Electric Lighting and its Consequences

Abstract

The electrical engineering industry really began life as an industry to provide electric lighting, first by means of arc lamps and then by incandescent lamps. The industrial applications of electricity before the commercial exploitation of electric lighting were trivial compared with what came after. The telegraph, telephone, and electroplating had raised small industries to develop, install, maintain, and run those services, and the communications industry has grown into an enveloping giant in its own right. But it was lighting that first demanded central power stations for the efficient mass generation of electric current and then placed that current in the home, office, factory, and street for use in lighting systems, and later for other applications as well. In this way, and others, lighting had a profound effect on the technical and commercial development of the industry, including even electronics. Further, it was the profits from electric lighting that supported the electrical industry in its formative years and enabled some of the early companies (for example General Electric in America and Philips in the Netherlands) to grow into large industrial concerns operating internationally in most of the major areas of electrical engineering. Even today the profits from light bulbs are important to major firms.