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Shining Light on Electricity
The Buffalo News
Sunday, August 17, 2003
By KEVIN PURDY
Empires of Light
By Jill Jonnes
Random House
415 pages, $27.95
Given only the basic high school history of electricity -- a noble line
drawn from Benjamin Franklin's kite and key to Thomas Edison's
incandescent bulb -- a good number of us may be startled to learn some of
its lesser-known characters: a Buffalo axe murderer, a Serbian genius
deathly afraid of pearls on women, and a score of dogs, ranging from cute
puppies to mangy mongrels, that came to a sizzling end in Edison's
laboratories.
All this and much, much more is packed into Jill Jonnes' "Empires of
Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World,"
an exhaustive look at one of the Gilded Age's fiercest contests, the "War
of the Electric Currents." Jonnes' tale occasionally ventures into college
lecture territory when searching too far afield for context or
overemphasizing key points, but it's a fascinating introduction for
neophytes, and of particular interest to those in Buffalo, the aptly
self-named City of Light.
"Empires" rises and falls on its central conceit, that the world's
electrical prospects were shaped by three fascinating characters. There's
Edison, the famous folksy inventor who saw incandescent lighting as his
entry to industrial fortunes; George Westinghouse, the charming
entrepreneur who played only to win; and Nikola Tesla, the inventor who
helped define "eccentric" and possessed an almost wizardly understanding
of the earth's unseen forces.
After a mildly interesting introduction and overly extensive history of
electrical discoveries, we're introduced to Edison at about page 50. You
can almost hear the hum of microfilm projectors as Jonnes delves deep into
the ramshackle labs of industrial towns, the manure-lined streets of late
19th-century New York, and rather obsessive accounts of nearly every
person's facial hair arrangements along the way. Her thumbnail of Edison
is actually one of the lesser feats of archival wizardry in the book:
"In an age of great formality, when gentlemen wore fine Prince Albert
suits, a proper stiff collar and cravat, and a shiny silk top hat when
venturing forth in public, Edison preferred to play the unschooled hick at
Menlo Park, affecting rumpled blue flannel workman's suits, silk
neckerchiefs, a simple cloth skullcap, and solid boots. In truth, Edison
was a voracious and penetrating reader, hungry for knowledge and
possessing an amazing memory. His early deafness only made him more likely
to lose himself in a book."
So fierce was the competition between Edison's direct current and
Westinghouse's alternating current that, at around page 150, one can't
help but hold contempt for Edison, the archetypal hero of down-home
inventors, as he forgoes personal ethics to push New York state toward
adopting electrocution -- using Westinghouse generators, of course -- and
has his lackeys pay children a quarter for every dog they bring to his
labs for "testing."
Once you warm to the irresistible charms of Tesla, and follow South
Division Street resident William Kemmler from drunken murder to horrific
electrocution, you're hooked. Jonnes -- who did extensive local research
with the Niagara Falls Public Library, Buffalo & Erie County
Historical Society, Niagara Power and Niagara Mohawk -- also paints a
vivid picture of the triumphant moment when the Falls first lit up the
Queen City (and is blurbed on the book's jacket by "City of Light" author
Lauren Belfer).
Tesla, at that time, addressed a high-spirited crowd in Buffalo's
Ellicott Club with his perfect, heavily accented English: "Let me wish
that in no time distant your city will be a worthy neighbor of the great
cataract which is one of the great wonders in nature."
Jonnes takes a long time making her way through that period, when the
air was literally sparking with promise, but it's ultimately worth the
investment in "Empire."
Kevin Purdy is a News financial reporter.
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