Foundation story for our industry, with intrigues of Edison, Westinghouse, Tesla, Morgan and Bell
Remember Graham Moore. He was the screenwriter for “The Imitation Game,” the wonderful flick about Alan Turing, the father of computing. Moore then won the Academy Award and famously made an inspiring acceptance speech.
Moore has now given our industry a great gift. His “Last Days of Night,” Random House, is a historical novel about the war of currents between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, along with Nikola Tesla, J.P. Morgan and Alexander Graham Bell.
This book is like our foundation story. Moore spins a drama of the discoveries and clashes that decided electricity would be generated at central stations remote from customers and distributed by an alternating current grid.
As delightful as it is to read about Edison, Westinghouse, Tesla, Morgan and Bell, we also follow the fascinating main character of the book, Paul Cravath. He was Westinghouse’s lawyer, Edison’s enemy, Tesla’s protector, then his traitor, Morgan’s co-conspirator, and Bell’s friend.
Cravath also developed the business model for the modern law firm, with teams of associates competing in career paths towards partners. One of the leading law firms still bears his name.
Historically-black Fisk University, founded by Cravath’s father, plays a key role in the book. As well as the top opera singer at the time, the glamorous Agnes Huntington, who cares for Tesla following the mysterious arson of Tesla’s lab, and who marries Cravath in the end.
Other influential figures who shaped our industry are in the book too. There’s Reginald Fessenden, the pioneer of radio, sonar and television who as a young man worked for Edison and then Westinghouse. There’s Harold Brown, who pushed for the electric chair with horrible electrocutions of animals. There’s Edison’s right-hand man Charles Batchelor, who ran a network of spies.
And there’s Charles Coffin. Morgan and Cravath made Coffin the first president of General Electric after the company was wrested from Edison.
Notably, Coffin retired as GE’s chairman in 1922, handing over the reins to Owen Young. Aside from running GE, and RCA, and resolving the World War I reparations dispute between Germany and the Allies, he founded my company Public Utilities Reports.
Young’s college roommate, Henry Spurr, was the first head of my company. In 1928, he started up PUF. Smart move!
Anyway, don’t wait for the movie. Get yourself a copy of “Last Days of Night” and enjoy.
Since 1928, Public Utilities Fortnightly has been as difficult for readers to put down, as it is for readers of “Last Days of Night.”
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com
