Lewis Latimer’s birthday, Pearl Street Station’s anniversary
What's so special about this Sunday, the Fourth of September? It's both Lewis Latimer's birthday and the hundred and thirty-fourth anniversary of Pearl Street Station.
Here's an excerpt from the September issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly heading your way:
On September 4, 1848, Lewis Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His parents were slaves in Virginia who escaped to Boston. The slave owner came to Boston to reclaim them, in one of the most important cases of the abolitionist movement. The slave owner was eventually paid for their freedom.
Latimer was hired by Alexander Graham Bell to draft the patent drawings for the invention of the telephone. Then he was hired by Thomas Edison as a draftsman and expert witness for patent litigation on the invention of the light bulb.
Latimer improved the process for producing the critical component of the light bulb, the carbon filament. He received seven U.S. patents...
Thomas Edison's Pearl Street Station in lower Manhattan was put into commercial operation on the afternoon of September 4, 1882. On Lewis Latimer's thirty-fourth birthday!
Edison, standing in the office of J.P. Morgan, gave the signal to close the switch to start delivering power from our industry's first central generating station. Its six dynamos could supply over seven thousand lights. But there were just eighty-plus customers that day with about four hundred lights.
Not fully comprehending the significance of the event, the New York Times published an account the next day under "Miscellaneous City News." A year later, Pearl Street Station was serving over five hundred customers with about ten thousand lights, including the Times.
Celebrating the summer's end, barbequing with friends and family, and toasting Latimer and Edison, here at Public Utilities Fortnightly.
Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly
E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com
