimately connected with the railroads who found it necessary to go to the capital markets for funds in order to build their initial enterprise.”22 Sprague had found himself operating at the epicenter of this seismic shift in both capitalism and the crafting of technology. Through SERM, his engineering created the tools of venturing that he needed to invent.What he did not anticipate was that he was, at the same time, assembling projects that would ultimately require more sophisticated tools of finance and enterprise and more highly articulated and professionally managed solutions for ongoing technology engineering. Like any number of other electrical inventors (Tesla,Van Depoele, or Edison himself), he had scrambled inelegantly and inexpertly for seed capital as he started out. In the process, they had unwittingly created the conditions for an entirely new market for future capital. All of this bore directly on SERM’s viability as a business. The intimations of “combination” that Sprague was receiving by early 1889 rapidly materialized in corporate form. In February, Johnson and Sprague sold off another large block of common stock to the Edison companies. “The trouble with this Company,” Sprague explained to a colleague in the navy who had taken a small share early in the venture,“has always been that it was doing too much work on too small a capital. Perhaps this may be forcibly illustrated by the fact that we have taken a quarter of a million dollars worth of work within the past thirty days.” Drawing the Edison interests more deeply into partnership had raised $400,000, he added, “which is nearly one hundred thousand dollars more than we have heretofore had in our whole history.”23

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At this point, Sprague evidently still thought of the arrangement as an affiliation of distinct companies. But he had turned over what proved to be a fateful degree of financial control.Villard and his backers were creating, in Edison General Electric, an expanded enterprise that would be able to compete in multiple markets against ThomsonHouston, Westinghouse, and any other entrants. What had been a networked, entrepreneurial technological nexus circled by cautious investors was becoming an industry and a corporate marketplace, both financially and technologically. The Edison restructuring rapidly overtook SERM and Sprague. In November 1889, after Sprague returned from an extended stay in Europe, the fact of absorption sank in. Presented with a plan to merge SERM with EGE, he made one last bid to reclaim control. It was too late: “I had hoped to be able to step in and make a counter proposition backed by plenty of capital, to offset the propositions made by the Edison Company,” he wrote an ally. “But the powers on the other side, Drexel, Morgan & Co., together with the uncertain element on which it is important to count, have forced me, practically, to the necessity of accepting their proposition.”24 So financial realities eventually impinged on Sprague, forcing him to acknowledge that he had created something bigger than his limited financial resources allowed him to contain. The invention had outgrown the venture. Ironically, Sprague himself had hastened the process along. The technical solutions that he and his team had assembled in Richmond, Virginia, had expanded the electrical industry substantially. Indeed, the emergence of electrical railways can be said to mark the sector’s coming of age. In historical perspective, the Richmond railway ranks with other foundational electrical systems of the period such as Edi-

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son’s Pearl Street Station (incandescent lighting and direct-current power transmission) and the alternate-current power and lighting system assembled (much more quietly) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by William Stanley (working under the sponsorship of Westinghouse) in 1886. All of these pilot projects both developed and staged their respective technologies. Each demonstrated the feasibility of key electrical applications and did so, critically, as working systems rather than single sets of apparatus. Each designed, within a few years of each other, a basic component of larger enterprise opportunities. Sprague, working in close proximity to competitors, had worked his way through a reverse salient and, at the same time, broken open an adjacent market that confronted managers like Coffin and investors like Villard with a new set of strategic permutations. The race to establish platform technologies was quickly narrowing, and as it did, it was replaced by a new race—to gain some measure of control over those technologies and use them, if possible, to check the growth of competing electrical giants. THE ONGOING EVOLUTION OF THE INVENTION

Meanwhile, technical developments on electric railways ensued. Sprague himself continued to refine his designs. In November 1888, a circular informed SERM agents that the company was sending them information on a new motor, “as much in advance to that used in Richmond as the one in Richmond was ahead of everything else in the world at that time.” Scripting a pitch for selling the new motors, the circular explained that “From our experience in Richmond and other cities, we learned many points about electric railroading which was [sic] not known to anybody before that time.” Managing

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to craft language that both celebrated the Richmond invention yet touted the new, improved design, the circular continued: “In fact, we can say, that a year ago it was not in the mind of man to conceive and devise such a machine as we now offer you.The Street-car men were not familiar with electricity; the electrical engineers had not been thoroughly educated in the practical part of street-car work, but in the Richmond road they came together, and this new machine embodies in its mechanical and electrical construction the result of our experience and is a machine that could only be built from such trials and practical workings as we went through in Richmond.”25 The Richmond design had been hastily assembled, leaving a lot of room for improvement. S. W. Huff, who joined the railway in 1890 (fresh out of Cornell University with an improvised degree in electrical engineering), found things there “in wretched condition.” Only “with the greatest difficulty and most strenuous work . . . could [we] keep thirteen [cars] on the road.”The motors’ copper brushes had to be repaired after virtually every run: “A man was kept on the corner in front of the shop and every time a car made a round trip, first one and then the other motor was cut out and the car was run backwards and forwards while he filed the commutator with a coarse file,” Huff related. Other design limitations compounded the effort. In the rush to cobble the motors together, parts had been manufactured without gigs, meaning that the parts were not interchangeable. As Huff put it, “We had been interchanging them with a sledge hammer.”The original motors proved too small, resulting in “the constant burning out of armature and fields” (though replacing them with “Sprague No. 6 motors did subsequently improve performance”). And the windings on the armatures also required constant, expensive attention: “It took five armature winders to keep thirteen cars running.” All told, Huff

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concluded, “we considered ourselves fortunate to keep the required number of cars running regardless of the amount of help or the expenses involved.”26 CULTURAL MEANINGS

As an electrical engineer, Sprague doubtless expected ongoing refinement of his system and perhaps realized that he would not be able entirely to supervise or control the process. But he also tended to conceive of the technology in functionalist terms as a form of transportation. As far as Sprague was concerned, he had “invented” the technology and bequeathed it to its users: it was literally a vehicle. But the vehicle was not ridden passively. As recent historians have pointed out, technology takes form and meaning not only in how it is “delivered” by inventors and engineers but ultimately in how it is “received” by its adopters, commercial investors, promoters, and users. David Nye has taken electric railways as a particularly rich case of this insight.“Riding the streetcar,” he argues,“was not a passive experience, but one that offered a complex bundle of perspectives.” In rearranging urban geographies, the streetcars rearranged urban experience itself.27 Streetcars became emblems for the industrial, expanded urban and suburban communities that they connected and carried.Thus, in novels such as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, electric streetcars figured centrally in describing both the assembly of larger industrial and commercial settings and the social conflict attending that assembly. The plot device was not coincidental, for it located and highlighted the technologies at the heart of the scene. Streetcars, like other emblems of the era, became political arenas in which the meanings of the technology ramified well beyond

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its functional uses and purposes. Sprague did not entirely intend or influence these effects, but he participated in all of them. CLAIMING THE TECHNOLOGY

Both SERM and the technology that the enterprise had been assembled to stage and engineer passed from Sprague’s proprietary grasp. There are several ways to interpret these outcomes. In broad terms, SERM’s fate can be understood as part of a larger set of trends in business and technology. Beginning in the late 1880s, a wave of consolidation and incorporation engulfed American industry. Sprague’s story was typical: a string of entrepreneur-founders gave way to financiers and professional managers during this period as the scope and scale of American industrial activity grew to colossal, corporate proportions. In SERM’s case, the company created a market that it proved unable to exploit. Sprague had unleashed forces that he could not contain or channel. Like other inventor-entrepreneurs from his era, he eventually found himself financially outmaneuvered as the technology he had played a central role in fostering was amalgamated into a larger structure of ongoing corporate development. Figures such as Morgan and Villard were not the kind of investors that tolerated wide-open, technologically free-wheeling market conditions. They were venturing unprecedented amounts of capital in a novel industry, and as the scale of their investments grew, they applied pressure to establish proprietary control over key technologies and bring the industry under some form of control. Within fairly short order, they and the managers they selected to operate their enterprises set up internal capacities to extend, refine, and generate new iterations of proprietary technologies.

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In short, the new corporations quickly moved to assert corporate control over the technologies that they were making and selling and over the process of making new technologies. In addition to being one of the first enterprises to tap capital markets for corporate industrial equity, Edison General Electric was also one of the first to erect a full-scale laboratory dedicated to research and development—and the two developments were not coincidental.28 In the case of the electric railway, the result was a remarkably rapid, thoroughgoing campaign of technological conversion. In 1890, the federal census counted 5,700 miles of horse-car track in the United States, 500 miles of cable-car track, and 1,260 miles of the new electric trolleys. Over the next three years, more than 250 electric railways were incorporated. By 1903, some 30,000 miles of street railway lines were running, 98 percent of them electric. The dramatic overhaul occurred far more rapidly and more comprehensively than, say, the spread of the steam railroad. Indeed, one historian has characterized the conversion to electric railways as “one of the most rapidly accepted innovations in the history of technology.”29 A powerful tidal pull of urbanization helped impel the conversion. It is difficult to imagine that earlier technologies (notably horsedrawn railways) would have been able to bear the burgeoning traffic of the new cities and their satellite communities—the suburbs that were sprouting on their edges. New solutions were needed urgently. Meanwhile, new forms of corporate enterprises were emerging to handle such solutions. As they amassed financial resources and acquired expanding technological capabilities, companies such as EGE both accelerated and were accelerated by social transformations such as urbanization. Alongside mass production and mass distribution, they were learning how to mass-market mass technologies.

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The story of the electric railway thus ramifies: the technology helped shape and was itself shaped by larger social and economic trends. Sprague’s ability to engineer this technology successfully through development and initial adoption, as heroic as it may have felt and been, certainly hinged on any number of nested social circumstances and conditions. There is another way to read the story, however. This technology was not developed in a corporate lab. It came together at the periphery of the industry and was brought into being by means of individual invention that was aligned within a dramatic feat of entrepreneurship. Outside financial interests had abetted but neither entirely sponsored nor corporately controlled the venture. Broad social constructs had created the conditions that made innovation possible. Yet from the inventor’s perspective, the electric railway had sprung from Sprague—imagined and then improvised through design into manifest artifact. Sprague had managed to pull together the resources he needed to develop his technology, stage it publicly, and cultivate its adoption. And all of these accomplishments had played a pivotal role in deciding the specific design of the technology and the initial path and pace of its adoption. For Sprague personally, these latter aspects of the episode reverberated profoundly. The Richmond experience vindicated his faith in the possibilities of heroic invention. This fundamental perception of the event (one that was verified repeatedly by Sprague’s peers and audience) framed his subsequent career, fortifying his sense of himself and fueling successive efforts to reprise the experience. At Richmond, Virginia, Sprague wrote (literally wrote, in the years ahead) a narrative that became itself a substantial motive force that drove future efforts at invention and innovation.

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In May 1888, Sprague wrote a letter to Johnson that opened a revealing window into the personal, psychological dynamics that had driven SERM and the Richmond Union Passenger Railway. The Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company had emerged from Richmond triumphant, and the company was scrambling to capitalize on the market boom that it had triggered. At this crossroads, poised for breakout, Sprague hoped to persuade Johnson to resign from the Edison companies and cast his lot with SERM. He pulled out all the stops and, in doing so, laid himself bare. Johnson had earned an “enviable position” for himself within Edison General Electric, Sprague allowed, “a position of influence and pecuniary profit.” But as Sprague saw it, the exciting, meaningful work in that field had already been accomplished. “Initiative and independence are largely taken out of your hands,” he pointed out,“by the fact that no important act is performed by you without consultation with one or more committees.” Meanwhile, SERM presented Johnson with what Sprague reckoned was a far more compelling prospect: “you are President of a young, virile, varied and promising company, which stands foremost in the development of a new, varied and wide-spreading industry.”30 The Victorian masculinity that laced Sprague’s language was entirely conventional, but he felt the underlying sentiment deeply. He understood and undertook business as a personal quest. He was a masterful engineer, an incisive inventor, an inveterate builder of businesses—but not an entirely successful manager, in the long run, and certainly not an individual who adapted comfortably to corporate management. He was an entrepreneur by necessity, a venturer by instinct, and, at heart, a swashbuckler and an adventurer-inventor. Such were the forces, outlook, and motivation that fostered this technology and had driven its initial deployment.The role that Sprague

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carved out for himself is complex but vital to understanding the process of innovation in the high-technology economy of the late nineteenth century. In the final analysis, he was not merely a heroic inventor, stereotypically brilliant in the abstract ways of electricity but naïve in the ways of business. Nor was he an industrialist, per se. He was a hybrid figure, a heterogeneous engineer who was able to design the technology and then hammer together a business that was capable of constructing it.This technology “happened,” ultimately, not exactly in the lab or in a corporate marketplace but somewhere in between in a space straddling and connecting the two spheres.The pivotal transformation that carried the technology from blueprint to pilot project to fully operational streetcar line to marketable innovation happened because Sprague managed to cobble together the multiple resources that were needed to translate technology from idea into tangible, local function. More telling was that Sprague’s appetite for heroic invention was not sated. Even as EGE absorbed SERM, Sprague was casting about for new opportunities to flex his “initiative and independence.” He by no means considered himself marginalized. He was determined to find his way autonomously back into the technological ferment for he continued to believe that the forces he was channeling would not, finally, be containable within corporate structures. Future ventures—in electric elevators, mass-transit control systems, and other electrical technologies—would test these assumptions.They would ultimately bear out Sprague’s faith in his continuing relevance as an agent of innovation—and delineate the limits of that relevance. The environment remained highly fluid. Even as the industry consolidated, incorporated, and staffed up internal research and development functions, potent and disruptive invention energies continued to swirl at the edges of technological evolution.

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RESTLESS AND RISING: SPRAGUE AND SPRAGUE ELECTRIC ELEVATOR COMPANY, 1890 TO 1898

Edison’s absorption of Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) left Frank Sprague in limbo. He had staged a new technology, engineering it through the process of commercialization and setting it on course for adoption, and then watched as his venture was folded into an integrated corporate enterprise. Initially, Edison General Electric (EGE) Company maintained SERM as a separate subsidiary and invited Sprague into its executive ranks. Sprague entered EGE in an ambiguous capacity, however. He became a director and member of the subsidiary’s executive committee, but not a manager with any real decision-making authority or influence. In 1890, he found himself caught in an anomalous corporate position, surrounded by ongoing technological development and rapid industry growth and looking for new ways to participate. He had been effectively relegated to the periphery of a field that was still churning with innovation and opportunity. He had earned a respectable amount

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of money, if not exactly a fortune, and a high degree of professional recognition, if not exactly popular fame. Nevertheless, it was not a position in which someone like Sprague could be comfortable. He quickly realized that the corporate managers who had taken control of EGE intended to give him no significant strategic role in the business he had created and only limited opportunities for meaningful technical input. Within six months, he was ready to strike out on his own again. He spent the next eight years throwing himself into a new venture—Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC). At the same time, he continued to search restlessly for a way back into urban electric transportation—the field that he had begun to open but over which he had been unable to assert commercial control. Sprague was thirty-two years old when he emerged from EGE.What lay ahead was a period of intense peaks and valleys that was by turns exhilarating and demoralizing. Between 1890 and 1899, he plunged into another technological challenge and, after years of diligent hustling, built a new business into another busy company. Nevertheless, he alternated during this period between stretches of diffusion, in which he picked at grand projects that seemed to go nowhere, and phases of intense focus in which he continued to engineer effectively and venture resourcefully. His first marriage fell apart. Meanwhile, whether by instinct or necessity or some alchemy of the two in combination, he kept himself on the entrepreneurial edge. His experiences did not completely shatter his faith in his powers of heroic invention. Neither did they entirely bear out that faith. The most prominent work that Sprague accomplished during this period was to adapt his electrical work to designing and developing electric elevators for the new “skyscrapers” that were rising in major cities such as New York and Chicago. As with his work on electric

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railways, the technology’s social context was dynamic.With American cities mushrooming in size, downtowns were becoming much more densely configured. Urban sprawl was radiating outward and upward as well—in the form of buildings that climbed past existing four-, five-, and six-story levels. Other technologies, notably steel-framed building construction techniques, made skyscrapers feasible, creating favorable conditions for the parallel development of another technological reverse salient. Electric elevators, which promised more efficient, less costly, and safer operation than existing steam and hydraulic counterparts, looked like an idea whose time was arriving.1 The situation bore all the appearances of offering another shot at “the great achievement that will next come to the surface” (to borrow, again, the phrasing that Electrical World had employed to anoint electric railways in the early 1890s). Sprague’s efforts to assemble and deploy the new technology and thereby lay claim to “inventing” electric elevators proved to be considerably more problematic, however, and the outcome distinctly ambiguous. Electric elevators did indeed represent an emergent technology that was on the cusp of development and deployment. But Sprague struggled to marshal the resources that were necessary to commercialize the innovation in business form and to usher in a dramatic round of technological adoption. The accomplishment of invention proved to be accordingly elusive. This technology proved to be far more difficult to stage and thus to engineer than electric railways had been. SPRAGUE WITHIN EDISON GENERAL ELECTRIC

The formation of Edison General Electric Company from several existing Edison companies signaled the maturing of the electrical industry.

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A new set of corporate contours was taking form. Shaky ventures that were based on untested technologies had opened markets; several rounds of shakeout had identified viable platform technologies and winnowed the competitive field; and diversified, integrated electrical manufacturers (including Thomson-Houston and Westinghouse) were massing by the late 1880s. In response, Edison and his financial backers restructured their operations, drawing together the various overlapping ventures that they had launched (the loosely affiliated manufacturing companies, for example, that actually assembled equipment) and acquiring parallel businesses to fill out their product line. Edison’s control of Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company represented a particularly important piece of the whole; SERM’s orders for motors comprised nearly two-thirds of the work in the Edison machine works at the time. Inevitably, the next step was to mesh the separate units. Within a year of acquiring SERM in 1890, EGE announced plans to consolidate operations among its various units, including manufacturing functions and selling agencies.2 Inside these tightening corporate confines, Sprague quickly grew uncomfortable. He was still deeply invested in SERM, psychologically if not financially, and wary from the start about whether the business he had brought into EGE was going to be nurtured by its new parent company. In January 1890, he sent a long, carefully composed letter to Henry Villard, a principal financial power behind the formation of the new electrical colossus, laying out a series of “suggestions concerning the future conduct of the business.” Sprague started out by assuring Villard that he appreciated that SERM was “now a department of the Edison General Company, and must be conducted under their general fiscal policy, and in accordance with their general business schemes.” Nevertheless, Sprague argued that the subsidiary

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should retain a degree of autonomy. In particular, he argued that it would be a mistake to dismantle the network of agents who had been selling his railways. The agents, he reasoned, had “spent a large amount of time in establishing their offices, and exploiting their territory. They have a knowledge of the local conditions, of the personality of railway people, and oftentimes of local officials, which is invaluable.” The railway business, Sprague insisted, was “a class of work requiring special attention.”3 Building on this thought, Sprague urged that the subsidiary be put in the hands of its own senior-level management. “This Company has suffered seriously from the lack of an Executive Head who was free to give his entire time to its affairs,” he maintained. The business was still dynamic and fluid; it “has not yet settled down to that steady going demand for standard material which means the simple supplying of orders which come in, without exertion.” Competition in the industry was intense, Sprague observed, and SERM’s rivals were proving resourceful and aggressive. EGE should be protecting its railway and motor patents more actively, forcefully prosecuting infringements. Perhaps an executive board, dedicated specifically to the railway business, should be formed. In any event, Sprague expressed misgivings about giving Edison manager Samuel Insull supervision of the unit: “Mr. Insull, in his present position, is judge and jury of his own work, with no authority over him, and no power superior to his. What this Company [meaning, SERM] needs is some one to give it full time and service.” The subtext was clear: Sprague was concerned about what was happening to SERM and beginning to feel personally disconnected from it. Over the coming months, he grew more unsettled. In April, Sprague wrote to SERM’s board complaining that Thomson-Houston

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was ignoring agreements that it had struck with SERM about pricing and market allocation and was setting up rigged bids via a proxy company.4 He also warned that Westinghouse was preparing to enter the railway market. The Pittsburgh interlopers had already enlisted former SERM talent, including H. Harding and several sales representatives.5 A few days later, Sprague wrote the directors again with a follow-up report. Having done a little poking around, he had learned that Westinghouse had attracted Harding and a particularly effective sales agent who was well-connected in the western territories “by offer of large salary and stock interests.” As far as Sprague could tell, the company had developed no motors of its own, its new circulars notwithstanding. Nevertheless, he predicted that Westinghouse was “going to sell everything on promises, about $500.00 under our own prices,” adding that Harding was vigorously wooing former SERM agents (whom EGE had cut loose).6 These developments were worrisome. Far more troubling was Sprague’s inability to stir up what he felt was an appropriate level of urgency within EGE. Whatever his title, it soon became inescapably clear that Sprague was not going to gain admittance to EGE’s inner circle, where real strategic authority now lay. He found himself occupying an office that called for a manager, not an inventor or engineer, and that under the new scheme of organization was empty: “a sinecure, carrying with it neither authority nor influence in the management of its affairs, but yet as restrictive in the obligations imposed as if it were an active office.” Worse, the position gave Sprague no opportunity to continue inventing, and as far as Sprague could see, EGE did not seem committed to sustaining its technological lead.The subsidiary’s technical committee rarely met, no workshop or laboratory had been set up for “experimental work,” and EGE management seemed

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content with the “present state of apparatus.” On June 7, Sprague tendered his resignation as SERM’s vice president.7 Sprague’s frustration was not entirely of his own making. His restlessness within EGE stemmed from the undefined nature of the position that he held within the company, and this status reflected EGE’s ambivalence about the role that figures like Sprague were supposed to hold in enterprises like the one that Edison General Electric was becoming. Sprague sensed that he did not fit in at EGE, and indeed, he did not. Although EGE was a technology company, its managers were still figuring out how to strategically and structurally configure a capacity for continuous technological innovation. The concept of R&D, as later generations of executives and engineers at GE and likeminded enterprises would know the term, was still coalescing. EGE’s managers were just beginning to realize that they not only had to “do something about” but in fact to “do something with” figures like Sprague. But what? Answers to this question were starting to emerge by 1890. In 1875, the Pennsylvania Railroad made the unprecedented move of hiring a doctor of chemistry onto its staff.The following year, Edison set up shop at Menlo Park, New Jersey, creating a full-fledged industrial laboratory, albeit one that was independent of any particular enterprise or industry. Bell Telephone went some way toward internalizing the impulse several years later in 1883, when the company established an experimental shop. Sprague was not in a position to appreciate the fact, but he passed through EGE right on the cusp of a larger industry transformation. As far as Sprague was concerned, resignation from executive office did not entirely sever his ties with EGE. Several people within the company persuaded him to accept, somewhat reluctantly, a less formal

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status as consultant, for which he received an annual salary in return for giving EGE first right of refusal on his inventions. After agreeing to this, Sprague retreated from the scene and took another trip to Europe. The final, definitive break with EGE came soon after he returned. In early December 1890, Sprague learned that the corporation was removing his name from its motors and marketing them under Edison’s name. Deeply wounded, he fired off a long, bitter letter in which he resigned from the company and castigated its management. EGE circulars “known by every railway man in this country to be untrue” claimed credit for developing his motor technologies, Sprague complained. Announcements at professional meetings heralded the “Edison Company” as “the pioneer of electric railway work.” The product once known as “The Standard Sprague Stationary Motor” was now being marketed as the “Old Style Edison Motor.” Sprague had even picked up rumors “that word has been sent to certain publishers that in discussing electric railway matters Mr. Sprague’s name must be suppressed” on threat of losing EGE’s advertising spending. In short, Sprague fumed, “The Edison fetich [fetish] must be upheld, the Sprague name must be abolished; that is the law.”8 Contending with increasingly formidable competition, EGE’s move to brand its product line represented straightforward business logic, particularly if the brand could lend some of Thomas Edison’s incandescence to the rest of EGE’s product line. Sprague may have been overreacting, in other words, to what was a marketing strategy, not a personal attack. But from Sprague’s point of view, the shift in policy was deeply personal. His name was at stake, literally. Sprague had put everything on the line to make SERM happen and had done so above all to establish his professional reputation.That name on those motors

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represented his claim to having accomplished heroic invention. He identified with the technology; it identified him. And now his name was being erased. Sprague closed his resignation with aloof resolve but with words that fairly quivered with indignation. “Family quarrels are undignified, and covert attacks are cowardly,” he wrote. “I do not care to be mixed up in the former, and I will not remain quiet under the latter. I neither fear Mr. Edison’s criticism nor seek his approval. He is indebted to me quite as much as I can possibly be to him. If any attack on me is advisable or necessary let it be made in a manly and open fashion. I am able to reply to it as befits my reputation and dignity.”9 ENGINEERING RICHMOND AS NARRATIVE

First, there was his historical legacy to protect. In the course of promoting their electric railway, Sprague and SERM had generated considerable press as the Richmond Union Passenger Railway system went into operation. In 1891, Sprague took the next step, beginning to craft Richmond as a public, historical narrative—a fable of heroic invention that would secure his identification with the technology. “The commercial history of the electric railway is well known,” he recounted in 1891, addressing the National Electric Light Association, “while, perhaps, some of the inside history of it you do not know.” Sprague went on to describe his experience as a U.S. Navy midshipman who was stationed with the Asia squadron, his return to the United States and tenure with Farmer and Wallace (he pointedly did not mention the subsequent period in Edison’s employ), and, at length, his adventures in Richmond,Virginia.10 Sprague was an engaging, effective raconteur. Here as in later versions, he adopted a nontechnical, colorful tone, stressing “the inside

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difficulties with which we had to deal in the history of the electric railway enterprise, and the amount which it was necessary to conceal from the general public.” Specific anecdotes included his first encounter with the grades that the railway would have to scale (“My heart fell within me, and I said, ‘It is utterly impossible for any car to climb that hill’”) and the summoning of the “instruments” (mules) that rescued the cars after their initial ascent. Sprague played up the drama of the story (“I said to the foreman, ‘We have met the worst obstacle I have ever seen, in Richmond. We have got 60 cars we are under contract to run. If we fail there it will delay the electrical development in this country. . . . I have got everything at stake. My associates have got every dollar at stake. The road has got to go, and go it must’”). Although in technical formats (his Exhibition report, for example, which is discussed in chapter 1) his discourse conveyed a strong streak of technological determinism, when telling the Richmond story Sprague stressed the obstacles that he overcame, the improbability of success, and the vital influence that he believed individual heroics played in the outcome. “I think that people would have looked on electric railways as out of the question,” he recounted in 1891, “if they had known of the straits we were going through.”11 Sprague would tell and retell the Richmond story in coming years, embellishing the account with more details and further popularizing the story by pitching it to broader audiences in mainstream formats. Already in 1891, however, the essential components of the narrative were solidifying. Sprague’s account stressed the role of the inventor as an agent of innovation. He tied the fate of the technology to that of the enterprise that became the instrument of its adoption. And he stressed not just the technical design of the invention but its staging

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as a commercial prospect as the pivotal shift in its technological success. He constructed the innovation as a drama of staging. A FREE AGENT

Even before he broke with EGE, Sprague had been searching for ways to reenter the innovation arena and get back to inventing. As he let SERM go, he had secured formal release from any obligation to turn over future inventions to EGE (as he had been bound to do for SERM)—a stipulation that he argued left him “free in the matter of invention,” despite the fact that he was still an officer of EGE when he made the claim.12 By 1891, Sprague was an entirely free agent, ready and anxious to find new projects. These projects took several forms. Sprague formed an engineering consulting firm with two colleagues, Louis Duncan and Cary T. Hutchinson. He also undertook an experimental project for Henry Villard (who was himself growing disenchanted with EGE’s management), designing and building a massive electric locomotive that was capable of pulling freight trains and long-haul passenger trains. This sixty-ton, 1,000 horsepower behemoth came together relatively smoothly and performed encouragingly. Unfortunately, Villard’s finances collapsed before the locomotive could enter active service. It lay idle on a siding for several years before being sold for scrap. Another project that was closer to Sprague’s heart was his growing conviction that the future of public transportation for major metropolitan areas, and particularly New York City, lay in the development of electrified underground rail networks. Sprague unveiled his ideas in a series of public papers in the early 1890s. After an initial

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blueprint in 1890 failed to generate interest, he issued a public announcement offering to build and install a pair of electric trains on the Manhattan Elevated Railway and to electrify a section of the line at his own expense. If the new equipment failed to perform, Sprague grandly declared, he would absorb the costs himself.13 That gesture had worked before, in Richmond, Virginia, and it would work again. But it failed to impress Jay Gould or the other directors of the Manhattan Elevated. Sprague’s design was visionary and, as things eventually turned out, prophetic. At the same time, the prospect of installing an actual railway raised imposing logistical, technical, and financial problems. Sprague’s impassioned advocacy made no apparent headway. THE ELEVATOR OPPORTUNITY

Meanwhile, another project caught Sprague’s interest during this fitful period, one that quickly acquired more substantial form. In 1889, George F. Steele, a local SERM sales agent, heard that a young engineer named Charles Pratt had designed and installed an elevator that was driven by an electric motor in the Tremont House in Boston. Steele passed the information along to Sprague, who alerted EGE. An MIT graduate in mechanical engineering, Pratt had worked as an assistant superintendent for a Boston sugar refinery and then as an engineer for the Whittier and Otis elevator companies. His apparatus was innovative and, at least on paper, technically sound: Pratt rigged a horizontal sheave elevator, using an electric motor to drive a crosshead along an ordinary nut and screw. Unfortunately, once installed, the machine did not work particularly well, largely because Pratt

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knew less about electric motors than he did about elevator mechanics. Eventually, the Tremont House had the elevator removed, and EGE passed on investing any money in the idea. Sprague remained intrigued with its possibilities, though.14 The idea of using electric motors to power elevators was not in itself novel. Siemens had exhibited a system at the Paris Exhibition in 1881, for example. Indeed, Sprague’s own motors had already been bent to this purpose: In the 1880s, SERM motors had been installed at various sites, including a freight lift in the Pemberton Mills at Lawrence, Massachusetts, another to hoist building materials for the construction of the state capitol building in Topeka, Kansas, and another to serve a mine in Colorado. Pratt’s drive mechanism, however, added sophisticated and versatile refinements to the device’s basic principle. Earlier iterations had been relatively crude, successfully lifting and lowering platforms and cars but doing so in a slow, lurching fashion that would never suit, for example, passenger elevators in one of the new ten- or twelve-story “skyscrapers” that were beginning to rise in large cities like New York. Pratt’s design, on the other hand, if meshed with a motor and a control system that were properly adapted to the purpose, could be made to stop and start smoothly at precise locations while traveling up and down at rapid rates. Looking over the apparatus, Sprague decided that the architecture had potential. He introduced Pratt to Edward H. Johnson, and the three began laying plans to collaborate. Drawing on venture funding initially provided by Sprague himself (he later estimated he put $50,000 into the venture during this first phase),15 the team built its first experimental model in Sprague’s laboratory at 23rd Street in New York. By fall 1891, they were undertaking their first commercial installation in the Grand Hotel at 31st St. and Broadway.

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REFINING THE TECHNOLOGY

Technical problems emerged as the partners refined and reengineered Pratt’s basic system design. In particular, the control systems that Sprague had developed to operate his trolley cars required substantial modification to smooth out motor starts and stops. Working closely with Pratt, Sprague eliminated a centrifugal clutch and brake mechanism that Pratt had connected to a double spur gear and instead mounted the motor directly on the end of the elevator’s screw shaft. Sprague also added an improved control mechanism, employing a pilot motor to operate a rheostat to govern the flow of electricity to the motor. In addition, he designed a much more elaborate set of resistance grids. Thus modified, the motor controls operated more smoothly, although the new grids burned out frequently and increased stress on the controllers, making them prone to burning and pitting.16 As Sprague and Pratt’s various technical contributions coalesced, the result was an elevator that combined the features of both horizontal and vertical machines. At this early stage, the partners adopted and only slightly adapted the existing lifting apparatus that was employed by existing hydraulic elevators (with hoisting cables wound around multiplying sheaves, running up to the top of the shaft, over a second set of sheaves, and down to the car). While Sprague and Pratt refined their design and worked out operational kinks, the Grand Hotel pressed to open the elevators to passenger traffic.With some misgivings, Sprague agreed. Everyone grew more sober, however, in October, when a car carrying six passengers overrode systems controls and sank suddenly to the basement. No one was hurt, but a team of visiting inspectors from a prominent New York

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architectural firm was on site when the accident occurred and was invited to participate in the subsequent investigation. It turned out that the elevator’s operator had slammed the motor from full speed in one direction to full speed in the other, disarranging the safeties.The inspectors were able to report that backup systems had prevented serious injury even after the main system had malfunctioned. Meanwhile, Sprague and Pratt, after considerable trial and error, worked their way through the problem of resistor burnout and controller failure. The critical breakthrough came when Sprague suggested, on an impulse, that the team rig up a cast iron set of resistors, which performed reliably and proved durable. Other technical problems also gave way. By December, Sprague was convinced that they had worked out the kinks and were ready to develop a full-scale system. It was now time to formalize the company, too. In a series of agreements made in December 1891 and January 1892, Pratt sold his patents to Sprague for a nominal fee, Sprague returned the favor, and both assigned relevant patents and inventions to a new entity, the Sprague Electric Elevator Company. Sprague was back in business.17 ENGINEERING ELECTRIC ELEVATOR TECHNOLOGIES: STRATEGIC CONTEXT

In many respects, the effort to engineer electric elevator innovation— that is, to overcome technological inertia and to assemble an enterprise capable of commercializing the invention, including marketing and promoting the innovation—paralleled Sprague’s development of the electric railway. In both cases, he needed to design and exhibit new electrical technologies to establish them as standard platforms for motive power.With SEEC as with SERM, he was beginning with

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unproven ideas and unbuilt designs. Moreover, Sprague would attempt to establish the elevator company much as he had his motor company—by taking on a high-profile, bet-the-company project. He would try to catalyze the process of technological adoption, in other words, by staging the technology as an invention and a venture. He now was equipping vehicles that moved vertically, not horizontally, but Sprague was not entering entirely unfamiliar territory as he launched his second major company. In several important respects, however, the circumstances surrounding the elevator venture were unfamiliar. First, Sprague was entering a different competitive landscape, both commercially and technologically. Establishing a position in the street railway market had entailed displacing a technology that was defended by scattered and unorganized traditional suppliers (the various teamsters working horsedrawn railways, essentially) and contending against competitors (other electric railway manufacturers) who were also trying to develop businesses that were capable of operation on a national scope. When he ventured into the elevator market, on the other hand, he was taking on a handful of well-entrenched companies—the manufacturers of hydraulic elevators—who operated businesses of imposing scale, held strong leverage on the market, and had honed ruthlessly effective competitive tactics. Specifically, he was challenging the Otis Elevator Company. Otis’s partners had spent the 1880s consolidating a commanding grip on the industry through an intricate network of alliances and overlapping stock purchases (some open, others covert). Sprague was entering a market that was already an oligopoly and in the process of transforming itself into a classic late-nineteenth century trust.18

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He was in for a fierce fight. Against Otis’s imposing advantages, Sprague could claim to offer a new technology that outperformed the hydraulic systems that Otis provided. Still, taking on this colossus required attracting substantial capital to back the technology, and that imperative ran up against another strategic circumstance. Sprague’s timing was dreadful. In 1893, just as he and his team were assembling their breakthrough showcase project, the nation plunged into economic depression.Within a matter of weeks, hundreds of banks failed, and by the end of the year, 14,000 businesses had gone under. Finances everywhere grew strained or snapped altogether. Even General Electric Company, the corporate giant formed in the merger of EGE and Thomson-Houston in 1892, nearly collapsed. It was the worst depression the nation had ever experienced, and it mired technology capital and investment in particular for four long years. Sprague was coming to market, financially speaking, at the worst possible time for a new technology venture. Simply holding SEEC together through this crisis pressed him, his partners, and their fledgling enterprise to their limits well after Sprague had demonstrated the essential soundness of his elevator systems. SEEC’s counterbalancing assets, on the other hand, were not insubstantial. With SERM, Sprague had been starting from scratch. Now he had resources at his disposal. He had connections on which to draw, both for seed capital and for technical talent. He also had a store of personal funds to underwrite his startup costs, and this modest pool of operating capital proved critical. And there were his less tangible assets—the confidence and public status that Richmond had conferred and Sprague’s belief in the possibility of heroic invention. In the difficult years ahead, if Sprague ever doubted that he would

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overcome the opposition of “the hydraulic trust” and the collapse of the technology sector, he never admitted it. In any event, he could not have known what was in store when he launched SEEC. “I have got a magnificent machine,” he declared to one correspondent inquiring about investing, “and it is going to be a success.”19 The claim was a pitch that was made to attract financial backers. But the expansive sense of opportunity that underlay it was both infectious and, in Sprague’s case, instinctive. Flush with the confidence that he was on the verge of staging a revolutionary new technology, Sprague touted the coming of electric elevators as a bountiful business opportunity. No less than 4,000 elevators (most of them steam-powered or hydraulic) were operating in New York City alone, he estimated, and probably ten times that figure in the United States as a whole. Meanwhile, the spread of electric power stations (750 of them up and running, by his count) had brought a remarkable new means of motive power to this potential market. The electric machines that he and Pratt had designed matched or exceeded existing steam-powered and hydraulic elevators in performance, Sprague claimed, while taking up far less space within buildings, occupying footprints a fraction as big as their bulky counterparts. Moreover, Sprague assured potential investors, the technology was already proven: the Grand Hotel installation was running smoothly twentyfour hours a day.20 On the basis of these assumptions, SEEC’s founding partners devised a financial plan that envisioned liberal prospects. They capitalized the company at $1 million, apportioned in 10,000 shares valued at $100 apiece. Of these, 4,550 shares were allocated among the partners, with Sprague receiving the lion’s share in recognition both of the value of the patents that he contributed and the seed capital

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that he had already invested in the venture. A second block of 4,550 shares was placed in the treasury to be sold for operating capital.The balance, 1,000 shares, was placed in trust in the treasury to be sold at par or above should more operating capital be needed. By Sprague’s reckoning, proceeds from the initial stock sale, $200,000 of which was to be called in by May 1, 1893, should cover the costs of producing “at least 100 high duty elevators per annum.”21 That was the plan. Within months, however, the national financial picture had darkened dramatically. In April 1893, the gold reserves held by the U.S.Treasury fell below $100 million, triggering a financial panic.The successive failures of several major industrial businesses triggered chain-reaction collapses in a string of banks in the American west and south and then in New York City, convulsing money markets. The worst depression that the American economy had ever experienced hit Sprague’s infant venture like a tidal wave. The timing could not have been worse. In anticipation of proceeds from SEEC’s first round of stock sales, Sprague had ordered an elaborate and expensive collection of machinery for the company shop (then located on West 30th Street in New York). He was tooling up to develop and install an elevator project that would establish the supremacy of electric elevators conclusively and put SEEC on the map. STAGING THE TECHNOLOGY: THE POSTAL TELEGRAPH BUILDING

Sprague’s basic strategy for wedging open the elevator market and deploying his technology was to try to reprise the gambit that had gotten SERM off the ground and an electric railway assembled on a public stage—to build a high-profile system on speculation, taking on

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whatever risk had to be incurred to create the opportunity to prove the technology. He would bet the company, if necessary, to build a showcase. His opening came in the form of the Postal Telegraph Building, a new fourteen-story skyscraper rising at the intersection of Murray Street and Broadway in New York City in 1892. Learning of plans to erect the building, Sprague approached the building committee and its architect, George E. Harding, to propose that they consider installing SEEC’s electric elevators. Other potential clients might have been reluctant to entrust such a vital and potentially dangerous aspect of a building to a largely untested technology. In the coming months, many of the architects and building committees that Sprague approached opted for more familiar alternatives. But in the case of the Postal Telegraph Company—the new building’s lead occupants—Sprague was addressing a technology company, and the suggestion that its building should embody state-of-the-art technologies won him a sympathetic hearing. Harding and his team conducted what Sprague described as “an exhaustive examination of the Twenty-Third Street and Grand Hotel Elevators”22 and awarded the contract to SEEC. “The contract with the Postal Telegraph people is a good one,” Sprague assured his brother a few days later. “I never had a more pleasant and satisfactory interview and the contract was closed without any competition.” At the same time, he admitted that he had accepted a high degree of risk to make the deal happen. The contract called on SEEC to install six elevators—four local (or “way”) and two express cars. The system was to match hydraulic elevators “in smoothness and steadiness of operation, and [be] equal or superior . . . in smoothness of starting and stopping.” It also had to match hydraulic counterparts in speed, capacity, safety, and ease of control, while

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operating on a smaller footprint for less maintenance. In other words, SEEC had had to guarantee in contractual language all of Sprague’s promotional claims. Half of the contract fee, $36,300, became due on delivery of elevator machinery to the building, another quarter on installation, and the balance “when the elevator has been running satisfactory for thirty days.”23 Sprague had learned at least one lesson from Richmond: he would collect some of the payment in the middle of the project and not be held hostage to the client’s good will. But the undertaking was bold, even so: “To clinch the matter quickly, it being the first contract,” Sprague revealed to his brother, “I guaranteed that if we didn’t supply a satisfactory elevator service we would put in a hydraulic instead.”24 He had negotiated a project through which he could stage the technology. Collecting a small team of engineers and assistants, Sprague and Pratt intensified development, tooling machinery and beginning to produce the multitude of parts (most of which had to be designed and manufactured from scratch, tested, redesigned, and tested again) that were going to make up the nuts and bolts of the system. They had already designed and built several elevators by this point—the experimental one in their shop and the Grand Hotel elevator. The Postal Telegraph Building project was a much bigger and more intricate system, however, entailing six elevators (compared to just one in the Grand Hotel) and a host of new engineering problems and solutions. The Postal Telegraph installation went relatively smoothly, technically speaking.The development team, led by Sprague himself, labored hard, encountering setbacks and sometimes struggling to overcome them. But they worked in an atmosphere that was less crisis-prone than the one that had enveloped Richmond. Delays occasioned by

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structural problems in the building’s foundations, moreover, created a welcome grace period before SEEC was able to actually install cars and beginning running them experimentally between floors.25 One terrifying episode punctuated progress early in the installation process. As soon as the team had finished rigging cables for the first express elevator and hooked up the car’s motor and controller, Sprague ran the car down to the basement and invited his colleagues aboard for a ride. Most of the team climbed aboard, and Sprague hit the lever. The car rose on command, rapidly attaining its maximum speed, reached the top floor, and kept rising. Sprague frantically worked the control lever, but the motor failed to respond: the contacts had welded themselves together, and he had lost control.“There flashed a vision,” he later remembered, “of heading into the overhead sheaves at 400 feet a minute, the snapping of the cables, then a foursecond, fourteen-story free drop . . . with a tangled mass of humanity and metal the object of a coroner’s inspection.” Fortunately, a technician who had stayed behind in the basement noticed that the hoisting mechanism had run to its full limit and, acting impulsively, opened the master switch, bringing the elevator far above to a halt. That incident ended travel on the cars until safety circuits had been installed and tested. STEERING THROUGH THE STORM

Even as he pushed forward the Postal Telegraph Building electric elevator installation, Sprague maneuvered to put SEEC on solid financial footing. In January 1893, following protracted negotiations, he brought in Smith M. Weed as president of the company, principally on the strength of a $50,000 stake that Weed agreed to invest

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in SEEC stock.26 Sprague continued to purchase equipment and laid out plans to expand the company’s plant capacity, fending off rumors that began to appear (spread, he believed, by the hydraulic trust) that SEEC was peddling stocks and vaporware, with no real manufacturing facilities and no plans to build actual machines. Then the financial panic hit. Late in April, Weed warned Sprague that the sharp economic contraction might force SEEC to suspend its stock offering and revealed that he,Weed, might have trouble paying for the stock that he had promised to buy. Sprague responded by expressing concern over “the present strained condition of the market” and hinting at “a proposal on some basis which will justify any reasonable sacrifice on your part.”27 Between the lines, Sprague’s import was clear: he needed operating funds and was willing to relinquish more equity to get them. Now the delays over at the Postal Telegraph Building were working against him: “Of course,” he recognized, “very much depends upon the operation of the Postal Telegraph machines, and while they cannot be gotten ready on account of the building [in] under three months, yet I see no reason to doubt that with the class of work we are putting in them we are going to show a revolution in the elevator industry.” Sprague was willing to sink more of his personal funds into the venture to see the company through the crisis. But his resources were eroding as the general financial situation deteriorated: “Unfortunately I am tide up [sic] so that I cannot get out of some enterprises no matter how much I want to.”28 Conditions worsened over the following weeks as commercial banks curtailed credit. In May, after repeatedly trying and failing to obtain help from the United States National Bank, Sprague withdrew SEEC’s account and his own. Other banks proved no more forthcoming,

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however. By the time he approached the Third National Bank on May 10 “for $25,000 additional accommodation,” Sprague’s position was growing uncomfortable. Just over $100,000 in SEEC stock had been subscribed, he reported in a confidential report to the bank’s president. Of that sum, only $33,000 had actually been paid, and Sprague had spent significantly more than that setting up the business. Determinedly optimistic, he anticipated that the balance would arrive “within the next three months, or at least shortly after the Postal Telegraph machines are in operation”—a prospect that must have looked dubious to the bank. In the meantime, Sprague was proceeding with plans to expand SEEC’s manufacturing capacity by leasing a factory at Watsessing, New Jersey, and ordering equipment and machinery to be installed there “under terms of payment to be easily taken care of by the subscriptions to come in.” His commitment was deepening. Along with SEEC’s assets, he listed those held by himself and his wife in his application to the bank.29 The Third National Bank declined the loan application.30 Sprague redoubled his efforts, contacting anyone he could think of who might be able to help. “I have had to hustle pretty hard,” he admitted to one potential investor (who, like nearly everyone else, declared himself unable to muster funds),“because neither at my own banks or elsewhere, no matter what the security, has it been possible to borrow or to sell anything, and several people whose paper I have discounted [i.e., endorsed loans for] have been forced to lay down and let me shoulder their burdens.” He was maintaining a show of confidence, he added. He literally could not afford to do otherwise: “I am particularly averse to showing any weakness so far as either myself or the Company are concerned. Personally the reasons of course are evident, and with regard to the Company, I am of course best able to make good contracts

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on its behalf and push along the work by letting it be understood that we can promptly meet any demands which are properly due.”31 PRYING OPEN THE MARKET

“Good contracts” did not materialize, though, no matter how convincing a show of financial soundness Sprague managed to put together. The delays at the Postal Telegraph Building hurt, but Sprague was finding that deeper structural obstacles were complicating access to the market and engineering of the technology. The “Hydraulic Trust” turned out to hold a tenacious grip on the architects and engineering firms that building committees consulted when choosing which suppliers should be given contracts to build what kinds of elevators. By early 1893, Sprague was coming to appreciate how difficult it was going to be to loosen that grip. “We hear nothing about the Manhattan [Life Building] except that nothing is determined,” he reported gloomily to Weed in May. “I suppose their feeling is that of all the other large builders at present, which is that the Postal Telegraph is going to be such a marked departure from previous practice and will be such an instructive demonstration one way or the other, that they are in doubt as to whether they shall close with us before those machines are running and take their chances, or whether they shall stick to old practice and take no risks.”32 In fact, builders’ reluctance to risk the potentially disastrous consequences of adopting an unproven system lingered well after the Postal Telegraph Building machines were up and running, Sprague discovered. Developers and architects understandably erred toward caution in these matters, anxious to install safe systems provided by reliable, known manufacturers. This overriding concern made the

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passenger elevator business “almost a natural monopoly,” concluded one internal Otis strategy memorandum from this period. “New and untried makers or machines find few opportunities to secure important contracts, and the old established houses are all awarded the best contracts at a preference of ten or fifteen percent, or more.” Indeed, over the 1880s and early 1890s, according to Otis’s market analysis, “but two new elevator builders have even secured the privilege of bidding on first class work.These two concerns have been established under special conditions and have already lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in their efforts to secure recognition and a small share of the going business.”33 The two new arrivals were not named, but SEEC was doubtless one. It bled money for several years while Sprague fretted privately and helplessly against the “over-conservatism” of building committees that were unwilling to entertain radical new technologies.34 HARD PRESSED

Meanwhile, Sprague continued his urgent search for more operating capital to keep SEEC afloat. In May 1893, he gained a respite by remortgaging his house. He took a grim pleasure in noting, as he passed this news along to his brother, that “General Electric was hammered today at 56. I thought at one time I had lost money in selling out. There is some consolation now in thinking that I did.”35 The respite was temporary, though, and by July Sprague was again experiencing intense pressure.“Still hustling,” he wrote to his brother, Charley,“and scarcely able to stand up today, it is hard work.”36 His spirits revived within a few weeks as a new surge of faith in the technology that he was developing again buoyed his outlook: “I am having a pretty lively

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time financially, and things look pretty blue, but I have not struck a stone wall yet that I did not find some way to go over, or around or through, and I presume it will be so in this case,” he maintained. He added as if to confirm the conviction: “There is a bare possibility that one of the strongest men in the city will be interested with us. . . . There is also an alternative which may be available.”37 However “bare,” Sprague pursued these possibilities persistently over the rocky months of late 1893 to early 1894. When the Postal Telegraph Building system finally came on line in early 1894, earning a handsome testimonial from its new owners, he gained credible testimony to show developers. Most remained wary, but a few began to give SEEC a better hearing. Meanwhile, on the financial front, Sprague patched things together as best he could. To purchase a last batch of equipment to finish the Postal Telegraph Building elevators, he was forced to borrow on the payment that he anticipated for the project.38 By this point, too,Weed had withdrawn from the company, unable to pay for the stock that he had subscribed.39 THE TURNING POINT

The successful installation of elevators at the Postal Telegraph Building represented a welcome accomplishment for SEEC.The firm was still gasping and would be for months to come, but it had reached a turning point. “I have worked hard, and I believe faithfully, but it has been against rather hard odds,” Sprague declared in a letter to financier A. B. Chandler in July 1894.“I have won technically, and if I keep level a little longer, I’ll win every way.”40 Indeed, he had carried SEEC through a harrowing crisis and (though it took a few months to be sure) come out on the other side—even

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if, in the next breath, Sprague confessed to Chandler that “I cannot even meet my pay roll this week.” That same month, after assiduous courting, Sprague managed to attract the Roebling brothers to invest in the venture. This was a significant step, not the least because the new shareholders paid $20,000 directly (receiving handsome stock bonuses for doing so) but also because their name carried political clout. “It is a splendid connection and means a great deal,” Sprague informed Charley. The Roeblings were one of the most important contracting and engineering powers on the eastern seaboard ( John Roebling had designed the Brooklyn Bridge, and his wire company was a leading industry provider), and their investment represented an invaluable endorsement that Sprague privately but diligently promoted in the coming months.41 Another round of investors joined in September42 as the national financial crisis continued to ease and SEEC slowly acquired the appearance of solidity. Thus buttressed, Sprague cobbled together a loan syndicate and dealt out another round of stock (at a significant discount) in exchange for a new round of operating capital. New contracts began to trickle in, too, as the economy turned up, the pace of building quickened, and the Postal Telegraph Building elevators continued to hum busily and safely. Between November 1894 and October 1895, the company billed $70,000 in work. That sustained it, but barely. Starting in November 1895, however, the trickle became a stream. SEEC billed for $325,000 worth of work over the next six months, sending Sprague out once again to make the rounds in search of investors who would underwrite the expansion. SEEC remained overextended. Now, though, it was fighting not for its life but for the chance to capitalize on the technological opportunity that was slowly opening.43

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AN ENGINEERING ASSESSMENT

SEEC managed to muddle through as Sprague pieced together an initial deployment of the technology. His venture remained shaky, however. The staging that he had assembled in the Postal Telegraph Building did attract more projects, but it did not win him the field. Nor did it secure him a decisive claim to have “invented the electric elevator.” When he signed the contract for the Postal Telegraph Building elevators, Sprague predicted that he was going to “write the epitaph of the hydraulic elevator, as that of the horse car had been written at Richmond,”44 but in fact, the effort failed to garner him the recognition or the endorsement that the Richmond Union Passenger Railway had. In a paper presented to the New York chapter of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1896, he walked colleagues and professional peers through the basic elevator design (illustrated with lantern slides). “This system is the best yet devised for long rises,” Sprague argued. But listeners, many of them electrical inventors and engineers, responded skeptically. In the discussion following Sprague’s address, rising luminaries including Charles Steinmetz (who went on to play a major role in the field working with General Electric), George Hill, H. Ward Leonard, and John Ihlder all challenged Sprague. Hill argued that electric elevators performed no better than hydraulic ones. Steinmetz, Ihlder, and Leonard all argued that competing designs for electric elevators developed by Otis outperformed Sprague’s and SEEC’s. At a second round of discussions, Hill produced statistics that he claimed undermined Sprague’s claims for the Postal Telegraph Building design.45 Sprague countered with statistics of his own—refraining at least publicly from pointing out that his opponents (including Steinmetz,

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Ihlder, and Leonard) were all connected with Otis at least indirectly. Still, he could not muster unimpeachable evidence of superior performance as he had been able to with his electric railway at Richmond. This time the technology resisted becoming framed as an episode of heroic invention. As Sprague explained: “Hard as was the Richmond work, I was not quite prepared for the variety of difficulties, both technical and business, that confronted me when I overtook to overturn the hydraulic elevator industry, firmly established as it had become in the minds of conservative capital, and promoted by what was practically a number of close corporations working in harmony—or, if not in harmony, at least all against the development in which I was interested.”The simple fact was that the various claims and contestants were too closely clustered, technically speaking, to be clearly sorted out. The electric elevator ultimately proved to be a technology that resists assignment as a single, contained “invention.” EPILOGUE—AND PROLOGUE

Sprague himself sensed the dissipation of the technological opportunity. By the mid-1890s, he was growing restless again. He found himself returning, for example, to the question of metropolitan rail transportation, turning over in his mind the results of an idle and at the time seemingly inconspicuous experiment. Working alone in the basement one night at the Postal Telegraph Building, running some final tests on the elevator cars, Sprague suddenly wondered how the system would perform if they all tried to start up at once. To find out, he needed to somehow start them all at once, but how? He decided to try wiring a centralized control for their pilot motors (the little motors that moved the contacts in the big motors).

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The system took an hour or so to rig up. It did the trick, too. Sprague spent several minutes running the empty elevators in synch.Then he dismantled the control. The full implications of what he had done and what could be done with a similar system in a different setting dawned on him several years later. Even as he brought SEEC to the next level of business, Sprague was beginning to pull together his next major technology initiative.

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FIGHTING FOR CONTROL: MULTIPLE UNIT, THE SOUTH SIDE ELEVATED RAILROAD, AND THE FORMATION OF SPRAGUE ELECTRIC COMPANY

By the middle of the 1890s, Frank Sprague was struggling to keep Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC) afloat. At the same time, he was getting caught up in a dramatic new discovery. Between 1895 and 1898, Sprague sketched and then built the basic components of the multiple-unit (MU) system of railroad control—a technology that equipped electric traction for urban mass transit and became in the process his most ambitious effort yet to engineer technology and lay claim to heroic invention. Surrounded by financial turbulence and business uncertainty and yet propelled by the potential that he sensed in his latest idea, Sprague plowed forward. He retreated to the workshop to build models and pilot demonstrations. He scraped together a new round of financial backing, even though his personal resources were already badly strained by the effort to sustain SEEC. And he went casting for an opportunity to stage the invention. Even as his

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partners labored to shore up SEEC’s faltering finances, Sprague was launching his third major venture—Sprague Electric Company (SEC). As with earlier ventures, it was going to take frenetic effort and resourceful maneuvering to launch SEC. Indeed, if MU was Sprague’s most important invention, engineering it as a persuasive technological proposition and a viable business prospect may well have been his most delicate feat of entrepreneurship. With little more than an idea, he was challenging competitors that were assuming the dimensions of corporate giants and wondering how to structure this venture— whether to tool up once again a full-scale integrated industrial enterprise, to work via alliances with external partners, or to find some other way to promote his invention, commercialize his idea, and reestablish his reputation. Characteristically, he fought to keep a proprietary grasp on the innovation for as long as possible. Once he found an opening, Sprague moved aggressively, staking everything on a bold entrepreneurial bid to show that his concept would work. MU, like Sprague’s electric railway system, was a technology that needed to be staged to be engineered.To catalyze the process of innovation, Sprague had to frame a narrative of technological trial and triumph that created an effect in the marketplace. Even before he finished forming a company, Sprague was betting the company. His strategy for reentry and innovation essentially recreated the tactics that had originally gained him entry and established his electric railway system.The story of SEC did not reprise Sprague’s initial venture, however. Too much had changed in the intervening years. Between 1884 (when Sprague had launched Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company) and 1896 (when he prepared to commercialize MU), the electrical industry consolidated and restructured

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with astonishing rapidity. The social context of both enterprise and innovation—financial, industrial, managerial, and technological— was reforming in a new configuration. Sprague’s chief competitor, General Electric, may have seemed familiar. But it was an entirely new kind of entity, imposing an entirely new set of strategic realities. The signs were there from the outset. Sprague’s business partners recognized them quickly and adjusted their sights accordingly. Sprague threw himself into the technical problems of development. SUSTAINING THE ELEVATOR BUSINESS

Sprague was still deeply entangled in SEEC as the MU concept crystallized. “I am very much absorbed in the elevator work,” he replied to an offer to run another company in February 1896. “I have a large amount of money invested in it, not only my own but that of my friends. It has been a very lively sort of fight, and the whole elevator situation is at present very much upset.” Some sort of “combination” might develop, he added, although whether it would entail a merger with Otis was not clear. In any event,“it would be a large sort of affair if it took place, and I should be pretty active in it,” he predicted.1 Most of his assets and a good deal of his pride remained wrapped up in the venture. Nevertheless, from a financial standpoint, SEEC remained a demanding and dicey proposition.The firm had passed through a mortal crisis in the economic depression of the mid-1890s, emerging on the other side with a technology that was still only fitfully establishing itself in the market. SEEC was by no means out of the woods yet.The venture and the technology had survived their first test of technical development and market premiere. The next challenge—of growth

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and wider adoption—still loomed. In this respect, the process of technological engineering proceeded quite differently than it had for Sprague in the case of electric railways and SERM. The Richmond Union Passenger Railway in Virginia had broken the market open, both financially and in terms of technological adoption. The impact of the Postal Telegraph Building project in New York City was more ambiguous. Sprague spent considerable energy from late 1895 through most of 1896 trying to secure a new round of capital funding to expand SEEC. The board of directors voted to increase the company’s capital stock from $1 million to $1.5 million. Strenuous efforts yielded nearly half that amount in paid-in funding, some $235,000 over the next few months.2 Even with this infusion, SEEC struggled to stay solvent. More operating capital was needed, more or less constantly. The size of the company’s contracts grew as demand picked up, and the timetable for projects from building equipment to completing installations expanded proportionately. Strikes, both within SEEC and on construction projects, disrupted schedules.The company was compelled to offer “special concessions and sacrifices” on certain projects “to get work through.”3 Success itself increased the stakes. By July 1895, SEEC’s product line had expanded to ten types of elevator, and its billings had risen fivefold from the previous year’s level.4 Sprague and his partners stretched resources as far as circumstances permitted to finance this expanding scale of operation. Still, cash flow broke down repeatedly. In early 1896, Sprague informed the company’s vice president that the directors had voted to borrow $20,000 “to help out our March obligations.” SEEC was not able to borrow from the Third National Bank “without putting up our contracts [as collateral],” he added, “which we dislike much to do.”5

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In July, admitting that “We are having pretty hard work to squeeze out money enough for our payroll today,” Sprague suggested that the Western National Bank be approached for a short-term loan “on this company’s note, with $6,000 preferred and $6,000 common stock of the Guaranty Building in Buffalo as collateral.”6 (Evidently SEEC was being forced to accept its clients’ stock as payment, exacerbating liquidity problems.) A month later, Sprague revealed that SEEC had indeed resorted to borrowing on its contracts. Equipment for a particular client was ready for delivery, he reported, which would trigger partial payment.Then he added: “The payments on this contract were assigned some time ago to the Third National Bank as collateral for a loan, but I probably could get a substitution of another contract for it.”7 The growing scale of the business offered some measure of compensating encouragement. SEEC was getting more contracts and doing more work. The market, it seemed, was beginning to vindicate Sprague’s faith in his technology. But holding the venture together was intensely demanding. And for all his efforts and for all the increased business, the company was still spending more money than it was earning. “I yield to the present mysteries of bookkeeping,” Sprague declared wearily in April 1897 after reviewing an audit demonstrating that SEEC remained stubbornly unprofitable.8 THE MULTIPLE-UNIT CONCEPT

In this turmoil, a quiet lightning bolt struck Sprague. Perhaps the strain of sustaining SEEC drove him to seek refuge in the purely technical realm of experimentation—a retreat from the vexing problems of technology engineering to the more tractable problems of

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technical engineering. In any event, sometime in mid-1895, Sprague intuited what he called the “Multiple Unit” (MU) system of control. The idea came to him by way of a flashback. Several years before, while installing SEEC’s first major elevator project in the Postal Telegraph Building in New York, Sprague needed to test the system with all six cars running simultaneously. No other members of the team were available to assist. It occurred to Sprague that he could wire a centralized control for the elevators’ pilot motors (the smaller motors that moved the contacts for the large motors, which did the actual of lifting the elevator cars) and thereby operate the cars in unison. At the time, the solution had seemed like nothing more than an on-the-spot convenience. Several years later, Sprague realized that he had stumbled on something much more significant. “Pondering over the elevated-railway train problem one day,” he later related,“the thought suddenly flashed on me, Why not apply the same principle to train operation?”9 The “elevated-railway train problem” that Sprague referred to was the fact that the existing system technology, based on the central principle of using locomotives to pull trains of cars, was coming up against hard operational limits as a mechanism of mass transit. In densely packed urban environments where trains operated as close to one other and as rapidly as possible to carry rush-hour loads, roads had reached maximum capacity, and systems were groaning heavily. The only solution available, it seemed, was to run longer trains. But the longer the trains grew, the stronger and heavier the locomotive motors that drove them had to be to pull the load and maintain enough traction to avoid spinning their wheels. Soon railroad lines in large cities found that their locomotives were reaching the limits that their elevated tracks could structurally support. Moreover, as trains grew

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longer and loads heavier, service grew proportionally slower because locomotives had to labor to gain acceleration and move trains out of stations. And the more frequently trains had to stop, the worse the problem grew. In other words, locomotive-drawn service in an urban context grew least efficient just when demand grew heaviest. Dispersing motors along the line car by car distributed weight more evenly, which enabled longer trains to operate without overburdening elevated structures. Even more important, trains with distributed motors rigged to operate in unison were able to accelerate much more smoothly and rapidly, no matter how long they grew. The theoretical benefits were relatively obvious from an engineering standpoint. Sprague himself had been working toward the concept, at least semiconsciously, for some time by this point. In 1885, in an address before the Society of the Arts in Boston on “The Application of Electricity to Elevated Railroads,” he anticipated the basic principle behind MU. Roads such as the Manhattan Elevated Railway were reaching maximum capacity. Short of increasing the main running speed of their trains, Sprague reasoned, the only way to increase capacity (which was already groaning) would be to increase the number of cars making up the trains. This step, he continued, would necessitate either increasing the weight of the tractive engine(s) proportionately or dispersing them along the length of the train. This latter architecture would be feasible only if the motors could “be distributed and the train remain under perfect control.” He elaborated: “By a system of electrical propulsion the power can be distributed underneath the cars—every car, or two cars if need be, being a unit—and at the same time arrangements can be made for propelling five or six cars under simultaneous control.”10 Three years later, in 1888, Sprague returned to the idea. In a paper before the American Institute of Electrical

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Engineers at Columbia College on “The Solution of Municipal Rapid Transit,” Sprague observed that the basic locomotive-driven architecture of existing urban train lines had reached its limits and (still somewhat abstractly) suggested that dispersing motors along train cars would provide an eventual alternative.11 The concept was sound, Sprague could see, and other would-be inventors had already conceived the same basic principle. Thomas Edison had filed a patent proposing a distributed motor approach in 1883. Charles Van Depoele had filed a patent in 1890 claiming and further developing the idea.The key insight that Van Depoele offered closely anticipated Sprague’s design in the abstract: “all motors upon the train, whatever the number, can be stopped, started, and reversed from any part of the train or from any one point along the train.”12 The problem was developing a workable system that meshed control of the distributed units. Neither Edison nor Van Depoele managed to design a system of control that was capable of rendering the basic idea practicable—and everything hinged on developing a flexible, reliable, robust system of control. Sprague had intuitively grasped the operational benefits of a multiple-unit system but initially rejected it as being impractical. “The chief objection to operating a number of motors removed at a distance from a common centre of current,” he informed a correspondent who proposed the solution in early 1890, “is that trouble on one motor will interfere with the others, and the art has not yet progressed to that state that any trouble whatsoever on one will not interfere with all the others. . . .There are a great many difficulties in the operation of a number of motors from one point.”13 The breakthrough came when Sprague realized that he did not necessarily need to rig the motors to a common circuit. He could rig

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their pilot motors as he had in the basement of the Postal Telegraph Building while working with elevators. “This idea,” he later related, “sketched on a scrap of paper, marked the complete birth of this new method.”14 The more that he mulled over the idea, the more exciting it became. Multiple-unit control, if it could be made to work reliably, would be an innovation with multiplying ramifications. MU would synchronize individual railroad cars in a seamless, interchangeable array of possible configurations. To borrow several terms from another era of high technology, it would transform a set of train cars into a modular, networked system. Operators would be able to add or subtract cars easily and fluidly, assembling longer trains to handle periods of high demand and trimming them as demand tapered off.Trains would not even have to turn around to reverse direction.These transformations would make systems far more flexible, simpler, and more efficient to operate, particularly in demanding urban environments where constraints were tightest, fluctuations in service sharpest, and conditions most demanding. In short, MU would properly equip electric trains for full-service metropolitan mass transit. Those were key insights, and they stemmed directly from Sprague’s distinctive approach to innovation.The heart of this “invention” lay less in the apparatus and more in the way that the technology functioned as a system. MU was not a new device exactly, although it reassembled existing devices in a tighter, more coordinated, more flexible, and more stable alignment. It rationalized flow by creating more effective, more extended mechanisms of control, and both flow and its control were central preoccupations for this particular engineer. Sprague had not set out to build a better box of one sort or another. He had been working through a concrete set of problems, trying to mesh

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together the functioning of a set of motors. He saw, eventually, that that solution could be applied to other, more extended systems. The idea became technology, in other words, as Sprague projected it in operational terms. The point bears emphasis. In blueprint form, MU might look like an elegant engineering solution but not necessarily a breakthrough idea. It took a critical leap of application to grasp the technology’s full significance and to appreciate its impact on operation and performance—and performance not just as a set of motors, not just as an electrical system, but as a transit system. MU became innovative and powerfully transformative only when Sprague imagined it functioning at the heart of a rail system, carrying traffic in the specific social context of a burgeoning metropolis such as New York circa 1895. It was the work of someone who thought habitually and concretely about application and demonstration. It was the stuff not just of wires and motors but of rails and rush hours, trains, passengers, schedules, and fares. MU was a technology that stemmed as much from a grasp of the challenges of operating and earning as it did from the insights of technical engineering. IN SEARCH OF A STAGE

How, then, to engineer the innovation as an enterprise, a marketable commodity, a platform technology that could be staged? He had an idea with massive market potential, but it somehow had to be built out, put on trial, promoted, manufactured, marketed, and sold. Sprague somehow had to reestablish a position in the railroad sector. He did not have the resources of a corporation like General Electric or Westinghouse at his disposal. He had SEEC, but that company was

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struggling to keep pace in the elevator business and was tying down personal assets that Sprague might have been able to apply to a new venture. In any event, the company was not properly geared to compete in the railroad sector. It had no test track, railroad cars, or motors. At least Sprague had access to SEEC’s workshop and elevators. Over late 1895 and early 1896, Sprague roughed out a general design for MU and went to work at the SEEC shop in Watsessing, New Jersey, wiring a bank of SEEC elevators to test different system models. By June 1896, he was confident that he had developed a workable system that could be adapted readily for railroad application. Elevator motors that were interwired into the new system through a master pilot-controller could be started, run slow or fast, stopped, and put in reverse in perfectly aligned unison. “My multiple pilot control . . . is alright,” he reported to John Searles on June 4. “I have been making a preliminary test of a model, and in a few days shall show the handling of five machines in any combination, from ten different points, at will.”15 Emboldened by his progress in the lab, Sprague offered once again to stage the technology for New York’s Manhattan Elevated Railway. In a studiously respectful letter to “Messrs. George Gould, Russell Sage and R. M. Gallaway, Special Committee, Manhattan Elevated Railroad Co.,” Sprague requested permission “to make in a definite manner a proposition, either in connection with the Manhattan Co., or entirely independently through myself and some associates, for a serious demonstration” of his MU system. If the Manhattan directors would permit him to set up a trial on the Ninth Avenue line, he proposed to show them MU in operation, assuming all the costs of development and testing.16 The Manhattan directors declined to take him up on the offer. Sprague managed to draw various people, mostly engineers, out to

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Watsessing to see his system in operation—at least on elevators.17 Word began to circulate. Representatives from several companies that operated urban systems came out to see what Sprague was up to in the SEEC shops. But the demonstrations remained abstract and the arguments speculative, as far as railroad application was concerned. Sprague was not operating trains within crowded urban systems. Building out a full-scale MU system would be an expensive proposition, and to anyone but an engineer with Sprague’s faith in the technology, it looked like a risky proposition. Sprague was proposing what a later generation of business and technology scholars would term a paradigm shift: railroads did not necessarily need locomotives, and once locomotives were taken out of the equation, dramatic operational possibilities opened up. Sketched out as a concept and followed through as logic, the system blueprint opened up dramatic possibilities. Established businesses tend to respond warily to paradigm shifts, however. Institutions like the Manhattan Elevated Railway, built on steel and steam, do not uproot embedded structures lightly. Sprague made a second appeal to the Manhattan several months later in February 1897, again to no effect.18 THE OPPORTUNITY BREAKS

A fortunate confluence of circumstances created an opening elsewhere, however. In late March 1897, he received a request from Leslie Carter, president of the South Side Elevated Railroad Company (nicknamed the “Alley L”) in Chicago. Having recently assumed executive control of the railroad as part of a recovery plan following a financial collapse, Carter was overseeing a general overhaul of the line, including a conversion from steam to electricity.Would Sprague

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be available to serve as an engineering consultant on certain aspects of the project? His first inclination was to put Carter off. The project did not sound particularly interesting, and Sprague was preparing to travel overseas to bid on a major elevator contract. Further complicating matters, he had just broken both legs in a fall from a scaffold while inspecting an elevator installation and was on crutches. I “tried to stall the engagement,” Sprague later recounted, quoting “a fee that would eliminate me.”19 But then a former colleague, William J. Clark, prevailed on him to reconsider. Now head of General Electric’s railway department, Clark had heard about Sprague’s MU concept. Perhaps, Clark suggested, it could be put to work on the Alley L (a prospect that would enlarge a potential contract for GE motors). A second visitor a few days later further piqued Sprague’s interest. Fred Sargent, another former colleague, was serving as an engineering consultant to the South Side Elevated Railroad. His firm, Sargent & Lundy, had proposed a radical new design for the road’s steam condensers.Would Sprague like to investigate? By now, Sprague sensed the larger opportunity. The Alley L was indeed a ripe candidate for MU, he learned from Clark and Sargent. It suffered from the same crowded, overloaded conditions that were miring other major urban roads. Reengineered as an MU system, the railroad could dramatically demonstrate the advantages of conversion. In both Clark and Sargent, Sprague already had the confidence and support of qualified engineers who had direct access to the road’s senior management. Carter himself seemed open to the technological potential. The South Side Elevated Railroad had broken down as a system. New solutions and innovative technologies would be needed if the road was going to be able to work its way out of its troubles.

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“The more I have gotten into this,” Sprague wrote to Sargent on April 7, “the more intensely desirous I am to see what I consider straight engineering done on that road.”20 That same day, he wired Carter, accepting the consulting engagement. His report came almost immediately. He offered numerous, detailed observations on the new system’s proposed powerhouse and plan for power distribution. Then he turned to the question of motor equipment. “This is the most serious problem,” Sprague wrote, “and my recommendation is radical.” What followed was a closely argued case for abandoning locomotives and adopting an MU system in their place. Conceding that such a system would require costly upgrades, “both because of the increased number of motors and trucks as well as because of the special control,” Sprague insisted that savings in operational efficiencies would quickly repay the additional capital investment. “If it be your wish,” he concluded, “I will, either now or later, bid on the entire motor equipment control and trucks on the plan suggested.”21 The pace of events immediately accelerated. Making arrangements to postpone his transatlantic voyage, Sprague traveled to Chicago to look over the ground and meet with Carter. After he returned to New York, a flurry of cables and letters passed back and forth—from Chicago trying to nail down Sprague on specifications, costs, and performance and from Sprague to Carter and the South Side engineers answering technical questions and adding “further facts in favor of individual car equipment as against locomotive equipment” as they occurred to the inventor.22 By the end of April, Carter was persuaded, telegramming Sprague that the South Side was prepared to award him the contract.23

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STRADDLING OCEANS AND PROJECTS

Sprague received this news on April 28, 1897.The next day, he sailed for London. As exciting as the opportunity in Chicago may have been, it had come up in middle of something too big to be set aside. The Central London Railway was calling for bids on a system of forty-nine large high-rise elevators.The project would be the largest elevator installation in the world, with $500,000 at stake as well as an invaluable opportunity to stage SEEC’s elevator technology on a grand scale. Accordingly, SEEC’s board had persuaded Sprague to ship as persuasive a demonstration and impressive a proposal as the besieged company could muster. Sprague sailed for London with a draftsman, an installation engineer, and a full array of motors, controllers, and elevator equipment. He was anxious to get a quick decision from the executives of the Central London Railway and return to the United States to begin work on the South Side Elevated Railway project. But the process in London moved forward at an agonizingly slow pace. Sprague set up a full-scale demonstration of SEEC motors and controllers in the basement of the Hotel Cecil. Delegations of Central London executives dutifully inspected the apparatus. The decision hinged, Sprague learned, on getting an endorsement from Sir Benjamin Baker, the general consulting engineer for the project.Through May, Baker, who was an experienced and respected civil engineer but who had little working knowledge of electrical applications, remained noncommittal. By early June, Sprague needed resolution and was looking for ways to force the issue. “Between the pressure at the Chicago end . . . and, on the other, the necessity of not leaving this, I feel like the fellow

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with one foot in London and the other in New York,” he wrote to his brother, Charles,“with a sort of tri-phase telephone worked on a duplex circuit wound round me.” Deciding on a characteristically bold gesture, he offered to authorize work on the London project on spec: SEEC would install the system’s largest elevator without a contract, letting the Central London Railway make its decision on the basis of that elevator’s performance. Still Baker held off. The Englishman was growing more encouraging, though. “However the cat jumps, we certainly are very strongly in the running at present,” Sprague wrote to his brother a week later, “and while I dislike to wait over for another steamer, yet I think it would be a mistake not to do so.”24 At moments like these, waiting for a commercial prospect, Sprague’s judgment often proved overoptimistic. This time, though, he was reading the signals correctly. On June 14, the Central London Railway finally agreed to award SEEC the elevator contract. As soon as he cabled the news, Sprague hurriedly boarded the next available steamer to New York. ON TO MU

The clock was ticking. It was June 24, 1897, by the time that Sprague reached America, and he had committed to stringent deadlines for the multiple-unit project. He had to have a six-car train up and running on an experimental track by July 15, at which point Carter and other South Side Elevated Railroad Company officials would inspect his progress with the option of canceling the contract if the equipment failed to perform. Sprague had agreed to a rigorous set of contract conditions to secure the chance to wire the South Side Elevated Railroad for MU. In

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addition to a tight timetable for prototype development, the railroad imposed a demanding schedule for installing the system in Chicago. Leslie Carter and his associates also drove a hard bargain on price— $273,000 for equipping 240 motors on 120 cars. And they called on Sprague to post a $100,000 bond guaranteeing delivery.25 Sprague, typically, was in no position to exert much leverage. But he was not going to let disadvantageous terms close off this priceless opportunity. Indeed, the potential for heroic invention whetted his appetite. The South Side’s proposed terms reached him a day before he sailed for London, and Sprague left negotiations in the hands of a junior executive, L. W. McKay, who tried to get a better price and failed, although he wrung a small concession of a few weeks’ grace time for the Chicago installation.26 The July deadline for a trial demonstration stood. By the time Sprague reached New York, he had twenty-one days left to get a six-car multiple-unit train running on a test track. At least he had a track, courtesy of General Electric. William J. Clark, who had been instrumental in introducing Sprague to the South Side Elevated Railroad people, followed Sprague to London as soon as the contract was finalized to lobby for a subcontract for supplying the system’s 240 motors. As part of his pitch, Clark offered Sprague the use of GE’s test track and shops in Schenectady, New York, for development work. Sprague, who had no independent access to railroads or a track, readily assented. Meanwhile, a host of technical problems presented themselves. All of Sprague’s MU work to date was on elevator motors, not traction motors, and was confined mainly to the system’s circuitry. Now he needed to adapt that circuitry to very different motors and operating conditions. He hoped to make some progress on the numerous

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conversion problems by working long-distance from London via transatlantic cables. Unfortunately, a strike in SEEC’s Watsessing, New Jersey, plant had slowed work in America, although engineers did manage to remove a set of new controllers before the plant shut down. After reviewing the progress that had been made in his absence, Sprague moved operations up to Schenectady. The team that accompanied him included a small group of SEEC engineers, including E. R. Carichoff and Charles E. Hyatt, who specialized in switchgear and controller design; S. H. Libby, who assumed engineering liaison duties with GE and the South Side Elevated Railroad; and Alex McIver and H. B. Steger, who prepared to supervise the installation in Chicago. In addition, Sprague enlisted a notable veteran from the Sprague Electric Railway Motor Company and the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, master mechanic Pat O’Shaugnessy. A fierce and frantic burst of effort drove progress forward through mid-July 1897.“The MU controllers had been assembled in the SEEC shops,” Steger recorded in his diary, “and due to the limited time much detail had been overlooked, which caused much unnecessary labor. Two main controllers were taken in hand and worked upon at the same time. After being tested and adjusted they were placed under two of the cars and bolted to the bottoms of same.”27 At last, they were off and running, but glitches emerged. Sprague appealed to the South Side Elevated Railroad Company for a small extension, citing the SEEC strike. On July 16, the team got a two-car MU train running. On July 25, 1897, with Leslie Carter and other South Side Elevated Railroad executives in attendance, six cars went into operation and performed in perfect sync. Inspired, Sprague put his eight-year-old son Desmond at the controls to demonstrate how simple the sys-

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tem was to run. The Chicago visitors approved the demonstration. It was time to take things to Chicago. SETTING UP THE SPRAGUE ELECTRIC COMPANY

Sprague did not yet have a company to carry the project forward. The corporate groundwork was still being laid as the multiple-unit team barreled forward with its engineering and design work. As the MU opportunity finally began to open up, it became clear that SEEC was not going to be able to serve as a corporate vehicle to stage this new technology.The elevator company was too heavily encumbered to undertake horizontal expansion into the railway sector.The company’s financial backers were exploring options for “combination” with the hydraulic elevator trust. Indirect preliminary negotiations with Otis Elevator Company were unfolding slowly, while Sprague and his partners took steps to develop MU work separately. Sprague undertook the South Side Elevated Railroad contract as an individual rather than under corporate auspices (which helps to explain why the South Side negotiators insisted that he post a bond guaranteeing delivery on the contract). In August 1897, pressed by the Third National Bank to make certain overdue loan payments, Sprague replied that work on the South Side project had temporarily complicated his finances. The project was “to be taken up by the new Sprague Electric Company under conditions now being negotiated,” he explained. “This company is about to be formed to take over the properties of the Sprague Electric Elevator Company and the Interior Conduit & Insulation Company, and to have put in in addition $1,000,000 of fresh money.The details of the matter are not yet definitely settled.”28

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Even as Sprague and his multiple-unit development team were working through the technical engineering, he and his financial partners were hastily setting up a new corporate framework for commercializing the innovation. MU was going to require a new enterprise. Once again, the inventor needed to venture. As before, Sprague was scrambling to marshal makeshift provisions for funding, designing, testing, manufacturing, marketing, installing, and promoting his technology. To these ends, Sprague and his backers prepared to execute (or at least attempt) a lateral strategic transfer. They packaged the elevator business as a potential spin-off. A new company was set up to take on the MU work. Finally, because neither of these assets offered solid investment-grade performance records (SEEC was struggling to achieve profitability, and the MU business was still in the development stage), Edward Johnson rounded up a third business, Interior Conduit and Insulation (a profitable, midtier manufacturer of electrical equipment) to solidify the new company from a financial point of view. “I have worked pretty strenuously for three years to bring our work to a position where it would command hard backing,” Sprague commented, “and I have been successful enough finally to get what I consider the best individual backing in this country.” The newly formed Sprague Electric Company (SEC) drew on financing from John Mackay and other prominent SEEC investors: the Cranes, the Mills, and the Roeblings, as well as (on a smaller scale) J. P. Morgan himself.29 STRATEGIZING MU

If Sprague Electric Company was to be the corporate vehicle for doing multiple-unit business, however, the optimal strategy for commercializing the innovation still remained unclear. Sprague initially

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occupied himself with developing the underlying technology. When he did project strategies for developing and selling MU, he betrayed considerable indecision about the shape that SEC would take and the ways that it would fit into the larger industry. He fretted over the relationship that he should strike with Westinghouse and General Electric. “I suppose . . . that it is generally known that I am going to take up railroad work again,” he wrote to Fred Sargent at Sargent & Lundy in April 1897, “and also that the system that I will advocate is individual equipment with multiple control.” Established powers in the field would respond in “one of two ways,” he predicted: “either to condemn the system and to insist on locomotive practice, or on the other hand to copy it, or try to devise its equivalent.”30 Sprague felt entirely capable of demolishing his detractors. The imitators, on the other hand, gave him unforeseen trouble. Initially, Sprague expressed confidence in his advantage as first mover: “I have spent a good long time in developing what I have got, and any other man, I don’t care what his ability, will have to spend a considerable time to achieve the same result.”31 This confidence may well have been justified if Sprague were facing “any other man.” He was not yet anticipating that he was going head to head against a full-scale corporate R&D department. At this stage, Sprague seems to have contemplated manufacturing or possibly licensing MU control equipment alone and at the same time partnering with other companies to provide other components of railway systems (such as motors). Perhaps his earlier experiences with Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company and with Sprague Electric Elevator Company made him wary of positioning this third venture as an integrated manufacturing operation. In any event, he held out hope initially that Sprague Electric Company would be able

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to do business by striking alliances. “I would not be surprised,” he predicted in July 1897 (in phrasing that was awkward but strategic thinking that was strikingly flexible) “but what sound business policy would, even if the combination [i.e., SEEC blended into SEC] takes up railway work, dictate some sort of eventual arrangement between the General Electric Co and ourselves, to the advantage of both. In other words, if we should go into railway work, there need not necessarily be the sharpest sort of antagonism.”32 Pursuing this possibility, Sprague invited overtures from General Electric. In December 1897, he held several meetings with GE executives, including President Charles Coffin, to explore possible collaboration. GE’s engineers, Sprague reported to SEC senior management, were already conceding that MU was “the best method which will govern the next great development of railway practice, and are . . . attempting to create the details of such a system.” GE had “splendidly equipped shops,” Sprague observed, as well as “a capable engineering corps” and “excellent manufacturing facilities; they have got the necessary equipment to manufacture motors of any size, and are backed by all the experience gained in years of railway manufacture.” Moreover, the company enjoyed close relationships with “a great many customers, probably four-fifths of the electric railroads in the United States; and they have an excellent selling organization.” For its part, SEC had the MU technology. Strong patent defenses were being prepared to protect this essential asset. In the meantime,“we are not now, nor can we get, equipped for manufacturing railway motors on any extensive scale without a large increase in our manufacturing facilities, obtainable only after months of delay and the expenditure of a great deal of money.” In short, Sprague concluded, alliance with GE “on an equitable basis” seemed like the best strategy.33 Entirely in

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agreement, SEC directors formed a committee (Sprague, Albert B. Chandler, John Searles, and Edward Johnson) to represent SEC in negotiations with the electrical colossus.34 INSTALLATION IN CHICAGO

By the time that strategic developments reached this stage, installation on the South Side Elevated Railroad (Alley L) was well underway. Sprague attacked the project in his typical, aggressive, full-barreled fashion.Years later, his son Desmond recalled traveling with his father to Chicago “on a 48-hour trip that lasted a month. I believe we had rooms in a hotel, but they were seldom used, as we slept and ate on the ‘loop line’ most of the time.” Predictably, the project encountered more technical problems and delays. Working frenetically, the team managed to equip forty cars for multiple-unit operation by November 1897. Then the project stalled, as delays in Alley L construction (beyond SEC’s control), including the powerhouse and third rails, made the cars unusable. Most cars actually had to be converted back to steam so that the railroad could continue providing service. Sprague, itching to see the project finished, persuaded the Alley L to negotiate access to the tracks of Chicago’s Metropolitan Elevated Railroad (the Polly L) so that he could continue to tinker with his control systems while South Side construction continued. Finally, in April 1898, the Alley L was ready for full-scale MU installation.35 Sprague’s mass-transit design proved to be sufficiently robust, in its essentials, to survive throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. All cars on the South Side became motor cars, each carrying (and carried by) one motor and one smaller pilot motor. The pilot motor operated a rotating controller with switches for the

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power circuit and a small master controller located at driving positions at either end of the car.The master controller used a low-voltage circuit to drive the power controller, a rotating shaft carrying 600 volt switches controlling the resistances in the motor circuit. Separate control wires for forward and reverse power determined which direction the train drove. In effect, the driving controls connected via a set of low-voltage wires to the higher-voltage traction equipment that actually powered the main motors. Thus wired, a train could be formed and powered by a single car or any combination of cars up to (in the case of the South Side) six.36 Short circuits erupted during the installation, auxiliary equipment (such as brake shoes and third-rail connectors) required hastily improvised redesign, but from this point, progress was back on track. By the end of June 1898, ninety cars were operating, and SEC was beginning to press the South Side Elevated Railroad Company for certification and payment. The two sides jockeyed a bit—Leslie Carter insisting that he needed to delay payment until his engineers signed off on the project, and Sprague inquiring increasingly anxiously about the delay. Meanwhile, the railroad began to deliver measurably superior performance, carrying steadily heavier passenger loads and yielding substantially heavier revenues. Subsequent analysis revealed that Alley L earnings rose from under $11,000 in November 1897 to nearly $40,000 in November 1898 and from under $15,000 in December 1897 to over $45,000 in December 1898.37 CONCLUSION: THE SHIFTING CONTEXT OF INNOVATION

Those were eye-opening numbers.Within a year or two, performance on the South Side Elevated Railroad was vindicating Sprague’s tech-

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nology. Now he had hard-edged, dollars-driven data that established multiple-unit control as a state-of-the-art system platform. Inquiries and on-site investigations started circling around Chicago. Improving economic conditions also contributed to receptivity, as financial pressures eased. Sprague and SEC, in short, had managed to stage the technology and establish an aura of credibility around it. The market for MU looked promising. Still, adoption was not going to transpire automatically or on Sprague’s terms. Even before MU trains were up and running on the Alley L, competitors were formulating responses. In January 1898, negotiations over possible partnership with General Electric broke down when Charles Coffin and Frederick Fish made it clear that they would not enter any “working arrangement” with Sprague unless GE received an exclusive license.38 That development indicated how rapidly the context was evolving around Sprague.The Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company, his initial venture, had launched in an environment of volatile technology churn and entrepreneurial ferment, carving out an opportunity to innovate by dint of frantic invention, skillful promotion, and resourceful improvisation. Scarcely a dozen years later, Sprague faced new challenges. His competition was more established and more capable. Sprague had hoped to bring General Electric quickly and cleanly to terms. As far as he was concerned, he had established the upper hand, technologically speaking. He had underestimated his rivals’ capacity for adaptation, however, and misread their response to his reentry. From the point of view of General Electric’s senior managers, Sprague’s reappearance represented an unsettling development. MU threatened or at least impinged on what had become a vital product line.When GE acquired SERM in 1890, electric railways were still a

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nascent market, with 1,300 miles of track and 2,900 cars in operation in the United States. Under GE’s management, supplying equipment to electric railways rapidly became a corporate mainstay. In 1893, Coffin had identified the railway business as one of two core businesses for strategic focus, affirming: “the interesting and important development [in future prospects] is in the direction of local lighting and railway enterprises.”39 By 1896, the year that Sprague unveiled MU, economic conditions were improving, large customers were again making capital investments, and GE was selling 6,000 railway motors a year.40 Future growth opportunities, moreover, looked even bigger. Most of the elevated railroads in the nation’s largest cities were still steam-driven. Massive conversion projects were in the offing. A lot was at stake, in other words.The market had come of age. So too had General Electric and Westinghouse.Throughout the depression of the mid-1890s, they weathered the same grim conditions that beset Sprague’s electric elevator venture and emerged on the other side indelibly marked. From the expansive, freewheeling years of the 1880s, they had evolved into tenacious, entrenched, control-minded entities. Executives like Coffin were sobered by the depression. It may have diminished the appetite, at least at the executive level, for innovation within GE and to a lesser extent Westinghouse (as some historians suggest).41 In any event, senior managers in both camps grew determined to impose order on the electrical industry, tame the technological tumult, and bring the process of innovation under some measure of manageability. This spirit governed most noticeably in the matter of patents. In the rush of innovation, competition, and consolidation over the late 1870s and 1880s, both companies had acquired hundreds of criss-crossing, conflicting, overlapping patents in lighting, motors, power generation and transmission, and a

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series of other electrical fields.To help sort out the situation, GE and Westinghouse struck a pair of historical agreements in 1896 setting up patent pools, divvying up their core markets, and apportioning royalty payments accordingly. The new tone of business was particularly pronounced at GE, which became known during this period as the “Electric Trust,” but a similar instinct for oligopoly and “rationality” permeated Westinghouse as well. By the time that Sprague made his dramatic reappearance with MU, both companies were anxious not just to grow their businesses but to stabilize them. And yet figures like Sprague continued to operate at the periphery, roiling the environment with disruptive new innovations. As the case of MU makes clear, the corporate managers of the consolidated electrical conglomerates may have been trying to absorb, acquire, or otherwise stabilize the technologies that they were packaging and putting on the market, but the process of innovation itself resisted comprehensive corporate control, remaining unruly and unpredictable, if not entirely ungovernable. Free agents, inventing outside of the new corporate R&D labs, continued to thrust disruptive yet foundational technological ideas into the marketplace. The social context of innovation in the electrical industry may have grown more constricted, more corporate, and more complicated between 1884 and 1896. But the economic and technical environment remained volatile. Independent agents—inventor /entrepreneurs like Sprague—were still playing vital if unpredictable roles beyond the expanding scope of forces like General Electric, Charles Coffin, and J. P. Morgan. This dynamic distinctly colored General Electric’s initial response to MU and Sprague Electric Company. Sprague represented an interloper who proposed to lay proprietary claim to technology that was deeply embedded in the system architecture of a core business.

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And given the tenor of his earlier stay within GE, where he had been a maverick, Sprague himself must have seemed like an unruly party to do business with on an ongoing basis. Not surprisingly, GE decided to try to find a way around this new obstacle. Sprague responded defiantly. Unless he received cooperation on his terms, he was fully prepared to compete. He did not blink at the idea of taking on the industry giant; indeed, he seemed to relish the prospect. Indeed, the dictates of heroic invention practically demanded a confrontation. If SEC decided to “push this part of the business with an active commercial department, and with good shop development,” Sprague declared, “it can get a start which shall make it a most important factor in the future of the railway industry.”42

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ELUSIVE CONTROL: THE CONTEST WITH GENERAL ELECTRIC

Frank Sprague emerged from the proving ground in Chicago convinced that he had developed a successful technology.The South Side Elevated Railroad Company (Alley L) project convincingly staged the operational advantages of his multiple-unit (MU) control system. Whether, how, and in what form the technology would achieve widespread adoption were other questions, however. The enterprise that Sprague and his partners were assembling beneath the technology— the Sprague Electric Company—faced formidable market challenges. Indeed, accomplishing adoption of the technology was going to be an uphill struggle. Sprague and SEC had to establish MU as the standard technology platform for railway control. They had to strategize the innovation, find a way to use this new technology to establish leverage, and pry open entry in a technological environment that was defined by complex systems, massive projects, and imposing corporate competitors. The technology had been technically engineered.

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Now it had to be promoted, manufactured, marketed, and otherwise managed. Sprague, characteristically, was ready for the trial. From his perspective, he had faced similar odds in the electric railway field a dozen years before. With little more than a few prototype engines and several thousand dollars of seed capital, he had gathered the resources he needed to design, develop, and otherwise engineer a full-scale electric railway technology. His position in the mid-1890s, with MU up and running in Chicago, must have looked familiar. But establishing and embedding MU as a technology entailed distinct challenges. As powerful and important as the technology was, it was only one component in an intricate, extended array of apparatus and technologies—apparatus and technologies in which General Electric and Westinghouse had accumulated deep technical expertise, extensive patent protection, substantial manufacturing capacity, and commanding market positions. The shadow of General Electric loomed particularly ominously over Sprague’s latest startup. The deterioration of talks with Charles Coffin left SEC in a dangerous position. Sprague anticipated that GE, along with other competitors, would challenge MU on technical grounds, opposing it with obsolete systems, and eventually giving way before an incontestably superior system. In fact, he was underestimating the strategic resources at the disposal of his rivals, including their corporate capacity for rapid assimilation. Both GE and Westinghouse formulated complex responses to the challenge posed by MU, including unexpectedly robust technological adaptation and fierce resistance in the marketplace. Sprague and his financial backers soon were scrambling to keep their venture alive. Ultimately, it took high-stakes legal maneuvering to bring GE to terms. Sprague inserted his technology at the heart

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of the new electric systems that were emerging and using that technology pried open a position for himself. But he could not, in the end, keep control over SEC or MU. The possibilities for continued technological innovation remained virtually limitless, but by the turn of the century, the possibilities for independent venturing were constricting rapidly. CONTEXT: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

The barriers to entry—or in Sprague’s case, reentry—and innovation via entrepreneurship had climbed considerably since he first ventured in electric railways. General Electric and Westinghouse had consolidated commanding market positions by the late 1890s, and the projects that defined the market had grown to imposing scale. Elevated railways in metropolis-scale cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago represented lucrative but massive projects, encompassing substantial capital investments. “The big electric supply companies are looking forward to a period of great prosperity this year through the large increase in business already in sight,” the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported in March 1899, capturing the dimensions of the landscape. The Manhattan Elevated Railroad had announced plans for electrification, as had other local roads, such as the Kings County Elevated Railway and the Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad. “This business alone is estimated by electrical experts to amount to $10,000,000, and as similar changes are being contemplated by other railroads throughout the country the export demand for American electrical products and the home consumption and demand is increased in leaps and bounds, electrical supply men confidently predict that 1899 will be the banner year for this branch of trade.”1

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Such projects were going to be not only massive but delicate to undertake, entailing work that had to insert itself seamlessly within complicated logistics. Lines could not be “taken down”; service could not be interrupted to accomplish conversion. In 1887, for the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, Sprague had enjoyed the luxury of building on an essentially blank landscape. Environments like Chicago and Manhattan were much more densely packed, both literally and figuratively. Then, too, there was the scale of Sprague’s rivals, both their finances and their resources.The competitors for development of electric railway technologies in the 1880s had been relatively tenuous enterprises that were thinly capitalized and, in most cases, built around individual inventors with perhaps a small team of technical assistants.The competitive landscape in the 1890s was very different. In Sprague Electric Company, Sprague could muster a company with over 800 workers and an impressive plant at Watsessing, New Jersey. That capacity was dwarfed by GE and Westinghouse, however, which commanded multiple plants, thousands of workers, and extensive networks of field agents who handled marketing, service, and support functions.These enterprises were becoming powerful engines of innovation engineering. On the other hand, Sprague felt that he had a technological edge on the competition. In his multiple-unit control system, he was convinced that he possessed a breakthrough technology that his competitors would be unlikely to come to grips with easily. In short, he sensed an opening. General Electric had become timid and tightly bound by its business, Sprague believed—so tightly bound that he doubted that it would be able to adapt to MU. “No system that is the development of one man will ordinarily be conscientiously worked out to its full possibilities by another,” he predicted, “especially if he

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finds that it interferes very seriously with his own preconceived ideas and engineering statements. That will be the case should we license the General Electric Company. I know enough of the personnel of the engineering corps of that company to be quite sure of this fact.”2 In effect, Sprague was arguing (to borrow anachronistically once again from modern business vocabulary) that the MU system was so disruptive an innovation and GE had become so slow and unresponsive a company that it would not be able to let go of the technologies and tactics that were the basis of its current market dominance. As Sprague himself put it (in language that sounds strikingly modern) on another occasion, “The existing manufacturing concerns have become too large and unwieldy. There is not close enough touch between their engineering and sales departments, and there is a lack, especially in the transportation field, of the required technical knowledge.”3 He was misreading his competition, however, and underestimating the increasingly robust possibilities for rapid technological development that GE was developing.The conservative strategic mindset that had taken hold among GE’s corporate executives did not imply that the company had lost its capacity for technological adaptation. In fact, GE was solidifying and strengthening its research and development capability.The company still nurtured its Edisonian roots as an innovation startup, maintained a loose but vital series of labs, and in 1890, at the urging of the GE scientist Charles Proteus Steinmetz, set up one of American industry’s first corporate labs devoted to basic scientific research, under the direction of MIT professor Willis Whitney.4 If anything, GE’s corporate scale of operation made it even more technologically formidable. With a speed and level of commitment that took Sprague by surprise, GE managed to reverse-engineer the core components of MU and put a competitive product on the market.

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IMPATIENT CAPITAL

On Sprague Electric Company’s side of the contest, Sprague’s partners had also grown wary of irrational entrepreneurial excess, and that development affected the strategic development of his multipleunit control system. In October 1897, when SEC’s core investors laid out structures for managing the company, they relieved Sprague of senior-level strategic input. First, Albert Chandler, SEC’s president, persuaded him to stand aside as “first vice president.” Then, to his “surprise and chagrin,” Sprague found himself left off of the company’s executive committee. “I had supposed that when I yielded to your advice in the matter of the first vice-presidency,” he complained to Chandler after learning of the news, “it did not mean so much of an end to my official activity.” To Sprague, the makeup of the new committee seemed “financially top-heavy, and technically one-sided,” and he warned that a stronger technical voice would be needed if SEC hoped “to effectively and safely deal with the many questions which will arise during the next few months.” More to the point, the arrangement divested Sprague “from all executive force and authority.” If this was to be his fate, Sprague stiffly requested to be relieved of the title of “Second Vice President” and made simply a “consulting engineer.”5 He was hurt (“I cannot but feel this very strongly,” he informed Chandler), but Sprague had little choice but to reconcile himself to financial realities. With roughly one-quarter of SEC’s stock, he was the company’s largest shareholder, as well as its namesake and technological heart and soul. But he still needed financial backing to see the venture through, and by 1898, his backers were losing patience. Investors like Edward Johnson (SEC’s second-largest shareholder, with

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nearly another quarter of the stock), Albert Chandler, John MacKay, the Roeblings, the Cranes, and J. P. Morgan (who took a small share) were growing wary of Sprague’s strategic instincts. In any event, they had very different priorities. They wanted their investment put on solid footing by consummating the sale of the elevator business to Otis Elevator Company quickly and cleanly and by achieving rapid profitability in the company’s other lines of business.When accounting a year or so later revealed that the South Side Elevated Railroad project had cost $51,000 more than its contract fees of $273,000, Chandler expressed grave concern.“The importance of this contract, and of proving our system of ‘control,’ is fully appreciated,” he wrote Sprague, speaking on behalf of other SEC investors generally. “We feel, however, that the future success of our Company depends largely upon the result of our first year’s operation, and that the extent of this loss is a serious menace to us.”The fact that the company’s elevator projects were coming in over budget exacerbated the financiers’ concerns: “instead of feeling that we have built up a profitable as well as a useful business in that direction, our efforts thus far have resulted, from a financial standpoint, most unsatisfactorily.”6 Sprague responded by pointing to SEC’s progress in establishing its MU technology. Chandler’s reply was blunt and bottom-line oriented. He recognized “the merit which I still confidently believe belongs to the inventions which the Company is endeavoring to make useful.” Nevertheless, as an investment the venture remained deeply disappointing. “The entire elevator business up to this time, has been a source of much more than ordinary business trouble, as well as of larger loss in money than we have heretofore realized,” Chandler pointed out, while “the railway business so far undertaken, however important it may become, has resulted in very much greater loss than

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was anticipated, and . . . its future conduct seems almost certain to be involved in litigation.” As things stood, SEC’s situation “compels a feeling of great uncertainty in the minds of everyone who is financially interested in the Company. . . . I sincerely believe that there is not one person having a money interest in the Sprague Electric Company, who, if the question were entirely new, would invest a dollar in it. For myself, I deeply regret having had anything whatever to do with it.”7 THE MANHATTAN ELEVATED RAILWAY

“I believe that in a comparatively short time,” Sprague informed SEC executives in January 1898 as work on the South Side Elevated Railroad project intensified, “I shall be able to tender to this company a contract of such importance that it will not only insure a large and safe profit, but will have such a coercive influence upon the present situation as will make it absolutely necessary for both the General Electric and the Westinghouse companies to find some way to make a working arrangement.”8 The contract that Sprague had in mind was the Manhattan Elevated Railway—a prize large enough to confer “coercive influence” (or platform status) on Sprague’s multiple-unit control system. Formed in 1879 by Jay Gould, within two years the Manhattan Elevated Railway had acquired and combined several other lines to form the city’s preeminent elevated railway company and, indeed, the most heavily traveled urban line in the world. Still a steampowered and locomotive-driven system, the Manhattan was widely derided for its slow, unreliable, dirty, and deafening service. Yet its business grew inexorably as New York City’s population climbed. The Manhattan’s ridership more than doubled between 1881 and

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1891, swelling to nearly 200 million.9 By 1900, nearly 3.5 million people lived and worked in greater New York, making it the second largest city in the world.The rise of skyscrapers—a development that was enabled in part by technologies such as Sprague’s electric elevators—made downtown New York even denser in the daytime, further taxing traditional commuting systems. Sooner or later, it seemed, the Manhattan would electrify, installing over a thousand motors in the process. In fact, sooner or later the electric system or some new system would have to bury its lines underground. By the late 1880s, civic leaders such as Mayor Abraham Hewitt were calling for a municipally owned, privately operated subway system.10 In the meantime, the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company (which passed from Jay Gould to his son George when the former died in 1892) represented Sprague’s best hope for establishing MU. A contract to convert the Manhattan would confer a massive project and be an invaluable endorsement as the standard platform for railway control. Sprague had targeted the Manhattan Elevated Railway from the first, petitioning the railway’s executive committee as early as 1896 for an opportunity to demonstrate the advantage of MU. His initial inquiries went nowhere, but progress on the South South Elevated Railroad project made him bolder. By 1899, he was making new public pronouncements with specific claims about MU performance. Writing in Cassier’s Magazine, Sprague declared that conversion to MU would boost the Manhattan’s rush-hour speeds from 12 ½ to 16 ½ miles per hour, generating “a saving, excluding interest on investment, of about $1,300,000 per annum, or allowing interest on investment, of about $750,000.”11 He made the pitch more formally and directly, too. In January 1898, he invited Jay Gould to accompany him to Chicago to see “the latest

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and best in electric railroading.”12 When rumors surfaced that the Manhattan Elevated Railway planned to electrify its trains, Sprague again pressed the claim, urging on Gould the importance of equipping the line with state-of-the-art technology and warning him that the key component of the system would be “the matter of control.” SEC stood ready, Sprague assured Gould, to install “any part or the whole” of an MU system to demonstrate its efficiencies.13 Gould responded with “a personal note,” Sprague reported to SEC executive William Crane, “thanking me . . . and saying he would bear my suggestions in mind.” But nothing firmer than this rather vague assurance could be extracted. Anxiously, Sprague cast about for indications as to which way the Manhattan was leaning. If the decision came down to performance, he was confident that MU would win. “What I want to prevent,” he informed Crane, “is some snap judgment and the closing of some contract by reason of political or inside financial influences.” Over the coming months, it became clear that the Manhattan would resist a “snap judgment” but also that all kinds of “political or inside financial influences” were being mustered by all sides. Indeed, the reason that Sprague was bringing Crane up to speed was to suggest that Crane pay Gould a visit on SEC’s behalf: “I had an idea that if you were in New York, and felt pleased to do so, that in a chat with Mr. Gould the opportunity might arise for your making some suggestion in the line indicated.”14 THE BROOKLYN ELEVATED RAILWAY

While the Manhattan Elevated Railway hung fire, another opportunity arose just across (or more precisely, astride) the river, on the

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Brooklyn Elevated Railway line.The project was relatively small.The line was looking to electrify the switch trains that it used to move regular trains across the Brooklyn Bridge. In all, the contract comprised twelve cars and twenty-four motors. But more than the immediate contract was at stake. If the multiple-unit control system proved itself on the bridge, the Brooklyn was likely to convert its entire line (at least, so Sprague hoped), and beyond that prospect lay the possibility of proving the technology in the face of whatever alternatives General Electric or Westinghouse might muster. Sprague investigated the site in February 1898 and prepared a bid. The Brooklyn project also gave Sprague a chance to gauge his competitors’ response—and for competitors to assess the new entrant. Westinghouse paid Sprague a visit in February 1898 to ask about the kind of bid that Sprague Electric Company planned to submit. “Mr. Zimmerman, the agent of the Westinghouse Company, was here today,” Sprague wrote a colleague, “and asked if we would quote on the multiple control to them so that they could include it in their bid, or whether we were going to quote it direct to the Railway Company, in which case they would confine themselves to bidding on the motors.” Sprague replied guardedly. SEC would bid only on the controls, he informed Zimmerman, “leaving the motor manufacturers to fight that part of it out among themselves.” The Brooklyn people wanted SEC to include motors in its bid, Sprague added, “and we might be asked to make a decision as to which motor should be used.” SEC would “occupy an entirely neutral position until further developments” so far as its motor recommendation stood. On the other hand, if another company included an MU control in its bid, “we should at once do anything in our power against

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him.”15 The import was clear: SEC was keeping its options free, was still open to the idea of alliance, and planned to defend its particular territory aggressively. General Electric “declined ‘at present’ to bid on that kind of control,” Sprague informed another colleague. But behind the scenes, its engineers were working on something. Sprague learned that GE agents promised Brooklyn executives that they would have a multiple-unit control of their own ready “in the course of three to four months” and offered in the interim to install single controllers electrically operated from each platform, which Sprague characterized as “a half way measure, which is one step in the multiple unit control.”16 Battle lines were forming. SEC won the Brooklyn project, and Sprague savored the small victory. “The G.E. has been dropped with a dull thud on the first section of the Brooklyn equipment,” he wrote one colleague.17 “‘Thus endeth the first lesson.’ And we will teach them a few more,” he predicted to a SEC stockholder. “I believe this decision will carry throughout the Brooklyn Elevated Railroads, also on to the Long Island, and on the Manhattan of New York.”18 But the larger picture was becoming disquieting. GE was clearly gearing up to compete with an MU system of its own. Around this period, someone broke into SEC offices and stole confidential internal documents, including a set of MU blueprints that had been prepared by the Brooklyn Elevated’s consulting engineer. Sprague suspected GE (which had, in fact, already proven itself capable of industrial espionage in an embarrassing incident several years before). There was little he could do, though, beyond making a public relations gesture exposing the theft and offering a $1,000 reward for the papers.The culprit was never caught.19

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COMPETITION HEATS UP

The Brooklyn Elevated Railroad helped to bring the picture of the emerging competitive landscape into focus, giving Sprague and Sprague Electric Company a look at how competitors planned to respond to multiple-unit control. Over the next few months, the scene shifted back to Illinois, where the Kings County Elevated Railroad solicited bids for electrification and MU control. Sprague detected “an all-powerful influence” there in the form of August Belmont, “whose interests of course are distinctly Westinghouse” and who was playing a large role in the financing of the road.20 By August, the technical outlines of Westinghouse’s competitive offering were taking form. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I hear that George Westinghouse is now definitely attempting installation of a partial multiple unit system on the Kings County ‘L’, using compressed air as a means of handling the controllers,” Sprague reported to Albert Chandler in August 1898.21 This apparatus, a sort of hybrid MU device, proved prone to glitches and took several months to bring into workable condition.22 Sprague judged it “a complicated and cumbersome system,” operated “initially by locomotive, then by air, then by electricity through another step.”23 Meanwhile, SEC’s sparring with GE grew more intense.“The row is now on between the General Electric Company and ourselves,” Sprague wrote John Lundie in March 1898: “they have attempted to use bluff proceedings with the Brooklyn Elevated, and I have sent them a polite little note, the tenor of which you may probably surmise.”24 In June, he warned F. H. Shepard, who was working on installing the Brooklyn equipment, that “differences between ourselves

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and the General Electric” were “apt to be a little sharp.” GE had cut off a shipment of circuit breakers, and Sprague immediately retaliated by canceling an order for $44,000 worth of motors for the London elevator project.25 That gesture must have been satisfying, but as Sprague realized, he was increasing the stakes of the competition. An order of circuit breakers was easy enough to shift to another supplier, but one for motors was another matter. SEC was going to have to get into the business of motor manufacturing if it wanted to stay in the contest, Sprague was becoming convinced by this point. “I think it very likely we will take up the question of manufacturing a railway type of motor by fall,” he informed Shepard, adding “I think we could turn one out which would not infringe my old patent.”26 The great object of all of these maneuvers remained the Manhattan Elevated Railway, and the prospects for getting the Manhattan contract remained unclear. Sprague continued to try to read the shifting currents. “I feel quite hopeful about throwing the rest of them out on the Manhattan system,” he declared in July 1898, “because every day’s run [in Chicago] makes stronger the impression of the multiple unit system, and its soundness from an engineering and railroad standpoint.”27 But time was probably working against Sprague and SEC, by this point, for the delay gave General Electric critical months in which to assemble its own version of MU. In November, Sprague reported to an SEC investor that the Manhattan “still remain[ed] quiet”: a consulting engineer hired by the railway “favors our system, . . . and I have made him provisional figures as to the cost of an equipment.” From what he could gather, the road was waiting for an opportune timing to float “an increased stock issue” to fund the conversion.28 Eight months later, SEC was still “in a wait-

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ing position,” Sprague reported, “doing a certain amount of pioneer work, and laying pipe.”29 General Electric was laying pipe of its own. By mid-July 1899, Sprague learned that GE had gotten permission from the Brooklyn Elevated Railway people “to run an experimental train . . . with a multiple unit system.”30 A few weeks later, the threat grew sharper when one of Sprague’s lieutenants, Frank Shepard, reported that GE would have an MU train up and running on its Schenectady track “in about ten days” and had invited representatives from the Manhattan Elevated Railway and Boston’s West End Street Railway to witness trial runs.31 Sprague remained confident in his first-mover advantage. “It is simply impossible,” he declared, “for any company to devise and put into operation for this kind of service a system which departs radically from that developed by the Sprague Company without months of most comprehensive and rigid experimental development under actual working conditions.”32 Nevertheless, viable competition had by this point cohered: GE was prepared to pit its own MU system against Sprague’s. STRATEGY: THE BID TO SCALE UP SPRAGUE ELECTRIC COMPANY

Sprague was laying his own plans—or at least exploring options— for the looming contest. In March 1899, he began sounding out his partners about the possibility of expanding SEC’s manufacturing capacity. “I learned sometime ago,” he wrote to SEC President Albert Chandler, “that two or three propositions had been made to the Stanley Company for its control by other interests, had a frank talk with General Manager Hine, and got his promise to have temporarily held

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in abeyance any proposition which had been made until we had an opportunity to consider some proposition for control of his company.”33 Stanley Company was a midtier manufacturer of alternatingcurrent electrical equipment, primarily transmission equipment, that was based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The acquisition would round out SEC’s product line and broaden the company’s plant potential. Sprague was proposing, in effect, to scale up to meet, if not match, General Electric and Westinghouse as a fully integrated and independently viable competitor. It was a bold proposal, even a reckless one, given SEC’s position. The company’s competitors were much more solidly financed and better established in the marketplace. Two years after the South Side Elevated Railroad project, SEC had not yet managed to pull down a major contract in head-to-head competition against either GE or Westinghouse, which by this point were poised to bring alternative systems on line. Sprague was confident that he would be able to protect his multiple-unit technology in the legal arena, but the outcome of that contest was entirely uncertain. SEC’s existing financial resources were already stretched thin. Sprague must have sensed that he was appealing to impatient investors and a skeptical set of executives. Nevertheless, he argued, they faced an invaluable opportunity: “If we are to develop the possibilities which are entirely within our grasp, and which with good business management can be insured to us as fast as we are prepared to take them, I deem it of the utmost importance that we should get control of the Stanley Company without any delay whatever.” The acquisition could be made for $600,000, he predicted. Another $300,000 would add an iron and steel foundry and other plant upgrades. Increasing SEC’s capitalization to $10 million would finance the move, putting the company

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“in a position . . . to effectually cope with the General Electric [and] Westinghouse Companies.”34 He knew that he was appealing to stockholders who were demanding profitability and performance that neither SEEC nor SEC had yet accomplished. But Sprague sensed a historic opportunity, and he strained to impress his dubious audience with a sense of the unique opening that they faced. “History can be repeated,” he insisted to Chandler, “and the career of the Postal Telegraph and Commercial Cable companies [which Chandler and Mackay had been instrumental in building] duplicated with the present Sprague Company as a nucleus properly enlarged and backed. . . . There is at present at our hand the opportunity for the greatest possible successful development which will ever occur to us.”35 Chandler and other SEC executives remained unconvinced, but they did at least authorize further investigation. Sprague met with Stanley Company’s president and general manager and arranged a series of plant inspections by SEC managers. In June, he submitted a detailed report making the case for acquiring Stanley and consolidating a position for SEC as a vertically integrated, diversified electrical manufacturer.36 Meanwhile, Sprague prepared a parallel report recommending a $750,000 program of expansion at the company’s Watsessing, New Jersey, plant.37 If he had his way, SEC was going to equip itself, “at the earliest possible moment, to build the largest sizes of continuous and alternating current machinery and railway apparatus.”38 By this point, though, Sprague had lost executive and strategic control of SEC. His partners had decided to await further developments before committing more resources to the venture. They wanted to see what was going to happen in the marketplace and in the courts.

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They wanted to see whether Sprague would be able to persuade large urban elevated lines to convert to SEC’s MU system and, if not, whether Sprague would be able to put together patent protection that would stand up in court and force GE back to the bargaining table. MARKET DEVELOPMENTS

On the first front, in the marketplace, Sprague Electric Company met with mixed results. The Manhattan Elevated Railway, now being assiduously courted by both SEC and General Electric,39 moved slowly toward a solicitation of proposals. Sprague sensed that Manhattan engineers and executives were gradually coming around. At least, they seemed impressed by the multiple-unit control system’s performance in visits to Chicago.This was nothing that SEC could bank on, however. Meanwhile, another major prospect opened in Boston. In July 1899, executives of the Boston Elevated Railroad indicated that they were planning to electrify their line and were highly interested in Sprague’s MU system.40 Bids were formally solicited in November. To sort out the various proposals that came in, the Boston line decided to hold a series of trials on a section of its lines. Sprague protested the decision to hold trials. His MU system had already proven itself in Chicago, he contended, while General Electric was peddling nothing more than “promises as prolific as can be manufactured on a typewriter, and attractive as bookbinding can make them.” In effect, he was accusing GE of plying what a later generation of high-tech entrepreneurs termed “vaporware” or of simply pirating his invention, in which case trials would be pointless. It was “simply impossible,” Sprague remained convinced, “for any company to devise and put into operation for this kind of service a system which

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departs radically from that developed by the Sprague Company without months of most comprehensive and rigid development under actually working conditions.”41 More to the point, SEC by this point was scrambling to develop motors of its own design and manufacture to pit against General Electric’s. (Now Sprague was trying to buy time, and GE, with its MU system ready, was pressing for a decision.) Sprague also objected (unintentionally betraying the fragility of his company’s extended resources) that assembling the equipment needed to compete in the trial would cost his company $30,000.42 Boston Elevated Railroad officials insisted on going through with the trials. Despite Sprague’s apprehensions about being able to compete on level ground, SEC won the MU contract in May 1900. Finally, Sprague had a substantial project to show his backers: the Boston contract paid SEC just over $100,000 to equip sixty cars.43 Other developments were more ominous, however. In Boston, SEC’s strong financial connections had helped sway the decision. (It did not hurt that the Boston El’s president, James Pendergast, was a SEC stockholder.) In New York, however, Charles Coffin and company were better connected and, it became clear by early 1900, were working behind the scenes to structure contract terms and specifications in ways that would favor GE. The prospects for getting the Manhattan project were clouding. THE PATENT FIGHT AND RESOLUTION

The fate of Sprague Electric Company, it was becoming clear, depended on Sprague’s ability to protect his legal claim to the multipleunit technology. By 1900, with major contracts like the Boston Elevated

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Railroad and the Manhattan Elevated Railway being decided and rival MU systems going into construction, General Electric applied intense legal pressures on SEC. Declaring that the motor developed by the upstart company violated General Electric’s patents, GE sued SEC. (Ironically, Sprague was being sued for infringing patents on technology that he had invented: GE sued SEC on the basis of the patents that it had acquired when it absorbed the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company in 1890.) Sprague responded by countersuing GE for violating his MU patent. Legal attacks and counterattacks followed, carrying the patent contest into the marketplace. In May 1900, Sprague reported to a colleague that SEC had “run up against an unexpected situation” in Boston, where “some sudden apprehension has apparently arisen as to our ability to successfully defend any patent attack.” General Electric was demanding that railways that installed Sprague Electric Company motors take out large bonds against potential infringement judgments.44 In Chicago, South Side Elevated Railroad executive Leslie Carter received similar notification and responded (naturally enough) by demanding a bond from SEC indemnifying his road before he placed orders for new equipment.45 The struggle escalated a few months later when GE managed to get a court order that blocked SEC shipments of any equipment to either Chicago or Boston that might infringe on GE patents. SEC managed to obtain a restraining order suspending the move,46 but the pressure was growing intense. In August 1900, the president of the company bluntly reported to SEC’s board of directors that the company’s prospects looked uncertain at best: “At present you have a limited working capital.You have a limited amount of business that is not subject to a great deal of profit and

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you have cash losses . . . and expensive litigation yet to be met, so for the next few years you cannot expect any great results.”47 Everything hinged on successfully defending the patent.“You have recently indicated,” Sprague’s lawyer Thomas Ewing wrote him in October 1899,“that there are strong commercial reasons impelling you to have the patents issued immediately.”48 Indeed, through 1899 and into early 1900, Sprague and Ewing poured exhaustive efforts into crafting a patent that would be airtight, unimpeachable, and broad enough to fortify MU against the assault that would come from General Electric’s notoriously skilled patent department. The effort taxed Ewing nearly to his limit: “every time the case comes up,” he confessed to Sprague at one point,“it is so burdensome, that it wears me out, and I feel as if I would do anything to get it into more manageable shape.”49 At another point, Ewing described bolting awake one night when a particular wording “struck me as so good that, cold as it was, I got up and made a light, and wrote it down, for fear I should forget it.”50 The fruit of this arduous and anxious work was a weighty document that included twenty pages of seventy-three intricate line-drawn schematics followed by thirty-nine densely packed, double-columned pages of descriptive text.The patent composed by Sprague and Ewing comprehensively and definitively laid claim to the specific apparatus that the inventor had built and to the basic concept of multiple-unit control. Painstakingly and repeatedly, the claim spelled out the general principle at issue, detailed the controlling mechanisms, and broke down the technology component by component. Again and again, the patent repeated the “broad underlying idea” at work—namely, “that cars properly equipped can be made up interchangeably into a train of any length. . . . In short, a car is a unit, and a train composed of

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a number of similarly-equipped cars is also a unit.” Finally, the patent enumerated 263 specific claims, breaking down and putting together the components of the invention as inclusively and interchangeably as one of Sprague’s MU trains.51 Such was the document that eventually brought General Electric to terms. By late 1900, behind its legal bluff and bluster, GE’s patent department was growing concerned about the MU case and advising GE executives that the company’s position looked dubious. Coffin was too shrewd an executive to continue waging an uncertain battle. In any event, too much was at stake: GE was preparing to begin MU installation on the Manhattan Elevated Railway and could ill-afford the liability of a patent-infringement judgment on the project. Quietly, General Electric resumed negotiations with SEC executives.This time, grounds for a clean settlement looked promising. SEC’s backers were eager to sell out, and General Electric was ready to acquire SEC. Only Sprague himself now stood in the way of a settlement. But Sprague was still ambivalent about selling and stubbornly he held out for the terms that he felt were due him. At the same time, behind the scenes, he tried to muster financial backing for one more bid at retaking control of Sprague Electric Company.“Now and then a fellow runs up against a proposition which is pretty nearly a ‘dead cinch,’” he wrote a friend in February 1902, “and I have got one in hand at present.” Facing an opportunity to buy a block of SEC stock, he was trying to put together a syndicate to acquire the shares in the hopes of drawing “personal friends” into the venture “who will co-operate with me where necessary.”52 Several months later, with little more than half of the syndicate in hand, he was still trying to attract new investors and at the same time reopening the idea of acquiring the Stanley Company.53

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Meanwhile, negotiations between SEC and General Electric resumed.With executives in both camps anxious to reach a settlement, Sprague came under considerable pressure to acquiesce to a mutually accommodating arrangement. He held considerable leverage, however, in his large shareholding in SEC and in General Electric’s hesitation to strike a deal unless it included a royalty arrangement in which Sprague conferred complete ownership of the MU patents. Accordingly, he rejected several of General Electric’s offers. Still, the pressure to come to terms was mounting. “I was being borne down on pretty hard” by SEC’s other stockholders, he complained to William Crane one meeting.54 Finally, in May 1902, when General Electric agreed to increase its royalty offer, Sprague relented, submitting to Crane’s advice and accepting the terms. He had held out for as long as possible, maneuvering as long as he had room left in which to maneuver. But Sprague was forced to bow to strategic reality. The multiple-unit control process would not, in fact, create enough leverage to control the emerging market for electrified mass transit. “The multiple unit control,” General Electric executive Eugene Griffin declared in announcing the acquisition, “is the most important recent development in electric traction work.”55 Several years later, another GE executive went even further, describing the patent (in internal correspondence) as being “absolutely necessary to our business.”56 Sprague had assumed that this fact would force General Electric to terms. In the end, it had forced Sprague to terms. CONTROL, IN PERSPECTIVE

Striking parallels link Sprague’s first venture, the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (1884–1890), and his third, the

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Sprague Electric Company (1896–1902). In both cases, Sprague developed innovative technologies that created market breakthroughs, resorted to bold entrepreneurial gambits to stage his technology, mustered enough capital to commercialize but not fully exploit the opportunity that he was creating, and was eventually forced to sell. Even the last spasm of ambivalence and resistance repeated itself, as Sprague tried and failed to reclaim control first of SERM in 1890 and then of SEC in 1902. But if the two ventures followed a parallel sequence, they unfolded in very different contexts and marked two distinct stages in the development of the electrical industry and the ongoing evolution of electrical technologies. Indeed, SERM and SEC neatly bracketed, at either end, the emergence of a new kind of industrial enterprise and new patterns of technology development and adoption. On one side of this divide, Edison and his partners were building a cluster of allied but unintegrated businesses in incandescent lighting, equipment manufacturing, and power generation. Inventors held sway, working independently or in loose organizations, attracting the interest of prominent financiers but operating largely as free agents in a churning field of entrepreneurial gambits. There were as many companies, it seemed, as there were inventors with ideas, and the companies were named after their inventor-founders. Sprague’s entry into this field, SERM, had jostled for position among a cluster of competing startups, established a toehold in the nascent electric railway market on the basis of an informal partnership with Edison’s people, and created conditions in which to make its market.The prospect of heroic invention had worked powerfully on participants. All that churning activity cohered and consolidated in remarkably short order, however. Major players were already emerging by the time

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that Edison General Electric absorbed SERM. Indeed, the acquisition of Sprague’s railway business represented a key turning point in the evolution of what soon became General Electric—an integrated industrial enterprise combining various related businesses (such as electric lighting and railway equipment) in new forms that conferred new strategic advantages of scale and scope.When Sprague reentered the market, he was trying to insert his technology and his venture into a very different set of strategic circumstances. In 1902, when GE absorbed SEC, it was doing more than $30 million in sales annually. As crucial agents in the process of innovation, Sprague’s investors embodied the changes in the technological context. To get SERM, electric motors, and electric railways off the ground (or, more literally in the latter cases, in the ground), Sprague had scrambled and scraped for funds. He had found financial backing among a few backers, most of whom were already investing in Edison’s electric light and power ventures—people like Edward Johnson and, through Johnson, Edison, Sigmund Bergmann (the manufacturer affiliated with EGE), Henry Villard, and J. P. Morgan. The latter signified early interest in electrical investments on the part of prominent capitalists. Even so, in the 1880s, financiers such as Morgan were still unaccustomed to making major industrial investments. In effect, Sprague had tapped into the attention and cultural energy that was forming around Edison, Bell, and the image of heroic invention. Some of these investors ( Johnson, for example) followed Sprague as he shifted his efforts to electric elevators. And as he capitalized Sprague Electric Elevator Company, Sprague found more investors here and there. Financial agents such as the Roebling brothers, Albert Chandler, and the Crane family (paper manufacturers from western Massachusetts) had been drawn into the promise and prospects of

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the technology and the effort to establish it in the marketplace. An industrial capital market was beginning to coalesce. By the time that Sprague was ready to assemble the multiple-unit control process as an installation and the basis of an enterprise, very different conditions prevailed. Financiers like Morgan were shifting their attention and their investments decisively to industry. In 1900, as the MU patent contest came to a head, Morgan formed the syndicate that bought out Andrew Carnegie and formed U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation. The electrical industry was thus by no means the first or the only field in which transformation was occurring. In fact, a wave of U.S. industries underwent similar transitions over the same period.57 What was unique about General Electric and other leading firms in the electrical industry was that they were learning how to manage not just operations of massive scale and widening scope but businesses based on maintaining continuous technological advantage. In other words, companies like General Electric had to figure out how to control forces like Frank Sprague—either by coopting and internalizing them or, if they proved inassimilable (as Sprague did), otherwise coming to terms with and managing the disruptions they created. At the same time, Sprague was more than just an inventor or provocateur in this drama. The dynamics at work here, as the multipleunit control process took technological form, were highly complex, and Sprague’s role went well beyond designing the idea. He also began and largely accomplished the engineering and staging of the technology—that is, the process of installing it in the economic, geographic, and material landscape. He did not simply sketch up an invention and hand it off to General Electric. Sprague mocked up MU,

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built it out as a prototype and a pilot demonstration, and exhibited it as a full-scale operational system. These dimensions of engineering the technology entailed assembling the wherewithal to finance it, manufacture it, market it, install it, promote it—in sum, to make it feasible as the core business of an enterprise and operational as the basis of a transit system. These were vital aspects of this technology in the making. They required as much creativity, energy, resourcefulness, adaptation, and improvisation as designing and wiring MU itself. By the time that Sprague Electric Company was folded into General Electric, MU had been engineered both technically and as an innovation. If the emerging dynamics of innovation in the electrical industry therefore were becoming more corporate and less heroic, they were not by implication becoming more contained. Autonomous or extracorporate agents such as Sprague continued to feed into the process of making and remaking the technology. Indeed, from General Electric’s point of view, Sprague, MU, and Sprague Electric Company were functioning much as Sprague, the electric railway, and Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company had in relation to Edison General Electric Company—as a spin-off venture or partnership that eventually was folded more organically into the corporate whole. Within this environment, still flexibly structured because the technology was still fluid, Sprague was able to both invent and operate. He made himself a force to be reckoned with repeatedly, even as General Electric buttressed its commanding industry leadership. It is notable that SEC was every bit as successful as SERM—at least in generating a profitable sale when the time came. That accomplishment is testimony to Sprague’s contributions as an inventor and to his

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skill and raw energy as an entrepreneur. He remained too volatile a force to be channeled through or contained by corporate structures, and by 1902, corporate structures were clearly governing the industry.Yet he had inserted himself and his invention at the heart of one of the largest corporation’s core systems.

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MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION: EMINENCE AND THE CHALLENGES OF “RETIREMENT”

The absorption of Sprague Electric Company and sale of Frank Sprague’s multiple-unit patents to General Electric Company in 1902 marked a new stage in Sprague’s career. By that year, he had been working at a continuously urgent pace for twenty years, designing a succession of inventions (electric motor designs, an electric railway system, electric elevator components, and the multiple-unit control process) and forging a series of companies to both stage those inventions as compelling technologies and engineer them as viable commercial prospects. He was forty-five years old when SEC’s executives negotiated the merger with General Electric, and the deal made him a fortune. Under the terms of the settlement, GE paid Sprague $75,000 in cash and $100,000 in bonds personally and appointed him as a consultant with an annual salary of $10,000 for the next fifteen years. Because Sprague was a major shareholder of SEC and because GE also assumed SEC’s obligation to pay Sprague royalties for MU

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apparatus manufactured and sold, the inventor emerged from the settlement with a fortune worth well over $1 million (a sum worth fifty times as much a century later in terms of consumer value). The achievement of the multiple-unit control system fame solidified his public status as a major inventor and an internationally eminent electrical engineer. The SEC-GE outcome, he noted, “obligated” General Electric to pay him royalties on the invention and “to maintain the Sprague name as describing the multiple unit railway system, this latter a condition which I considered of the utmost importance.”1 His electric motors and railways had been shorn of the Sprague name soon after Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company, his first company, was acquired by Edison General Electric Company in 1889—a blow that Sprague felt bitterly for years after. He had made sure to affix his name permanently and pointedly to MU. Having done so, Sprague presumably could relax, basking in the comfort of success and satisfaction of professional prominence. So far as he, his peers, and his public were concerned, Sprague had achieved heroic invention. By this point, his personal circumstances had also shifted, contributing to a noticeable mellowing in the man. In 1895, Sprague and his first wife, Mary Keatinge, were divorced after having one son, Desmond, and four years later he met and married Harriet Chapman Jones, during the staging of the multiple-unit control system. Harriet was the daughter of a retired Army captain, and either she was a better match for him than Mary was, or perhaps Sprague was ready to be a better husband. In any event, his second marriage proved to be successful.The couple had Robert in 1900, Julian in 1903, and Althea in 1906. The family resided in a townhouse on West End Avenue on the upper west side of Manhattan and spent summers in their home

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in Sharon, Connecticut. Sprague became an avid gardener and cultivated friendships with notable literati, including Mark Twain,William Dean Howells, and Columbia University literature professor Brander Matthews (who hosted a men’s discussion group that Sprague began attending regularly). Sprague did not abandon the field of electrical innovation, though. He remained busily and actively engaged in the ongoing extension, refinement, and adaptation of electrical technologies. Among other endeavors, he played a prominent role in electrifying the New York Central Railroad (a pioneer project in mainline electrification); patented and licensed a third-rail design that went on to achieve wide adoption on the Central and other mainline systems; joined the Naval Advisory Board during World War I (volunteer service that included development of technical advances in armor-piercing shells and antisubmarine depth charges); and designed a dual elevator system that combined express and local cars operating simultaneously in the same shaft. He continued to think, write, and speak publicly on major technological issues of the day and to play prominent roles in professional societies. He also continued to tell and retell the narratives of his earlier technological accomplishments, particularly the Richmond Union Passenger Railway and multiple-unit control, nurturing their coalescence as lore in what was already beginning to recede as the “early” or “pioneer” days of electrical invention. He assumed, in short, a leading role as technological statesman and eminence grise. In an era that was notoriously fond of congratulatory banquets and selfconsciously celebratory commemorations of technological progress, Sprague had earned a front-table seat. But he did not occupy that seat comfortably. Sprague could not bring himself to remain either semiretired or semifamous. As early as 1906, he

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was embarking on a major new venture, establishing the Sprague Safety Control and Signal Corporation. And after World War I, working out of a laboratory he set up on Canal Street in New York City, he continued to engineer new electrical applications. In the last years of his life, Sprague was developing designs for animated electrical sign displays. Unfortunately for Sprague, these late episodes in invention and enterprise did not yield either the financial results or the aura of heroic invention that his early work had generated. At best unevenly productive, Sprague’s restless later career became an effort to recapture or reprise a phenomenon that looked increasingly archaic as the twentieth century matured. The context for technology formation and adoption was shifting in ways that Sprague adapted to fitfully and not entirely successfully. GRAND CENTRAL STATION: MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION

From 1902 to 1907, in the immediate aftermath of engineering multiple-unit control, Sprague concentrated most of his energies on the electrification of the New York Central Railroad, including Grand Central Station. Mainline electrification represented a new scale and indeed a new order of electrical system, requiring a further, formidable round of technical development. The electric motors that Sprague designed to propel the Richmond Union Passenger Railway in Virginia had been fifteen horsepower, but those driving the New York Central Railroad trains would be 2,000 h.p., over 100 times more powerful. Moreover, to operate functionally on a main line, systems would have to extend their geographic reach significantly. Electrifying the New York Central eventually created a system spanning more than thirty

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miles. As was becoming clear by the turn of the twentieth century, operating across such an extended sphere of operation would in all likelihood require development of an alternating-current transmission network. (All of Sprague’s work to this point had been designed for direct-current power.) If AC were chosen, then voltages would have to be stepped down at intervals along the route, and new motor designs worked up. If not, then a system that significantly expanded the reach of DC would have to be devised. “The work . . . is of great magnitude and of extreme importance and interest,” Engineering News concluded in a typical assessment in 1905. “It presents, in part, the complete solution of an old and difficult problem” and at the same time “a new technical condition . . . the operation of a large terminal division of a first-rank trunk line by electricity, with equal regard to a heavy through traffic at all hours of the day and a heavy suburban or commuter traffic concentrated in the morning and evening hours. This condition, both in its operation and its constructional aspect, is new in the transportation art.”2 The technological uncertainties (and the substantial capital investment) initially made mainline railroads (which as of 1900 remained steam driven) wary of electrification.3 In Manhattan in 1902, however, a catalyst for innovation struck violently when two trains collided in a tunnel below 54th Street, claiming the lives of fifteen (or seventeen, depending on varying press accounts) passengers. “The tunnel, the dreadful smoke-filled tunnel against which all New York has long stormed and protested, is responsible for the murderous collision of yesterday,” the New York Times proclaimed (voicing a popular perception). The New York Central Railroad should “be compelled by law to abandon the use of steam locomotives for hauling trains through the tunnel.”4

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The management and investors of the New York Central realized that they would be forced to take action. The New York legislature (which opened an official investigation into the accident and summoned the Central’s officers to Albany for hearings) was soon sending signals that it would compel electrification of at least the urban portions of the line. Rather than resist the impending mandate, management decided to meet it head on. Here the central figure in the story becomes William Wilgus, the New York Central’s senior engineer. He may have seemed to be an unlikely agent to champion such sweeping innovation and such a dramatic commitment to electrification. As an engineer,Wilgus was self-taught and joined his first railroad with only the equivalent of a high school education. Nevertheless, he proved a capable engineer and railroad operator, rising through the managerial ranks of the New York Central Railroad to become, by 1902, the company’s fifth vice president.Wilgus lacked experience and expertise in electrical engineering, but he grasped the theoretical commercial benefits of electrification.5 For Wilgus was beginning to recognize that electrification might provide a larger engineering solution for the railroad. By this point, metropolitan and (more particularly) suburban New York was expanding at a rate that was rapidly outpacing the railway’s carrying capacity.The lower end of the city was groaning with people, and observers of all kinds were predicting massive migration to points north and east, particularly by middle-class families that could not afford expensive brownstones yet were anxious to put distance between themselves and the tenements into which the city’s lower classes were crowding in ever-increasing numbers.The installation of a functional commuting infrastructure would create a potentially vast market of fare-paying commuters. Migration had already begun in the late nineteenth century, but the New York Central Rail-

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road’s efforts to capitalize on the demographic shift had quickly come up against operating limits. Steam-driven trains proved ill-suited for carrying commuters, since they accelerated too slowly to handle the frequent stops and starts demanded by high-volume, densely packed, rush-hour traffic. Grasping the situation and perceiving the opening created by the 1902 tunnel accident, Wilgus drew up an ambitious plan that proposed overhauling the railway’s metropolitan map of operations and electrifying the Manhattan portions of the line.6 The idea looked dauntingly expensive. But Wilgus had a solution: “air rights” above underground train lines (which, by his later account, the Central’s chief engineer intuited in 1902)7 became the financial underpinning of an ambitious project that aimed to exploit the possibilities of electrification. By burying its tracks, the New York Central Railroad would in effect create a sizeable and valuable corridor of real estate running right through the middle of the city. Expanding on this idea, Wilgus drew up a plan overhauling Grand Central Station itself by creating two underground levels (a long-distance terminal that sat below a massive multitiered track structure with a suburban terminal) and an above-ground level (“revenue producing structures” such as office buildings, a hotel, and perhaps a theater). The plan hinged on access to capital, but the 1902 accident and subsequent legislative investigation gave Wilgus the impetus to put his plans in motion. In May 1903, the New York state legislature mandated electrification along the underground portions of the railway’s Manhattan lines, further prodding the Central. Sprague by this point had already been drawn into the project. In February 1902, within weeks of the tunnel accident, Wilgus asked him for professional engineering advice on the feasibility of mainline electrification. Sprague’s counsel was characteristically optimistic and

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unequivocal. “Every train movement connected with the terminal and suburban service of the New York Central can be safely and efficiently made electrically,” Sprague assured Wilgus. Since state action compelling electrification appeared certain, the railroad, “instead of waiting for compulsion,” should “acquiesce in the matter,” bargaining only for enough time to implement the conversion under “safe limitations,” Sprague advised.8 For reasons already described, Wilgus was warmly disposed to this counsel. The same day that he received Sprague’s assessment, Wilgus invited him to Albany to testify jointly before the state legislature “as to the time required to change from steam to electricity.”9 Sprague’s involvement deepened as the New York Central Railroad moved forward. By March,Wilgus was sounding him out about joining the project in a more formal capacity. Sprague was receptive, though he was not interested in joining the Central directly. Instead, Sprague proposed an alternative arrangement. Given the technical complexities of the project, he suggested that the railroad establish an “electrical . . . department . . . more or less actively under the direct supervision of consulting engineers who would be members of a Board of Engineers.” This board (a tellingly corporate structure) would steer the technical development of the project. “The functions of the consulting engineers should not be limited simply to attendance at meetings of such a Board and the reviewing of plans,” Sprague stressed. He did not, in other words, envision a body that would merely endorse or passively appraise technical decisions: “Instead, the responsibility should mainly rest upon them for the detail plans and specifications.The problem before you is a somewhat complicated one, and consultants would need to draw largely upon the resources of their own offices as to information and methods, and

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they would not be justified in relieving themselves of direct responsibility.They should be in constant touch with the work.”10 Wilgus was thinking along the same lines. Sprague’s proposal fit “precisely with what I have had mapped out in my mind,” he replied: “We already have in this Department a first class electrical and mechanical force engaged upon the designing of power plants, pumping stations, coaling plants, etc., with an able young man at the head, and by having two Consulting Engineers to act on a Board, I am confident we can secure the best results.”11 As things turned out, it took Wilgus some time (the better part of 1902, in fact) to persuade the Central’s management and board to commit to electrification and by extension to authorize the establishment of a new electrical department and attendant board of consulting engineers. Not until December 15 was Wilgus able to invite Sprague formally into the project. Nonetheless, the Electric Traction Commission (ETC), the body that was charged with designing the technical parameters of the Central’s electrification, took form much as Sprague and Wilgus had envisioned. Two other outside consulting engineers joined Sprague and Wilgus on the Electric Traction Commission.The first was Bion Arnold, who had also been advising the Central on the feasibility of electrification. George Gibbs, who had first made his name as the founder of the Gibbs Electric Company of Milwaukee and then joined Westinghouse when the latter company absorbed his own, also joined the commission.To round out the group, E. B. Katte, the New York Central Railroad’s electrical engineer, joined Wilgus (the railroad’s chief engineer and vice president) in representing the railroad’s management.12 The Electric Traction Commission was thus “composed of strong men,” in the assessment of Western Electrician, ensuring that “the best

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possible solution of the problem presented, in the present state of the art of electric railroading, should be arrived at.”13 Other accounts from leading technical periodicals echoed the chorus of professional approbation that greeted the news of the Central’s plans—news that the railroad actively publicized in its effort to promote the project in the political arena. The Railway Age captured the general tenor of coverage in a detailed feature on the project in January 1906. Describing electrification of the Central as “certainly the most radical and almost certainly the most daring change in the established practice of one of the largest railways in the world,” the article included detailed, comprehensive maps, technical schematics, and photographs of the project, along with charts of engineering data. The feature began, though, by describing how the Central had organized the engineering and technical work encoded in these maps, plans, and diagrams. “Organization is placed first,” The Railway Age explained, “because it is necessary that each detail shall coordinate with every other detail, as to dimension, as to method and as to the time of completion.” In other words, from a professional, technical point of view, the Grand Central Station electrification project was notable first as a method of designing and developing the needed technologies.14 THE DYNAMICS OF TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE ELECTRIC TRACTION COMMISSION

The Electric Traction Commission began meeting in late December 1902, and as both Sprague and Wilgus had envisioned, it assumed decisive technical authority in designing the system architecture and managing its installation. In practical terms, the ETC drew up specifications, handled bids by equipment providers, oversaw the testing

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of equipment, and shaped the technology that would make mainline electrification work. The work was detailed and taxing, demanding major commitments from ETC members.The body met weekly and developed highly detailed processes (specifications, proposals, and test data) itself internally. For example, commission members plotted maximum load curves; drew up train schedules; developed specifications for the electric locomotives; designed train cars, tracks, and third-rail apparatus; and mapped out power stations, substations, transmission lines, feeders, and working conductors along the lines. In all technical decisions, the New York Central Railroad relied on Wilgus to convey the company’s needs and operating exigencies and on the commission to sort out the technological possibilities and come up with the best solutions. Sprague and his colleagues were given a largely free hand technologically.15 As an episode of technological innovation, the electrification of the New York Central Railroad thus unfolded very differently than Sprague’s earlier adventures. In one sense, his personal contributions were more closely constrained. He was working within a team (not at the head of one) and one that was contained within (or more precisely, beside) a corporate managerial structure. Neither he nor the Electric Traction Commission as a whole was going to “invent” mainline electrification. On the other hand, Sprague and his fellow ETC commissioners enjoyed broad technological latitude. They had to make the technology work, but the wider dimensions of engineering this cluster of technologies (its promotion, its marketing, and the assembly of financial, economic, and production resources, all of which had strained Sprague in Richmond in 1887, in NewYork in the early 1890s, and in Chicago in 1897) were essentially handled for the engineers. The commission could focus on technical questions and solutions.

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The Central’s management displayed a striking degree of confidence in the technical judgment of the commission, essentially ceding over responsibility for designing the system technologically. In place of heroic invention, the New York Central substituted professional technological development that was managed by corporate mechanisms. Indeed, the fact that the management of the New York Central Railroad (and by implication, the investors behind the project, since the railroad had to undergo a new round of financing to fund it) was comfortable putting things in the hands of “the experts” indicated that the underlying technology was coming of age. For experts, professional and reliable (from a financial point of view), had by now established the viability of the technology, both functionally and (from an operational point of view) financially. Electrical engineering had become a series of educational programs, a cluster of professional authorities, and an article of popular faith.The technology had achieved solid momentum. Electrification had indeed become a “mainline” project.16 ELECTRIFYING THE NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD

The principal technical decisions that faced the Electric Traction Commission were distinct but interrelated. The commission had to delineate the zone of electrification (map out how much of the railroad should be electrified) and determine the means of delivering power along the route, including whether to adopt overhead or third-rail transmission, as well as direct or alternating current. As an early ETC report noted, the cumulative effect of these questions was going to push the project in innovative technological directions. The “Battle of the Currents” was still raging, but by this point AC’s

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superior capability for long-distance transmission was becoming indisputable. On the other hand, alternating current had rarely been employed for electric traction—in large part because traction to date had been limited to street railways contained within contained spheres of operation, minimizing the distance limitations of DC power transmission. “With a traffic of this [traditional railway] nature,” the ETC recognized, “it was possible to equip long lines with direct current by an arrangement of comparatively short sections served by special generating stations.” Mainline electrification, on the other hand, put larger, heavier trains in motion “at considerable intervals of time,” requiring a system that was capable of transmitting momentary maximum loads that would vary much more widely than those needed in street railway networks.17 The technologies at hand were therefore inadequate. Even so,Wilgus, in particular, pushed to electrify all train traffic that moved through a core zone that encompassed Manhattan and extended to Croton on the Central’s mainline (thirty-three miles from Grand Central Station) and North White Plains on the Harlem line (twenty-two miles from Grand Central).This plan was ambitious, anticipating the development of substantial suburban service outside Manhattan. Should this development succeed, suburban service looked likely to become profitable—and electrified operation would quickly become imperative, given the operational limitations of steam trains. Wilgus’s plans for Grand Central Station, with its buried tracks and “air rights” overhead, severely limited the amount of available space in midtown New York. There would be no room for the facilities that were needed to hand off or switch electric and steam-driven trains. Realizing the New York Central Railroad’s larger commercial ambitions would therefore require either solving the technical limitations of direct-current

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transmission, developing alternating-current equipment, or finding some way to harness AC transmission to DC operation.18 Wilgus, in short, needed the Electric Traction Commission to push the technology. Among his experts, he looked particularly to Sprague to marshal the commissioner behind a plan of action.19 Consensus on the basic technical decisions coalesced within the ETC in a critical series of meetings in late 1903. In October, when Wilgus pressed the commission to approve an expanded zone of electrical operation, Sprague joined the two Central insiders in favor. The other outside consultants, Gibbs and Arnold, balked, however. The hesitation surprised Wilgus.The “four members of the Commission,” he remarked, “had for some time been in favor of Croton as the electric traction terminus,” and he had already “committed the Railroad” to real estate transactions . . . to build a terminal there. Arnold responded that he and Gibbs “did not feel that they were sufficiently informed at the present time to enable them to vote in the affirmative on such a broad question.”They were still waiting for data, he explained,“on the relative cost of alternating vs. direct current electric traction systems.”20 The next day, en route from Chicago (where the Electric Traction Commission had traveled to inspect a General Electric turbo generator plant), the commissioners continued their discussion informally, agreeing to draw up individual “general statements” on the intertwined questions of how widely the zone of electrification should extend and whether the New York Central Railroad should adopt alternating or direct current equipment. On November 3, after listening to Westinghouse present plans for gearless motors and an alternatingcurrent design, the commission’s members retired and resumed their discussion. By this point, positions were aligning. Sprague pressed for the adoption of DC motors but offered Gibbs and Arnold the op-

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portunity to put individual reservations on record. The motion carried unanimously, giving the hesitant commissioners the chance to express their qualms without impeding the impetus of the project.21 Gibbs weighed in with a memo that observed that “no electric locomotive service” yet existed that was “comparable in magnitude or severity to the proposed long-distance high-speed run to Croton.” He was ready to acquiesce, “out of a sense of duty,” to Wilgus’s and Sprague’s clear preference for an extended zone, but he anticipated that the New York Central Railroad was exposing itself to “a temporary risk and expense.” In particular, he noted that “the A.C. motor system” represented “an art which is developing rapidly,” putting the railroad in the position of “adopting apparatus which will be in large part quickly superseded by something more perfect.” Arnold noted that he had championed AC motors for years, still favored them in theory, but recognized that the Central’s legal mandate left little time for the development of necessary AC designs. The commissioners, he reasoned, “would fail in our duty if we assumed the responsibility of trying anything of an experimental nature.”22 Under the circumstances, both Gibbs and Arnold agreed that the Central should stick to the safer, more predictable technology. Sprague had reached the same conclusions. All of his significant work to date in the field had been in direct current, so it was perhaps predictable that he would favor direct-current equipment for the New York Central Railroad (including multiple-unit-equipped motors). But his rationale, as spelled out in a detailed ten-page letter to Wilgus in January 1904, was revealing. The vital question, Sprague reasoned, was the electrification of the entire metropolitan zone. As he saw things, the commercial realities facing the New York Central were imperative. The railroad needed to be able to expand

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aggressively and rapidly into suburban New York City. It had to get systems up and running as fast as possible, and these systems had to be both scalable and workable. Alternating current offered tantalizing technological possibilities, Sprague conceded, but not yet reliable apparatus. And here an uncharacteristic note of technological caution entered his tone. True, promising AC experiments were underway. “But hopeful and confident as I, as well as other engineers are of the practical outcome of this development,” Sprague continued, “we can not avoid the existing legal and commercial necessities of operation.” The technology was not quite ready. “Our determination must be made on the art as we know it today,” Sprague reasoned. Alternatingcurrent equipment had “not yet passed through the crucial fire of commercial reduction to practice on a scale large enough to command adherence for this equipment.”23 THE TERMS OF TECHNOLOGY, THE TONE OF INVENTION

Sprague approached his Grand Central Station responsibilities as stiffly and stridently as ever, with the same studied regard for what he considered to be technologically dictated first principles. But he found himself in a new position as an “independent” consultant and commissioner, and he accordingly adopted a new approach to the technological process. As an inventor /entrepreneur, Sprague had advocated fiercely for his technical ideas and convictions, relishing the opportunity to tilt against rival designs and (in his view) flawed assumptions. He had framed invention as a contest and a righteous one at that. His rhetoric and tone of business had been adversarial, infused with drama, and self-consciously heroic. As a member of the Electric Traction Commission for the New York Central Railroad, Sprague

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modified his persona, cultivating the sober tone of an expert arbiter who was impartial and nonpartisan. This posture would not permit what Sprague considered to be technological compromise. A distinctly Victorian sense of honor had always colored Sprague’s technological efforts and outlook, and he clung to it now. “My own belief and position as to the possibilities of electrical operation,” he had informed (warned?) Wilgus at the outset of their collaboration, “are well known and of a character which would not permit much deviation, even if I had any such desire, which I have not.”24 Sprague remained a prickly individual to work with, jealous of prerogatives and quick to detect encroachment on what he viewed as the Electric Traction Commission’s sphere of authority. When Grand Central Station officers asked the commission to try to design a system that would enable it to interchange New York Central Railroad’s cars and equipment with those of the rapid transit (subway) trains then under construction, Sprague protested what he perceived as an impingement on the technological integrity of the commission’s mission. Disputing the advisability of the idea, he denounced the interference as “tending to grave limitations in deciding broader and more momentous questions.” Management’s meddling, Sprague declared, threatened the commission’s technological prerogative: “let us have a free hand, untrammeled by an attempt to meet the assumed convenience of a minority of travelers.”25 Taken aback (and, one senses, bemused),Wilgus hastened to clarify the New York Central Railroad’s position. Sprague’s protest had been “the first intimation” that he had received that the railroad might be “trammeling the full exercise by the Commission of its judgment in arriving at a final conclusion,” the chief engineer assured Sprague in a letter that he also sent the other commission members. Interchangeability

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of equipment would be preferable but should not be considered a dictum: “the matter . . . is wide open and I will be glad if you will exercise entire freedom in advancing any opinions or taking any position that you think proper to bring about the best results for the interests of the Company.”26 Another commission-related exchange, this one with George Westinghouse, gave Sprague a further occasion to articulate and embody the new role that he was assuming. Westinghouse, whose company was bidding on several components of the Grand Central Station electrification project, took issue with the technological mediation that Sprague and his fellow commissioners interposed—and did so publicly in a letter to Engineering magazine in January 1903.Westinghouse observed that one of the commissioners (Sprague) remained connected with and interested in a rival bidder (General Electric Company, via Sprague’s multiple-unit arrangements). Sprague responded with a sally of his own. It was Westinghouse, not Sprague, whose “views” were “tinctured with personal commercialism,” the latter insisted. Sprague denied that he retained any direct links with General Electric. “The Consulting Engineer whose professional record needs no apology, and who numbers among his associates some of the most brilliant and successful of the creators of great public works,” he continued,“may well take exception to the assumption that all the essentials of a railway contract . . . shall be turned over to the representatives, no matter however able individually, of a special manufacturing interest.”27 Of course, just a few years before, Sprague himself had engineered a series of technologies by assuming full responsibility for development via “special manufacturing interest[s]”—an irony that evidently escaped him. Now, however, he represented “The Consult-

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ing Engineer” (the capitalization in the title was his), a figure who assumed a grave public responsibility in sorting through options and passing rational, disinterested judgment. The exchange with Westinghouse (which revived in 1905) was typical of many of Sprague’s interactions. Instinctively defensive, he bristled when questioned and often seemed to seek out or at least relish confrontation.Technology was always a very personal arena for this inventor. But now the terms of the confrontation had shifted perceptibly. Although once he had been an entrepreneur who aspired to heroic invention, Sprague now identified himself within a new discourse by assuming the role of the supremely rational engineer of the early twentieth century.Thorstein Veblen, in The Engineers and the Price System (1921), celebrated this breed of technologist, and figures such as Frederick Taylor and Herbert Hoover embodied the archetype. And Sprague, with his technical training and engineering abilities, was already claiming membership in this club. (Years later, the same company praised Sprague’s accomplishments.)28 But Sprague was relinquishing old habits and assumptions as he joined the New York Central Railroad’s mainline electrification project and refashioned himself as “The Consulting Engineer.” Innovation in this case was not going to require heroic invention or a bold entrepreneurial gambit. By this point, both the technology and the underlying system had acquired a momentum of its own. This technology would not have to be staged. It may not have been engineering itself, but it had already won the confidence of investment capital (signified by the compliant backing of the Central’s board of directors and investors) and achieved sufficient stability of process to come under the managerial purview of agents like Wilgus. In other words, the

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technology this time around was not being ventured so much as it was being managed. The needed resources, smoothly marshaled by the formidable financial and political powers of the New York Central, coalesced with none of the drama that had characterized Sprague’s urgent, improvised, behind-the-scenes scrambling in Richmond,Virginia, in 1887, in New York in 1893 and 1894, or in Chicago in the late 1890s. Significant technical problems required skillful technical solutions. But electrification was distinctly ready to go mainline in New York City in 1903—which is to say that electrification was already going mainstream. All of this left Sprague in the unaccustomed position of being invited into the process rather than instigating it. This development left him feeling both gratified and vindicated. His expert counsel could and did shape the technical decisions at hand. His expertise was recognized; his influence was authoritative. And yet in the new order of things, Sprague no longer occupied center stage, as Grand Central Station took shape. “The whirligig of time has for the moment put me in the position of critic and engineer instead of investor and constructor,” he observed in 1904.29 Several years later, at a 1909 dinner of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Sprague (by now fifty-two years old) “humorously” suggested that the Institute’s former presidents “should reconstitute themselves a body of Elder Statesmen, who, having received the highest honor from their associates, and having no further official ambitions, should be proud of the opportunity, as well as content in its employment, of abiding, by unselfish counsel and with mature judgment, in the administration of its affairs.”30 The toast was tongue-in-cheek, but the ambivalence beneath was unmistakable.

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THE RICHMOND UNION PASSENGER RAILWAY STORY

An undertone of ambivalence or perhaps restlessness may also have played a role in Sprague’s decision to return to and retell the Richmond Union Passenger Railway story. In 1905, he prepared an expanded narrative recounting the evolution of electric railway and multiple-unit technologies, including a particularly detailed account of the drama at Richmond,Virginia. This version of the Richmond story, Sprague’s fullest telling, appeared in a pair of articles entitled “The Story of the Trolley Car” that ran in the June and July issues of The Century Magazine, a leading monthly periodical. “The development of the trolley,” Century’s editors stated in an editorial introduction, “is one of the most remarkable phenomena of our time, and no electrician has done more to bring about this development than Mr. Sprague, who was the first to establish a successful trolley line in a large city, and whose electric system is now in use on the New York Elevated Road and in the Subway.”31 Now addressing a popular, nonprofessional audience (of educated, upscale readers that Century cultivated with offerings such as “With Perry in Japan: Personal Recollections of the Expedition of 1853–54” and “Notable Women: The Late Princess Mathilde”),32 Sprague provided some technical drawings and explanations but kept the account colorful and accessible. The first article described early iterations of the technology (Davenport, Farmer, Field, etc.) as well as efforts at design, development, and commercialization contemporary to Sprague’s in the early 1880s (Leo Daft and Charles Van Depoele). The second article recounted “Later Experiments and Present State of the Art,” picking up the story in Richmond.

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The demands of entrepreneurship had made Sprague into a fairly skilled promoter. He knew how to how to stage a technological proposition, deliver an effective speech, and write lively prose. By 1905, electric railways no longer required much technological or commercial promotion, but Sprague evidently felt that the story needed further framing and definition. He wanted the episode to be widely understood as part of a technological process and also as the result of a heroic effort of invention. Part 1 of the essay recounted the incremental evolution of preceding versions and described the iterative technological development that had led up to (and in Sprague’s account, built up to) Richmond as electric trolley cars reached the threshold of realization. Part 2 shifted the scene to Richmond and Sprague and stressed the obstacles that stood in the way of realization and the initiative required to overcome them as he and his team struggled to (more or less simultaneously) develop, refine, install, and commercialize the technology. “The story is an old and typical one,” this second part began. “A new confederacy was assaulted [a pun on the coincidence of building the system in the former capitol of the Confederate government], but this time it was one of physical difficulties, adverse conditions, and all the ills of a new and untried system.” The going had been tough, Sprague noted repeatedly. He dwelt on the recklessly bold nature of the contract that he had signed to gain the opportunity to build the railway, the “unprepared state of [his] company to undertake a work of so great magnitude,” the extent of development and design that had to be assembled, improvised, and otherwise accomplished (“When the contract was taken we had only a blue print of a machine and some rough experimental apparatus, and a hundred and one essential details were undetermined”).33

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Specific incidents within the episode heightened the drama and underscored the individual effort of invention, the urgency of improvisation, and the seeming unlikelihood of success. Sprague told of first encountering the hills that his railway would have to scale and made the most of the larger metaphor: “I shall never forget my feelings when . . . I reached the foot of the steepest hill.” (An accompanying photograph, taken from the crest of one hill as a trolley makes its way up, illustrated the point.) He recounted burning out the first motors climbing those hills and then waiting for “the instruments” (the mules) to haul the railway cars back to the sheds for overhaul. In sum, Sprague emphasized that developing and installing the electric railway had required “energy, pluck, and endurance.” Everything had hung in the balance. In his words: “The road must be made to go at any cost. Its failure would prove a serious blow to railway development; to my own future, as well as to that of my associates, failure in Richmond meant blasted hopes and financial ruin.”34 Among the technical drawings and photographs, several lithograph illustrations made the point graphically: one depicted Pat O’Shaughnessy (Sprague’s mechanic) perched precariously on the roof of a railway car, knocking sleet off of the overhead line with a broom; another showed a crowd of Richmond citizens, backs bent, shoulders straining as they worked a derailed car back onto the tracks.35 The Century articles framed the Richmond narrative as one of heroic invention. Sprague himself was undergoing a professional transition, moving from aggressive entrepreneurship into a new identity as professional, expert, and consultant. Nevertheless, he clung to an earlier sense of himself and his accomplishments that celebrated his personal role as a technological pioneer—a maverick pitted against skeptics, waging an essentially individual struggle. He sensed that the

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context for making technology was shifting.Yet Sprague’s faith in the vitality of invention as a personal quest remained undiminished. The conviction, long a personal article of faith, was becoming for him a social and a historical claim. ELDER STATESMAN

Sprague’s involvement in electrification of the New York Central Railroad was one indication of his professional status as a leading authority in the field of electrical technologies. Another came as World War I spread toward American waters (literally, in the form of German submarines). In 1915, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels invited prominent civilian American inventors to lend their expertise to modernizing the U.S. Navy. Seeking, in his own words, to implement “proper machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet the new conditions of warfare as shown abroad,” Daniels asked Thomas Edison to help assemble an advisory board gathering “the nation’s very greatest civilian experts in machines.” Plans for a Naval Consulting Board of the United States took shape behind this impetus. Observers anticipated the appointment of famous inventors (Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, Hiram Maxim). Daniels took a somewhat different approach, following Edison’s advice and selecting members on the basis of recommendations from leading professional societies. Board members emerging from this process included Hudson Maxim (Hiram’s brother, nominated by the Aeronautical Society), Elmer Sperry (American Society of Aeronautical Engineers), and, on the recommendation of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Frank Julian Sprague.36

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The Naval Consulting Board organized itself in 1916 and began surveying technical problems and opportunities that were confronting the navy. Various special committees were formed to focus the board’s efforts, and Sprague assumed chairmanships of committees on electricity and shipbuilding and joined other committees investigating submarines, ordnance, explosives, and special problems. He devoted substantial effort to several particularly pressing technical projects. The first involved developing new types of armor-piercing shells.Working closely with his eldest son, Desmond, Sprague helped design shells that exploded after penetrating armor (rather than on impact).This work resulted in a new, more lethal type of ordnance.37 The most urgent problem facing the Naval Consulting Board, the U.S. Navy, and the nation, however, was German submarine attacks, and Sprague led a board-sponsored team in a research and development initiative to improve the navy’s primitive and largely ineffective depth charges.Working in navy laboratories and testing prototypes off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, Sprague and his colleagues developed a design incorporating increased explosive charges and pressure-sensitive firing mechanisms that enabled U-boat hunters to detonate the charges at varying preset depths. Sprague’s involvement in development was very much hands-on.Years later, his son Desmond recalled that “the old man daily risk[ing] his life in testing gout depth charges and shells off Sandy Hook.”38 His service on the Naval Consulting Board represented something of a return to duty for Sprague (in a civilian capacity), given his Annapolis education and naval background. Other marks of recognition buttressed the recognition of professional standing that bolstered him in these later years. A string of honorary degrees recognized Sprague’s accomplishments and enhanced his reputation—doctor

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of engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology, doctor of science from Columbia University, and doctor of laws from the University of Pennsylvania. Other prestigious awards arrived as well, including the Elliott-Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1904 (for multiple-unit control) (one of two Franklin medals that Sprague received; in 1924 he garnered a second Franklin medal “for fundamental inventions and achievements in electrical engineering”), and the grand prize at the 1905 St. Louis Electrical Exposition (for development in electric railways). Engineering societies regularly lauded Sprague’s accomplishments.The American Institute of Electrical Engineers, for example, which Sprague for a time had led as president, made him an Edison medalist in 1910.39 BACK TO VENTURING

Perhaps in an effort to help cultivate an aura of distinguished accomplishment, Sprague’s appetite for further entrepreneurial adventure cooled noticeably for a time. In keeping with his new stance as “elder statesman,” Sprague’s efforts to commercialize one component invention that emerged from his work on the New York Central Railroad remained noticeably detached. To run 600 volts of current along the Central’s tracks reliably in all-weather conditions, the Electric Traction Commission had settled on a third-rail architecture. Yet third rails then operating on elevated lines were proving highly vulnerable to sleet and freezing rain. To solve this problem, Sprague collaborated with Wilgus to design an upside-down rail, suspended from side brackets and insulated on three sides (exposed beneath) by a wooden sheath. This design (which both Sprague and Wilgus described as a mutual idea) soon attracted interest from other railroads.

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The partners in effect “donated” their invention to the New York Central Railroad and then formed a separate venture, the Standard Third Rail Company, to exploit external commercial possibilities.They did not ramp up independent manufacturing or marketing operations, however, but contented themselves with licensing the technology to interested railroads. In any event, complicated patent disputes clouded the venture’s commercial prospects.40 Subsequent ventures, however, drew Sprague further back into the fray. In 1906, after studying the phenomenon of railroad accidents in which train operators ignored warning lights, he formed the Sprague Safety Control and Signal Corporation and began developing an automatic train control (ATC) system. Drawing in part on his earlier work on “dead man’s control” elevator safety control devices (which, under certain conditions, automatically assumed control of elevator cars to cut off power and brake them), Sprague envisioned a system that would trigger an automatic circuit when train engineers rode through danger signals, bringing the train to a stop. Sprague had the basic design worked out and patented by the mid-1910s. Efforts to capitalize on the technology faltered, though. Not until the 1920s did automatic train control gain the backing of the Interstate Commerce Commission (in the form of mandated implementation of Sprague’s or comparable safety systems on forty-nine railroads). Patent disputes then mired the venture. And meanwhile, developing ATC absorbed considerable resources—this time, Sprague’s personal resources. He funded the costs of development out of pocket, including extensive testing on General Electric’s Schenectady facilities and on the New York Central Railroad’s main line near Yonkers, New York. The financial pressures that were created by this commitment mounted as litigation and patent disputes bogged business down.

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The ambiguous results in automatic train control were discouraging, but they did not dampen Sprague’s readiness to undertake new projects and ventures. In 1927, at age seventy, he returned to the field of electric elevators when a plan struck him for encasing a coordinated pair of elevator cars in one elevator shaft: one car would run express to a midlevel floor and then make local stops at all floors above, and a second car would make local stops on lower floors. The two cars, Sprague saw, could be put on the same rails but equipped with separate hoist mechanisms and control systems. This architecture substantially reduced the number of elevator shafts that would be needed to service the large skyscrapers then rising in cities like New York. A variant design building off of the automatic train control mechanism would prevent collisions. Inspired, Sprague mapped out the system, secured a series of patents, and assembled several working models. Again he funded the development personally, and again he ran into obstacles as he tried to stage the technology. Building code officials initially balked at the concept’s safety uncertainties.Then the Great Depression struck, slowing skyscraper construction and further straining Sprague’s already extended resources.The dual elevator project, in fact, soon consumed a substantial share of Sprague’s personal finances. Eventually, in 1931, he cut his losses, licensing the invention to Westinghouse, which installed a system in its headquarters in Pittsburgh, giving Sprague at least the satisfaction of seeing his invention in operation. Still, as a bid for yet another round of heroic invention, the dual elevator fell short. Undaunted, Sprague pursued other possibilities. A visitor invited to the inventor’s laboratory at 421 Canal Street in New York in the early 1930s found him tinkering with various projects. The most ambitious of these late ventures proposed a new design for

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animated electric signs. After witnessing the sign that ran in a narrow horizontal band around the New York Times Building, Sprague conceived a vertical, rectangular version that would run text from bottom to top (similar, in inverted fashion, to movie screen titles). After preliminary design work, Sprague filed for patents and assembled several prototypes. “It is always hard to convince the conservative element,” he explained. “They won’t believe anything they see in a laboratory. I will have to do with this what I have always done—set it up outside someplace, start it going, and then say to them, ‘There it is.’”41 In that succinct credo lay Sprague’s abiding faith in the powers of individual technological agency and heroic invention: “Set it up outside someplace, start it going, and then say to them, ‘There it is.’”The conviction may have sounded quixotic or quaint, but it had informed and framed Sprague’s career from the outset. He held to it until the very end of his life. In October 1934, Sprague died of complications stemming from pneumonia. He was seventy-seven and exasperated that the doctor had barred lab assistants from his bedside. Inventing to the end, he had worked out some circuit modifications that he was anxious to review with his aides. LEGACIES

Although Frank Sprague made several fortunes, they were largely depleted by the time he died. His less tangible legacies were more enduring. One was filial. In the 1920s, his son Bob launched a twentiethcentury version of his father’s career by founding his own electric (or more precisely, electronic) venture. Initially focusing on tone controls

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(for radios), the business faltered for a short time and then found a foothold making and selling condensers to radio manufacturers.This new iteration of Sprague Electric Company lasted several generations, drawing in Bob’s brother Julian and Frank’s grandsons Robert C. Sprague Jr. and John Sprague and becoming a formidable midsized electronic components enterprise. Sprague’s legacy as an inventor had long been secured.Throughout most of his later life, Sprague was celebrated in professional circles as “the father of electric traction.” To this day, trolleys run on architectures that stem directly from Sprague’s ideas, and multiple-unit control remains a core system component in controlling mass transit and other electrical systems.42 The robustness of Sprague’s core technological contributions certainly are historically important. For the historian of technology, however, the significance of Sprague’s biography extends beyond his specific accomplishments. Sprague’s career makes a case for the vital role that individual agency played in midwiving the technological process. His claims for heroic invention were often exaggerated and sometimes overblown. Sprague himself never managed to control or define even those technologies that he could legitimately claim to have invented. Nevertheless, his efforts repeatedly catalyzed technological change. He did not singlehandedly generate or shape the direction of technological momentum. Larger social, economic, and cultural forces were always at work on and around Sprague. But he fed off of and into that technological momentum, using it to design, pilot, and construct artifacts and system components that literally reshaped the landscape. Sprague’s enduring significance stemmed in part from his technological creativity and his resourcefulness as an inventor. But ulti-

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mately, Sprague made himself a force to be reckoned with because he managed to engineer his technologies. He built them in prototype after he designed them, and then he worked them up as pilot projects and sustainable businesses. He staged them as viable systems and profitable commercial propositions, and in doing so he cultivated technological adoption. Sprague’s career points unmistakably to the crucial role that entrepreneurship played in generating and sustaining the technologies of the early electrical industry. In short, Sprague did not just invent: he engineered. He staged the technological process as a personal drama. Heroic invention may have been a conceit or a myth, but he made it into one that was real and powerful.

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AFTERWORD: THE BARN John Sprague

My father, Robert C. Sprague (often referred to as “RC” as an adult), was born in 1900, the first of three children born to Frank Julian Sprague and his second wife, Harriet Chapman Jones. Very bright, like my grandfather he went to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and graduated in three years at the age of nineteen. RC served on active duty in the 1920s and earned a master of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before resigning from the U.S. Navy in 1928. He remained deeply involved with MIT throughout his life, becoming a lifetime member of the MIT Corporation in 1955. Two distinguished MIT professors, Jerrold Zacharias and Jerome Wiesner, served as long-time members of Sprague Electric Company’s board of directors. Although lacking my grandfather’s genius, RC proved to be a brilliant businessman. In 1926, while serving as a member of the staff supervising the design and construction of the aircraft carrier USS

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Lexington, he developed an adjustable tone control for a radio based on his invention of a new kind of tapped paper capacitor. Shortly afterward, RC and his wife, Florence, formed the Sprague Specialties Company. Based on a suggestion by RC’s younger brother, Julian, who had joined the firm, the decision was made to concentrate on the new capacitor, and the company prospered. My grandfather Frank was an early investor but played no role in its management. In 1943, Sprague Specialties Company was renamed Sprague Electric Company, after Frank’s most famous company. Before it was dismantled in the late 1980s by Penn Central Corporation, which owned it at the time, Sprague Electric became one of the largest and most successful electronic component corporations in the world. My father died peacefully at home in 1991, leaving behind an estate that included several houses and a large barn, which for many years had been used only for storage. In early 1998, the barn had to be cleaned out before it could be sold, and I agreed to undertake the task. At the time, I knew very little about my grandfather Frank. A largescale model of one of his early wheelbarrow types of railway motor suspension systems had been displayed in my father’s office, and my parents’ home had been filled with photographs and other memorabilia about him. Still, for reasons I will never understand, my grandfather was seldom a topic of conversation in our home, and I had yet to absorb the contents of the extraordinary collection of letters in the anniversary books that were presented to him in 1932 at his seventy-fifth birthday celebration and given to me by my father in the mid-1980s. Since graduate school, my own field had been semiconductor electronics, and early electric motors held little interest for me at the time. I certainly didn’t expect to find much in an old barn. I was wrong.

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It was large, cavernous, and depressing, darkly lit by several small bulbs hanging from the ceiling and with the stagnant smell of an old horse barn. There was empty space near the large sliding front doors where cars must have been stored in the distant past, and behind it was an accumulation of what appeared to be mostly junk—rotting hay from an earlier period; rusty old farm equipment; boxes galore, some empty and some filled with papers; and piles of heavy plywood. Attached to the plywood were rows of lightbulb sockets, some empty and some with mostly broken bulbs in place. The floor was littered with shards of glass and rodent droppings. I had no idea how such pieces of engineered wood could have been used, but I vaguely remembered hearing about one of my grandfather’s last ventures, a programmable electric sign system. Continuing toward the rear of the building, I found a small room with several windows. Except for more natural light, there seemed to be little of interest in this room, but I noticed a small piece of rusty equipment sitting on a table.Wiping the dirt and grime from the name plate, I was startled to see the date of 1884 and realized that this might be something important. I recognized that someone who knew a lot more than I did about my grandfather’s inventions needed to go through the barn before its contents were carted away. So a call was made to Branford, Connecticut, to the Shore Line Trolley Museum, which already contained a number of Frank Sprague artifacts, donated many years earlier by my grandmother, Harriet.Within days, a team from the museum arrived to go through the barn. They found a number of items of interest and took away, among other things, old business papers, electric sign boxes, and components from the Sprague electric automatic train control system. Several months later, the barn was emptied, and I

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watched as the remnants of the Sign Company, Frank J. Sprague’s final inventive effort, disappeared into the back of a dump truck headed for the local landfill. But the real gem was the small piece in the back room, which turned out to be probably the earliest preserved model of one of Frank Sprague’s first stationary electric motors. It had been constructed in 1884 and could be used to power looms, presses, and the like, which up to that time had been driven by hand, water, or steam. The small motor was one of the first tangible examples of FJS’s genius. Lovingly rebuilt and brought back to working order at the Branford Museum over the next year, in 1999 it became the centerpiece of a new permanent exhibit in the museum’s Sprague Building. I attended the dedication ceremony for this exhibit, titled Frank J. Sprague: Inventor, Scientist, Engineer, with a number of other family members, including my cousin Peter, Julian’s son, and several of Frank Sprague’s great-great-grandchildren. One of them had the opportunity to stand at the throttle of an ancient railcar as it slowly moved down the tracks of the museum’s short trolley line, much as Frank’s ten-year-old son, Desmond, had in 1897 when he piloted the controls of a six-car elevated demonstration train in Chicago. I am certain that my grandfather would have been both amused and pleased. Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2006

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INTRODUCTION

1. “Electric Railways,” Electrical World (May 5, 1883): 276. 2. Ibid. 3. “Invention” here signifies the conceptualization and design of a technological idea, while “innovation” signifies the work of effecting successful adoption of that idea. 4. The seminal work here is Thomas Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification of Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983). 5. Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, vol. 3, Wealth and Industry (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1871), 399ff. 6. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, vol. 2, Manufacturing (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1881), 14, 10.

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7. Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890, vol. 11, Manufacturing Industries (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1891), 76. The 1890 figures included telegraph equipment manufacturers. They do not include providers of “Electric Light and Power” (utilities). 8. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, vol. 7, Manufactures (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901), part 1, United States by Industries, 7, 531. 9. Alfred Chandler Jr., Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 213. Chandler observes that a parallel series of events in Germany resulted in two equally dominant German electrical manufacturers—AEG and Siemens & Halske—creating a “global oligopoly’s Big Four” that controlled the industry into the mid-1900s. 10. Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875–1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), 150. 11. General Electric Annual Report, 1903 (Schenectady, NY: General Electric, 1903). 12. See especially, among many sources, Alfred Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977); and David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984). 13. W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 269. Philip Scranton more precisely characterizes General Electric and Westinghouse as “bridge” producers that learned how to mass produce small components such as bulbs and switches, while batch producing major equipment such as large motors. See Philip Scranton, Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865–1925 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 221–240. 14. See especially Chandler, Scale and Scope, 212–213; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 269.

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15. 1890 Census, vol. 11, Manufacturing Industries, part 1, 76. The figure for “Electric Light and Power” evidently includes power stations as well as lighting equipment manufacturing. 16. See Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 287–289 (for Lee, Higginson’s financing of Thomson-Houston Electric Company), 293 (for Henry Higginson’s efforts to effect consolidation); also D. G. Buss, Henry Villard: A Study of Transatlantic Investments and Interest, 1870–1895 (New York: Arno Press, 1978); Malcolm MacLaren, The Rise of the Electrical Industry during the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943). 17. Chandler, The Visible Hand, 426. Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, stresses this point (287, 300) and through the story of Thomson-Houston Electric Company illustrates the dramatic effect that this financial reality had on the evolution of the enterprise. 18. Thomas Commerford Martin, “Electrical Apparatus and Supplies,” 1900 U.S. Census, vol. 10, Manufactures, part 4, Special Reports on Selected Industries. 19. Paul Israel makes this point in From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory: Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention, 1830–1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 1–2. The railroads remained confined to whatever territories a given company’s roads covered. 20. See W. Bernard Carlson,“Entrepreneurship in the Early Development of the Telephone: How Did William Orton and Gardiner Hubbard Conceptualize This New Technology?” Business and Economic History 23, no. 2 (Winter 1994): 161–192. 21. Chandler, Visible Hand, 426–433. On structural innovation within General Electric, see also Harold Passer, “Development of Large-Scale Organization, Electrical Manufacturing around 1900,” Journal of Economic History 12 (Fall 1952): 378–395. On the General Electric laboratory, see George Wise, “A New Role for Professional Scientists in Industry: Industrial Research at General Electric, 1900–1916,” in Stephen H. Cutcliffe and Terry S. Reynolds, eds., Technology and American History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 217–238.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

22. Jill Jones, Empires of Light: Edison,Tesla,Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World (New York: Random House, 2003). 23. Hughes, Networks of Power, 1. 24. David E. Nye, Technology Matters: Questions to Live With (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), 50. 25. David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990), 86. Chapter 3, “Crosstown Transfer,” takes the electric railway as a case of a technology that organically defined itself; Nye discusses Sprague briefly at 88–89. 26. All three quotes come from a set of letter books that were assembled by Sprague’s peers and family in 1932 to commemorate his seventy-fifth birthday. Sprague Seventy-fifth Anniversary books, 1932, Sprague Family Papers, Chapin Library,Williamstown, MA. 27. “Tech Congress Closes,” Boston Transcript, April 13, 1911, reporting on an address Sprague delivered in observance of MIT’s fiftieth anniversary at the Technology Union. Sprague titled his talk “The Romance and Realities of Engineering.” CHAPTER 1

1. E. Wilbur Rice and W. H. Sawyer, Sprague Seventy-fifth Anniversary books, 1932, Sprague Family Papers, Chapin Library, Williamstown, MA. A third (anonymous) colleague is quoted in Frank Rowsome Jr., “The Man Who Invented Commuting,” chapter 1, 6–8 (manuscript, 1961). Both manuscript sources are in the possession of John Sprague,Williamstown, MA. 2. On the concept of “technological momentum” and the electrical technologies of the period, see Hughes, Networks of Power, esp. 14–17. 3. Sprague genealogical information compiled by John Sprague and communicated to author, May 1, 2002. 4. Susan Amelia Shove, “Obituary of Frank J. Sprague,” Milford News, July 1932. Clipping in possession of John Sprague,Williamstown, MA.

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5. See, e.g., David Cummings Sprague to Frank Julian Sprague (hereafter FJS), July 9, 1874, FJS Papers, box 1, New York Public Library (hereafter NYPL), in which Frank Sprague’s father, David, congratulates him for his acceptance to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. The tone is proud but formal and awkward. 6. FJS remarks at his seventy-fifth birthday celebration, July 25, 1932. 7. E. G. Sprague, The Ralph Sprague Geneology 1913 (Montpelier,VT: Capital City Press, 1913). 8. FJS,“Some Notes for Institute’s Anniversary, May 1934—Not Used in Final Article,” ca. 1934 (in the possession of John Sprague,Williamstown, MA). 9. “Double Ties Bind Noted Inventor to North Adams,” North Adams Transcript, July 26, 1932. 10. For an overview of early North Adams industry, see Ridley & Co.’s Directory of North Adams (North Adams, MA, 1874). 11. Ridley & Co.’s Director of North Adams. 12. FJS, “Some Notes for Institute’s Anniversary.” 13. Orson Dalrymple, “History of the Hoosac Tunnel,” (North Adams, MA, 1880; reprinted by North Adams Historical Society, c. 1998). 14. Ibid., 3. 15. Ibid., 3. 16. “Double Ties Bind Noted Inventor to North Adams.” 17. It is not clear who provided these funds. Could Hoosac Tunnel contractor Walter Shanley have been one of Sprague’s patrons? 18. See Frederick S. Harrod, “New Technology in the Old Navy: The United States Navy during the 1870s,” American Neptune 53 (1993): 5–19. Morison is cited on 5. 19. Jack Sweetman, The U.S. Naval Academy: An Illustrated History, 2nd ed., rev. by Thomas J. Cutler (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 107–108.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

20. Ibid., 114. 21. Anne Marie Drew, ed., Letters from Annapolis: Midshipmen Write Home, 1848–1969 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998), 66, 70. 22. Sweetman, The U.S. Naval Academy, 107. 23. FJS, “Personal Recollections of S. Dana Greene,” Street Railway Journal, Feburary 3, 1900. 24. Electrical World 14 (September 7, 1888): 163. 25. David Cummings Sprague to FJS, July 9, 1874, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 26. William Dean Howells, “A Sennight of the Centennial,” Atlantic Monthly 38 ( July 1876): 96. 27. Quoted in Robert C. Post, ed., 1876: A Centennial Exhibition (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1976), 63. For a contemporary tourguide of the Exposition’s attractions, see J. S. Ingram, Centennial Exposition Described and Illustrated (Philadelphia: Hubbard, 1876; reprinted New York: Arno Press, 1976). 28. Nye, Electrifying America, 37, 35. 29. FJS, “Personal Recollections of S. Dana Greene.” 30. Thomas Commerford Martin, “Electrical Apparatus and Supplies,” 1900 U.S. Census, vol. 10, Manufactures, part 4, Special Reports on Selected Industries. 31. Editorial, Electrical World 1 (May 26, 1883): 326. 32. George Wise, “Brush, Charles Francis,” American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 3: 800. 33. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 230. 34. Edward L. Lach Jr., “George Westinghouse,” American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 23: 83. 35. Emerson Electric Company, A Century of Manufacturing, 1890–1990 (St. Louis, 1989).

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

36. Thomas Hughes, Elmer Sperry: Inventor and Engineer (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), 13. 37. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 21. 38. Hughes, Sperry, 21. 39. FJS, “Digging in the Mines of Motors,” Electrical Engineering 53 (1934): 695. 40. See Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 153. 41. Ibid., 168. 42. Quoted in ibid., 156. For more on Edison as a potent mythic figure, see Wyn Wachhorst, Thomas Alva Edison, and American Myth (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981); and David Nye, The Invented Self: An Anti-biography from Documents of Thomas A. Edison (Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1983). 43. Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 164–166. 44. FJS to Frankie (probably Frances Scott), December 29, 1879, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 45. FJS to Frances Scott, undated (ca summer 1879), FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 46. Ibid. 47. FJS, “Digging in the Mines of Motors,” 696. 48. FJS, “Electric Traction in the Space of Three Dimensions,” Journal of the Maryland Academy of Sciences 2, nos. 3–4 (December 1931): 167. 49. Patent no. 304,195 (Frank J. Sprague, U.S. Navy). 50. FJS, “Digging in the Mines of Motors,” 696. 51. FJS, Report on the Exhibits at the Crystal Palace Electrical Exhibition, 1882 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1883), 7. 52. Ibid., 7–8. 53. Louis C. Hunter and Lynwood Bryant, A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1780–1930, vol. 3, The Transmission of Power (Cambridge: MIT

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

Press, 1991), 63. Mining Magazine quoted ibid., 64. Hunter and Bryant discuss the shift in technological mainstream from steam engines to hot air engines in the middle decades of the nineteenth century before shifting again to internal combustion engines and electric motors. 54. FJS, Report on the Exhibits at the Crystal Palace Electrical Exhibition, 99 (“I consider that the incandescent lamp is the lamp of the future”), 105–106. 55. FJS to William E. Chandler, Secretary of the Navy, March 12, 1883, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 56. Edward H. Johnson to Thomas A. Edison, April 11, 1883, Edison Papers online collection. 57. Thomas A. Edison to Edward H. Johnson, April 23, 1883, Edison Papers online collection. 58. FJS, “Digging in the Mines of Motors,” 697. 59. See, for example, FJS to Thomas A. Edison, September 10, 1883, Edison Papers online collection: “I must distinctly resent any electrical criticism on electrical matters on the part of Insull, both as regards the parts which are necessary, or how they should be used.” 60. FJS, “Digging in the Mines of Motors,” 697. See also the address by Philip Lang to the Engineers’ Club of Manchester, England, March 15, 1907, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 61. FJS, “Digging in the Mines of Motors,” 697–698. 62. See FJS, Notebooks March 1884–May 1884, FJS Papers, box 105, NYPL. 63. FJS to Thomas A. Edison, April 24, 1884, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. CHAPTER 2

1. “Electric Railways,” Electrical World, May 5, 1883, 276. 2. FJS, “Birth of the Electric Railway,” Transit Journal, September 15, 1934, 318.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

3. FJS, “Digging in the Mines of Motors,” 697. 4. FJS, “The Story of the Trolley Car,” Century Magazine ( July 1905): 440. 5. FJS, “Digging in the Mines of Motors,” 697. 6. Sprague himself chronicled the technological evolution of the electric railway in “The Story of the Trolley Car,” 434–451, an account that is generally reliable. See also Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 218–255. 7. FJS, “The Story of the Trolley Car,” 436. 8. Ibid., 437. 9. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 219–221; Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York: Wiley, 1998), 198–199. 10. “Electric Motors and the Elevated Railways,” Electrical World (December 27, 1884): 268. 11. On Charles Van Depoele, see Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 230–231; FJS, “The Growth of Electric Railways,” Paper delivered to the American Electric Railway Association, October 12, 1916, reprinted in The American Electric Railway Association (October 1916): 12. 12. On Bentley and Knight, see Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 225–230; FJS, “The Growth of Electric Railways,” 13–14. 13. On Daft, see FJS, “The Growth of Electric Railways,” 12–13; “The Daft Electric Motor,” Electrical World (August 23, 1884): 57; “Electric Railways,” Electrical World (October 25, 1884): 156. 14. Hughes spells out the concept of the “reverse salient” in Networks of Power, 79–80, and describes Sprague on 82. 15. FJS, “The Growth of Electric Railways,” 16. 16. FJS, “The Electric Railway. First Paper,” 445. 17. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 238–239. 18. For background on Johnson, see Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 100– 102; Israel, Edison, 216–218, 222.

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19. Quoted in Rowsome, “The Man Who Invented Commuting,” chapter 4, 12. 20. Certificate of Incorporation and minutes from first board meeting, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 21. “The Van Depoele System at the Exhibition,” Electrical World (September 27, 1884): 109; “A Review of Electrical Events and Progress in 1884,” Electrical World ( January 10, 1885): 12. 22. FJS, “The Growth of Electric Railways,” 17. 23. On Bergmann’s various strategic linkages to the Edison companies, see Israel, Edison, 199. 24. On Batchelor’s financial involvement, see Edward Johnson to Charles Batchelor, October 26, 1887; Charles Batchelor to Edward Johnson, November 8, 1887; Edward Johnson to Charles Batchelor, March 8, 1888, Edison Papers online collection. 25. On Bergmann’s financial involvement, see Sigmund Bergmann to Thomas A. Edison, November 20, 1888, Edison Papers online collection: “When the Sprague Company was formed about 3 years ago, I had the opportunity of taking an active interest in the enterprise, and by investing a few thousand, of making a hundred thousand.” 26. Thomas A. Edison to Samuel Insull, March 5, 1909, Edison Papers online collection. 27. See “The Sprague Motor,” Electrical World (April 25, 1885): 168. 28. A. H. Rennie to FJS, May 18, 1885, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 29. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 238. 30. FJS to William Brock, June 17, 1885, FJS Papers, box 7, NYPL. 31. FJS to Buffalo Forge Co., July 2, 1885, FJS Papers, box 7, NYPL. 32. FJS, Statement of Affairs, January 18, 1886, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 33. “A New Sprague Motor,” Electrical World ( January 15, 1887): 29.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

34. W.H.T., “New York Notes,” Electrical World (February 12, 1887): 82; “A Sprague Station for Boston,” Electrical World (February 19, 1887): 97. 35. Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company Annual Report, January 10, 1887 (typewritten copy), FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 36. Few records of Sprague’s first marriage have survived. This and the following paragraph draw from family records and an account offered by John Sprague to the author, November 15, 2002. 37. FJS, “The Electric Railway. First Paper,” 446. 38. For a detailed technical description of Sprague’s design and its continuing use, see Piers Conner, “The Underground Electronic Train,” Underground News 523 ( July 2005): 270–274. 39. FJS, “The Story of the Trolley Car,” 447. 40. Ibid., 447–448. 41. Sprague told the Gould story repeatedly. See, e.g., ibid., 447. 42. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper: Later Experiments and Present State of the Art,” Century Magazine (August 1905): 514. 43. For further discussion of this aspect of Sprague’s career, see below, particularly chapters 3 and 6. 44. Oscar T. Crosby to FJS, July 22, 1932, Sprague Seventy-fifth Anniversary books, 1932, Sprague Family Papers, Chapin Library,Williamstown, MA. 45. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper,” 513. 46. FJS to Edward H. Johnson, March 28, 1887, Edison Papers, online collection. 47. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper,” 514. 48. Ibid., 514. 49. FJS, “Turning Points in Electric Traction,” 1891. Manuscript, FJS papers, box 10, NYPL. 50. FJS, “The Growth of Electric Railways,” 26.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

51. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper,” 517. 52. FJS to Louis Duncan, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 53. FJS to S. Dana Greene, January 24, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 54. Ibid. 55. For other signs of financial strains on Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company, see Charles Batchelor to Edward Johnson, November 8, 1887; and Edward Johnson to Charles Batchelor, March 8, 1888, Edison Papers online collection. 56. A typescript copy with edits is in the possession of John Sprague, Williamstown, MA. 57. FJS to George Prescott, February 7, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 58. FJS to S. Dana Greene, n.d. (ca mid-March 1888, judging by its placement in the letter book), FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 59. FJS to S. Dana Greene, April 13, 1888, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 60. FJS to Edward Johnson, May 10, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 61. Thornton N. Motley, Henry Steers, et al. to Edward Johnson, May 15, 1888, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. CHAPTER 3

1. From Sprague Seventy-fifth Anniversary books, 1932, Sprague Family Papers, Chapin Library,Williamstown, MA. 2. Nye, Electrifying America, 89–90. 3. FJS to W. Forbes, April 21, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 4. FJS to Edward H. Johnson, May 24, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 5. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper,” 519. 6. FJS to Edward H. Johnson, May 24, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL.

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7. See, e.g., FJS to D. P. Harris, ed., American Railway Publication, April 6, 1888; FJS to S. Dana Greene April 14, 1888 (regarding a piece prepared for the New York Herald); and to S. Dana Greene May 3, 1888 (“I am going to read a paper on the Richmond road before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers . . . and try to boom things”), FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 8. FJS to Charles Sprague, July 16, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 9. FJS to Edward H. Johnson, April 22, 1889, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 10. On the emergence of Thomson-Houston Electric Company as an industry power, see especially Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process. 11. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 254. 12. See, e.g., FJS to Peyton B. Bibb, general manager, Montgomery Iron Works, December 8, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 13. For background on Henry Whitney and the West End Street Railway, see Sam Bass Warner Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston (1870– 1900) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962, reprinted 1978), 21–29. 14. FJS, “The Growth of Electric Railways,” Paper delivered to the American Electric Railway Association, October 12, 1916 (reprinted in AERA October 1916), 28. 15. On the issue of technological inertia, see especially Thomas Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870– 1970 (New York: Viking, 1989). 16. See Joel A. Tarr and Gabriel Dupuy, eds., Technology and the Rise of the Networked City in Europe and America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988). 17. See, for example, testimony reported in Boston Evening Transcript, April 2, 8, 11, 1889. These dynamics were distinctly American. In Europe, municipalities tended to own and operate railways, whereas in the United States, private lines had become the norm by the 1880s. See John McKay, “Comparative Perspectives on Transit in Europe and the United States, 1850–1914,” in Tarr and Dupuy, Technology and the Rise of the Networked City, 3–21.

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18. “Electricity against Horseflesh” Boston Evening Transcript, April 16, 1889. 19. McKay, “Comparative Perspectives on Transit,” 11. See also George Hilton,“Transportation Technology and the Urban Pattern,” Journal of Contemporary History 4 (1969): 123–135, which characterizes electric railways as “one of the most rapidly accepted innovations in the history of technology” (126). 20. FJS to Edward H. Johnson, February 18, 1889, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. Sprague did not name the source, but it must have been Willis Whitney. 21. See Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 275–280; John Winthrop Hammond, Men and Volts:The Story of General Electric (New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1941), 149–161. 22. Chandler, The Visible Hand, 426. 23. FJS to Commander W. T. Sampson, May 2, 1889, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL. 24. FJS to Gooch, late November 1889, extract from Rowsome, “The Man Who Invented Commuting.” See also Henry Villard and Samuel Insull’s note to Thomas A. Edison, n.d. [1889]: “Sufficient stock in trust to give control” (Edison Papers online collection). 25. November 18, 1888, SERM circular to agents, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 26. S. W. Huff, “A Concise Statement of the Development of Electric Railroads,” Sibley Journal of Engineering 27 (October 1912): 4–6. 27. Nye, Electrifying America, 104. 28. See Leonard S. Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876–1926 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 29. See Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), for statistics and quote, citing George W. Hilton, “Transport Technology and the Urban Pattern,” Journal of Contemporary History 4 (1969): 126. 30. FJS to Edward H. Johnson, May 24, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL.

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CHAPTER 4

1. On skyscrapers as an emerging technology, see, e.g., Daniel Bluestone, Constructing Chicago (New Haven: Yale University Press). 2. Edison General Electric Company Annual Report, 1890 (EGE, 1890). On reorganization and consolidation of General Electric operations, see also John Hammond, Men and Volts:The Story of General Electric (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1941), 175–176. 3. FJS to Henry Villard, January 8, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 4. Such agreements were about to become illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act but were still legal up to this point. 5. FJS to Board of Trustees, Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM), April 26, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 6. FJS to Board of Trustees, SERM, April 29, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. See also FJS to Charles Benton, May 2, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 7. FJS to Board of Trustees, SERM, June 7, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 8. FJS to President and Board of Directors of Edison General Electric Company, December 2, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 9. FJS to President and Board of Directors of Edison General Electric Company, December 2, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 10. FJS, “Sprague Electric Railroad,” Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association 9 (1891): 150–158, reprinted (in abridged format) in James E. Brittain, ed., Turning Points in American Electrical History (New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1977), 135–144. 11. FJS, “Sprague Electric Railroad,” 138–141. 12. FJS to Board of Directors of Edison General Electric Company, April 26, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL, 136. 13. FJS, “Rapid Transit by Electric Motors: A Challenge,” Electrical World ( June 20, 1890): 457. See also “Supplement,” Electrical World (February 21, 1891): 143–146; (March 7, 1891): 196–197; (May 30, 1891): 402–403.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

14. See Hammond, Men and Volts, 289. 15. See “Financial Plan of Sprague Electric Elevator Company,” n.d. (ca early 1892), in folder “Sprague Electric Elevator Data 1896,” FJS Papers, box 31, NYPL. 16. The most detailed account of the technical contributions made by both Pratt and Sprague is Lee E. Gray, From Ascending Rooms to Express Elevators: A History of the Passenger Elevator in the Nineteenth Century (Mobile, AL: Elevator World, 2002), chapter 6, esp. 188–198. Gray credits Pratt with most of the innovative features of the elevator’s design, crediting Sprague mainly with promoting and financing technological development. The historian does list a series of contributions Sprague specifically made to the design’s motor mechanism and control systems. 17. Memoranda of Agreement, December 19 and 30, 1891; January 13, 1892, FJS Papers, box 31, NYPL. 18. On Otis, see Jason Goodwin, Otis: Giving Rise to the Modern City (Chicago: Dee, 2001), esp. 72–87. This is a strikingly candid account for a corporate history. 19. FJS to Charles Royce, September 8, 1892, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 20. Circular memo, “Electric Elevator Industry, Sprague-Pratt Electric Elevator, Manufacturing Process, Financial Plan Sprague Electric Elevator Co.,” FJS Papers, box 31, NYPL. 21. “Financial Plan,” FJS Papers, box 31, NYPL. 22. FJS to Charles Sprague, October 8, 1892, box 12, NYPL. 23. “Sprague Electric Elevator Company, Proposal No. 1,” October 8, 1892, FJS Papers, box 31, NYPL. 24. FJS to Charles Sprague, October 13, 1892, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 25. On delays, see FJS to Owen Aldis, February 20, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 26. FJS to Charles Sprague, January 11, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL.

252

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

27. FJS to Smith W.Weed, April 29, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 28. Ibid. 29. FJS to A. P. Hepburn, president,Third National Bank, May 10, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 30. FJS to Charles Sprague, May 19, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 31. FJS to James Dickson, May 18, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 32. FJS to Smith W.Weed, April 29, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 33. “Otis Elevator Company,” FJS Papers, box 31, NYPL. This document, prepared to support the restructuring of Otis, evidently came into Sprague’s possession as part of Otis’s preparations to acquire SEEC. 34. See, e.g., FJS to William Plunkett, September 26, 1894, FJS Papers, box 13, NYPL. 35. FJS to Charles Sprague, May 29, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 36. FJS to Charles Sprague, August 3, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 37. FJS to Charles Sprague, August 18, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 38. FJS to Albert B. Chandler and Charles Pratt, January 6, 1894, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 39. FJS to Smith W.Weed, September 19, 1893, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL. 40. FJS to Albert B. Chandler, July 27, 1894, FJS Papers, box 13, NYPL. 41. FJS to Charles Sprague, May 26 and June 23, 1894, FJS Papers, box 13, NYPL. 42. FJS to Charles Sprague, September 12, 1894, FJS Papers, box 13, NYPL. See also FJS to Charles Sprague, September 13, 14, 18, FJS Papers, box 13, NYPL. 43. “Statement of FJS as of July 1, 1896,” FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 44. Quoted in Lee Gray, From Ascending Rooms to Express Elevators, 194. 45. See ibid., 194–195.

253

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

1. FJS to W. N. Stewart, February 6, 1896, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 2. See “Statement by FJS on July 1, 1896,” FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 3. FJS to John Searles, April 21, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 4. In addition to “Statement by FJS on July 1, 1896,” see FJS to J. H.Vail, July 14, 1896, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 5. FJS to John Searles, March 24, 1896, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 6. FJS to John Searles, July 22, 1896, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 7. FJS to E. C. Platt, August 6, 1896, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 8. FJS to John Searles, April 21, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 9. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper,”, 522. 10. Quoted in George Hill, Street Railway Magazine, May 1901. Hill was not a disinterested party. In 1901, he was an employee of Sprague Electric Company. An offprint of Sprague’s 1885 paper can be found in FJS Papers, box 117, NYPL. 11. FJS Papers, box 117, NYPL. 12. Patent no. 434,687: Electrical Railway System (filed August 13, 1889, August 19, 1889). 13. FJS to W. Nelson Smith (a student at Cornell University), March 3, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 14. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper,” 522. 15. FJS to John Searles, June 4, 1896, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 16. FJS to George Gould, Russell Sage, and R. M. Gallaway, June 8, 1896, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 17. See, e.g., FJS to J. H. Vail, engineer-in-chief, Pennsylvania Light, Heat and Power Co., July 14, 1896, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL.

254

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

18. See FJS to George Gould, Russell Sage, and R. M. Gallaway, February 18, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 19. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper.” 20. FJS to Sargent & Lundy, April 7, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 21. FJS to Leslie Carter, April 8, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 22. See, e.g., FJS to A. D. Lundy, April 8, 1897; FJS to Sargent & Lundy, April 10, 1897; FJS to Leslie Carter, April 14, 1897; all in FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 23. FJS to Leslie Carter, April 28, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 24. FJS to Charles Sprague, June 11, 1897, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 25. See FJS to Leslie Carter, April 28, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 26. See, e.g., L. W. McKay to FJS, May 5, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 27. Taken from Frank Rowsome Jr.,“The Man Who Invented Commuting,” Chapter 11, 21. 28. FJS to J. F. Sweasy, August 5, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 29. FJS to Charles A. Harned, October 12, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 30. FJS to Sargent & Lundy, April 10, 1897, 14, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 31. Ibid. 32. FJS to John Searles, July 14, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. These thoughts came in the context of recommending diplomatic phrasing in a prospectus announcing the formation of Sprague Electric Company. 33. FJS to Sprague Electric Company Executive Committee, December 29, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 34. FJS to Charles Coffin, December 30, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 35. For examples of reports from the field in Chicago, see, e.g., FJS telegrams to Albert B. Chandler, April 20, April 22, 1898, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL.

255

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

36. For a more detailed description of the basic system architecture and circuitry, see Piers Conner’s series of articles, “The Underground Electric Train,” Underground News ( January–April 2003), esp. ( January: 204–208), on which this account relies heavily. Sprague’s basic setup, Conners concludes, provides “all the elements . . . which have remained, in principle, to this day,” with applications in door control, lighting, heating, ventilation, compressed air, brakes, and communications as well as in traction equipment (208). 37. FJS, “The Multiple Unit System for Electric Railways,” Cassier’s Magazine (August 1899): 460. 38. FJS to Sprague Electric Company Conference Committee, January 6, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 39. General Electric Company Annual Report, 1893 (GE, 1893). 40. Hammond, Men and Volts, 275. 41. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers; Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research. 42. FJS to Sprague Electric Company Conference Committee, January 6, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. CHAPTER 6

1. Brooklyn Daily Eagle March 6, 1899. 2. FJS to Sprague Electric Company Conference Committee, January 6, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 3. FJS to John Searles, June 10, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 4. See Hammond, Men and Volts, 298–299; Reich, Making of American Industrial Research; and George Wise, Willis Whitney, General Electric, and the Origins of American Industrial Research (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 5. FJS to Albert B. Chandler, October 26, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 6. Albert B. Chandler to FJS, September 19, 1898, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL.

256

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

7. Albert B. Chandler to FJS, October 29, 1898, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 8. FJS to Sprague Electric Company Conference Committee, January 6, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 9. Maury Klein, The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 474. 10. For general background on New York City, the Manhattan Elevated Railroad, and the development of mass transit, see Clifton Hood, 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), chapters 1–3. 11. FJS, “The Multiple Unit System for Electric Railways,” Cassier’s Magazine (August 1898): 460. 12. FJS to George Gould, January 6, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 13. FJS to George Gould, January 12, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 14. FJS to William Crane, January 21, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. Sprague suggested that Crane disabuse Gould of the notion that Sprague Electric Company was “purely a Mackay Company.” John Mackay was a prominent SEC investor and also a notorious rival of Jay Gould in the telegraph industry. See John Mackay entry in Dictionary of American Biography. 15. FJS to Pattison, February 17, 1898, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 16. FJS to James Pendergast, February 23, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 17. FJS to John Lundie, February 24, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 18. FJS to James Pendergast, February 23, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 19. See J. M. Pendergast to FJS, February 15, 1898; FJS to Pattison, February 17, 1898; FJS to J. M. Pendergast, February 23, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 20. FJS to William Crane, March 5, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 21. FJS to Albert B. Chandler, August 27, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 22. See John Mackay to FJS, August 29, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL.

257

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

23. FJS to John Searles, September 14, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 24. FJS to John Lundie, March 19, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 25. FJS to F. H. Shepard, June 13, 1898, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL. 26. Ibid. 27. FJS to James Pendergast, July 25, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 28. FJS to John Searles, November 21, 1898, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 29. FJS to William Clark, July 1, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 30. FJS to William Clark, July 13, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 31. F. H. Shepard to FJS, August 4, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 32. FJS to William Bancroft, November 24, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 33. FJS to Albert B. Chandler, March 6, 1899, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 34. FJS to Albert B. Chandler, March 6, 1899, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL. 35. Ibid. See also FJS to Albert B. Chandler, March 10, 1899, box 14, NYPL. 36. See FJS to John Searles, June 10, 1899, box 2, NYPL. 37. FJS to Albert B. Chandler, May 31, 1899, box 2, NYPL. 38. FJS to Albert B. Chandler, March 9, 1899, box 14, NYPL. 39. See, e.g. FJS to Alfred Skitt, vice president, Manhattan Elevated Railroad, July 12, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 40. See F. H. Shepard to FJS, July 28, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 41. FJS to William Bancroft, November 24, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 42. FJS to Bancroft, November 28, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 43. News Bulletin, Boston News Bureau, May 1, 1900, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 44. FJS to John Lundie, May 27, 1900, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 45. John Markle to FJS, March 12, 1900, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL.

258

NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

46. Thomas Ewing to FJS, November 27, 1900, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 47. President of Sprague Electric Company to SEC Board of Directors, August 25, 1900, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 48. Thomas Ewing to FJS, October 3, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 49. Thomas Ewing to FJS, October 24, 1899, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 50. Thomas Ewing to FJS, January 27, 1900, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 51. See U. S. Patent 660, 065, “Traction System,” Frank J. Sprague. The patent was originally filed on April 26, 1898, though later amended to its current form. 52. FJS to William Brown, February 8, 1902, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL; FJS to Professor Pupin, February 8, 1902, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 53. See FJS to Samuel Bancroft Jr., March 25, 1902, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL; FJS to R. W. Roebling, April 4, 1902, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 54. FJS to William Crane, May 13, 1902, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 55. General Electric Company Annual Report, 1903 (GE, 1903). 56. A. G. Davis (General Electric Company Patent Department) to F. P. Fish (GE General Counsel), February 10, 1910, quoted in Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 275. 57. See esp. Chandler, Scale and Scope. CHAPTER 7

1. FJS to William Wilgus, October 31, 1905, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 2. Engineering News (November 16, 1905): 499. For further technical detail, see Conner, “The Underground Electric Train.” 3. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad undertook a partial electrification project when it converted a short (3.75 mile) stretch of track running through the Baltimore Belt Railroad (in a tunnel running through downtown Baltimore between Camden Station and Waverly interlocking tower). But

259

NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

although this entailed significant technological exploration, it remained “a compromise between steam and electricity” and “an awkward first step” (in the assessment of historian Carl Condit). Tellingly, the B&O left their steam locomotives coupled to trains over the electrified passage. Otherwise, in a classic case of technological inertia, the steam-driven status quo held. 4. New York Times, January 9, 1902. The best overview account of the electrification of the New York Central is Kurt C. Schlichting, Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). 5. For biographical background on Wilgus, see Schlichting, Grand Central Terminal, 56–57. 6. Wilgus recorded his account of events in William Wilgus, “The Grand Central Terminal in Perspective,” American Society of Civil Engineers, Transactions (October 1940). 7. New York Telegram, February 27, 1929. 8. FJS to William Wilgus, February 8, 1902, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 9. William Wilgus to FJS, February 8, 1902, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 10. FJS to William Wilgus, March 20, 1902, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 11. William Wilgus to FJS, March 26, 1902, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 12. For background on Electric Traction Commission members, see Western Electrician (February 14, 1903). 13. Ibid. 14. Railway Age ( January 26, 1906): 126. See also Engineering News (November 16, 1905). 15. See Electric Traction Commission Minutes, Wilgus Papers, box 9, NYPL. 16. On technological momentum, see Hughes, Networks of Power. 17. Electric Traction Commission, Report 17,Three Phase Alternating Current,Wilgus Papers, box 10, NYPL.

260

NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

18. See Schlichting, Grand Central Terminal, 87. 19. See, e.g., Electric Traction Commission, minutes for May 5, 1903, when Sprague led the Commission through the process of drawing up capacity specifications for the system’s locomotive motors; minutes for June 23, when the Commission charged Sprague with preparing a report “on matters pertaining to Locomotive Requirements”; and minutes for July 1, when the ETC unanimously adopted Sprague’s recommendation. Electric Traction Commission Minutes,Wilgus Papers, box 9, NYPL. 20. Electric Traction Commission Minutes, October 31, 1903, Wilgus Papers, box 9, NYPL. 21. Electric Traction Commission Minutes, October 31 and November 3, 1903,Wilgus Papers, box 9, NYPL. 22. Electric Traction Commission Minutes, November 3, 1903, with attached documentation,Wilgus Papers, box 9, NYPL. 23. FJS to William Wilgus, January 15, 1904, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 24. FJS to William Wilgus, February 8, 1902, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 25. FJS to William Wilgus, October 8, 1903, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 26. William Wilgus to FJS, Bion Arnold, George Gibbs, J. F. Deems, and E. B. Katte, October 9, 1903, FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 27. FJS to the editor of Engineering (February 26, 1903), draft copy, FJS Papers, box 2, NYPL. 28. Sprague Seventy-fifth Anniversary books, 1932, Sprague Family Papers, Williamstown, MA. 29. FJS, “Some Personal Experiences,” Street Railway Journal, October 8, 1904 (offprint), 35. 30. Electrical Review and Western Electrician (March 20, 1909): 521. 31. Editorial introduction, Century ( July 1905): 2 (“Advertisements” pagination).

261

NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

32. Both articles included in the July 1905 issue, alongside part 2 of Sprague’s essay “The Electric Railway.” 33. FJS, “The Electric Railway. Second Paper,” 512. 34. Ibid., 512–514. 35. Illustrations by Jay Hambridge, ibid., 513, 516. 36. See Hughes, Sperry, 244–250 (Daniels quoted on 247). 37. An official history of the Naval Board’s efforts, including Sprague’s contributions, appeared as World War I began to wind down: Lloyd N. Scott, Naval Consulting Board of the United States (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1920). For a more recent historical assessment, see David K. van Keuren, “Science, Progressivism and Military Preparedness: The Case of the Naval Research Laboratory, 1915–1923,” Technology and Culture 33 (October 1992): 710–736. 38. Desmond Sprague, quoted in Rowsome, “The Man Who Invented Commuting,” 13:9. 39. For a comprehensive list of Sprague’s various accolades, see Dugald C. Jackson,“Frank Julian Sprague, 1857–1934,” Scientific Monthly 57 (November 1943): 431–441. 40. For detailed records of the third-rail venture, see FJS Papers, box 33, NYPL. 41. Quoted in Rowsome, “The Man Who Invented Commuting,” 13:25. 42. On the endurance of multiple-unit control process, see, e.g., Conner, “The Underground Electric Train.”

262

INDEX

Aeronautical Society, 224 Airplanes, vii Air rights, 207 Alley L. See South Side Elevated Railroad Alloys, 86 Alternating-current power generation, 4, 13, 95 “Battle of the Currents” and, 212– 216 long-distance transmission capabilities of, 213 New York Central Railroad and, 205, 212–216 Stanley Company and, 188–189 American Institute of Electrical Engineers, 141, 151–152, 220, 224, 226

American Society of Aeronautical Engineers, 224 Animated electrical signs, 204, 228– 229, 235 Annapolis Naval Academy, 2 curriculum of, 30–32 innovation and, 30 methods of, 30–31 North Adams citizens and, 29 Sprague’s years in, 29–44, 48, 58, 82, 225, 233 Annunciators, 34 “Application of Electricity to Elevated Railroads,The” (Sprague), 151 Arc lighting breakthroughs in, 4, 37 Brush and, 6, 13, 38

263

INDEX

Arc lighting (cont.) Centennial Exposition and, 34–36 Farmer and, 2, 39 Sprague and, 40, 48 Thomson-Houston and, 95, 101 Van Depoele and, 65 Armatures, 46 Armor-piercing shells, 203 Arnold, Bion, 209, 214–215 Arnold, Harvey, 26 Arnold, John, 26 Arnold, Oliver, 26 Arnold Print Works, 25–26 Austrian Polytechnic, 39 Automatic train control (ATC) system, 227–228, 235 Automation, 12 Ayrton & Perry, 71 Baker, Benjamin, 159–160 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 260n3 Batchelor, Charles, 73, 246n24 “Battle of the Currents,” 212–216 Belgium, 39, 64 Bell, Alexander Graham, 13, 34, 42–43, 197, 224 Bell Telephone, 119 Belmont, August, 185 Bentley, Edward, 64–65 Bentley-Knight Electric Railway Company, 65, 95, 101 Bergmann, Sigmund, 73, 197, 246n25

Bergmann & Company Electrical Works, 71, 73 Berlin Exhibition, 63 Bessemer process, 12 Bootstrap strategies, 70–74 Boston Elevated Railroad, 190–192 Boston Herald, 44 Boston West End Street Railway, 187 Branford Museum, 235–236 Brock,William, 75 Brooklyn Bridge, 54, 183 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 175 Brooklyn Elevated Railway, 175 competition over, 184–187 industrial espionage and, 184 multiple unit (MU) system and, 182–187 steam power and, 182–183 Brown & Sharpe, 85, 87 Brush, Charles, 4, 38, 71 Brush Electric Company, 6, 13, 18 Bryant, Lynwood, 51 Burglar alarms, 11, 34 Cable cars, 93, 109 Calculus, 31 Canada, 65 Canadian Edison Manufacturing Company, 101 Capacitors, 234 Capital, 41 bootstrap strategies and, 70–74

264

INDEX

corporate maneuvering and, 190– 200 depression of 1893 and, 129, 135 electrical innovation and, 6–10 electric elevators and, 125–126, 129–130, 134–140, 145–149, 197–198 electric railways and, 61–62, 67– 70, 79, 87–90, 93–97, 104–105 established business practices and, vii–viii Flynn and, 80, 87–90 Gould and, 79 industrial competition and, 6–10 investor concerns and, 178–180 Morgan and, 10, 14, 69, 94, 102–103, 164, 171, 179, 197 multiple unit (MU) system and, 174–175 privatized construction and, 99– 100 Sprague Electric Company (SEC) and, 163–164, 178–180, 192–193 Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC) and, 125–126, 129– 130, 134–140, 145–149, 197–198 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) and, 61–62, 93–97 Third National Bank and, 136–137 United States National Bank and, 135 Carichoff, E. R., 162

Carlson,W. Bernard, vii–ix, 8 Carnegie, Andrew, 198 Carter, Leslie, 156–162, 168, 192 Case School of Applied Science, 31 Cassier’s Magazine, 181 Centennial Exposition, 33–36, 42 Central London Railway, 159–160 Century Magazine,The, 221–224 Chandler, Albert B., 16–17 electric elevators and, 139–140 electric railways and, 167, 178–179 multiple unit (MU) system and, 185–189, 197 Chandler, Alfred, 7, 13, 103 Chemistry, 12, 30–31, 39–40, 48, 119 Chicago, 220, 236 complicated railway logistics of, 176 Polly L and, 167 skyscrapers and, 114–115 South Side Elevated Railroad and, 156–163, 167–173, 179–180, 188, 192 Chicago Industrial Exhibition, 65 Chinnock, C. E., 78–79 Civil War, 28, 30, 32 Clark,William J., 157, 161 Coffin, Charles A. arc lighting and, 95 connections of, 95–96 General Electric and, 166, 169– 171, 174, 191, 194

265

INDEX

Coffin, Charles A. (cont.) platform technologies and, 105 West End Railway and, 100 Columbia University, 226 Commutators, 46, 85–86, 88, 106 Corliss steam engine, 33–34, 36 Coster, Maurice, 19 Cotterell press, 71 Cotton gin, vii, 26 Courtland Normal School, 40 Crane family, 164, 179, 182, 195, 197 Croatia, 39 Crosby, Oscar T., 82, 93 Croton, 213–214 Crystal Electrical Exhibition, 49–53 Daft, Leo, 39, 64–65, 77, 95, 221 Daft Electric Light Company, 65, 71 Dalzell, Frederick, viii–ix Daniels, Josephus, 224 Davenport,Thomas, 62–63 Dawes,Thomas, 29 Depth charges, 203 Design. See Innovation Determinism, 51 Diplome de Medaille d’Or, 30 Direct-current power generation, 4, 13, 105 “Battle of the Currents” and, 212– 216 limitations of, 213 motor design and, 64, 67, 70

New York Central Railroad and, 205, 213–215 Disruptive technologies, vii–ix, 12, 112, 171, 177 Dow Jones Industrial Average, 14 Draper, Henry, 48 Dreiser,Theodore, 107 Drexel, Morgan & Co., 104 Duncan, Louis, 123 Dunn & Bradstreet, 26 “Dynamo-Electric Machine” (Sprague), 49 Dynamos, 11. See also Motors assembly of, 8 crowded field of, 56 Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 50 demonstrations of, 35, 65 designs of, 13, 49–50, 56–57, 63–65 electric railways and, 63–65 Farmer-Wallace, 34–35, 44 Gramme Electric Company and, 34 innovation and, 30, 40 self-exciting, 49 East Cleveland Street Railway Company, 65 Economic issues, ix bootstrap strategies and, 70–74 depression of 1893 and, 129–131, 170 electrical innovation and, 6–10

266

INDEX

established business practices and, vii–viii Great Depression and, 228 privatization and, 99–100 royalties and, 171, 195, 201–202 Edison,Thomas A., vii, 4, 63, 66 business ventures of, 7, 9–10 carbon telephone and, 45 conceit of, 42–44, 73, 120 courting of journalists by, 42 electricity and, 1–3 employs Sprague, 52–58 hearing aids and, 42 influence of, 14–15 Johnson and, 68–69, 71 lighting and, 9, 13, 45, 52–53, 64 meets Sprague, 43 Menlo Park lab of, 42–44, 54, 58, 119 phonograph and, 42 platinum wire and, 52–53 power transmission and, 6, 9 self-education of, 40 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company and, 68–78, 82, 86–87, 94, 101, 103, 113, 115– 121, 196–197 Sprague’s departure and, 57–58 telegraphy and, 42 U.S. Navy work and, 224 as Wizard of Menlo Park, 1, 43, 70 Edison Electric Light Company, 69, 73–74, 101, 112

Edison General Electric, 101, 104. See also General Electric corporate maneuvering and, 197, 199 formation of, 115–116 historical perspective on, 7, 10, 15 intellectual property issues and, 120–121 Johnson and, 111 Research & Development department of, 109 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) and, 196–197, 199, 202 Sprague’s break with, 119–121 Edison United Manufacturing company, 101 Education Austrian Polytechnic, 39 Case School of Applied Science, 31 chemistry and, 31, 39–40 Courtland Normal School, 40 electrical theory and, 31 Hoosac Tunnel and, 28–29 mathematics, 31 physics, 31 self, 40, 206 University of Michigan, 39–40 University of Prague, 39 U.S. Naval Academy, 29–32, 39, 43–44, 48, 58, 82, 225, 233 Williston Academy, 39 Yale University, 39

267

INDEX

Electrical World journal, 1–2, 5, 16, 32, 37, 59, 74, 115 Electric elevators, 3 acceleration times and, 151 capital issues and, 125–126, 129– 130, 134–140, 145–149, 197–198 centrifugal clutch for, 126 competition in, 128 control system for, 126–127 dual, 203, 228–229 as emergent technology, 114–115, 181, 228 freight lifts and, 125 Grand Hotel and, 125–127, 132– 133 horizontal sheave, 124–125 market for, 137–143, 148 monopolies and, 2 multiple unit (MU) system and, 150, 153–155, 170 operator error and, 126–127 Otis Elevator Company and, 124, 128–129, 138, 141–142, 147, 163, 179 pilot motors and, 150 Postal Telegraph Building and, 131–134, 139, 142 potential of, 124–125 Pratt and, 124–127, 130, 133 refining technology of, 126–127 resistor burnout and, 127 safety and, 115, 126–127, 132, 134, 137, 140

skyscrapers and, 114–115, 125, 131–134, 139, 142 social context of, 115 Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC) and, 114, 127–143 (see also Sprague Electric Elevator Company [SEEC]) staging and, 113, 115, 122–123, 128–134, 139–142 strategic context and, 127–131 Tremont House and, 124–125 urban sprawl and, 115 vs. hydraulic, 141 weight issues of, 150–151 Whittier and, 124 wider adoption of, 148 Electricity alternating-current, 4, 13, 95, 188– 189, 205, 212–216 arc lighting and, 2, 4, 6, 13, 34–40, 48, 65, 95, 101 “Battle of the Currents” and, 212– 216 Centennial Exposition and, 33–36, 42 Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 49–53 direct-current, 4, 13, 64, 67, 70, 105, 205, 213–215 distribution of, 44, 54 dynamos and, 8, 11, 13, 30, 34–35, 40, 49–50, 56–57, 63–65 economic context of, 6–10

268

INDEX

Edison and, 1–3 expanding application of, 11, 22–23 Grand Central Station and, 204– 210 incandescent lighting and, 1, 4, 6, 13, 37, 42, 44–45, 49, 52–53, 95, 101, 105, 196 industrial growth in, 6–14 International Electrical Exhibition and, 69–71, 74 motors and, 3 (see also Motors) multiple unit (MU) system and, 145–152 (see also Multiple unit [MU] system) patents in, 11 replaces steam power, 35–36, 170, 205, 208 sparks and, 70, 77, 79 Sprague and, 2–6 telegraphy and, 4, 6, 8–13, 37, 42, 46, 49, 54, 56, 131–142, 148, 150, 153, 189 telephony and, 4, 11, 13, 34, 36–37, 42, 45–46, 119, 160 transmission of, 4, 6 (see also Power distribution) voltage and, 55, 82–83, 96–97, 168, 205, 226 “Electricity in Harness” (Thomson), 99 Electric railways. See also specific railway adoption dynamics and, 97–100

269

air rights and, 207 alternating current and, 205 architecture for, 77–80 automatic train control (ATC) system and, 227–228 Bentley and, 64–65 bootstrap strategies and, 70–74 business model for, 61 Canada and, 65 capacity constraints in, 150–152 capital and, 61–62, 67–70, 79, 87–90, 93–97, 104–105 complicated logistics of, 176 consumers and, 97–98 control issues and, 108–112 corporate absorption and, 100– 105, 115–121, 123 cultural meanings of, 107–108 Daft and, 64–65, 77 design challenges of, 59–64 direct current and, 205 dynamos and, 63–65 early ideas of, 62–67 Electric Traction Commission and, 209–217, 226 entry barriers and, 175–177 Farmer and, 63 gradient issues and, 83–87, 122 Grand Central Station and, 204– 220, 226 growth of, 92–93 horse cars and, 93, 109 industry development and, 100–105

INDEX

Electric railways (cont.) International Electrical Exhibition and, 69–71, 74 Knight and, 64–65 market for, 93–97, 168–172 miles of track laid and, 109 motor design and, 62–90 multiple unit (MU) system and, 150–151, 155–156, 169–172 New York City and, 123–124 ongoing evolution of, 105–107 parallel control system and, 77 patents and, 63 pilot projects and, 64–66, 78–79 platform architecture and, 92 as political emblems, 107–108 power distribution and, 59–60, 63–67, 77–80, 92 privatized construction and, 99– 100 safety issues and, 23, 96, 100, 204, 208, 215, 227–228 Siemens and, 63 sparking issues and, 70, 77, 79 speed of, 93, 99 staging and, 61, 80–81, 91–92, 105, 108, 110, 145–148, 154– 159, 169, 201–202, 219–222, 228, 231 St. Louis Electrical Exposition and, 226 technology claims upon, 108–112 third-rail architecture and, 226–227

underground, 123–124, 207–210, 256n36 Van Depoele and, 64–65 Wilgus and, 206–210, 213–215, 217, 219, 226 Electric Traction Commission, 262n19 actions of, 210–211 “Battle of the Currents” and, 212– 216 Sprague and, 209–217, 226 technological development and, 210–212 third-rail architecture and, 226–227 Westinghouse and, 218–219 Wilgus and, 209, 214, 217, 219– 220, 226 Elliott-Cresson Medal, 226 Emerson Electric Company, 38 Empires of Light: Edison,Tesla,Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World ( Joness), 15 Engineering magazine, 218 Engineering News, 205 Engineers and the Price System (Veblen), 219 Entrepreneurship, viii, 22, 27, 36–37. See also specific person adoption dynamics and, 97–100 corporate absorption and, 100– 105 electric railways and, 59–62 (see also Electric railways)

270

INDEX

entry barriers and, 175–177 expanding application of electricity and, 11, 22–23 historical perspective on, 1–20 promotion skills and, 222 (see also Staging) Entry barriers, 175–177 Ewing,Thomas, 193 Faraday, Michael, 40 Farmer, Moses, 44, 48–49, 63, 121 Farmer-Wallace, 34–35, 44 Feiker, Frederick, 19 Field, Cyrus, 79 Field, Stephen, 63–64, 77 Fire alarms, 34 Fish, Frederick, 169 Flour milling industry, 12 Flynn, Maurice B., 80, 87–90 Ford, Henry, 224 Franklin Institute, 69, 226 Freight lifts, 125 Gallaway, R. M., 155 General Electric, 10, 13, 180 acquisition of Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) by, 169–170, 194–195, 202 bluffs of, 185–186, 194 Brooklyn Elevated Railway and, 184–187

Clark and, 157 Coffin and, 166, 169–171, 174, 191, 194 competition from, 185–189 connections of, 191 corporate maneuvering and, 190– 195, 198–200 depression of 1893 and, 129, 170 disruptive technologies and, 13–14 Edison and, 115–121 Electric Traction Commission and, 214, 218 entry barriers and, 175–177 espionage by, 184 industrial collaboration by, 166–167 mergers and, 166 multiple unit (MU) system and, 162, 165–169 patent issues and, 174, 186, 190– 195, 198, 201 pioneering efforts of, 13–14 resources of, 154, 191 Rice and, 21 Schenectady works of, 8, 162, 227 Sprague and, 7–8, 14–17, 21, 115– 121, 123 Steinmetz and, 141 stock levels of, 138 vaporware and, 190 Germany, 39, 63, 224–226 Gibbs, George, 209, 214–215 Gibbs Electric Company, 209 Gould, George, 155, 181

271

INDEX

Gould, Jay, 79, 124, 180–182 Governors, 46 Gramme Electric Company, 34 Grand Central Station Electric Traction Commission and, 209–212, 214, 216–217, 226 electrification of, 204–220 Grand Hotel, 125–127, 132–133 Great Depression, 228 Greene, S. Dana, 82, 84, 88–89, 93 Green Mountain range, 27 Griffin, Eugene, 195 Growth, 148 electrical industry and, 6–14 electric elevators and, 148 electric railways and, 92–93 high-technology imperative and, 10–14 U.S. Census and, 11 Guaranty Building, 149 Harding, George E., 75, 132 Harding, H., 118 Harlem, 213 Hearing aids, 42 Heroic invention, vii, 29, 42–43, 56, 196–200 electric elevators and, 114, 121– 122, 129, 142, 228–229 electric railways and, 58, 62, 67–68, 81, 91, 103, 110, 112, 145, 161, 172, 201–204, 212, 216, 219, 222–223, 228–231

historical perspective on, 1–2, 16–20 innovation and, 1–2, 16–20 legacies and, 229–231 multiple unit (MU) system and, 196–200 public expectations and, 1–2 Richmond Union Passenger Railway narrative and, 221–224 Hewitt, Abraham, 181 Higginson, Henry, 95, 102 Hill, George, 141 Hine, 187–188 Hoosac River, 26 Hoosac Tunnel, 27–29, 241n17 Hoover, Herbert, 219 Horse cars, 65, 93, 109, 141 Horsepower electric motors and, 65, 75–76, 123, 204 steam engines and, 33 Hot air engines, 244n53 Hotel Cecil, 159 Houston, E. J., 39 Howells,William Dean, 33, 203 Hudson River, 27 Huff, S. W., 106–107 Hughes,Thomas, 17–19, 38, 67 Hutchinson, Cary T., 123 Hyatt, Charles E., 162 Hydraulic Trust, 130, 135, 137 Ihlder, John, 141–142 Immigrants, 39, 206–207

272

INDEX

Industry automation and, 12 chemical, 12 Chicago Industrial Exhibition and, 65 consolidation and, 7, 146–147 control issues and, 108–112 corporate absorption and, 100– 105, 108, 115–121, 123, 190–200 disruptive technologies and, vii–ix, 12, 112, 171, 177 Dow Jones and, 14 entry barriers and, 175–177 flour milling, 12 growth in electrical, 6–14 high-technology imperative and, 10–14 industrial espionage and, 184 International Electrical Exhibition and, 69–71, 74 meatpacking, 12 monopolies and, 2 oligopolies and, 128 research and development in, 71, 119, 165, 171 shakeouts and, 8 steel, 12 telecommunications, 11–12 Innovation automation and, 12 Centennial Exposition and, 33–36, 42 context and, 36–40, 168–172

Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 49–53 electric elevators and, 3 (see also Electric elevators) electric railways and, 59–90 (see also Electric railways) entry barriers and, 175–177 high-technology imperative and, 10–14 historical perspective on, 1–20 Hoosac Tunnel and, 27–29 International Electrical Exhibition and, 69–71, 74 journalists and, 28, 42 multiple unit (MU) system and, 145–172 ongoing evolution of, 105–107 paradigm shift and, 156 telegraphy and, 12–13 U.S. Naval Academy and, 30 venture capital and, 6–10 (see also Capital) Insulators, 34 Insull, Samuel, 54, 73 Intellectual property Edison General Electric and, 120– 121 marketing strategies and, 120–121 motors and, 120–121 ownership claims and, 108–112 patents and, 127 (see also Patents) Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC) and, 127

273

INDEX

Interior Conduit & Insulation Company, 163 International Electrical Exhibition, 69–71, 74 Interstate Commerce Commission, 227 Invention adoption dynamics and, 97–100 Centennial Exposition and, 33–36, 42 conceit and, 42–44 context and, 17–20, 36–40 Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 49–53 cultural meanings and, 107–108 defined, 237n3 as disruptive technology, vii–ix, 12, 112, 171, 177 electric elevators and, 3 (see also Electric elevators) electric railways and, 59–90 (see also Electric railways) established business practices and, vii–viii expanding application of electricity and, 11, 22–23 heroic, vii, 1–2 (see also Heroic invention) historical perspective on, 1–20 immigrants and, 39 International Electrical Exhibition and, 69–71, 74 journalists and, 28, 42

military, 203 multiple unit (MU) system and, 145–172 ongoing evolution of, 105–107 paradigm shift and, 156 public expectations and, 1–2 refuge of experimentation and, 149–150 staging of, viii, 19–20, 33 (see also Staging) technological momentum and, 17–18, 22–23, 38, 41, 45, 62–68, 73, 97, 102, 212, 219, 230, 240n2, 261n16 Investment. See also specific investor bootstrap strategies and, 70–74 corporate maneuvering and, 190– 200 venture capital and, 6–10 (see also Capital) Johnson, Edward H. Edison and, 53–54, 68–69, 71, 111 Pratt and, 125 scouting by, 53–54 Sprague Electric Company and, 164, 167, 178–179, 197 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) and, 68–76, 79, 83–84, 87–90, 93–95, 100–101, 103, 111 Jones, Harriet Chapman, 202, 233, 235

274

INDEX

Joness, Jill, 15 Journalists, 28, 42 Jungle,The (Sinclair), 107 Katte, E. B., 209 Keatinge, Harriette G., 76 Keatinge, Mary, 76, 202 Keatinge,William, 76 Keys, 34 King, Frances Julia, 23–24 King Philip’s War, 23 Kings County Elevated Railroad, 185 Knight,Walter, 64–65 Knight-Bentley, 71 Lee, Higginson & Co., 10 Leonard, H.Ward, 141–142 Libby, S. H., 162 Lighting, 46 arc, 2, 4, 6, 13, 34–40, 48, 65, 95, 101 Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 52–53 Edison and, 9, 13, 45, 52–53, 64 incandescent, 1, 4, 6, 13, 37, 42, 44–45, 49, 52–53, 95, 101, 105, 196 platinum wire and, 52–53 Looms, 70, 236 Lundie, John, 185 Machinery Hall, 33–34 Magnetism, 6, 21, 34–35, 39, 56–57

Malden militia, 23 Manhattan Elevated Railway, 258n10 capacity of, 151 competition over, 186–187 entry barriers and, 175 Gould and, 180–182 increased ridership on, 180–181 multiple unit (MU) system and, 181–182 prototype demonstrations for, 78–79 slow contract response of, 181–182 speed of, 181 Sprague Electric Company (SEC) and, 180–182, 186–187, 190, 192, 194 staging for, 78–79, 124, 155–156 Markets control issues and, 108–112 depression of 1893 and, 129 Dow Jones and, 14 electric elevators and, 137–143 electric railways and, 93–97, 168– 172 entry barriers and, 175–177 established business practices and, vii–viii growth in electric industry and, 6–10 high-technology imperative and, 10–14 industrial consolidation and, 146– 147

275

INDEX

Markets (cont.) multiple unit (MU) system and, 156–158 staging and, 92 (see also Staging) venture capital and, 6–10 (see also Capital) Martin,Thomas Commerford, 11 Massachusetts Boston, 95–97, 100–101, 124 Brockton, 4, 55–56, 68 Commonwealth of, 28 Fitchburg, 38 Great Barrington, 105 Lawrence, 125 Lynn, 95 North Adams, 24–29, 38, 43 Pittsfield, 188 Springfield, 29 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 233 Mathematics, 31, 55, 57 Matthews, Brander, 203 Maxim, Hiram, 38, 224 Maxim, Hudson, 224 McIver, Alex, 162 McKay, John, 100, 164, 179 McKay, L. W., 161 Meatpacking industry, 12 Memorial Hall, 33 Menlo Park, 42–44, 54, 58, 63, 71, 119 Mentoring, 48–49 Meston, Alexander, 38–39

Meston, Charles, 38–39 Michelson, Albert A., 31 Michigan Car Company, 38 Mills family, 164 Mining Magazine, 51 Monopolies, 2 Morgan, J. P., 10, 14, 69, 94 corporate maneuvering and, 197– 198 Sprague Electric Company and, 164, 171, 179 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company and, 102–103, 108 Morison, Elting E., 30 Motors, 8, 13, 21, 27, 55, 236 alloys and, 86 applications of, 70, 76 “Battle of the Currents” and, 212– 216 commutators and, 46, 85–86, 88, 106 distributed system for, 151–152 electric elevators and, 124–125 electric railways and, 62–90 freight lifts and, 125 heat and, 84–86 horsepower and, 65, 75–76, 123, 204 intellectual property and, 120–121 magnetism and, 57 mapping electrical forces in, 56–57 multiple unit (MU) system and, 145–172, 182–187 (see also Multiple unit [MU] system) overhauling design of, 85

276

INDEX

patent issues and, 190–195 pilot, 126, 142–143, 150, 153, 155, 167–168 reduction gears and, 78 self-regulating, 3, 7, 57, 69–70 size of, 85 sparking issues and, 70, 77, 79 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM), 61–62, 66–90 (see also Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company [SERM]) Sprague’s laws and, 57 Stanley Company and, 187–189, 194 Multiple unit (MU) system, 3, 19 Boston Elevated Railroad and, 190–192 Brooklyn Elevated Railway and, 182–187 capital issues and, 174–175 commercializing strategy for, 164– 167 concept of, 149–154 contract conditions of, 160–161 corporate maneuvering and, 190– 200 electric elevators and, 150, 153– 155, 170 electric railways and, 150–151, 155–156, 169–172 Electric Traction Commission and, 218

Elliott-Cresson Medal for, 226 embedding of, 174–175 entry barriers and, 175–177 fame from, 202 further applications of, 153–154 General Electric and, 166–167, 169 Manhattan Elevated Railway and, 181–182 market opening for, 156–158 non-common circuit and, 152– 153 patent issues and, 152, 174, 191– 195, 201 pilot motors and, 150, 153, 155, 167–168 savings from, 158 simplicity of, 162–163 Sprague Electric Company and, 163–172 Sprague Electric Elevator Company and, 147–150, 154–156, 159–166 staging for, 145–148, 154–159, 169, 173 technical challenges of, 161–163 National Electric Light Association, 121 Naval Advisory Board, 203, 263n37 Naval Consulting Board, 225–226 Newark Daily Advertiser, 43 Newport Torpedo Station, 48, 63

277

INDEX

New York Central Railroad, 203 Electric Traction Commission and, 209–212, 214, 216–217, 226 electrification of, 204–220 Grand Central Station and, 204– 220, 226 third-rail architecture and, 226–227 Wilgus and, 206 New York City, 98 air rights and, 207 Brooklyn Elevated Railway and, 182–187 complicated railway logistics of, 176 demographic shift in, 206–207 depression of 1893 and, 131 electricity in, 1 Electric Traction Commission and, 209–212, 214, 216–217, 226 Grand Central Station and, 204– 220, 226 Grand Hotel and, 125–127, 132– 133 increasing density of, 181 Manhattan Elevated Railway and, 78–79, 180–182 (see also Manhattan Elevated Railway) Postal Telegraph Building and, 131–134, 139, 142 skyscrapers and, 114–115 underground electric railways for, 123–124 Wilgus and, 206–210, 213–215, 217, 219, 226

New York Sun, 42 New York Times, 205 New York Times Building, 229 North Adams, Massachusetts, 24–29, 38, 43 North White Plains, 213 Nye, David, 18–19, 25, 93, 107 Oligopolies, 128 O’Shaugnessy, Pat, 162, 223 Otis Elevator Company, 124, 128– 129, 138, 141–142, 147, 163, 179 Paradigm shift, 156 Parker, Ann, 24–26 Patents, 11, 37, 49 animated signs and, 229 distributed motor approach and, 152 electric railways and, 63 General Electric and, 174, 186, 190–195, 198, 201 infringement issues and, 186, 191– 195 legal wording of, 193–194 litigation over, 190–195, 227 multiple unit (MU) system and, 152, 174, 191–195, 201 pools and, 171 royalties and, 171, 195, 201–202 Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC) and, 127 third-rail design and, 203

278

INDEX

vaporware and, 190 Westinghouse and, 174 Pearl Street Station, 1, 78, 105 Pemberton Mills, 125 Pendergast, James, 191 Penn Central Corporation, 234 Pennsylvania Railroad, 119 Phelps, Harry, 30–31 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and, 33– 36 Central High School and, 39 International Electrical Exhibition and, 69–71, 74 Phonographs, vii, 4, 42 Physics, 30–31 Pilot motors, 126, 142–143, 150, 153, 155, 167–168 Platinum wire, 52–53 Polly L railway, 167 Postal Telegraph Building, 131–134, 139, 142, 150 Power distribution, 44, 54, 58 “Battle of the Currents” and, 212– 216 electric railways and, 59–60, 63–67, 77–80, 92 formula for, 55 historical perspective on, 4–7 power stations and, 1, 56, 64 Power generation alternating-current, 4, 13, 95, 188– 189, 205, 212–216

direct-current, 4, 13, 64, 67, 70, 105, 205, 212–216 dynamos and, 34 (see also Dynamos) telemchon and, 44 Pratt, Charles, 124–127, 130, 133, 252n16 Prescott, George, 88 Print Works, 25 Privatization, 99–100 Prospect Street, 26 Railway Age,The, 210 Railways, 21, 23, 38 deaths from, 205 electric, 2–3, 5, 55 (see also Electric railways) Grand Central Station and, 204– 220, 226 Hoosac Tunnel and, 27–29 signaling and, 34 Reduction gears, 78 Registers, 34 Relays, 34 Rennie, A. H., 74 Research and Development (R&D), 71, 119, 165, 171 Resistor burnout, 127 Rice, E.Wilbur, 21 Richmond Union Passenger Railway, 3, 55, 162, 204, 220 complicated logistics of, 176 control issues and, 110 driving force behind, 111

279

INDEX

Richmond Union Passenger Railway (cont.) experience gained from, 105–106 heroic invention and, 129 historical perspective on, 91, 104– 105 horse car and, 141 lessons learned from, 91–96, 99– 100, 104–106, 110–111, 133, 142, 148 market opportunity of, 80–90 narratives on, 121–123, 203, 221– 224 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) and, 62, 80–91 staging of, 60–61 Rodgers, C. R. P., 30 Roebling brothers, 140, 164, 179, 197 Safety, 178 automatic train control (ATC) system and, 227–228 electric elevators and, 115, 126– 127, 132, 134, 137, 140 electric railways and, 23, 96, 100, 204, 208, 215, 227–228 signals and, 21, 34, 96, 206, 227 Sage, Russell, 155 Sargent, Fred, 157–158, 165 Sargent & Lundy, 157, 165 Sawyer,W. H., 21

Schumpter, Joseph, 14 Scotland, 39 Scott, Frances, 45 Searles, John, 155, 167 Sewing machines, 33 Shanely,Walter, 28–29 Shepard, F. H., 185–187 Shore Line Trolley Museum, 235– 236 Siemens,Werner, 39, 63–64 Signals, 21, 34, 96, 204, 206, 227 Sign Company, 236 Sinclair, Upton, 107 Sister Carrie (Dreiser), 107 Skyscrapers city density and, 181 electric elevators and, 114–115, 125, 131–134, 139, 142 as emerging technology, 114–115, 181, 228 Postal Telegraph Building and, 131–134, 139, 142 Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC) and, 114–115, 125, 132 Social issues, vii–ix Centennial Exposition and, 33–36, 42 context and, 17–20, 36–40, 127– 131, 168–172 cultural meanings and, 107–108 expanding application of electricity and, 11, 22–23

280

INDEX

fame of electrical inventor and, 41–44 (see also Heroic invention) high-technology imperative and, 10–14 industrial consolidation and, 146– 147 navy and, 47–48 paradigm shift and, 156 staging and, viii, 19–20, 33 (see also Staging) Society of the Arts, Boston, 78, 151 “Solution of Municipal Rapid Transit,The” (Sprague), 152 Sounders, 34 South Side Elevated Railroad, 173, 180, 188, 192 context of innovation and, 168– 172 conversion from steam power of, 156–158, 167–168 loss of profit on, 179 multiple unit (MU) system and, 156–163, 167–169 staging and, 173 Sparks, 70, 77, 79 Sperry, Elmer, 4, 38, 40, 224 Sprague, Althea, 202 Sprague, Charles, 23–26, 138, 160 Sprague, David, 23–24 Sprague, Desmond, 162, 167, 236 Sprague, Elvira Betsy Ann, 24–26 Sprague, Florence, 234 Sprague, Frances, 23–24

Sprague, Frank Julian, viii abstract period of, 40–41, 46–47 Annapolis and, 29–32, 35–44, 48, 58, 82, 225, 233 artifacts of, 234–236 background of, 23–32, 38–40 Centennial Exposition and, 33–36 confrontation methods of, 37 context and, 18–20, 36–40 Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 49–53 as elder statesman, 224–226 Electric Traction Commission and, 209–217, 226 entrepreneurship of, 7–9, 14–17, 22, 27, 36–37 first patent of, 49 as free agent, 123–124 General Electric and, 7–8, 14–17, 21, 115–121, 123 Grand Central Station and, 204– 210 heroic invention and, 43 (see also Heroic invention) home life and, 202–203 honorary degrees of, 225–226 Hoosac Tunnel and, 27–29 innovation of, 2–6 intensity of, 21–23 leaves Edison, 57–58 legacies of, 229–231 marriages of, 76, 114, 202, 247n36 meets Edison, 43

281

INDEX

Sprague, Frank Julian (cont.) mellowing of, 202–203, 216–217 mentoring of, 48–49 motors and, 55–57 (see also Motors) multiple unit (MU) system and, 3, 145–172 (see also Multiple unit [MU] system) naval travels of, 44–48 North Adams and, 24–27 notebook of, 46–48 patent issues and, 186, 190–195, 198 promotion skills of, 221–224 (see also Staging) as raconteur, 121–130 refuge of experimentation for, 149–150 royalties and, 195, 201–202 semi–retirement and, 202–204 shore stations and, 48–50 sketches of, 46–48, 153 team work and, 211–212 as technological statesman, 203– 204 third-rail design and, 203 Victorian principles of, 217 work with Edison of, 52–58 Sprague, George Washington, 23 Sprague, Harriet, 202, 233, 235 Sprague, John, 23, 230, 233–236 Sprague, Joshua, 23, 25 Sprague, Julian, 202, 230, 234, 236 Sprague, Lucy, 25

Sprague, Mary, 76, 202 Sprague, Peter, 236 Sprague, Ralph, 23 Sprague, Robert C., Jr., 230, 233– 234 Sprague, Robert C., Sr., 202, 229– 230 Sprague, Seaver, 24 Sprague Electric Company (SEC), 230, 233–234 Boston Elevated Railroad and, 190–192 Brooklyn Elevated Railway and, 182–187 buyout of, 194–195, 201 capital issues and, 163–164, 178– 180, 192–193 context and, 168–172 corporate maneuvering and, 190– 195, 199–200 entry barriers and, 175–177 founding of, 163–164 General Electric competition and, 184–189 industrial espionage and, 184 investor concerns and, 178–180, 189–190, 194 lessons learned from, 195–200 majority shareholders of, 178–179 Manhattan Elevated Railway and, 180–182, 186–187, 190, 192, 194 market challenges of, 173–177, 190–191

282

INDEX

multiple unit (MU) system and, 164–172 patent issues and, 190–195, 201 scaling up of, 187–190 Stanley Company and, 187–189, 194 Westinghouse competition and, 183–189 Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC) attempts at sustaining, 147–149 capital issues and, 129–130, 134– 140, 145–149, 197–198 Central London Railway and, 159–160 depression of 1893 and, 129–131, 135 engineering assessment of, 141– 142 first commercial installation of, 125–126 Grand Hotel and, 132–133 growth of, 148 Hydraulic Trust and, 130, 135, 137 lessons learned from, 165–166 market for, 137–143 merger of, 147, 163, 166 multiple unit (MU) system and, 147–150, 154–156, 159–166 Otis Elevator Company and, 124, 128–129, 138, 141–142, 147, 163, 179

Postal Telegraph Building and, 131–134, 139, 142 skyscrapers and, 114–115, 125, 132 staging by, 130–134, 139, 142 strategic context and, 127–131 Third National Bank and, 136– 137, 148–149 United States National Bank and, 135 Watsessing plant of, 136, 155–156, 162, 176, 189 Western National Bank and, 149 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) adoption dynamics and, 97–100 autonomy for, 117 bootstrap strategies and, 70–74 breakout position of, 94 building motor business side of, 74–76 capital issues and, 61–62, 67–70, 79, 87–90, 93–97, 104–105 Coffin and, 95–96, 105 contract deadlines and, 83, 87–90 control issues and, 108–112 corporate maneuvering and, 100– 105, 115–121, 123, 199 credibility of, 69–70, 74–75 driving force behind, 111 Edison and, 68–78, 82, 86–87, 94, 101, 103, 113, 115–121, 196–197 Flynn and, 80, 87–90

283

INDEX

Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) (cont.) General Electric’s acquisition of, 169–170, 194–195, 202 gradient issues and, 83–87 increased orders of, 95 increased traffic on, 92 industry development and, 100– 105 Johnson and, 68–76, 79, 83–84, 87–90, 93–95, 100–101, 103, 111 launching of, 66–70 lessons learned from, 165–166, 195–200 market allocation issues and, 118 motor sales of, 116, 125 multiple unit (MU) system and, 146, 148, 169 (see also Multiple unit [MU] system) ongoing evolution of, 105–107 O’Shaugnessy and, 162 parallel control system and, 77 patent issues and, 192 pilot demonstrations and, 78–79 railway architecture and, 77–80, 92 revenue of, 94–95 Richmond Union Passenger Railway and, 62, 80–91 shipping on spec by, 75 sparking issues and, 70, 77, 79 Sprague’s resignation from, 119 staging by, 131

as subsidiary, 113, 116–121 success of, 61–62 technology claims and, 108–112 Thomson-Houston and, 95–96, 100–101, 105–106, 116–118 trustees of, 70 Villard and, 63–64, 69, 71, 94, 102, 116 Sprague Safety Control and Signal Corporation, 204, 227 Sprague’s laws, 57 Sprague Specialities Company, 234 Staging, viii, 19–20, 40, 196, 198 Centennial Exposition and, 33–36, 42 Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 49–53 electric elevators and, 113, 115, 122–123, 128–134, 139–142 electric railways and, 61, 78–81, 91–92, 105, 108, 110, 124, 145– 148, 154–159, 169, 201–202, 219–222, 228, 231 multiple unit (MU) system and, 145–148, 154–159, 169, 173 narrative of Richmond project and, 121–123 raconteurship and, 121–123 Standard Third Rail Company, 227 Stanley,William, 4, 39, 105 Stanley Company, 187–189, 194

284

INDEX

Steam power, 3, 46, 64, 109, 236, 260n3 Brooklyn Elevated Railway and, 182–183 condenser design and, 157 Corliss steam engine and, 33–34, 36 deaths from, 205 electric elevators and, 115, 130 electricity replaces, 35–36, 170, 205, 208 electric railways and, 62, 98 fading of, 50–52 horsepower of, 33 hot air engines and, 244n53 limitations of, 51–52, 213 London Metropolitan underground railway and, 59–60 Manhattan Elevated Railway and, 156, 180 power stations and, 81 slow acceleration and, 207 South Side Elevated Railroad Company and, 156–158, 167–168 Steele, George F., 124 Steel industry, 12 Steger, H. B., 162 Steinmetz, Charles, 141 Stevens Institute of Technology, 226 St. Louis Electrical Exposition, 226 Stock tickers, 11 Stockwell, 71

“Story of the Trolley Car,The” (Sprague), 221–224 Streetcars, 39, 59, 107–108 Submarines, 34, 224–226 Subways, xii, 3, 123–124, 181, 217, 221 Swan, 52–53 Taylor, Frederick, 219 Technology abstraction of, 35 adoption dynamics and, 97–100 “Battle of the Currents” and, 212– 216 (see also Electricity) Centennial Exposition and, 33–36, 42 context and, 17–22 control issues and, 108–112 Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 49–53 depression of 1893 and, 129 determinism and, 51 disruptive, vii–ix, 12, 112, 171, 177 economic context of, 6–10 electric elevators and, 113–143 (see also Electric elevators) electric railways and, 59–90 (see also Electric railways) Electric Traction Commission and, 209–212, 214, 216–217, 226 heroic invention and, 37, 41–44 high-technology imperative and, 10–14

285

INDEX

Technology (cont.) historical perspective on, 1–20 International Electrical Exhibition and, 69–71, 74 journalists and, 28, 42 magnetism and, 6, 21, 34–35, 39, 56–57 multiple unit (MU) system and, 145–172 ownership claims upon, 108–112 (see also Patents) paradigm shift and, 156 as political emblems, 107–108 as progress of civilization, 35 skyscrapers and, 114–115, 181, 228 technological momentum and, 17–18, 22–23, 38, 41, 45, 62–68, 73, 97, 102, 212, 219, 230, 240n2, 261n16 Telecommunications, 11–12 Telegraphy, 37, 49, 54, 56, 153, 189 duplex machines and, 34, 46 Edison and, 42 historical perspective on, 4, 6, 8–13 innovation in, 12–13 Postal Telegraph Building and, 131–134, 139, 142, 150 quadruplex machines and, 34, 46 transatlantic cables and, 34 Western Union and, 13, 34 Telemchon, 44

Telephony Bell and, 13, 34, 42–43, 119 Edison and, 45 heroic invention and, 42 historical perspective on, 4, 11, 13 Sprague and, 36–37, 46 tri-phase, 160 Tesla, Nikola, 4, 15, 39, 92, 103, 224 Third National Bank, 136–137, 148–149 Thomson, Elihu, 4, 15, 39, 99–100 Thomson-Houston Electric Company, 239n17, 249n10 acquisitions of, 10, 95 economies of scope and, 8 Edison General Electric merger and, 7, 129 historical perspective on, 7–8, 10 political powers of, 96, 100–101 Sprague competition and, 95–96, 100–101, 105–106, 116–118 Villard and, 104 West End Railway and, 100 Tomlinson, John, 70 Tone controls, 229–230 Transatlantic cables, 34 Tremont House, 124–125 Turbines, 8 Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens), 203 U-boats, 224–226 Union Lead Works, 76–77

286

INDEX

United Kingdom, 34, 39 Central London Railway and, 159–160 Crystal Electrical Exhibition and, 49–53 United States Centennial Exposition and, 33–36 Civil War and, 28, 30, 32 depression of 1893 and, 129–131, 135 immigrants and, 39 manufacturing census data and, 6 miles of track laid in, 109 patents and, 11 privatized construction in, 99– 100 resources of, viii Third National Bank and, 136– 137, 148–149 Western National Bank and, 149 United States National Bank, 135 University of Michigan, 39–40 University of Pennsylvania, 226 University of Prague, 39 Unter, Louis, 51 U.S. Census, 11, 25–26 U.S. Congress, 32 U.S. Department of Commerce, 19 U.S. Naval Academy, 2 curriculum of, 30–32 innovation and, 30 methods of, 30–31 North Adams citizens and, 29

Sprague’s years in, 29–44, 48, 58, 82, 225, 233 U.S. Navy, 224–226 U.S. Patent Office, 11, 37, 63. See also Patents USS Lancaster, 49 USS Lexington, 233–234 USS Richmond, 44, 46, 56 U.S. Steel, 198 Van Depoele, Charles early experiments of, 38 electrical railways and, 64–65, 86, 95, 101, 103, 152, 221 as immigrant, 39 Van Depoele Electric Light Company, 64, 70–71 Vaporware, 190 Veblen,Thorstein, 219 Villard, Henry, 10, 123, 197 Edison and, 63–64, 69, 71, 94 financial collapse of, 123 market approaches of, 104–106, 108 Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company (SERM) and, 63–64, 69, 71, 94, 102, 116 Voltage, 55, 82–83, 96–97, 168, 205, 226 Wallace,William, 44, 48, 121 Wallace & Sons, 34 Weber, Max, viii

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Weed, Smith M., 134–135, 137 West End Railway, 96–100 Western Electrician, 209 Western Electric International, 19 Western Electric Manufacturing Company, 34 Western National Bank, 149 Western Union, 13, 34 Westinghouse, George, 4, 15, 38, 185, 218–219 Westinghouse, H. H., 19 Westinghouse company, 118, 171, 180 Belmont and, 185 Brooklyn Elevated Railway and, 183–187 competition from, 184–189 depression of 1893 and, 170 Electric Traction Commission and, 218 entry barriers and, 175–177 Gibbs and, 209 historical perspective on, 7–8, 13–16 multiple unit (MU) system and, 165 Pittsfield works of, 8 resources of, 154 Zimmerman and, 183 Weston, 71 West Point, 29, 82 Wheelbarrow style, 92 Whitney, Eli, vii

Whitney, Henry, 25, 96–99 Whitney, Martin, 25–26 Whitney,Willis, 177 Whittier elevator company, 124 Wiesner, Jerome, 233 Wilgus,William, 215 air rights and, 207 ambitious plans of, 207–210, 213– 214 “Battle of the Currents” and, 212– 216 Electric Traction Commission and, 209, 214, 217, 219–220, 226 New York Central Railroad and, 206 self-education of, 206 third-rail architecture and, 226 Williston Academy, 39 Windsor Print Works, 26 Wizards, 1, 37, 40, 43 World War I, 203–204, 224 Wright brothers, vii Yale University, 39 Yankee ingenuity, viii Zacharias, Jerrold, 233

288