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

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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

Foreword by W. Bernard Carlson

vii

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION: TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT

THE TURN OF A CENTURY

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888: SPRAGUE ELECTRIC

RAILWAY AND MOTOR COMPANY AND THE RICHMOND

UNION PASSENGER RAILWAY

ASSESSING RICHMOND: BEYOND INVENTION

RESTLESS AND RISING: SPRAGUE AND SPRAGUE ELECTRIC

ELEVATOR COMPANY, 1890 TO 1898

113

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL: MULTIPLE UNIT, THE SOUTH

SIDE ELEVATED RAILROAD, AND THE FORMATION OF

SPRAGUE ELECTRIC COMPANY

145

CONTENTS

ELUSIVE CONTROL: THE CONTEST WITH GENERAL

ELECTRIC

173

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION: EMINENCE AND THE

CHALLENGES OF “RETIREMENT”

201

AFTERWORD: THE BARN BY JOHN SPRAGUE

233

Notes

237

Index

263

vii

Disruptive technologies have played a decisive role in American his-

tory. 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 re-

cent 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, manufac-

turing 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

FOREWORD

W. Bernard Carlson

W. BERNARD CARLSON

viii

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 in-

ventors and entrepreneurs and to talk about how disruptive tech-

nologies 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 signiﬁ cant 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 technolo-

gies 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 con-

trollers needed to operate electric trains—Dalzell explores the chal-

lenges that Sprague faced in converting his ideas into products. As he

invented new technology, Sprague also had to create new companies,

ﬁ nd 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

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 mate-

rial not readily available from public sources. These included his per-

sonal 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- ﬁ fth 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 encour-

agement in seeing it through. Without his support, this book would

never have been completed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

W. Bernard Carlson o

ﬀered 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 help-

ful 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) Sys-

tem, 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, Presi-

dent of the Association d’Exploitation du Material Sprague, o

ﬀered

detailed information concerning the Sprague- Thomson subway cars

used in the Paris Metro Line, Le Sprague. Piers Conner, former Presi-

dent of the London Underground Railway Society, also lent invalu-

able 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

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 ﬁ rst

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 incandes-

cent 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 be-

come a common every- day a

ﬀair. 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 ﬁ nds his services

INTRODUCTION: TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

INTRODUCTION

no longer in such great demand in the ﬁ eld of electric lighting, also

considers the same question. What shall it be?”

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. As-

piring inventors and entrepreneurs were testing new electrical tech-

nologies and launching new electrical start- up companies.

One of these aspirants was Frank Julian Sprague. An intense, ﬁ ercely

ambitious young electrical engineer who had recently joined Edi-

son’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 in-

ternational exhibitions that showcased new electrical inventions, as

(brieﬂ y) 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 ﬁ lling 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 o

ﬀered 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.”

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 ﬁ ercely convinced, on the brink of big things.

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

Indeed, Sprague was beginning what would be a remarkably fer-

tile career of invention and innovation.

Between 1884 (when he

broke with Edison to begin assembling his own designs for elec-

tric 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 (mo-

tors that worked at constant speeds despite varying loads), he moved

into the development of electric railway systems (including net-

worked aspects of the technology, such as motor, railway car, and car-

riage architecture; control systems; and power transmission solutions).

This work coalesced in Richmond, Virginia, in 1887 as the world’s

ﬁ rst functional, full- scale electric railway system. From there, Sprague

turned to the apparently promising (but technologically more con-

tested) ﬁ eld 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 en-

gineering 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 semi retirement

at the turn of the twentieth century, his technical work was thor-

oughly embedded in the industrial urban landscape. As inventions or

artifacts, Sprague’s designs and solutions were largely invis ible, bur-

ied inside complex technological networks and systems. But as vital

components of those networks, they were humming busily, carrying

tra

ﬃc, reorganizing geographies, and refashioning the material and

cultural patterns that deﬁ ned daily lives.

Sprague thus participated in a remarkably proliﬁ c burst of innovation

that, in a few dozen years over the late nineteenth century, transformed

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 fasci-

nating as episodes in the history of technology: Thomas Edison, Elihu

Thomson, Nicolas Tesla, Charles Brush, Elmer Sperry, George West-

inghouse, and William Stanley. And those were just the luminaries.

Working among them, with them, and against them, vying for atten-

tion 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 innova-

tion. Within the space of several decades, breakthroughs in telegra-

phy and telephony, arc lighting, incandescent lighting, direct- current

power generation and transmission, phonographs, and alternating-

current power generation and transmission took form as artifacts and

stabilized as technological systems. And those are just the technolo-

gies 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, ﬁ rms began to organize indus-

trial research capabilities, and scientists and engineers internalized

and institutionalized professional identities. The development of the

industrial corporation (itself a cluster of organizational and ﬁ nancial

technologies) became a powerful engine of technology formation.

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 them-

selves into professional associations.

These transformations helped organize the technology, sort it out,

and assemble it in workable forms. And organization proved increas-

ingly 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 so-

lutions tended to be iterative. Inventions came to signify highly com-

plex clusters of technologies assembling interlocking components.

Technical progress toward any given system was also iterative, incor-

porating numerous designs and solutions. The technology, in other

words, was networked, requiring the process of innovation to be-

come networked. To take one of the most evident examples, Sprague

couldn’t “invent” an electric railway until a system of power genera-

tion and transmission had been invented and built out.

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 in-

vention 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 di

ﬀerent modes

of technology.

Sprague created a career that o

ﬀers, in short, a rich case for histori-

cal study—a case that this book uses to examine a cluster of closely

INTRODUCTION

related issues. Sprague’s story situates the historian at the heart of the

formation of the electrical industry (the second industrial revolu-

tion), in the early, formative stages of the ﬁ rst U.S. industrial corpo-

rations, 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 indus-

try when the federal census listed a set of four manufacturing ﬁ rms

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

ﬁ rms, $18,900 in ﬁ nancing).

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 ﬁ rms, $636,458

in capital) and tallied an additional three dozen ﬁ rms competing in

more generalized “Electrical Apparatus and Supplies” (deploying

$873,300 in capital). Even more signiﬁ cantly, 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 ﬁ rms received separate listings under the category “Electric

Lights” ($425,000 in capital).

The changing census designations revealed an industry in the

throes of rapid deﬁ nition and articulation. By 1890, after a decade of

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

entrepreneurial ferment, the number of ﬁ rms competing in “Electri-

cal Apparatus and Supplies” had climbed to 189. Investors had piled

in, too: the capital behind these ﬁ rms had swelled to just under $19

million.

Ten years later, notwithstanding a sharp economic slow-

down followed by a halting, slow recovery, the industry had come

of age. The census of 1900 tallied no fewer than 580 businesses en-

gaged 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.

The number of companies proliferated rapidly. Paradoxically, over

the same period, the industry consolidated. The total number of ﬁ rms

multiplied, but several companies quickly grew to colossal size, attained

ﬁ rst- 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 Com-

pany 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 open-

ing of the Pearl Street power station for industry leaders to emerge.

The scale of business, on this tier of the industry, reached massive

proportions. The formation of GE in 1892 combined EGE’s $10.9 mil-

lion in sales with Thomson- Houston’s $10.3 million.

By 1902, when

Sprague was preparing to sell o

ﬀ his third company, General Electric

INTRODUCTION

(which would absorb Sprague’s venture) was doing over $30 million

in sales,

and only Westinghouse was o

ﬀering serious competition.

Other companies in other industries also grew colossal during this

period. Across the economic landscape, in fact, an improved infra-

structure, 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 pro-

cess techniques created e

ﬃciencies of scale that drove rapid, brutally

ﬃcient industry shakeouts.

But the electrical companies scaled up for di

ﬀerent reasons in

response to distinct industry dynamics. As W. Bernard Carlson has

pointed out, electrical manufacturing o

ﬀered only limited opportu-

nities for e

ﬃciencies of scale.

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 as-

sembly. GE’s gigantic works at Schenectady, New York, and Westing-

house’s at Pittsﬁ eld, Massachusetts, became hangars ﬁ lled 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 ap-

paratus, embodying clusters of rapidly evolving technology. To sell

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 technol-

ogy—in particular, over patents, the applicable boundaries of which

were ambiguous and overlapping. To sell their products, moreover,

the major ﬁ rms found it necessary to assemble substantial market-

ing organizations, deploying technically skilled agents in major ur-

ban 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.

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 ﬁ nancing of local power station construction), to

develop or acquire the necessary technologies, and to bring the ad-

vantages of scope and an established market presence to bear. In 1880,

as noted, the total capital invested in electrical manufacturing (ex-

cluding 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 “elec-

tric light and power,” as major ﬁ nanciers began assembling blocks

of investors and building businesses to scale.

The turning point

came in the late 1880s, when several large companies began absorbing

INTRODUCTION

rivals to expand their product lines and ﬁ ll their technology port-

folios. Marshaling the ﬁ nancial backing of the Boston brokerage ﬁ rm

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 ﬁ nanciers 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 e

ﬀect, the Boston

and New York ﬁ nanciers 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.

Thus the industry became a dynamic new arena of investment,

though not a familiar or tightly structured one. There was, as yet,

no established ﬁ nancial market for industrial equities. The stock-

markets 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 ﬁ rst 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 ﬁ nanciers and

investors who threw their lot behind them were crafting new capital

relationships—new ways of assembling investors and owning business.

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-

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

stantly with technological changes that fed those ﬁ rms that learned

how to adapt continuously and punished those ﬁ rms that grew tech-

nologically stale. Again, the U.S. Census marked and quantiﬁ ed the

development. “A steady stream of new and radical ideas” was ﬂ owing

into this sector, Special Agent Thomas Commerford Martin reported

in an industry analysis in 1900. In part, the ﬂ ux reﬂ ected 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 ﬁ eld to ﬁ eld—or rather, widened from

ﬁ eld to ﬁ eld, 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 impres-

sive. Martin cited data indicating that between 1870 and 1895, the

U.S. Patent O

ﬃce issued over 3,500 patents in the ﬁ eld of electric

lighting, over 3,000 in telegraphy, nearly 2,500 in telephony, and over

2,000 in electric railways. The total ﬁ gure for electrical inventions

of all kinds surpassed 17,500 over that twenty- ﬁ ve- year span. And

the rate of invention showed no signs of slowing. Indeed, it was ac-

celerating. Authorities issued nearly 6,800 electrical patents of one

kind or another from 1896 through the ﬁ rst 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 ﬁ elds of

discovery and application.” Here indeed was an industry “subject to

rapid and violent changes.”

In this respect, the electrical industry—along with a handful of

other lines of business, notably telecommunications (a closely related

INTRODUCTION

industry, technologically speaking) and chemicals—represented a new

phenomenon in American business history. True, technological adap-

tation 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. Con-

version 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 con-

solidation in the ﬂ our milling industry. In these and numerous other

cases, ﬁ rms 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 genera-

tion 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 ﬁ rst to come to grips with

the implications of this new reality. Initial breakthroughs followed

by a round of reﬁ nement achieved, by the mid- 1800s, a technology

robust enough to form the basic platform for large business. The tele-

graph companies were, in fact, the ﬁ rst businesses to achieve national

scopes of operation in the United States.

But even after the empire

builders consolidated their networks in the form of imposing corpo-

rate giants, technological developments continued to roil the strate-

gic 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

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

volatile. Indeed, infamously, the emergence of telephonic technolo-

gies during ongoing telegraphic development complicated strate-

gic calculations, with far- reaching implications. Western Union was

ﬀered Bell’s patents and rejected them. This was high technology,

ﬃ cult to stay on top of and too dangerous to ride complacently.

Similar volatility shaped and continuously reshaped the electrical

equipment industry that started to emerge in the 1870s. Compet-

ing 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 sur-

faced in the 1880s over direct current versus alternate current. And

these were only the most prominent among the multitude of tech-

nology 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 e

ﬀectively

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, cap-

italizing, structuring, and managing technology and business became

formative aspects of the modern industrial corporation. General Elec-

tric, in particular, laid groundwork that was foundational. The forma-

tion of GE, as business historian Alfred Chandler observes, marked a

turning point in American business history. GE represented the ﬁ rst

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 ﬁ rst

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 ﬁ rst nonrailroad industrial investment to earn the

backing and brokerage of J. P. Morgan.

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 un-

leashed by electrical innovation. Electrical technology was too tu-

multuous, the markets too ﬂ uid, the opportunities too expansive to

be brought easily or entirely under general control. Even as the in-

dustry giants scrambled to gather emerging technologies under their

umbrellas, new technologies continued to heave into view, many of

them disrupting the competitive landscape signiﬁ cantly. In short, the

industry was continuously churned at a subterranean level by what

sociologist / economist Joseph Schumpeter has famously termed “cre-

ative destruction.”

This critical aspect of the story—this multitudinous, chaotic, en-

trepreneurial force within it—is nearly as di

ﬃcult to capture histori-

cally 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 ﬁ gure of Thomas Edison tow-

ers in our historical imagination, ﬂ anked by a relatively small sup-

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 po-

dium, 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.

Yet this mainstream version of the history leaves substantial lapses

in coverage and signiﬁ cant gaps in understanding. As Joness’s title

suggests, it tells us more about electric lights than it does about elec-

trical motors. More generally, it tends to describe the process of in-

dustry deﬁ nition 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 a

ﬃliated strategic partner (of the

Edison interests), an executive o

ﬃcer (of EGE), an in- house tech-

nology 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 ungovern-

able 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

INTRODUCTION

fundamental way, within an institution like the one that GE rapidly

became. He drove himself, instead, to achieve something more dra-

matic 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 in-

stinctively skeptical of the notion of heroes. Indeed, from the outset

of his ﬁ rst 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 e

ﬃcient, 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 tech-

nological transformations that companies such as GE would eventu-

ally claim and try to control. Throughout his career, Sprague took on

larger, better- established, better- ﬁ nanced rivals. And in each case, he

managed to bring them to terms, forcing them to buy out his com-

panies 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 ad-

vent of the United States’ ﬁ rst 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

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

Chandler describes as ﬁ rst- 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

ﬁ rst- mover status.

The narrative that follows tries to capture this complex dynamic.

It focuses on sectors and ﬁ gures 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 eco-

nomic changes. It tells a story of innovation at a time when innova-

tion 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 signiﬁ cant 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 be-

ing in some pure, unmediated way directly from the vision of heroic

inventors has been challenged—indeed, thoroughly debunked. His-

torians now emphasize that technologies are social constructions, nei-

ther 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 pur-

ported 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

INTRODUCTION

development. “Technological a

ﬀairs contain a rich texture of techni-

cal matters, scientiﬁ c 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.”

a similar vein, David Nye cautions against becoming seduced by the

image of “the heroic ‘lone inventor,’” a ﬁ gure that “has largely dis-

appeared from scholarship.”

When he turns to electriﬁ cation circa

Sprague, Nye concerns himself not so much with how technologies

were ﬁ rst 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

ﬁ rst major technology project), Nye credits Sprague with being the

ﬁ rst 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 deﬁ ne ultimately as a tech-

nology 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 experi-

enced as part of many human situations which collectively deﬁ ne[d]

its meaning.”

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 over-

turn contextualist perspectives on the subject. Rather, this biography

tries to situate a single inventor within the larger contextual dimen-

sions of technology formation.

Returning to a biographical point of view does open new perspec-

tives on the process of technology formation. Inventors may not have

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THE TURN OF A CENTURY

been as heroic or masterful as they imagined, but they were most def-

initely inventing, and they were imagining themselves inventing. In

fact, neither Hughes nor Nye proposes ignoring ﬁ gures 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 technologi-

cal impact and transformation. As Sprague’s career makes evident,

innovation required not just inventing but building, manufacturing,

commercializing, promoting, marketing, professionalizing, and insti-

tutionalizing—all of which Sprague undertook energetically, inﬂ u-

entially, and with a striking (though uneven) degree of success. He

recognized that his ideas had to be engineered to become technolo-

gies, and he threw himself repeatedly into the e

ﬀort. In his twilight

years, Sprague’s peers recognized and lauded precisely this aspect of

his career. Maurice Coster (vice president of Western Electric In-

ternational) put his ﬁ nger on an important dimension of Sprague’s

career when he described him as “the greatest constructive electri-

cal 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 appa-

ratus . . . 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.”

More speciﬁ cally, 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 ﬁ gured centrally in Sprague’s con-

ceptions of his career. Repeatedly, he framed invention as an arena in

INTRODUCTION

which a new technology was (at least implicitly) challenged, dem-

onstrated, 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 ﬁ gured 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 e

ﬀort, but it remains one

worth pursuing. As a case study, Sprague’s career creates an opportu-

nity to recalibrate the possibilities for individual agency within the

broad, impersonal currents of recent scholarship. It opens an “internal-

ist” perspective on the history of technology that, when read in con-

junction 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 inﬂ uence 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.

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.

When people met Frank Julian Sprague, they tended to notice ﬁ rst

the sheer intensity of the man. “A virile and aggressive person,” Gen-

eral Electric executive E. Wilbur Rice (a sometime adversary, some-

time 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 col-

league observed. “His eyes are bright and full of motion. His face is

alive with insistency and driving force. It is the face of a ﬁ ghter 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 ap-

pears to be literally magnetized.”

Indeed, something ﬁ ercely compulsive and powerfully propulsive

drove Sprague. He invented and ventured incessantly—in electric

motors, railways, elevators, train systems, signals, and dozens of sideline

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

CHAPTER 1

projects. He achieved a string of technological breakthroughs, un-

dertook 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 satisﬁ ed or ﬁ nished for

long. Something worked within Frank Sprague to send him obses-

sively, again and again, to the proving ground of invention and the

theater of venturing. Sprague sustained his projects by ﬁ ts of manic en-

ergy 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 ac-

counts of his youth. As a scientiﬁ cally trained engineer, he might

well have distrusted any e

ﬀort 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 prolif-

erated 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 tech-

nology acquired what historians have characterized as technological

momentum,

a development in which Sprague and his peers ﬁ gured

centrally. Large social, economic, and cultural forces shaped the di-

rection and outcome of their work. But at the same time, inventors

and entrepreneurs (and would- be inventors and entrepreneurs) were

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

working actively on the ground, individually and in teams, to gener-

ate, 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 sev-

enteenth 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 adven-

turers, like Uncle Joshua, who headed west to seek his fortune in the

California gold ﬁ elds and crossed the plains in a prairie schooner. Two

Sprague men—Frank’s father and his father’s brother, George Wash-

ington Sprague, died in railroad accidents.

Perhaps Frank’s later in-

terest 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 scientiﬁ c or inventive in-

clinations. 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 di

ﬀer ent

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

CHAPTER 1

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 moth-

er’s death on Frank, who was eight years old, must have been devas-

tating. 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 Mil-

ford 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 ﬁ gure 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.’”

NORTH ADAMS

David Sprague’s departure must have seemed like abandonment, and

Sprague’s subsequent relationship with his father was cool.

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

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

and pulled back tightly behind her head. Her dark eyes are penetrat-

ing. 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 a

ﬀection, and he became devoted to

her. “She was a woman of the ﬁ nest New England type and striking

beauty,” he would later attest. “Living in a modest, frugal way as an

occasional school teacher, with great sacriﬁ ce 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.”

Life

with Ann appears to have restored domestic stability and some mea-

sure of emotional security to the boys. In later years, Sprague de-

scribed Aunt Ann as an exceptional foster mother and North Adams

as his ﬁ rst 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 old-

est daughter, Lucy, married Henry Whitney and had seven children,

including Martin Whitney, who worked in the Print Works (later the

Arnold Print Works).

Yet if other Spragues helped out with the boys,

they apparently made little emotional impact on Frank: nearly every-

thing 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,

yet the 1870 U.S. Census indicates that both Frank

CHAPTER 1

and Charley were living with a ﬁ rst 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.

During Frank’s early years in North Adams, the town was a com-

munity in transition. From a small and relatively isolated village out-

post in the hilly northwestern corner of Massachusetts, the place was

transforming into an industrialized and economically expanding com-

munity by the mid- nineteenth century, when Frank and Charley ar-

rived. 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 manu-

facturing 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 ﬁ rm’s proﬁ ts in 1874 at $100,000, indicating a

substantial and successful establishment.

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 manufactur-

ing businesses thrived. These included shoe manufacturers, dyeing

businesses, and numerous ancillary industrial establishments such as

makers of leather belting, “manufacturers’ supplies,” lime and cement,

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 ﬁ xtures, locks, “Meridan Plated Ware,” milli-

nery goods, hats and caps, “Parisian vases and statuettes,” patent medi-

cines, “carriage trimmings,” and a multitude of other commodities.

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 news-

paper and doctor’s bills and soliciting orders for papers and book

bindings.”

Such jobs would have required him to circulate through-

out town. Given his subsequent work in motors and other mecha-

nisms, 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 ﬁ ve 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

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. Inter-

vening priorities (not the least of them the Civil War e

ﬀort) preoccu-

pied 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.

For the next six years, as Frank Sprague grew from boyhood into

adolescence, work on the tunnel steadily progressed. Shanely im-

ported 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 ﬁ ve

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 ﬁ gure for the period, and nearly two hundred men had

died in workplace fatalities, most of them in violent accidents. A ﬁ nal

blast in 1873 completed the initial digging.

According to contemporary accounts, “as the deafening thunder

from the explosion” of the ﬁ nal 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 head-

long rush followed, each eager to be the ﬁ rst that should step through

the opening.”

In February 1875, the ﬁ rst train of cars passed through

the tunnel. “A royal pathway has been made,” declared a journalist

observer.

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 proj-

ect],” he later recounted, “courting the acquaintance of the engineers

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 ﬁ nishing his primary education in the local public

schools, he entered Drury Academy, a local private preparatory school

where he received his ﬁ rst formal introduction to the sciences. Intelli-

gent 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 Springﬁ eld, Massachusetts, to

take a competitive examination for admission to the U.S. Military

Academy at West Point, New York. When Sprague arrived in Spring-

ﬁ eld, he learned that the examination was not for West Point but for

appointment as a cadet to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Mary-

land, 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 ﬁ eld of

boys, the majority of whom had had greater educational advantages,”

he won. To help ﬁ nance his enrollment at Annapolis, several North

Adams citizens (unfortunately now unidentiﬁ ed) loaned him $400.

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 signiﬁ cantly, it equipped Sprague

for invention and primed him for innovation.

CHAPTER 1

Historians tend to characterize the U.S. Navy in the decades im-

mediately following the Civil War as an institution that was indi

ﬀerent

and indeed hostile to innovation. Elting E. Morison, for example, has

described the 1870s as an interlude of “little science, less technol-

ogy, 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 pe-

riod, including signiﬁ cant work in torpedoes, electric dynamos, and

naval architecture.

The United States Naval Academy participated in and helped to

nurture some of this spirit. The curriculum included not only sea-

manship, navigation, naval strategy, and tactics but also relatively so-

phisticated science and technology- oriented coursework. Sprague’s

arrival in 1874 coincided with the appointment of a new superin-

tendent, Rear Admiral C.R.P. Rodgers, who oversaw an overhaul of

the curriculum, including adding upper- level electives in mathemat-

ics, 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.

Courses at the Academy were conducted by the recitation method

and supplemented, at upper levels, by problem- solving exercises. Af-

ter entering a classroom, midshipmen “drew slips” with written prob-

lems or questions and “manned the boards,” working out answers on

blackboards around the room.

The program was rigorous. In 1877,

“plebe” Harry Phelps wrote home reporting: “I stayed at the library

all yesterday afternoon and I ﬁ nd that they have nearly every book

that there is. I have been writing up a ‘skinny’ [slang for physics and

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 elabo-

rated: “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.”

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 class-

room project to measure the speed of light by terrestrial measurement

using equipment on hand, such as a heliostat and a mirror.

(In 1907,

Michelson, who moved to the Case School of Applied Science in 1882,

became the ﬁ rst 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 ﬁ nal enrollment of ﬁ fty) and earned honors in

math, chemistry, and physics. At Annapolis, he later recounted, “I de-

veloped something of a ﬂ air for mathematics, and particularly for na-

val architecture and physics, the latter under the teaching of that great

Admiral, William T. Simpson, one of the Navy’s most brilliant o

ﬃ-

cers.” 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 frame-

work prepared him for the concrete, mechanical challenges of inven-

tion, including assembly, improvisation, and reﬁ nement of designs.

Sprague came out of Annapolis equipped with both a fundamental

grasp of scientiﬁ c electrical theory (circa 1878) and a resourceful ca-

pability for “craft knowledge” (in the sense of hands- on trial and er-

ror) as a means of working toward technical solutions.

CHAPTER 1

Exactly how much formal instruction in electricity the Academy

ﬀered is not entirely clear. Virtually no higher- education programs

ﬀered programs dedicated speciﬁ cally to the physics of electricity or

electrical engineering. In the classiﬁ cation of the period, electricity

was typically covered within chemistry. Still, the subject featured in

various problems and lectures, and years later Sprague recalled “tak-

ing an electricity course” at the Academy.

Indeed, the program at

Annapolis seems to have led a number of young men to work in the

ﬁ eld. “One of the most striking features of recent electrical develop-

ment 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 sta

ﬀ, and that elec-

tricity would not have been so far advanced here but for the fact that

the United States Navy was not large enough to a

ﬀord occupation to

all the brilliant young o

ﬃcers trained at Annapolis.”

TOWARD ELECTRICITY

Sprague would be one of these “young o

ﬃcers.” “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.”

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

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

Philadelphia with several classmates to visit the Centennial Exposi-

tion. 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 hun-

dredth 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 cen-

tral buildings included an iron and glass Main Building (occupying a

twenty- acre footprint), a Machinery Hall (fourteen acres), an Agri-

cultural Hall, a massive Art Gallery (also called Memorial Hall), and

many smaller buildings.

A multitude of attractions and exhibits ﬁ lled these structures. In-

dustrial machinery was arrayed in artful displays. (“There is the sense

of too many sewing machines,” William Dean Howells wearily ob-

served. “A whole half mile of sewing machines seems a good deal;

and is there so very much di

ﬀerence between them?”) Agricultural

exhibits piled lush cornucopias of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Cos-

tumed tableaus depicted cultures and people from around the world

in room- size set pieces. New mechanical inventions and other tech-

nologies 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 horse-

power Corliss steam engine powered many of the Hall’s mechanical

displays and awed visitors. (Here Howells was more impressed, mar-

veling 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

CHAPTER 1

not a superﬂ uous ounce of metal on it; the mighty walking- beams

plunge their pistons downward, the enormous ﬂ y- wheel revolves

with a hoarded power that makes all tremble, the hundred life- like

details do their o

ﬃce with unerring intelligence.”)

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 dem-

onstrated their capacity to transmit and receive two or four messages

simultaneously. The Western Electric Manufacturing Company ex-

hibited a complete set of railway signaling equipment. Various British

ﬁ rms displayed cables and other apparatus that were used in trans-

atlantic submarine telegraph cables. Electric burglar alarms, ﬁ re 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 dem-

onstrated 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.”

Sprague was probably unable to attend Bell’s demonstration. (He

recorded no recollections, at least.) On the other hand, he certainly

studied another, equally signiﬁ cant display in Philadelphia—the elec-

tric dynamos exhibited by both the Gramme Electric Company and

Farmer- Wallace that supplied the power for arc lighting that illumi-

nated 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

ﬁ eld. Even more impressively, Farmer’s design enabled the dynamo

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

to feed part of the current that it generated in the coils of its ro-

tating armatures back into the coils of the electromagnets, increas-

ing the magnetic strength. It was much more powerful than other

designs—a quality demonstrated conclusively in an “o

ﬃcial exami-

nation 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 “o

ﬃcial examination,” the dynamo

exhibits evidently made a big impression: Within a few years after

graduating from Annapolis, he found his way into Farmer’s labora-

tory in the navy’s Newport Torpedo Station (where Farmer was sta-

tioned as the electrician).

More generally, the Centennial Exposition created a sense of tech-

nology that Sprague imbibed deeply and deﬁ nitively. In Philadelphia,

the cadet joined the crowd marching along a grand, panoramic view

of progress. Inventions, mounted on pedestals and put to work, glit-

tered and dazzled. “Technology” within this framework took on a

seemingly abstract, disembodied form. Apparatuses were set o

ﬀ and

exhibited as artifacts—spot- lit, disassociated from immediate con-

text, and yet at the same time showcased in tableaus signifying the

inexorable progress of civilization. The e

ﬀect was to create a staged

enactment of self- evidently new and seemingly inevitable technol-

ogy. 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 po-

sition 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.”

CHAPTER 1

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.”

Three ensuing fairs over the next half dozen years marked the

transition—and ﬁ gured centrally in Sprague’s career. The Corliss en-

gine may have garnered more press than the electricity exhibits, but

Sprague saw clearly what the next big thing was going to be and

ﬁ xed 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 o

ﬃcial photographer.”

GATHERING CURRENTS: SPRAGUE IN CONTEXT

The speciﬁ c circumstances of Sprague’s background, youth, and edu-

cation doubtless shaped his subsequent career in idiosyncratic and

signiﬁ cant 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 e

ﬀect 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 charac-

terized much of his career. As an inventor and as an entrepreneur,

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

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 ﬁ g-

ures, signiﬁ cant patterns appear. By the time he arrived at adulthood

and the brink of bigger things, Sprague was preparing to plunge into

a crowding ﬁ eld of technological ferment. “Ours is the age of elec-

tricity,” observed the editors of Electrical World in 1883: “everywhere

electricity is fast becoming the all- inspiring, all- controlling inﬂ uence.

It may be said to be ‘fashionable’ in the extreme just now as the most

popular agent at the disposal of man. It ﬁ lls 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 ap-

pearing 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 O

ﬃce issued over 17,500 electrical patents.

Sprague, in short, was preparing to join a signiﬁ cant generational

phenomenon. In addition to being an “age of electricity,” the editors of

Electrical World continued, “ours is also an ‘age of inventors.’”

Sprague

was to be part of a movement—scrambling for position among what

Electrical World characterized (in 1883) as “a whole tide of immigra-

tion.” This inﬂ ux of talent, ambition, and energy itself generated a

potent, if not exactly quantiﬁ able, 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, rec-

ognized, and drove technological transformation. They pooled their

CHAPTER 1

ﬀorts, 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 di

ﬃ-

cult 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 establish-

ments that were emblems of the ﬁ rst industrial revolution. As a curi-

ous 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 pio-

neering role in arc lighting, was the son of a woolens manufacturer in

Euclid, Ohio.

Charles J. Van Depoele (b. 1846) was working as a fur-

niture manufacturer in Detroit when he began experimenting with

electrical apparatus.

George Westinghouse (b. 1846) worked for his

father’s agricultural implements manufacturing business, haunting

the machine shop and conducting mechanical experiments.

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 Com-

pany in Detroit.

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.”

Many of their innovations, in fact, were

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

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 signiﬁ cant 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 beneﬁ ted

from cross- pollination.

These inventors came from a wide range of educational back-

grounds. Sprague’s college education at the U.S. Naval Academy

allowed him to enter the ﬁ eld with more formal training and a stron-

ger theoretical grasp of electricity than many. Others arrived simi-

larly 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 Massachu-

setts, followed (brieﬂ y) by a period at Yale University. Elihu Thom-

son, 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.

Charles Brush earned

a chemistry degree from the University of Michigan and set himself

CHAPTER 1

up as a chemical consultant in Cleveland before embarking on in-

novation in dynamos and arc lighting.

On the other hand, the science was still raw and the ﬁ eld still unorga-

nized, which allowed amateurs with far less formal education to make

their marks in the ﬁ eld. 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.

The ﬁ eld 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 har-

nessed within larger systems that could generate powerful applica-

tions. 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.”

Few of these designs

got beyond the drawing board. Most remained unbuilt and unde-

veloped. Sprague at this stage was creating abstractions, not artifacts;

technical ideas, not technologies. As he himself later acknowledged,

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

“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 engineer-

ing technology. Over the next few years, bursting with ideas, Sprague

searched for ways to launch a career and develop his designs into arti-

facts. The range and pace of his e

ﬀorts at invention in the years im-

mediately following Annapolis indicated a strong theoretical grasp of

the basic science and a busy technical imagination. But ﬁ nding ways

to build out his designs, prototype them, test them, translate them into

commercial prospects, reﬁ ne 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, use-

ful 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 fortu-

itous. Sprague was coming on the scene at a distinct point of technical

inﬂ ection 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 technolo-

gies and systems generally.

Notable among these developments was the ascendance of the

electrical inventor as a ﬁ gure of fame and inﬂ uence. The emergence

CHAPTER 1

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—capti-

vating the popular imagination, catapulting its inventor to celebrity

status, and throwing open the process of invention as a public spec-

tacle. Edison did not merely tolerate journalistic coverage of his in-

ventions; he courted it. As a telegrapher, he had worked closely with

newspapers. He appreciated their powers of promotion and was com-

fortable in journalists’ company. A

ﬀable, accessible, and quotable, he

made good copy. And he readily invited journalists into the process of

invention—showing them around his laboratory, demonstrating ap-

paratuses, and describing how they worked. In the middle of projects

and indeed as he ﬁ rst set to work on them, he did not hesitate to pre-

dict conﬁ dently (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).

And as he closed in on breakthroughs, he rushed an-

nouncements to press, even before he had fully worked out or reﬁ ned

his designs. (“I have it now!” he declared to a reporter of the New

York Sun in September 1879 of the incandescent light, though signif-

icant technical problems remained unsolved at that point.)

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,

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

is rarely if ever fashioned by a single will or vision. It takes shape or-

ganically in relation to its larger technical, social, cultural, and politi-

cal contexts. “Invention,” in these broader dimensions, almost always

entails a period of reﬁ nement and a process of development in which

numerous players, including other inventors and engineers, economic

agents, public policy makers, and consumers all participate. The ﬁ nal

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 inﬂ uence 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 quantiﬁ able)

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.”

The year 1878 marked Edison’s ascendancy as a mythical ﬁ gure in

the popular imagination. That year, the New York Daily Graphic be-

stowed 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 ﬁ nal 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.

CHAPTER 1

Edison was reaching the threshold of momentous technological

transformations. The year 1878 also marked his visit to William Wal-

lace at Ansonia, Connecticut, to inspect Wallace’s and Moses Farmer’s

work on electrical generator designs. Wallace and Farmer had de-

signed what they called a “telemchon,” a generator that was capable

of lighting eight arc lamps. As crude as the design was, Edison per-

ceived at once the signiﬁ cance 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 in-

candescent light—the beginning of a larger project that ultimately

encompassed a central power station, a grid, and the ﬁ rst major elec-

trical system architecture.

AT SEA

At this critical juncture, when Sprague was on the threshold of join-

ing the excitement, he found himself taken o

ﬀ the scene and trans-

ported 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 ﬁ nal 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, Philip-

pines, in December 1879. “Who would have thought that I would

be in this port, four or ﬁ ve hundred miles and more in the Tropics,

spending my Christmas ’neath a burning sun. But so it is.”

For Sprague, the posting was a mixed blessing—more accurately, a

frustrating displacement. He traveled to exotic ports (including Gibral-

tar, Naples, Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila, and Nagasaki) and earned

extra money ﬁ ling dispatches from Asia for the Boston Herald. But the

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

voyage removed him from the United States (as well as Europe, which

would have been preferable to Asia) at a time of gathering technolog-

ical momentum and historic episodes of invention. He was separated

by thousands of miles, for example, from Edison’s very public break-

through in incandescent lighting. Sprague felt the distance keenly. He

chafed at the interruption in his e

ﬀorts to participate directly in the

technological ferment and searched futilely for ways to escape his as-

signment. “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.”

Sprague’s correspondence with Frances Scott had by this point de-

veloped a warm and perhaps a romantic rapport, creating an unusu-

ally 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 conﬁ de my ambitions to you,

perhaps because I feel some ways, that you have at least a silent sym-

pathy in my work, if not a conﬁ dence in its successful accomplish-

ment. That conﬁ dence, 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.”

CHAPTER 1

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 Paciﬁ c, he

ﬁ lled 169 pages of a notebook with plans, diagrams, and schematics.

These were the “nearly three score of inventions” that he later re-

ferred 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 reg-

ulating 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 In-

ductible 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 Com-

mutator,” “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 ship-

board applications (“Marine Governor,” “Reversible Pump,” “Water

Cooler and Filterer”). Many others looked far beyond the USS Rich-

mond 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 speciﬁ c ports). A

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

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 stu

ﬀ that usually appeared in volumes titled

“Midshipman’s Note Book.” Still, this material reveals important as-

pects 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 navi-

gating natural, oceanographic force vectors (winds, tides, currents).

Midshipmen were taught to think concretely, abstractly, and above all

CHAPTER 1

systemically. The connection between these aspects of Sprague’s ap-

prenticeship 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 mecha-

nism” at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jer-

sey.

Here he made initial contact with several important people in

the ﬁ eld, 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 Min-

nesota, 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 sta

ﬀ of twenty- ﬁ ve manned the sta-

tion, 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

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

originally, Farmer had been delving in electrical investigations since

the 1840s, developing in the process a series of telegraph inventions,

an electric ﬁ re alarm system, a method for electroplating, an incandes-

cent light (employing a galvanic battery for power), and a miniature

electric train that he built in the yard of his house. Most signiﬁ cantly,

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 ﬁ eld.

Working partly under Farmer’s guidance (though largely on his

own), Sprague during this period developed the design that would re-

sult in his ﬁ rst patent, for a “Dynamo- Electric Machine” (ﬁ led Octo-

ber 4, 1881, and issued August 26, 1884). Aiming (as Sprague himself

put it in the patent application) “generally at compactness, e

ﬃciency,

economy, and steadfastness of the current generated,”

Sprague’s de-

sign put the ﬁ eld magnet inside the armature (rather than in an exter-

nal magnetic ﬁ eld assembly), enclosing the coils with “an outside shell

of iron wire and inwardly projecting ribs.”

The novel construction impressed Farmer, who supported the young

midshipman when Sprague applied to the navy for permission to at-

tend 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 exhibi-

tion 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

CHAPTER 1

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 quantiﬁ ed 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, scientiﬁ c voice of a professional engineer.

Yet the entire report was nevertheless imbued with a strong be-

lief in the transformative power of the technology that it was as-

sessing. 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 ex-

isting engine technologies—notably, steam engines. Here, Sprague

asserted, was a technology that faced imminent, inevitable obsoles-

cence: “While very perfect as a machine, its economy is very low,

and always will be.” The basic technology was inherently ine

ﬃcient,

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 e

ﬃciency.”

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

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 tech-

nologies, when they o

ﬀered superior performance and technical ad-

vantage, would in the natural course of things supplant older ones.

Briskly, matter- of- factly, and conﬁ dently, 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 con-

cluded. The steam engine had proven serviceable in its day. Now, its

dusk was approaching as newer, more e

ﬃcient 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

scientiﬁ c 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 ﬂ ame 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.”)

In dismissing the steam engine as a technology that was facing im-

minent and inevitable obsolescence, Sprague was expressing a gen-

eral consensus that had begun forming in scientiﬁ c 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

CHAPTER 1

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.”

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 pronounce-

ments 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 ob-

solete. New technologies would take their place, and “scientiﬁ c 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 Crys-

tal 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.” Follow-

ing 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) incan-

descent 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—speciﬁ cally, the attempt to employ plati-

num wire—had “marked the era of a great advance,” in Sprague’s

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

view. Subsequently, Edison had discarded platinum in favor of carbon

ﬁ laments—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 re-

ﬁ ning 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.”

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 electric-

ity. 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 mana-

gerial 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.

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 e

ﬀect, had already received “good oﬀers from out-

side parties . . . but will not go into anything except Edison.”

CHAPTER 1

“I received your favor of the 11th this morning and at once cabled

you ‘Send Sprague,’” Edison replied. “I propose using him in connec-

tion with the establishment of the ‘Small Town Plants.’”

Work in Edison’s Construction Department was not Sprague’s ﬁ rst

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 mo-

tors 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 muniﬁ cent.”

He was sent ﬁ rst to Sun-

bury, Pennsylvania, to assist with the ﬁ nal stages of installing Edison’s

pilot overhead three- wire system and then to Brockton, Massachusetts,

to oversee construction of the ﬁ rst underground three- wire system.

The assignment stationed Sprague in the ﬁ eld 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.

Nevertheless, the work proved

an invaluable experience. It put Sprague on the ground and immersed

him in the challenges of constructing a functional system. Installa-

tion entailed a host of technical adjustments and reﬁ nements, 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 ﬁ g-

uring 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 proﬁ tably.

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

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 in-

novation. 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 Construc-

tion Department had been determining the size of a given system’s

mains and feeders by constructing scale models and testing the equip-

ment in miniature, Sprague proposed a more e

ﬃcient and elegant so-

lution. Taking a planned layout for Ithaca, New York, as a test case, he

devised a formula for making the necessary calculations mathemati-

cally. “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.

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 inde-

pendent projects. And the work at Brockton, in particular, surrounded

CHAPTER 1

Sprague with access to a nearby machine shop as well as a supply of

electrical materials and components. Restless and ambitious, he sur-

veyed 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 ﬁ elds of enterprise. His work on power

plant systems, meanwhile, implied that broad new categories of elec-

trical 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 ﬁ rst 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 ﬁ eld) to another mag-

net, generating mechanical power as the two magnetic ﬁ elds 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 prob-

ably further developed) an uncanny ability to map the abstract elec-

trical 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 e

ﬀects of the motor action—

MOTIVE POWERS AND MECHANISMS

variations of speed and power output—could be controlled by (in

his words) “inverse variation of the strength of the magnetic ﬁ eld

to determine the di

ﬀerential of the line and motor electromotive

forces.” Using a pair of magnetizing ﬁ eld coils, “one of high resistance

across the line for the main ﬁ eld 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.

This design represented an entirely new approach to motor design,

with signiﬁ cant implications for application. Because they were “self-

regulated,” 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 ﬁ rst devising and following what he called

“Sprague’s laws” aligning E (initial electromagnetic force), e (coun-

ter electromagnetic force), m (magnetic movement of the motor’s

main shunt coil), and u (magnetic movement of the di

ﬀerential series

coil).

Characteristically, Sprague had developed the theory from

mathematical principles, made dynamo and motor prototypes, mea-

sured their performance, and adjusted his “laws” accordingly.

THE BREAK AND THE BRINK

By April 1884, Sprague was feeling that he was poised on the thresh-

old of substantial technological accomplishment. He may well have

been looking for some way to withdraw gracefully from Edison’s em-

ploy. Matters soon came to a head when Edison (perhaps gathering

CHAPTER 1

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 “experi-

mental 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.”

There it was, stated as baldly as Sprague ever admitted: he wanted,

he hungered for, the acclaim of heroic invention. He yearned to be-

come “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.

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.”

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.”

The technological potential of electricity (and some of its poten-

tial problems) ﬁ rst struck him in 1882 when he was riding on Lon-

don’s Metropolitan District underground railway. Steam- driven and

encased in tunnels, the Metropolitan’s “dingy, smoky” trains certainly

stood to beneﬁ t 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

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888: SPRAGUE ELECTRIC

RAILWAY AND MOTOR COMPANY AND THE RICHMOND

UNION PASSENGER RAILWAY

CHAPTER 2

system. The motors would be set up on the cars, Sprague ﬁ gured, and

the cars somehow connected to a central power source.

Initially, he considered using the railway’s running rails as conduc-

tors, with an “automatically tensioned mid- located wire, or ‘work-

ing conductor’ connected ladder wise to a main conductor”

on the

tracks running between the rails. That architecture looked problem-

atic, though, when Sprague observed “the complication of switches

on certain sections of the road.”

Weaving a main conductor through

a railway’s twists, turns, crossovers, and on- and o

ﬀ- 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 self-

adjusting upward- pressing contact.”

By Sprague’s later account, that

ﬂ ash 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 suit-

able 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 e

ﬀorts

to design and construct a workable system. In Richmond, Virginia, in

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

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 solu-

tions that made an electric railway function and the broader, extratech-

nical 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 technol-

ogy as a business venture—a capitalized enterprise that was capable

of commercializing and ultimately ﬁ nancing 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, busi-

ness, and ﬁ nance. 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 at-

tracted anything like the capital that would be required to build full-

ﬂ edged systems. None of the mechanisms of production, marketing,

or ﬁ nancing 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 engi-

neered, alongside the technical, electrical engineering.

Nevertheless, Sprague’s ﬁ rst 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 es-

tablished itself as the leading ﬁ rm in the ﬁ eld of railway electriﬁ cation.

CHAPTER 2

The venture skirted ﬁ nancial disaster more than once. Eventually,

Sprague undertook a bold, bet- the- company gambit in an e

ﬀort 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 small-

scale prototype runs. Getting cars up and running and putting them

to work carrying passenger tra

ﬃc systemwide, regularly and reliably,

took a second round of inventive e

ﬀort. Some elements of the origi-

nal 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 e

ﬀort 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 street-

cars 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 de-

cades. As early as 1834, a Vermont blacksmith named Thomas Daven-

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

port began the process of inventing an electric railway system by

mounting a small motor on wheels and running it around a small cir-

cular railway. Other isolated experiments repeated the feat on larger

scales in following decades. Moses Farmer, for example, put an ex-

perimental car into electrical motion in Rhode Island at the New-

port Torpedo Station in 1847. None of these initial e

ﬀorts 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 e

ﬃ cient

dynamo technologies, did centrally powered electriﬁ ed railway net-

works become a commercially and technologically viable prospect.

The turning point came in 1879 in a cluster of disconnected de-

velopments. At the Berlin Exhibition in Germany, Werner Siemens

installed a “modern motor” (Sprague’s phrase)

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 si-

multaneously (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 ﬁ rst formal Amer-

ican claim to the idea, ﬁ ling a caveat with the U.S. Patent O

ﬃce in

1879 and a patent application the following year. Siemens ﬁ led a pat-

ent 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.

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 var-

ious railroad investors and managers to inspect the project and drew

Henry Villard into plans for a joint venture developing the technology.

CHAPTER 2

The demands of building out his electric light and power stations

soon consumed both Edison’s and Villard’s energies, however.

In key technical respects, meanwhile, other would- be inventors of

electric railways ran into problems as they tried to scale up their de-

signs. 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

ﬀorts 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 pas-

senger cars. The initial round of e

ﬀorts at electriﬁ cation, 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

electriﬁ cation would transform railway networks. As technological

momentum built behind Edison’s power and lighting systems, the

impetus to develop adjacent direct current electrical applications in-

tensiﬁ ed. 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 rac-

ing to seize the prize.

Among these, the most important ﬁ gures in 1884, when Sprague

entered the ﬁ eld, were Charles Van Depoele, Leo Daft, and the team

of Walter Knight and Edward Bentley. Van Depoele, a Belgian im-

migrant who originally was a cabinet maker, incorporated the Van

Depoele Electric Light Company in Chicago in 1881, backed by

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

Chicago capitalist Aaron K. Stiles. Despite its name, the ﬁ rm shifted in

1882 from an initial focus on arc lighting to motors and electric rail-

ways, setting up a test track for pilot experimentation near its factory.

The following year, Van Depoele assembled an operational demon-

stration 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.

Bentley and Knight were also making progress on their own elec-

tric railway designs. Following initial development within the shops

of the Brush Electric Company in Cleveland, the two inventors se-

cured 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 ﬁ rst commercially operated elec-

tric 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 Com-

pany and unveiled plans to electrify the entire East Cleveland line.

Daft, too, was jostling for position. After establishing the Daft Elec-

tric Light Company in Greenville, New Jersey, he began supplying

motors to several industrial clients in the region. Despite his ﬁ rm’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 Co-

ney Island and another on a section of track in Boston.

Sprague, in short, was entering a rapidly developing ﬁ eld of inven-

tion and enterprise. Electric railways represented a highly anticipated

CHAPTER 2

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 ﬁ nancial back-

ing, his rival inventors were assembling prototypes, impressing local

audiences, and attracting guarded interest from ﬁ nanciers and street

railway companies. Major investors were still waiting for clear front

runners to emerge, although the ﬁ eld was taking shape.

Both the industry and the technology were in formative and very

plastic stages. The situation remained ﬂ uid. All of Sprague’s competi-

tors (at least after Edison dropped out of the ﬁ eld) were essentially

start- ups that were built around single inventors who were work-

ing 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 under-

lying 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 proﬁ tably.

This point underscores how much of this technology remained

unconstructed. Motors were being bolted onto cars and sent run-

ning 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-

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

velopment. Historian Thomas Hughes has identiﬁ ed 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 gath-

ering compelling momentum. As such systems evolve, Hughes ex-

plains, 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 e

ﬀort to maintain the evolution

and growth of the larger system. Sprague, Hughes concludes, pro-

vides “a superb example of a critical- problem- solving inventor and

engineer who was obviously informed about reverse salients.”

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 cir-

cumstances. External as well as internal forces were at work here. But

from Sprague’s perspective, the situation assumed a di

ﬀerent aspect.

The inventor considered himself to be breaking away from Edison’s

gravitational pull. He considered himself to be forging a new ﬁ eld 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 ﬁ eld brimming with conﬁ dence and scrambling

for resources. “When I separated from Mr. Edison in 1884 and formed

my own company,” Sprague conﬁ ded years later, “it was at considerable

risk.”

Indeed, he was abandoning a promising position in Edison’s

entourage at the very nexus of technological developments and plung-

ing into a churning ﬁ eld of competing start- ups and technological

CHAPTER 2

upheaval. He was twenty- seven years old, had no capital and few

resources, and would be challenging rivals who were already build-

ing out their own designs and establishing themselves in a rapidly

forming market.

Yet Sprague focused on the opportunities that he sensed were be-

fore him, not the risks. He sensed the momentum that was build-

ing 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 signiﬁ cant breakthrough in electric mo-

tor design and a highly saleable product, and Sprague was conﬁ dent

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 ﬁ nancial 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 proﬁ ts.”

Johnson did not bring much money to the table. Though Sprague

was later vague about the ﬁ gures, he appears to have launched SERM

with roughly $16,000 of paid- in capital.

But Johnson represented

more to Sprague than merely venture capital. He was a resourceful

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

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 execu-

tive capacities in several other Edison- a

ﬃliated ﬁ rms.

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 infu-

sions (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 part-

nership with the Edison companies and connected Sprague, at least in-

directly through Edison, to potential ﬁ nanciers such as J. P. Morgan and

Henry Villard. More generally, Johnson’s role conferred an invaluable

imprimatur on SERM. Even as a ﬁ gurehead (and his role went beyond

a titular one), Johnson provided Sprague from the outset with a cur-

rency that he needed nearly as desperately as he did cash—credibility.

For credibility was Sprague’s other consuming priority as he pre-

pared to launch his company. He was entering a burgeoning new

market, a ﬁ eld of rapidly multiplying competitors, and a ﬁ erce battle

to establish technological standing. Even as he and Johnson hammered

out a ﬁ nancial 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 big-

gest event of its kind to date in the United States. Seizing the chance,

Sprague contributed a display exhibiting several “self- regulating mo-

tors . . . to run at constant speed under varying loads” and a “motor

for Electric Railway purposes, with self- contained means for varying

CHAPTER 2

the mechanical e

ﬀects, 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 oper-

ated at constant speeds (as opposed to slowing down when pulling

heavier loads) represented a signiﬁ cant breakthrough in the ﬁ eld, and

Sprague came out of Philadelphia with several important endorse-

ments. Most notably, the Wizard of Menlo Park o

ﬀered up a hand-

some 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 posi-

tion as an o

ﬃcer 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.”

Thus fortiﬁ ed, the partners formally launched the Sprague Elec-

tric Railway and Motor Company on November 24, 1884. At an

initial meeting, the ﬁ rm’s shareholders (essentially, Sprague and John-

son, at this point, with several other minor holders), appointed three

“trustees”—Johnson, Sprague, and John Tomlinson. SERM then con-

vened its ﬁ rst board meeting, electing Johnson president, Sprague

treasurer, and William Hammer secretary. Sprague was in business.

BREAKING IN: BOOTSTRAP STRATEGIES IN A NETWORKING

ECONOMY

Despite the endorsement from Edison, Sprague did not emerge from

Philadelphia as the leading ﬁ gure in the United States in electric mo-

tor technology. Higher- proﬁ le names received greater attention at the

Philadelphia exhibition. The Van Depoele Electric Light Company

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

mounted “a very extensive exhibit” that included an array of electric

motors at Philadelphia (according to Electrical World). The Daft Elec-

tric Light Company displayed a series of motors of its own (includ-

ing 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.

Together, these displays described an emergent

but rapidly heating ﬁ eld of competition that surrounded Sprague.

SERM, meanwhile, remained little more than a paper company

and a one- man R&D project. “One small room su

ﬃced for our busi-

ness requirements,” Sprague remembered later.

The venture did,

however, hold a critical advantage over its rivals—its a

ﬃliation with

the Edison interests. Although Sprague left Menlo Park to strike out

on his own, he had not left Edison, Villard, and company entirely be-

hind. 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 connect-

ing 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 ﬁ rm that had been

supplying electrical equipment to the Edison companies (lamp com-

ponents, ﬁ xtures, and so on) since 1876.

The move enabled SERM

to get into business without having to build, buy, or lease plant capac-

ity. It also signaled Johnson’s instinct to nest SERM, at least informally,

within the loose cluster of companies that comprised Edison’s vari-

ous 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 posi-

tion to ﬁ nance a factory) and for the Edison companies. In the early

CHAPTER 2

1880s, Edison’s people were too hard- pressed to develop motor tech-

nologies 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 electri-

cal applications thus made Edison’s lighting and power systems more

readily marketable. SERM ﬁ t symbiotically into the long- term stra-

tegic 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 di

ﬃcult to decide what speciﬁ c designs would

create which speciﬁ c applications, opening which markets. Although

they had their hands full at the time, Edison’s partners certainly rec-

ognized 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 em-

bedded ﬁ nancial and operational relationship made strategic sense.

Given both the stakes involved and the extent of the unknowns, lend-

ing Johnson’s managerial talents on a part- time basis amounted to

putting an insider on the scene. SERM o

ﬀered Edison et al. a contin-

gency venture, something akin to a spin- o

ﬀ venture, letting Edison

and his ﬁ nancial partners put development in play with a minimum

of investment and a potentially huge payo

ﬀ.

The historical record does not allow for precise accounting, but

various sources indicate that Edison- a

ﬃliated investment would play

a key role in sustaining SERM at several critical junctures, including

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

its precarious infancy in 1884 and 1885 and after a technological

breakthrough in 1887 during an attempt to scale up railway produc-

tion. Charles Batchelor (one of Edison’s assistants and business part-

ners, who managed the Edison Machine Works from 1884 to 1888)

bought in.

So too did Sigmund Bergmann (running Bergmann &

Company Electrical Works, which manufactured much of Edison’s

equipment).

Edison was exaggerating, but not wildly, when he as-

serted in 1909 (writing to Samuel Insull): “My recollection re trolley

is that we built all the motors etc. . . . & in fact ﬁ nanced the pioneer-

ing of the Trolley.”

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 ﬂ uid. Capital remained

cautious. Where would deﬁ nitive, 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 re-

sources, stabilize technically, attract a critical mass of ﬁ nancing 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 ﬂ ex ible, 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 gener-

ate marketing momentum. In May 1885, the Edison Electric Light

CHAPTER 2

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 ﬁ eld. Edison

himself reinforced the message, repeating and amplifying the per-

sonal endorsement that he had delivered at Philadelphia. Meanwhile,

Sprague contributed to the gathering promotional impetus, publish-

ing a series of detailed articles in Electrical World that described the

design and operational principles of his motors.

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?”

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 rail-

way systems, the bulk of their business through SERM’s early years

of operation came in electric motors that were designed for station-

ary purposes (mainly powering warehouse elevators and industrial

machinery). Much as he had improvised production capacity by out-

sourcing 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.

Sprague was still essentially buying time,

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

accumulating a performance record, and meanwhile developing the

motor elements of his railway system.

The ﬁ rst few months were touch and go. Sprague betrayed how

uncomfortably narrow the ﬁ rm’s margin of operation was in a letter

to a customer (a manager of an Edison power station in Pennsylva-

nia) 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 o

ﬀered solely on condition of prompt cash sale”

once the motor had tested satisfactorily.

The fact that SERM was

shipping product on spec and o

ﬀering “special price[s]” for “prompt

cash sale” was as revealing as Sprague’s anxiousness to receive pay-

ment. 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 ref-

erence we could make would be as strong,” Sprague replied in answer

to a query from a potential customer in July 1885.)

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 ﬂ ow that was su

ﬃcient to pay

the roughly $600 per month that Sprague needed to cover salaries,

patent fees, overhead, and “some payments to the machine works.”

Continued growth through 1886 brought SERM to critical mass

sometime around January 1887, when Sprague issued a catalog listing

his most powerful and e

ﬀective motors to date, including models rang-

ing up to twenty horsepower.

Business in the New England region,

energetically developed by agent George E. Harding in Boston, was

CHAPTER 2

especially strong; Sprague motors from one- half to ﬁ fteen horsepower

were driving elevators, mill machinery, printing presses, and other

industrial equipment in Boston, Lawrence, Pawtucket, Fall River,

and Springﬁ eld. Farther aﬁ eld, 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, Ar-

gentina, Milan, and Berlin.

Encouraged, Sprague and Johnson made

arrangements to expand. In January 1887, the company increased its

capital stock from $100,000 to $1 million (both ﬁ gures still nominal,

at this point)

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 brieﬂ y. 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 com-

pany) and Harriette G. Keatinge (who, notably, was one of the pio-

neering woman physicians in the United States), Mary had already

been married once. After a brief engagement, Sprague (then twenty-

seven) and Keatinge (twenty- one) married on April 25, 1885.

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.

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

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 rap-

idly 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)

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, Edi-

son, and other inventors had been using. Sprague placed the motors

underneath his cars, wheelbarrow- style, rather than inside the car-

riages. 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 ine

ﬃcient and unreliable chain

drives. This approach also freed up more room within the motor cars,

increasing capacity.

The result was an architecture that marked a signiﬁ cant 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 mo-

tors to the axles, Sprague rigged up double- reduction gears that were

pinion- driven and meshed with gears that were added to the axle.

CHAPTER 2

(Later the double- reduction gears were replaced by more e

ﬃcient

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 con-

stant contact with the centrally positioned current rail.)

These basic features—including the undercarriage motor mount-

ing, the current delivery system, the motor control apparatus, and

the motor brushes (which were ﬁ xed 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, ﬁ rst on

a tiny track running between several buildings at a sugar reﬁ nery on

East 24th Street and then on a section of the 34th Street Elevated

Railway. By the end of 1886, reﬁ ned 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- a

ﬃliated sources. After witnessing a

trial demonstration in early 1886, for example, C. E. Chinnock, who

ran Edison’s Pearl Street power station, o

ﬀered to purchase a one- sixth

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

share in SERM for $30,000. Sprague declined the o

ﬀer, despite the

fact (as he later told the story) that “I probably did not have money

enough to pay my board for a month.”

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 one-

twelfth share. This time Sprague took him up on the investment.

Another demonstration went less well, however. As Sprague moved

his experiments to the Manhattan Elevated Railway, Johnson rounded

up key executives, including ﬁ nancier Jay Gould, for a visit. “Keenly

alive [Sprague would later recall] to the importance of the visitor, and

conﬁ dent in the possibilities of the machinery,” the inventor drove

the car himself. Unfortunately, when he suddenly reversed the cur-

rent, he blew a safety catch, triggering a loud explosion and a shower

of sparks. Startled, Gould attempted to jump o

ﬀ 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 electriﬁ cation for

several years afterward.

In fact, Gould’s pride was not the only issue at stake. The hesitation

of the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company to plunge into elec-

triﬁ cation made it clear that hard strategic realities were still inhibit-

ing 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 electriﬁ cation. Notwith-

standing the boosterish enthusiasm of promoters like Sprague, street

railway operators were adopting a wait and see attitude. The busi-

nessmen who owned and ran lines needed to see more than motors

driving cars. They needed to see a large- scale system in operation.

CHAPTER 2

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 com-

pany 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, Vir-

ginia, 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 mu-

nicipal 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 ren-

dered 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 surround-

ing 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 ﬁ nanced though run by a shrewd

and opportunistic set of capitalists. Flynn may have found himself in

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

a di

ﬃcult position on the ground in Richmond, but he recognized

the leverage that he held over Sprague, who urgently needed an op-

portunity 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 guaran-

tees,” 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 innumer-

able 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 rec-

ognized, “meant blasted hopes and ﬁ nancial ruin.”

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.

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

CHAPTER 2

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 in-

domitable energy, your penetrating intelligence, your bold pioneering

through obscure problems. Out of the woods you emerged, ﬂ ags ﬂ y-

ing, as we captured Richmond, Wilmington, Scranton, St. Joe. Great

days! Technical di

ﬃculties, ﬁ nancial diﬃcul ties, professional jealousies,

nothing could daunt the man.”

Nostalgia and the rhetorical ex-

pectations of the occasion (the remarks came in a gala celebration

marking Sprague’s seventy- ﬁ fth birthday) colored the characteriza-

tion. 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 engi-

neers. Ensign S. Dana Greene had just graduated from Annapolis, and

Lieutenant Oscar T. Crosby was a recent West Point graduate. Nei-

ther man had much experience in electrical engineering, but they

quickly picked up working knowledge. Greene, stationed in Rich-

mond, and Crosby, at the Edison Machine Works in Schenectady,

New York, both demonstrated critical “pluck, enthusiasm, and en-

durance,” Sprague later observed, as “di

ﬃculties 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 unde-

termined.” He still had to ﬁ gure out how to gear his motors indepen-

dently 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- ﬁ fty volt constant- circuit, with track and

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

ground return, under conditions which were stated by electricians to

be impracticable.”

“We are working from lose sheets, only partially

ﬁ nished, 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 ﬁ nished

drawings of machines about which we are not yet certain to the Ma-

chine Works.”

Then, as if he needed to heighten the drama that was building

around him, Sprague contracted typhoid fever. For three critical

months, as contractors ﬁ nished 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 ﬁ rst

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 twenty-

seven feet. Most alarming of all, however, was the topography. Rich-

mond’s grades rose as high as ten percent, signiﬁ cantly 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 ﬁ rst order of business was to determine whether cars would be

able to scale the grade. At this point, Sprague was not even sure that

CHAPTER 2

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 mecha-

nism on the steepest hill, winching cars up using a separate electric

motor, at which point Johnson, sitting in on the session (and doubt-

less growing concerned about cost implications), broke in: “Guess

the best thing to do is to ﬁ nd out whether the car can get up the

grade at all.”

Sprague returned to Richmond to make the critical experiment

as soon as a car could be outﬁ tted with several motors. Hoping to

keep a low proﬁ le, 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 mo-

tors strained dangerously, but the car held the rails up the ﬁ rst 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 dark-

ness, meanwhile, had not prevented a crowd of onlookers from gath-

ering. 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 o

ﬀ 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 ‘instru-

ments,’” Sprague later recalled, “inwardly praying that he would be

late, he came in sight with four of them—big, powerful mules, the

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

most e

ﬀective aids which could be found in Richmond under the

circumstances.”

The successful ascent allayed fears that SERM’s cars would be un-

able to climb Richmond’s hills, and the team managed in the pro-

cess to avoid what would have been an unfortunate public relations

setback. But at the same time, the experiment exposed serious me-

chanical ﬂ aws 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 re-

treated 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.”

Overhauling the motor design continued through 1887. To intro-

duce 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

ﬃcult mechanical job and only the ﬁ rst of what turned out to be a

series of technical setbacks and improvised solutions. Sprague’s cus-

tomer, 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 seg-

ments that pressed against the brushes—proved particularly trouble-

prone. 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 ﬁ led down immediately,

CHAPTER 2

short circuiting the motors. Sprague attacked the problem by taking

apart burned out and pitted elements, studying them, trying di

ﬀerent

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 con-

trol, Sprague had the copper bars ripped out of every motor on the

line (“somewhat hurriedly,” he later confessed),

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 prob-

lem. The Richmond brushes had to be checked after every half trip.

Worse, because the rough contact bars sheared o

ﬀ 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 a

ﬀord not to pay: “the road must be kept in

operation somehow,” the inventor maintained, “while other experi-

ments were being made.”

So the commutator problem remained

unsolved. (Subsequent technical reﬁ nement on other roads proved

the superiority of carbon brushes, a solution pioneered by Charles

Van Depoele.)

Fortunately, other problems yielded to solution. The team man-

aged, for example, to jury- rig an impressively e

ﬀective system of

overhead contact. The question of how to supply current to the mo-

tors was one of the biggest unknowns going into Richmond. Many

leading authorities, including Edison, argued that current should

ﬂ ow through the rails. Sprague (like others working on actual sys-

tems) rejected this solution, convinced that “third rails” (to borrow

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

an anachronistic term) would inevitably cause accidents, undermin-

ing popular acceptance of railway electriﬁ cation. 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 con-

ductor and supplied at distribution points by feeders from the central

station, with return current ﬂ owing through reinforced rails tied into

the street mains. The mechanical problem became keeping cars con-

nected to the wire. At ﬁ rst, Sprague outﬁ tted 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.”

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 re-

negotiate with Flynn and his partners.

That encounter was tense. The two sides met on January 23. The

syndicate, which was not yet earning signiﬁ cant revenues, was pre-

pared to take full advantage of the additional leverage it now held.

“After more or less sparring,” Sprague reported to Greene, “Johnson

CHAPTER 2

cut the Gorgian [sic] Knot by asking Flynn bluntly how much he

wanted o

ﬀ 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 ﬁ nal 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.

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 get-

ting twenty cars up and running reliably for thirty days (the new

condition for payment). “Bend every e

ﬀort to the equipment of the

cars,” Sprague directed Greene; “as regards terms of settlement, keep

mum.”

The company was coming under intense ﬁ nancial pressure.

The costs of developing the Richmond system had already outstripped

revenues from the motor business. In January, both Sprague and John-

son were forced to take out personal loans, secured by their SERM

stock, to keep the project moving forward.

The next month, local papers in Richmond and New York an-

nounced “the opening of the electrical line of the Union Passenger

Railway.” This coverage, evidently prepared by Sprague and his col-

leagues,

proclaimed that the project was an unqualiﬁ ed success and

reported that SERM’s cars were managing grades fully loaded, with-

out 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.”

GETTING TRACTION, 1884 TO 1888

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 se-

riousness 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 pos-

sibly be saved there must be saved, and every bill which you can well

avoid any immediate payment of wants to be staved o

ﬀ.” The ﬁ rm’s

ﬁ nances 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.”

Fending o

ﬀ creditors, scrounging for operating capital, eking by,

SERM made its way into April, when Greene and the team in Rich-

mond at last managed to put twenty cars into regular operation, al-

lowing 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 pos-

sible.” His nerves were clearly strained. When Greene telegrammed

the New York o

ﬃce 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.”

A ﬁ nal 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 per-

forming 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,

CHAPTER 2

the inventor pointed out, earning its investors $18,000. SERM’s cars

and motors had averaged nearly eighty miles of operation a day, to-

taling 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 ma-

chines in.”

Whatever Flynn may have been up to, on May 15 the

Richmond Union Passenger Railway Company formally notiﬁ ed

Johnson “of our acceptance of the electrical equipment of the Rich-

mond Union Passenger Railway.”

SERM had made it up the hill.

Viewed in historical perspective, the Richmond Union Passenger

Railway represented as much a cluster of technical solutions and ad-

aptations 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 reﬁ ned the initial design.

Nevertheless, the Richmond project marked a turning point in

the evolution of the technology. Sprague had accomplished a for-

midable feat of technological engineering and a dramatic staging of

the innovation. At Richmond, Virginia, Sprague designed, built, and

ASSESSING RICHMOND: BEYOND INVENTION

CHAPTER 3

sold the ﬁ rst electric railway to operate successfully as a full- scale sys-

tem. 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 de-

livered 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.”

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 Rich-

mond 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 electriﬁ ed railways were operating in the United

States, running a total of sixty- ﬁ ve cars on some thirty- ﬁ ve miles

of track, none of them operating on the scale that Sprague Electric

Railway and Motor Company achieved in Richmond. Sprague es-

tablished deﬁ nitively 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 ﬁ nancial con-

trol, proprietary grasp, market management, technical manipulation,

ASSESSING RICHMOND

and cultural meanings of Sprague’s operation at Richmond. What

began as (at least in Sprague’s view) a dramatic feat of heroic in-

vention multiplied and ramiﬁ ed. Electric railways became part of a

larger industrial and urban landscape and in the process mingled in a

conﬂ uence 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

ﬀered 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, elec-

tric cars averaged twenty miles per hour, twice the speed of the horse

cars, and extended over wider spans of operation. Cable cars o

ﬀered 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 su

ﬃcient

capital, innovation made eminent and evident economic sense.

Sprague and his partners fully expected to exploit the commer-

cial 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 Ed-

ward 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

CHAPTER 3

very largely increased,” Sprague explained, “and we want to get all

the combined knowledge and experience of the crowd together.”

With Richmond under its belt, SERM was apparently poised for

breakout success. The time was “ripe,” Sprague wrote, “for this Com-

pany to launch forth.” SERM had passed through “the most critical

period of its existence, and by reason of its successful fulﬁ lment [sic]

of an unprecedented contract, its reputation as the foremost motor

company in the country has been fully established.”

Capitalizing on the opportunity that Sprague had opened, how-

ever, created a new round of challenges. SERM was already ﬁ nan-

cially 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.

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 cov-

ered 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.”

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 pub-

licity for the project—trying “to boom things,” as he put it—both

in the popular press and in electrical and railway circles.

Inquiries

and then orders ﬂ owed in: “business is rushing, and increasing all the

ASSESSING RICHMOND

while,” Sprague exulted to his brother in July 1888.

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 ﬁ ve a day.

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 ﬁ eld for

itself. A formidable new competitor emerged. Back in January 1888,

Charles Van Depoele had approached Sprague and Johnson and o

ﬀered

to sell out to them. With SERM’s hands full, Sprague passed on the

ﬀer, 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.

ﬃn, had already battled aggressively for markets in arc lighting, in-

candescent lighting, and alternating current equipment. Co

ﬃn was a

ﬁ erce 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, ﬁ ghting for virtually every contract.

Initially, SERM held its own. Exploiting his ﬁ rst- mover advantage,

Sprague secured roughly half of the 200 electric railway projects that

went into construction between 1888 and 1890, according to the calcu-

lations of historian Harold Passer.

But Co

ﬃn countered with several

advantages of his own. His company enjoyed the backing of power-

ful investors, including Boston ﬁ nancier Henry Higginson, whose

sponsorship gave Co

ﬃn access to wealthy investors in Boston. This

reservoir of capital enabled Thomson- Houston to accept the bonds

CHAPTER 3

of railway lines as payment for its equipment—a strategy that SERM

could not a

ﬀord.

Moreover, Thomson- Houston enjoyed powerful

political inﬂ uence in key local markets. The fact that his company’s

major investors were well- connected in large northeastern munici-

palities gave Co

ﬃn and his colleagues leverage in securing contracts.

By 1889, Thomson- Houston was beginning to overtake SERM.

The competitive situation, including both Sprague’s initial advan-

tage and Co

ﬃn’s eﬀective counter tactics, played out in microcosm as

the two companies battled for the biggest prize in the ﬁ eld—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.

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 reserva-

tions, 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 ﬁ ve 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

ASSESSING RICHMOND

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.”

Round one to Sprague. Whitney returned to Boston persuaded

that the West End should electrify. SERM received a contract to sup-

ply equipment.

THE DYNAMICS OF ADOPTION

Attracting customers like the West End Railway was essential for

SERM’s viability, allowing Sprague to continue developing, mar-

keting, 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 fac-

tors. 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 reconﬁ guration of existing

city and town transit systems and, indeed, geographies. Whether elec-

trifying 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.

All of this took the process of developing and further deﬁ ning

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 ﬁ nanciers, politicians, local operators (the railway

companies), and ultimately consumers (the trolley riders) to become

CHAPTER 3

reality. Sprague’s successful entrepreneurship carried the technology

through initial deployment, early commercialization, and the ﬁ rst

round of technical reﬁ nement. Beyond these steps, though, there was

little he could do to make electric railways continue to happen.

In the ﬁ nal analysis, adoption overcame technological inertia because

electric railways succeeded as social constructions. In this case, the tech-

nology and the process of social construction fed into and o

ﬀ of each

other. The development of electric railways ﬁ t into larger plans and proj-

ects. As the e

ﬀective reach of metropolitan living, working, and com-

muting 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 o

ﬀ at proﬁ t. Coming just as devel-

opers were acquiring the ﬁ nancial capacity to put such ambitious proj-

ects into e

ﬀect, 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.”

The decision by Whitney and the West End Railway to adopt

Sprague’s design underscored how widely dispersed and deeply lay-

ered 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 ﬁ erce competitive struggles

with local rivals over whether the West End would be permitted to

undertake the construction and extensions that would give the rail-

way 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.

ASSESSING RICHMOND

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 o

ﬃcials, attorneys, and allies

marshaled the technological promise of electriﬁ cation as a lynchpin

argument in their bid for public support. Lines had to be remunerative,

they argued, or they would fail, abandoning their cumbersome infra-

structures to become eyesores and roadblocks embedded in the city.

Electriﬁ ed railways, however (and only electriﬁ ed railways), would

enable the West End and its customers to avoid this fate. Spokes people

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.

Ventures such as the West End Street Railway, in other words, mo-

bilized electriﬁ cation—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 ﬂ ows from our

faucets.” Following Thomson, Whitney then addressed the audience,

urging political support for the West End’s e

ﬀorts to secure permis-

sion to extend its electriﬁ cation construction through Cambridge.

The speciﬁ c 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

CHAPTER 3

100

of construction. In America, as historians have observed, electric rail-

way construction became projects that were undertaken and there-

fore 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 rail-

ways slowly, contentiously, and ambivalently after protracted public

debate and under relatively tight public regulation. American railways,

by contrast, encountered less e

ﬀective regimens of public regulation

and therefore more easily overrode safety concerns or environmental

objections. In John McKay’s words: “electriﬁ cation shot through the

American street railway industry like current through a copper wire.

Within two short years after Sprague’s Richmond installation, one-

sixth of all street railway track in the United States was electriﬁ ed.”

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 ﬁ nan-

ciers gave him, Co

ﬃn managed to wrest a major piece of the West

End project from Sprague. Thomson- Houston “now have about ﬁ ve

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

ASSESSING RICHMOND

101

exceedingly strong a

ﬃliations, 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 orga-

nization,” Sprague informed Johnson. “It would be a combination of

the New York and Boston ﬁ nancial interests with whatever strength

can be gained by a

ﬃliations. . . . I have been advised in Boston that

the very wisest thing for us to do is to make this combination.”

“Combination,” indeed, was rapidly acquiring compelling strategic

logic across the electrical industry. The aggressive arrival of Thomson-

Houston signaled the emergence of a new stage of evolution for larger

electrical ﬁ rms. Between 1888 and 1891, Thomson- Houston spent

$4 million acquiring competing and adjacent ﬁ rms, 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 incandes-

cent lighting (by acquiring the United States Electric Lighting Com-

pany and the Consolidated Electric Light Company) and into arc

lighting (by picking up the Waterhouse Electric Light Company).

Edison and his ﬁ nancial 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 Man-

ufacturing Company, and several smaller auxiliary businesses to form

Edison General Electric (EGE) Company.

Behind all of these moves lay the growing recognition that com-

peting in this industry, building out systems, and more generally

CHAPTER 3

102

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 ﬁ -

nancing their customers could equipment manufacturers like SERM

get major projects o

ﬀ 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 ﬁ nanciers who were able to tap ever-

larger resources became crucial, and ﬁ gures such as Higginson, Vil-

lard, and Morgan came to the fore of the industry.

This development was momentous—as epochal as the new electri-

cal technologies that it was midwiving. The deepening commitment

of ﬁ gures like Morgan signiﬁ ed profound shifts in the organization

of the electrical industry and in the arrangements structuring tech-

nology, 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 pre-

eminent capitalist of the industrial corporate era, was especially

signiﬁ cant. He, his partners, and his clients were beginning to in-

ternalize the microeconomic metrics of mass production, mass dis-

tribution, and mass marketing. At the same time, they were gaining

conﬁ dence in the stability of the new electrical technologies that

people like Sprague were assembling. At the conﬂ uence of these two

developments, they were beginning to fashion new techniques (in-

ASSESSING RICHMOND

103

deed, new technologies) of investing in, managing, owning, and op-

erating industrial enterprise. As business historian Alfred Chandler

notes, “the electrical manufacturers . . . were the ﬁ rst American in-

dustrialists 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.”

Sprague had found himself operating at the epicenter of this seis-

mic 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 ﬁ nance and enterprise and more highly articulated and pro-

fessionally 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 in-

timations of “combination” that Sprague was receiving by early 1889

rapidly materialized in corporate form. In February, Johnson and

Sprague sold o

ﬀ 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 ven-

ture, “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.”

CHAPTER 3

104

At this point, Sprague evidently still thought of the arrangement

as an a

ﬃliation of distinct companies. But he had turned over what

proved to be a fateful degree of ﬁ nancial control. Villard and his back-

ers were creating, in Edison General Electric, an expanded enterprise

that would be able to compete in multiple markets against Thomson-

Houston, 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 ﬁ nancially 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 o

ﬀset 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, practi-

cally, to the necessity of accepting their proposition.”

So ﬁ nancial realities eventually impinged on Sprague, forcing him

to acknowledge that he had created something bigger than his lim-

ited ﬁ nancial 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-

ASSESSING RICHMOND

105

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, Mas-

sachusetts, 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 fea-

sibility 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 op-

portunities. Sprague, working in close proximity to competitors, had

worked his way through a reverse salient and, at the same time, bro-

ken open an adjacent market that confronted managers like Co

ﬃn

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 reﬁ ne 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 mo-

tors, 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

CHAPTER 3

106

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 o

ﬀer 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 em-

bodies 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.”

The Richmond design had been hastily assembled, leaving a lot of

room for improvement. S. W. Hu

ﬀ, who joined the railway in 1890

(fresh out of Cornell University with an improvised degree in elec-

trical engineering), found things there “in wretched condition.” Only

“with the greatest di

ﬃculty 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, ﬁ rst one

and then the other motor was cut out and the car was run backwards

and forwards while he ﬁ led the commutator with a coarse ﬁ le,” Hu

ﬀ

related. Other design limitations compounded the e

ﬀort. In the rush

to cobble the motors together, parts had been manufactured without

gigs, meaning that the parts were not interchangeable. As Hu

ﬀ put it,

“We had been interchanging them with a sledge hammer.” The orig-

inal motors proved too small, resulting in “the constant burning out

of armature and ﬁ elds” (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

ﬁ ve armature winders to keep thirteen cars running.” All told, Hu

ﬀ

ASSESSING RICHMOND

107

concluded, “we considered ourselves fortunate to keep the required

number of cars running regardless of the amount of help or the ex-

penses involved.”

CULTURAL MEANINGS

As an electrical engineer, Sprague doubtless expected ongoing re-

ﬁ nement 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 trans-

portation. 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 o

ﬀered a complex bundle of perspectives.” In rearranging

urban geographies, the streetcars rearranged urban experience itself.

Streetcars became emblems for the industrial, expanded urban and

suburban communities that they connected and carried. Thus, in nov-

els such as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Theodore Dreiser’s Sister

Carrie, electric streetcars ﬁ gured centrally in describing both the as-

sembly of larger industrial and commercial settings and the social

conﬂ ict attending that assembly. The plot device was not coinciden-

tal, 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 ramiﬁ ed well beyond

CHAPTER 3

108

its functional uses and purposes. Sprague did not entirely intend or

inﬂ uence these e

ﬀects, but he participated in all of them.

CLAIMING THE TECHNOLOGY

Both SERM and the technology that the enterprise had been as-

sembled 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 con-

solidation and incorporation engulfed American industry. Sprague’s

story was typical: a string of entrepreneur- founders gave way to ﬁ -

nanciers 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 ﬁ nancially 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 tol-

erated 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 pres-

sure 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, reﬁ ne, and generate new iterations

of proprietary technologies.

ASSESSING RICHMOND

109

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 ﬁ rst enterprises to tap capital markets for corporate indus-

trial equity, Edison General Electric was also one of the ﬁ rst to erect

a full- scale laboratory dedicated to research and development—and

the two developments were not coincidental.

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 elec-

tric trolleys. Over the next three years, more than 250 electric rail-

ways were incorporated. By 1903, some 30,000 miles of street railway

lines were running, 98 percent of them electric. The dramatic over-

haul occurred far more rapidly and more comprehensively than, say,

the spread of the steam railroad. Indeed, one historian has character-

ized the conversion to electric railways as “one of the most rapidly

accepted innovations in the history of technology.”

A powerful tidal pull of urbanization helped impel the conver-

sion. It is di

ﬃcult to imagine that earlier technologies (notably horse-

drawn railways) would have been able to bear the burgeoning tra

ﬃc

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 ﬁ nancial resources and ac-

quired 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.

CHAPTER 3

110

The story of the electric railway thus ramiﬁ es: the technology helped

shape and was itself shaped by larger social and economic trends.

Sprague’s ability to engineer this technology successfully through de-

velopment 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 technol-

ogy 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 entre-

preneurship. Outside ﬁ nancial interests had abetted but neither en-

tirely 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 speciﬁ c design of the technology and the initial path

and pace of its adoption.

For Sprague personally, these latter aspects of the episode reverber-

ated profoundly. The Richmond experience vindicated his faith in

the possibilities of heroic invention. This fundamental perception of

the event (one that was veriﬁ ed repeatedly by Sprague’s peers and

audience) framed his subsequent career, fortifying his sense of him-

self and fueling successive e

ﬀorts to reprise the experience. At Rich-

mond, Virginia, Sprague wrote (literally wrote, in the years ahead)

a narrative that became itself a substantial motive force that drove

future e

ﬀorts at invention and innovation.

ASSESSING RICHMOND

111

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 “envi-

able position” for himself within Edison General Electric, Sprague al-

lowed, “a position of inﬂ uence and pecuniary proﬁ t.” But as Sprague

saw it, the exciting, meaningful work in that ﬁ eld 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 per-

formed 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.”

The Victorian masculinity that laced Sprague’s language was en-

tirely 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 busi-

nesses—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 in-

stinct, 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

CHAPTER 3

112

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 ﬁ nal 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

ﬁ gure, a heterogeneous engineer who was able to design the technol-

ogy and then hammer together a business that was capable of con-

structing 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 ﬂ ex his “initiative and independence.” He

by no means considered himself marginalized. He was determined to

ﬁ nd his way autonomously back into the technological ferment for

he continued to believe that the forces he was channeling would not,

ﬁ nally, 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 ﬂ uid. Even as the industry con-

solidated, incorporated, and sta

ﬀed up internal research and develop-

ment functions, potent and disruptive invention energies continued

to swirl at the edges of technological evolution.

113

Edison’s absorption of Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Com-

pany (SERM) left Frank Sprague in limbo. He had staged a new tech-

nology, 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 en-

tered EGE in an ambiguous capacity, however. He became a director

and member of the subsidiary’s executive committee, but not a man-

ager with any real decision- making authority or inﬂ uence. In 1890,

he found himself caught in an anomalous corporate position, sur-

rounded by ongoing technological development and rapid industry

growth and looking for new ways to participate. He had been e

ﬀec-

tively relegated to the periphery of a ﬁ eld that was still churning with

innovation and opportunity. He had earned a respectable amount

RESTLESS AND RISING: SPRAGUE AND SPRAGUE

ELECTRIC ELEVATOR COMPANY, 1890 TO 1898

CHAPTER 4

114

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 signiﬁ cant strategic role in the busi-

ness 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 ﬁ eld 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 hus-

tling, built a new business into another busy company. Nevertheless,

he alternated during this period between stretches of di

ﬀusion, in

which he picked at grand projects that seemed to go nowhere, and

phases of intense focus in which he continued to engineer e

ﬀectively

and venture resourcefully. His ﬁ rst marriage fell apart. Meanwhile,

whether by instinct or necessity or some alchemy of the two in com-

bination, he kept himself on the entrepreneurial edge. His experi-

ences 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

RESTLESS AND RISING

115

railways, the technology’s social context was dynamic. With American

cities mushrooming in size, downtowns were becoming much more

densely conﬁ gured. Urban sprawl was radiating outward and upward

as well—in the form of buildings that climbed past existing four- ,

ﬁ ve- , and six- story levels. Other technologies, notably steel- framed

building construction techniques, made skyscrapers feasible, creating

favorable conditions for the parallel development of another techno-

logical reverse salient. Electric elevators, which promised more e

ﬃ-

cient, less costly, and safer operation than existing steam and hydraulic

counterparts, looked like an idea whose time was arriving.

The situation bore all the appearances of o

ﬀering another shot at

“the great achievement that will next come to the surface” (to bor-

row, again, the phrasing that Electrical World had employed to anoint

electric railways in the early 1890s). Sprague’s e

ﬀorts to assemble and

deploy the new technology and thereby lay claim to “inventing” elec-

tric 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 develop-

ment 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 ac-

complishment of invention proved to be accordingly elusive. This

technology proved to be far more di

ﬃcult to stage and thus to engi-

neer than electric railways had been.

SPRAGUE WITHIN EDISON GENERAL ELECTRIC

The formation of Edison General Electric Company from several exis-

ting Edison companies signaled the maturing of the electrical industry.

CHAPTER 4

116

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 identiﬁ ed viable platform technologies and

winnowed the competitive ﬁ eld; and diversiﬁ ed, integrated electrical

manufacturers (including Thomson- Houston and Westinghouse) were

massing by the late 1880s. In response, Edison and his ﬁ nancial backers

restructured their operations, drawing together the various overlap-

ping ventures that they had launched (the loosely a

ﬃliated manufac-

turing companies, for example, that actually assembled equipment)

and acquiring parallel businesses to ﬁ ll out their product line. Edi-

son’s control of Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company rep-

resented 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.

Inside these tightening corporate conﬁ nes, Sprague quickly grew

uncomfortable. He was still deeply invested in SERM, psychologically

if not ﬁ nancially, and wary from the start about whether the busi-

ness 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 ﬁ nancial power behind the for-

mation of the new electrical colossus, laying out a series of “sugges-

tions 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 ﬁ scal policy, and in accordance with their general

business schemes.” Nevertheless, Sprague argued that the subsidiary

RESTLESS AND RISING

117

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 o

ﬃces, and exploiting their ter-

ritory. They have a knowledge of the local conditions, of the per-

sonality of railway people, and oftentimes of local o

ﬃcials, which

is invaluable.” The railway business, Sprague insisted, was “a class of

work requiring special attention.”

Building on this thought, Sprague urged that the subsidiary be put

in the hands of its own senior- level management. “This Company

has su

ﬀered seriously from the lack of an Executive Head who was

free to give his entire time to its a

ﬀairs,” he maintained. The busi-

ness was still dynamic and ﬂ uid; 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 in-

fringements. Perhaps an executive board, dedicated speciﬁ cally 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

CHAPTER 4

118

was ignoring agreements that it had struck with SERM about pric-

ing and market allocation and was setting up rigged bids via a proxy

company.

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 repre-

sentatives.

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 e

ﬀective

sales agent who was well- connected in the western territories “by

ﬀer 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).

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 occu-

pying an o

ﬃce that called for a manager, not an inventor or engineer,

and that under the new scheme of organization was empty: “a sine-

cure, carrying with it neither authority nor inﬂ uence in the manage-

ment of its a

ﬀairs, but yet as restrictive in the obligations imposed as if

it were an active o

ﬃce.” Worse, the position gave Sprague no oppor-

tunity to continue inventing, and as far as Sprague could see, EGE did

not seem committed to sustaining its technological lead. The subsid-

iary’s technical committee rarely met, no workshop or laboratory had

been set up for “experimental work,” and EGE management seemed

RESTLESS AND RISING

119

content with the “present state of apparatus.” On June 7, Sprague

tendered his resignation as SERM’s vice president.

Sprague’s frustration was not entirely of his own making. His rest-

lessness within EGE stemmed from the undeﬁ ned nature of the posi-

tion that he held within the company, and this status reﬂ ected EGE’s

ambivalence about the role that ﬁ gures like Sprague were supposed

to hold in enterprises like the one that Edison General Electric was

becoming. Sprague sensed that he did not ﬁ t in at EGE, and indeed,

he did not. Although EGE was a technology company, its managers

were still ﬁ guring out how to strategically and structurally conﬁ gure

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” ﬁ gures

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 sta

ﬀ. The following year, Edison set up

shop at Menlo Park, New Jersey, creating a full- ﬂ edged industrial lab-

oratory, 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 o

ﬃce

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 ﬁ rst right of refusal on his inventions. After agree-

ing to this, Sprague retreated from the scene and took another trip

to Europe.

The ﬁ nal, deﬁ nitive 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 Edi-

son’s name. Deeply wounded, he ﬁ red o

ﬀ 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 un-

true” 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 pub-

lishers 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.”

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 incan-

descence 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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121

represented his claim to having accomplished heroic invention. He

identiﬁ ed with the technology; it identiﬁ ed 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

undigniﬁ ed, 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 beﬁ ts my reputation and dignity.”

ENGINEERING RICHMOND AS NARRATIVE

First, there was his historical legacy to protect. In the course of pro-

moting their electric railway, Sprague and SERM had generated con-

siderable 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 identiﬁ cation with the technology.

“The commercial history of the electric railway is well known,” he

recounted in 1891, addressing the National Electric Light Associa-

tion, “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.

Sprague was an engaging, e

ﬀective raconteur. Here as in later ver-

sions, he adopted a nontechnical, colorful tone, stressing “the inside

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ﬃculties with which we had to deal in the history of the electric

railway enterprise, and the amount which it was necessary to con-

ceal from the general public.” Speciﬁ c anecdotes included his ﬁ rst

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 de-

velopment in this country. . . . I have got everything at stake. My as-

sociates 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 Rich-

mond story Sprague stressed the obstacles that he overcame, the

improbability of success, and the vital inﬂ uence that he believed in-

dividual 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.”

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 suc-

cess. 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 o

ﬃcer of EGE when

he made the claim.

By 1891, Sprague was an entirely free agent,

ready and anxious to ﬁ nd new projects.

These projects took several forms. Sprague formed an engineer-

ing consulting ﬁ rm 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 man-

agement), 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 ﬁ -

nances 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 met-

ropolitan areas, and particularly New York City, lay in the develop-

ment of electriﬁ ed 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 an-

nouncement o

ﬀering 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.

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 ﬁ nancial problems. Sprague’s impassioned advocacy

made no apparent headway.

THE ELEVATOR OPPORTUNITY

Meanwhile, another project caught Sprague’s interest during this ﬁ t-

ful period, one that quickly acquired more substantial form. In 1889,

George F. Steele, a local SERM sales agent, heard that a young engi-

neer 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 reﬁ nery 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 cross-

head along an ordinary nut and screw. Unfortunately, once installed,

the machine did not work particularly well, largely because Pratt

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125

knew less about electric motors than he did about elevator mechan-

ics. 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.

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, Massa-

chusetts, 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 reﬁ nements 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 esti-

mated he put $50,000 into the venture during this ﬁ rst phase),

the

team built its ﬁ rst experimental model in Sprague’s laboratory at 23rd

Street in New York. By fall 1891, they were undertaking their ﬁ rst

commercial installation in the Grand Hotel at 31st St. and Broadway.

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REFINING THE TECHNOLOGY

Technical problems emerged as the partners reﬁ ned and reengi-

neered Pratt’s basic system design. In particular, the control systems

that Sprague had developed to operate his trolley cars required sub-

stantial modiﬁ cation 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 in-

stead mounted the motor directly on the end of the elevator’s screw

shaft. Sprague also added an improved control mechanism, employ-

ing a pilot motor to operate a rheostat to govern the ﬂ ow of electric-

ity to the motor. In addition, he designed a much more elaborate

set of resistance grids. Thus modiﬁ ed, 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.

As Sprague and Pratt’s various technical contributions coalesced,

the result was an elevator that combined the features of both hori-

zontal and vertical machines. At this early stage, the partners adopted

and only slightly adapted the existing lifting apparatus that was em-

ployed 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 reﬁ ned their design and worked out op-

erational kinks, the Grand Hotel pressed to open the elevators to pas-

senger tra

ﬃc. 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 ﬁ rm 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 con-

troller failure. The critical breakthrough came when Sprague sug-

gested, on an impulse, that the team rig up a cast iron set of resistors,

which performed reliably and proved durable. Other technical prob-

lems 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 agree-

ments made in December 1891 and January 1892, Pratt sold his pat-

ents 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.

ENGINEERING ELECTRIC ELEVATOR TECHNOLOGIES: STRATEGIC

CONTEXT

In many respects, the e

ﬀort to engineer electric elevator innovation—

that is, to overcome technological inertia and to assemble an enter-

prise 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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128

unproven ideas and unbuilt designs. Moreover, Sprague would at-

tempt to establish the elevator company much as he had his motor

company—by taking on a high- proﬁ le, 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 horizon-

tally, but Sprague was not entering entirely unfamiliar territory as he

launched his second major company.

In several important respects, however, the circumstances surround-

ing the elevator venture were unfamiliar. First, Sprague was entering

a di

ﬀerent competitive landscape, both commercially and technolog-

ically. Establishing a position in the street railway market had entailed

displacing a technology that was defended by scattered and unor-

ganized traditional suppliers (the various teamsters working horse-

drawn railways, essentially) and contending against competitors (other

electric railway manufacturers) who were also trying to develop busi-

nesses 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 e

ﬀective

competitive tactics. Speciﬁ cally, he was challenging the Otis Eleva-

tor 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.

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He was in for a ﬁ erce ﬁ ght. Against Otis’s imposing advantages,

Sprague could claim to o

ﬀer 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 eco-

nomic depression. Within a matter of weeks, hundreds of banks failed,

and by the end of the year, 14,000 businesses had gone under. Fi-

nances 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, ﬁ nancially speaking, at the worst possible time for

a new technology venture. Simply holding SEEC together through

this crisis pressed him, his partners, and their ﬂ edgling enterprise to

their limits well after Sprague had demonstrated the essential sound-

ness of his elevator systems.

SEEC’s counterbalancing assets, on the other hand, were not insub-

stantial. 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 mod-

est pool of operating capital proved critical. And there were his less

tangible assets—the conﬁ dence and public status that Richmond had

conferred and Sprague’s belief in the possibility of heroic invention.

In the di

ﬃcult years ahead, if Sprague ever doubted that he would

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130

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 magniﬁ cent machine,” he declared

to one correspondent inquiring about investing, “and it is going to

be a success.”

The claim was a pitch that was made to attract ﬁ nan-

cial backers. But the expansive sense of opportunity that underlay

it was both infectious and, in Sprague’s case, instinctive. Flush with

the conﬁ dence 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 ﬁ gure 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 remark-

able new means of motive power to this potential market. The elec-

tric 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, oc-

cupying footprints a fraction as big as their bulky counterparts. More-

over, Sprague assured potential investors, the technology was already

proven: the Grand Hotel installation was running smoothly twenty-

four hours a day.

On the basis of these assumptions, SEEC’s founding partners de-

vised a ﬁ nancial plan that envisioned liberal prospects. They capital-

ized 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 produc-

ing “at least 100 high duty elevators per annum.”

That was the plan. Within months, however, the national ﬁ nancial

picture had darkened dramatically. In April 1893, the gold reserves

held by the U.S. Treasury fell below $100 million, triggering a ﬁ nan-

cial panic. The successive failures of several major industrial businesses

triggered chain- reaction collapses in a string of banks in the Ameri-

can 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 pro-

ceeds from SEEC’s ﬁ rst 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 tool-

ing 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 o

ﬀ the ground and an electric railway assembled on a

public stage—to build a high- proﬁ le system on speculation, taking on

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132

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. Learn-

ing 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 commit-

tees that Sprague approached opted for more familiar alternatives.

But in the case of the Postal Telegraph Company—the new build-

ing’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”

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 with-

out any competition.” At the same time, he admitted that he had ac-

cepted 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 hydrau-

lic 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.”

Sprague had learned at least one les-

son 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 ﬁ rst 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.”

He had negotiated a project through which he could stage the tech-

nology. Collecting a small team of engineers and assistants, Sprague

and Pratt intensiﬁ ed 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 in-

tricate 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, techni-

cally 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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134

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 ﬂ oors.

One terrifying episode punctuated progress early in the installa-

tion process. As soon as the team had ﬁ nished rigging cables for the

ﬁ rst 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 maxi-

mum speed, reached the top ﬂ oor, and kept rising. Sprague frantically

worked the control lever, but the motor failed to respond: the con-

tacts had welded themselves together, and he had lost control. “There

ﬂ ashed a vision,” he later remembered, “of heading into the overhead

sheaves at 400 feet a minute, the snapping of the cables, then a four-

second, fourteen- story free drop . . . with a tangled mass of human-

ity 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 ﬁ -

nancial footing. In January 1893, following protracted negotiations,

he brought in Smith M. Weed as president of the company, princi-

pally on the strength of a $50,000 stake that Weed agreed to invest

RESTLESS AND RISING

135

in SEEC stock.

Sprague continued to purchase equipment and laid

out plans to expand the company’s plant capacity, fending o

ﬀ rumors

that began to appear (spread, he believed, by the hydraulic trust) that

SEEC was peddling stocks and vaporware, with no real manufactur-

ing facilities and no plans to build actual machines.

Then the ﬁ nancial panic hit. Late in April, Weed warned Sprague

that the sharp economic contraction might force SEEC to suspend

its stock o

ﬀering and revealed that he, Weed, might have trouble pay-

ing 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 sacriﬁ ce on your part.”

Between the lines, Sprague’s

import was clear: he needed operating funds and was willing to re-

linquish more equity to get them. Now the delays over at the Postal

Telegraph Building were working against him: “Of course,” he rec-

ognized, “very much depends upon the operation of the Postal Tele-

graph 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 ﬁ -

nancial situation deteriorated: “Unfortunately I am tide up [sic] so

that I cannot get out of some enterprises no matter how much I

want to.”

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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136

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 conﬁ dential report to the bank’s

president. Of that sum, only $33,000 had actually been paid, and

Sprague had spent signiﬁ cantly more than that setting up the busi-

ness. 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 pro-

ceeding 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 commit-

ment was deepening. Along with SEEC’s assets, he listed those held

by himself and his wife in his application to the bank.

The Third National Bank declined the loan application.

Sprague

redoubled his e

ﬀorts, 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 un-

able 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., en-

dorsed loans for] have been forced to lay down and let me shoulder

their burdens.” He was maintaining a show of conﬁ dence, he added.

He literally could not a

ﬀord 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 re-

gard to the Company, I am of course best able to make good contracts

RESTLESS AND RISING

137

on its behalf and push along the work by letting it be understood

that we can promptly meet any demands which are properly due.”

PRYING OPEN THE MARKET

“Good contracts” did not materialize, though, no matter how con-

vincing a show of ﬁ nancial soundness Sprague managed to put to-

gether. The delays at the Postal Telegraph Building hurt, but Sprague

was ﬁ nding 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 en-

gineering ﬁ rms that building committees consulted when choosing

which suppliers should be given contracts to build what kinds of el-

evators. By early 1893, Sprague was coming to appreciate how di

ﬃ-

cult 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 Tele-

graph 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.”

In fact, builders’ reluctance to risk the potentially disastrous con-

sequences 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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138

passenger elevator business “almost a natural monopoly,” concluded

one internal Otis strategy memorandum from this period. “New and

untried makers or machines ﬁ nd few opportunities to secure impor-

tant contracts, and the old established houses are all awarded the best

contracts at a preference of ten or ﬁ fteen 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 ﬁ rst class work. These two concerns have been established

under special conditions and have already lost hundreds of thousands

of dollars in their e

ﬀorts to secure recognition and a small share of

the going business.”

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 commit-

tees that were unwilling to entertain radical new technologies.

HARD PRESSED

Meanwhile, Sprague continued his urgent search for more operating

capital to keep SEEC aﬂ oat. In May 1893, he gained a respite by re-

mortgaging 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.”

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.”

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

RESTLESS AND RISING

139

time ﬁ nancially, and things look pretty blue, but I have not struck a

stone wall yet that I did not ﬁ nd 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 conﬁ rm 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.”

However “bare,” Sprague pursued these possibilities persistently

over the rocky months of late 1893 to early 1894. When the Postal

Telegraph Building system ﬁ nally came on line in early 1894, earn-

ing 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 ﬁ nancial front,

Sprague patched things together as best he could. To purchase a last

batch of equipment to ﬁ nish the Postal Telegraph Building elevators,

he was forced to borrow on the payment that he anticipated for the

project.

By this point, too, Weed had withdrawn from the company,

unable to pay for the stock that he had subscribed.

THE TURNING POINT

The successful installation of elevators at the Postal Telegraph Build-

ing represented a welcome accomplishment for SEEC. The ﬁ rm 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 ﬁ nan-

cier A. B. Chandler in July 1894. “I have won technically, and if I keep

level a little longer, I’ll win every way.”

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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140

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 signiﬁ cant 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 pro-

moted in the coming months.

Another round of investors joined

in September

as the national ﬁ nancial 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 signiﬁ cant 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 el-

evators continued to hum busily and safely. Between November 1894

and October 1895, the company billed $70,000 in work. That sus-

tained 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 ﬁ ghting not for its life

but for the chance to capitalize on the technological opportunity

that was slowly opening.

RESTLESS AND RISING

141

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 ﬁ eld.

Nor did it secure him a decisive claim to have “invented the elec-

tric 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,”

but in fact, the e

ﬀort failed to garner him

the recognition or the endorsement that the Richmond Union Pas-

senger 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 fol-

lowing Sprague’s address, rising luminaries including Charles Stein-

metz (who went on to play a major role in the ﬁ eld 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 out-

performed 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.

Sprague countered with statistics of his own—refraining at least

publicly from pointing out that his opponents (including Steinmetz,

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142

Ihlder, and Leonard) were all connected with Otis at least indirectly.

Still, he could not muster unimpeachable evidence of superior per-

formance as he had been able to with his electric railway at Rich-

mond. 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 di

ﬃcul-

ties, both technical and business, that confronted me when I over-

took to overturn the hydraulic elevator industry, ﬁ rmly 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 opportu-

nity. By the mid- 1890s, he was growing restless again.

He found himself returning, for example, to the question of met-

ropolitan 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 ﬁ nal tests on the elevator cars, Sprague suddenly won-

dered how the system would perform if they all tried to start up at

once. To ﬁ nd 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).

RESTLESS AND RISING

143

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 di

ﬀerent setting dawned on him sev-

eral years later. Even as he brought SEEC to the next level of business,

Sprague was beginning to pull together his next major technology

initiative.

145

By the middle of the 1890s, Frank Sprague was struggling to keep

Sprague Electric Elevator Company (SEEC) aﬂ oat. 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 e

ﬀort yet to engineer technology and

lay claim to heroic invention. Surrounded by ﬁ nancial turbulence and

business uncertainty and yet propelled by the potential that he sensed

in his latest idea, Sprague plowed forward. He retreated to the work-

shop to build models and pilot demonstrations. He scraped together

a new round of ﬁ nancial backing, even though his personal resources

were already badly strained by the e

ﬀort to sustain SEEC. And he

went casting for an opportunity to stage the invention. Even as his

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL: MULTIPLE UNIT, THE SOUTH

SIDE ELEVATED RAILROAD, AND THE FORMATION OF

SPRAGUE ELECTRIC COMPANY

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146

partners labored to shore up SEEC’s faltering ﬁ nances, Sprague was

launching his third major venture—Sprague Electric Company (SEC).

As with earlier ventures, it was going to take frenetic e

ﬀort and re-

sourceful maneuvering to launch SEC. Indeed, if MU was Sprague’s

most important invention, engineering it as a persuasive technologi-

cal 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 en-

terprise, to work via alliances with external partners, or to ﬁ nd some

other way to promote his invention, commercialize his idea, and re-

establish his reputation.

Characteristically, he fought to keep a proprietary grasp on the in-

novation 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 engi-

neered. To catalyze the process of innovation, Sprague had to frame a

narrative of technological trial and triumph that created an e

ﬀect in

the marketplace. Even before he ﬁ nished 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 elec-

tric 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 Rail-

way and Motor Company) and 1896 (when he prepared to com-

mercialize MU), the electrical industry consolidated and restructured

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

147

with astonishing rapidity. The social context of both enterprise and

innovation—ﬁ nancial, industrial, managerial, and technological—

was reforming in a new conﬁ guration. 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 rec-

ognized 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 crys-

tallized. “I am very much absorbed in the elevator work,” he replied

to an o

ﬀer 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 ﬁ ght, 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 a

ﬀair

if it took place, and I should be pretty active in it,” he predicted.

Most of his assets and a good deal of his pride remained wrapped up

in the venture.

Nevertheless, from a ﬁ nancial standpoint, SEEC remained a de-

manding and dicey proposition. The ﬁ rm had passed through a mor-

tal crisis in the economic depression of the mid- 1890s, emerging on

the other side with a technology that was still only ﬁ tfully establishing

itself in the market. SEEC was by no means out of the woods yet. The

venture and the technology had survived their ﬁ rst test of technical

development and market premiere. The next challenge—of growth

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148

and wider adoption—still loomed. In this respect, the process of

technological engineering proceeded quite di

ﬀerently than it had

for Sprague in the case of electric railways and SERM. The Rich-

mond Union Passenger Railway in Virginia had broken the market

open, both ﬁ nancially 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. Strenu-

ous e

ﬀorts yielded nearly half that amount in paid- in funding, some

$235,000 over the next few months.

Even with this infusion, SEEC struggled to stay solvent. More op-

erating 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 ex-

panded proportionately. Strikes, both within SEEC and on construc-

tion projects, disrupted schedules. The company was compelled to o

ﬀer

“special concessions and sacriﬁ ces” on certain projects “to get work

through.”

Success itself increased the stakes. By July 1895, SEEC’s

product line had expanded to ten types of elevator, and its billings

had risen ﬁ vefold from the previous year’s level.

Sprague and his

partners stretched resources as far as circumstances permitted to ﬁ -

nance this expanding scale of operation.

Still, cash ﬂ ow broke down repeatedly. In early 1896, Sprague in-

formed 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.”

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

149

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 Bu

ﬀalo as collateral.”

(Evidently SEEC

was being forced to accept its clients’ stock as payment, exacerbat-

ing 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 con-

tract 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.”

The growing scale of the business o

ﬀered some measure of com-

pensating encouragement. SEEC was getting more contracts and do-

ing 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 e

ﬀorts and for all the in-

creased 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 dem-

onstrating that SEEC remained stubbornly unproﬁ table.

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 prob-

lems of technology engineering to the more tractable problems of

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150

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 ﬂ ashback. Several years be-

fore, while installing SEEC’s ﬁ rst 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 signiﬁ cant. “Pondering

over the elevated- railway train problem one day,” he later related, “the

thought suddenly ﬂ ashed on me, Why not apply the same principle

to train operation?”

The “elevated- railway train problem” that Sprague referred to was

the fact that the existing system technology, based on the central prin-

ciple 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 mo-

tors 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

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

151

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 e

ﬃcient just when demand grew heaviest.

Dispersing motors along the line car by car distributed weight

more evenly, which enabled longer trains to operate without over-

burdening elevated structures. Even more important, trains with dis-

tributed motors rigged to operate in unison were able to accelerate

much more smoothly and rapidly, no matter how long they grew.

The theoretical beneﬁ ts were relatively obvious from an engineer-

ing 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 prin-

ciple 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 capac-

ity (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 architec-

ture 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 ﬁ ve or six cars under

simultaneous control.”

Three years later, in 1888, Sprague returned

to the idea. In a paper before the American Institute of Electrical

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152

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.

The concept was sound, Sprague could see, and other would- be

inventors had already conceived the same basic principle. Thomas

Edison had ﬁ led a patent proposing a distributed motor approach in

1883. Charles Van Depoele had ﬁ led a patent in 1890 claiming and

further developing the idea. The key insight that Van Depoele o

ﬀered

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.”

The problem was developing a workable system that meshed con-

trol of the distributed units. Neither Edison nor Van Depoele man-

aged to design a system of control that was capable of rendering the

basic idea practicable—and everything hinged on developing a ﬂ ex-

ible, reliable, robust system of control. Sprague had intuitively grasped

the operational beneﬁ ts of a multiple- unit system but initially re-

jected 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 di

ﬃculties in the operation of a number of motors from

one point.”

The breakthrough came when Sprague realized that he did not

necessarily need to rig the motors to a common circuit. He could rig

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

153

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.”

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 ramiﬁ cations. MU would synchro-

nize individual railroad cars in a seamless, interchangeable array of

possible conﬁ gurations. 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 ﬂ uidly, assembling longer trains to handle periods of high

demand and trimming them as demand tapered o

ﬀ. Trains would not

even have to turn around to reverse direction. These transformations

would make systems far more ﬂ exible, simpler, and more e

ﬃcient to

operate, particularly in demanding urban environments where con-

straints were tightest, ﬂ uctuations 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 ﬂ exible, and

more stable alignment. It rationalized ﬂ ow by creating more e

ﬀec tive,

more extended mechanisms of control, and both ﬂ ow and its con-

trol 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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154

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 signiﬁ cance and to appreciate its impact on operation and per-

formance—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 function-

ing at the heart of a rail system, carrying tra

ﬃc in the speciﬁ c 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 stu

ﬀ 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 market-

able 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

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

155

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, wir-

ing a bank of SEEC elevators to test di

ﬀerent system models. By June

1896, he was conﬁ dent 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 per-

fectly aligned unison. “My multiple pilot control . . . is alright,” he

reported to John Searles on June 4. “I have been making a prelimi-

nary test of a model, and in a few days shall show the handling of ﬁ ve

machines in any combination, from ten di

ﬀerent points, at will.”

Emboldened by his progress in the lab, Sprague o

ﬀered 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 deﬁ nite

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 direc-

tors 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.

The Manhattan directors declined to take him up on the o

ﬀer.

Sprague managed to draw various people, mostly engineers, out to

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156

Watsessing to see his system in operation—at least on elevators.

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 argu-

ments 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 tech-

nology scholars would term a paradigm shift: railroads did not neces-

sarily 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 struc-

tures lightly. Sprague made a second appeal to the Manhattan several

months later in February 1897, again to no e

ﬀect.

THE OPPORTUNITY BREAKS

A fortunate conﬂ uence of circumstances created an opening else-

where, however. In late March 1897, he received a request from Les-

lie Carter, president of the South Side Elevated Railroad Company

(nicknamed the “Alley L”) in Chicago. Having recently assumed ex-

ecutive control of the railroad as part of a recovery plan following a

ﬁ nancial collapse, Carter was overseeing a general overhaul of the

line, including a conversion from steam to electricity. Would Sprague

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157

be available to serve as an engineering consultant on certain aspects

of the project?

His ﬁ rst inclination was to put Carter o

ﬀ. 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 sca

ﬀold while inspecting an

elevator installation and was on crutches. I “tried to stall the engage-

ment,” Sprague later recounted, quoting “a fee that would eliminate

me.”

But then a former colleague, William J. Clark, prevailed on

him to reconsider. Now head of General Electric’s railway depart-

ment, 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 visi-

tor 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 ﬁ rm, 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 su

ﬀered 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 conﬁ dence and

support of qualiﬁ ed engineers who had direct access to the road’s se-

nior 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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158

“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.”

That same day, he wired

Carter, accepting the consulting engagement.

His report came almost immediately. He o

ﬀered numerous, de-

tailed observations on the new system’s proposed powerhouse and

plan for power distribution. Then he turned to the question of mo-

tor 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 up-

grades, “both because of the increased number of motors and trucks

as well as because of the special control,” Sprague insisted that savings

in operational e

ﬃciencies 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.”

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 ﬂ urry of cables and letters passed back and forth—from

Chicago trying to nail down Sprague on speciﬁ cations, costs, and

performance and from Sprague to Carter and the South Side en-

gineers answering technical questions and adding “further facts in

favor of individual car equipment as against locomotive equipment”

as they occurred to the inventor.

By the end of April, Carter was

persuaded, telegramming Sprague that the South Side was prepared

to award him the contract.

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

159

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, con-

trollers, 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 execu-

tives 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 noncommit-

tal. 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

CHAPTER 5

160

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 du-

plex circuit wound round me.” Deciding on a characteristically bold

gesture, he o

ﬀered 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 o

ﬀ. 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.”

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 ﬁ nally 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 run-

ning on an experimental track by July 15, at which point Carter and

other South Side Elevated Railroad Company o

ﬃcials would inspect

his progress with the option of canceling the contract if the equip-

ment failed to perform.

Sprague had agreed to a rigorous set of contract conditions to se-

cure the chance to wire the South Side Elevated Railroad for MU. In

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

161

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.

Sprague, typically, was in no position to exert much leverage. But

he was not going to let disadvantageous terms close o

ﬀ 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.

The July deadline for a trial dem-

onstration 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 ﬁ nalized to lobby for a subcontract for

supplying the system’s 240 motors. As part of his pitch, Clark o

ﬀered

Sprague the use of GE’s test track and shops in Schenectady, New

York, for development work. Sprague, who had no independent ac-

cess 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 conﬁ ned mainly to the system’s circuitry. Now he

needed to adapt that circuitry to very di

ﬀerent motors and operat-

ing conditions. He hoped to make some progress on the numerous

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162

conversion problems by working long- distance from London via trans-

atlantic cables. Unfortunately, a strike in SEEC’s Watsessing, New Jer-

sey, 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. Caricho

ﬀ and Charles E. Hyatt, who spe-

cialized in switchgear and controller design; S. H. Libby, who assumed

engineering liaison duties with GE and the South Side Elevated Rail-

road; 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 Rich-

mond Union Passenger Railway, master mechanic Pat O’Shaugnessy.

A ﬁ erce and frantic burst of e

ﬀort 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.”

At last, they were

ﬀ 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-

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

163

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 ﬁ nally 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 com-

pany’s ﬁ nancial 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 individ-

ual 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 Na-

tional Bank to make certain overdue loan payments, Sprague replied

that work on the South Side project had temporarily complicated his

ﬁ nances. The project was “to be taken up by the new Sprague Elec-

tric 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 deﬁ nitely settled.”

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164

Even as Sprague and his multiple- unit development team were work-

ing through the technical engineering, he and his ﬁ nancial 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, manu-

facturing, 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- o

ﬀ. A new company was set up to take

on the MU work. Finally, because neither of these assets o

ﬀered solid

investment- grade performance records (SEEC was struggling to achieve

proﬁ tability, and the MU business was still in the development stage),

Edward Johnson rounded up a third business, Interior Conduit and

Insulation (a proﬁ table, midtier manufacturer of electrical equipment)

to solidify the new company from a ﬁ nancial point of view. “I have

worked pretty strenuously for three years to bring our work to a po-

sition where it would command hard backing,” Sprague commented,

“and I have been successful enough ﬁ nally to get what I consider the

best individual backing in this country.” The newly formed Sprague

Electric Company (SEC) drew on ﬁ nancing from John Mackay and

other prominent SEEC investors: the Cranes, the Mills, and the Roeb-

lings, as well as (on a smaller scale) J. P. Morgan himself.

STRATEGIZING MU

If Sprague Electric Company was to be the corporate vehicle for

doing multiple- unit business, however, the optimal strategy for com-

mercializing the innovation still remained unclear. Sprague initially

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

165

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 ﬁ t 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 ﬁ eld 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.”

Sprague felt entirely capable of demolishing his detractors. The

imitators, on the other hand, gave him unforeseen trouble. Initially,

Sprague expressed conﬁ dence in his advantage as ﬁ rst 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.”

This conﬁ dence may well have

been justiﬁ ed 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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166

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 ﬂ exible) “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 neces-

sarily be the sharpest sort of antagonism.”

Pursuing this possibility, Sprague invited overtures from General

Electric. In December 1897, he held several meetings with GE execu-

tives, including President Charles Co

ﬃn, to explore possible collabo-

ration. 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 nec-

essary equipment to manufacture motors of any size, and are backed

by all the experience gained in years of railway manufacture.” More-

over, the company enjoyed close relationships with “a great many

customers, probably four- ﬁ fths 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 pre-

pared 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 facili-

ties, 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.

Entirely in

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

167

agreement, SEC directors formed a committee (Sprague, Albert B.

Chandler, John Searles, and Edward Johnson) to represent SEC in

negotiations with the electrical colossus.

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 Novem-

ber 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 ﬁ nished, 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.

Sprague’s mass- transit design proved to be su

ﬃciently robust, in

its essentials, to survive throughout the twentieth century and into

the twenty- ﬁ rst. 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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168

power circuit and a small master controller located at driving posi-

tions 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 di-

rection the train drove. In e

ﬀect, 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.

Short circuits erupted during the installation, auxiliary equipment

(such as brake shoes and third- rail connectors) required hastily im-

provised redesign, but from this point, progress was back on track. By

the end of June 1898, ninety cars were operating, and SEC was be-

ginning to press the South Side Elevated Railroad Company for cer-

tiﬁ cation and payment. The two sides jockeyed a bit—Leslie Carter

insisting that he needed to delay payment until his engineers signed

ﬀ on the project, and Sprague inquiring increasingly anxiously about

the delay. Meanwhile, the railroad began to deliver measurably su-

perior 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 De-

cember 1897 to over $45,000 in December 1898.

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-

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

169

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. Improv-

ing economic conditions also contributed to receptivity, as ﬁ nancial

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 Co

ﬃn and Frederick Fish made it clear that

they would not enter any “working arrangement” with Sprague un-

less GE received an exclusive license.

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 technol-

ogy churn and entrepreneurial ferment, carving out an opportunity to

innovate by dint of frantic invention, skillful promotion, and resource-

ful 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

CHAPTER 5

170

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,

ﬃn had identiﬁ ed the railway business as one of two core busi-

nesses for strategic focus, a

ﬃrming: “the interesting and important

development [in future prospects] is in the direction of local lighting

and railway enterprises.”

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.

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 o

ﬃng.

A lot was at stake, in other words. The market had come of age. So

too had General Electric and Westinghouse. Throughout the depres-

sion 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 Co

ﬃn 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).

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 notice-

ably 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, conﬂ icting, overlapping pat-

ents in lighting, motors, power generation and transmission, and a

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

171

series of other electrical ﬁ elds. 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 particu-

larly pronounced at GE, which became known during this period as

the “Electric Trust,” but a similar instinct for oligopoly and “rational-

ity” 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 ﬁ gures like Sprague continued to operate at the periph-

ery, 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 unpredict-

able, if not entirely ungovernable. Free agents, inventing outside of the

new corporate R&D labs, continued to thrust disruptive yet foun-

dational technological ideas into the marketplace. The social context

of innovation in the electrical industry may have grown more con-

stricted, 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 Co

ﬃn, and J. P. Morgan.

This dynamic distinctly colored General Electric’s initial response

to MU and Sprague Electric Company. Sprague represented an in-

terloper who proposed to lay proprietary claim to technology that

was deeply embedded in the system architecture of a core business.

CHAPTER 5

172

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 de-

cided to try to ﬁ nd a way around this new obstacle.

Sprague responded deﬁ antly. 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 rel-

ish 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.”

173

Frank Sprague emerged from the proving ground in Chicago con-

vinced 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 wide-

spread 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 stan-

dard technology platform for railway control. They had to strategize

the innovation, ﬁ nd a way to use this new technology to establish

leverage, and pry open entry in a technological environment that was

deﬁ ned by complex systems, massive projects, and imposing corpo-

rate competitors. The technology had been technically engineered.

ELUSIVE CONTROL: THE CONTEST WITH GENERAL

ELECTRIC

CHAPTER 6

174

Now it had to be promoted, manufactured, marketed, and otherwise

managed.

Sprague, characteristically, was ready for the trial. From his per-

spective, he had faced similar odds in the electric railway ﬁ eld a dozen

years before. With little more than a few prototype engines and sev-

eral 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 dis-

tinct challenges. As powerful and important as the technology was, it

was only one component in an intricate, extended array of appara-

tus and technologies—apparatus and technologies in which General

Electric and Westinghouse had accumulated deep technical exper-

tise, extensive patent protection, substantial manufacturing capacity,

and commanding market positions. The shadow of General Electric

loomed particularly ominously over Sprague’s latest startup. The de-

terioration of talks with Charles Co

ﬃn left SEC in a dangerous po-

sition. Sprague anticipated that GE, along with other competitors,

would challenge MU on technical grounds, opposing it with obso-

lete systems, and eventually giving way before an incontestably su-

perior 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 ﬁ erce resistance in the market-

place. Sprague and his ﬁ nancial 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

ELUSIVE CONTROL

175

of the new electric systems that were emerging and using that tech-

nology 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 con-

stricting rapidly.

CONTEXT: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

The barriers to entry—or in Sprague’s case, reentry—and innovation

via entrepreneurship had climbed considerably since he ﬁ rst ventured

in electric railways. General Electric and Westinghouse had consoli-

dated commanding market positions by the late 1890s, and the proj-

ects that deﬁ ned the market had grown to imposing scale. Elevated

railways in metropolis- scale cities like New York, Boston, and Chi-

cago represented lucrative but massive projects, encompassing sub-

stantial 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 electri-

ﬁ cation, 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 through-

out the country the export demand for American electrical products

and the home consumption and demand is increased in leaps and

bounds, electrical supply men conﬁ dently predict that 1899 will be

the banner year for this branch of trade.”

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176

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 Rich-

mond Union Passenger Railway, Sprague had enjoyed the luxury of

building on an essentially blank landscape. Environments like Chi-

cago and Manhattan were much more densely packed, both literally

and ﬁ guratively.

Then, too, there was the scale of Sprague’s rivals, both their ﬁ nances

and their resources. The competitors for development of electric rail-

way 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 com-

petitive landscape in the 1890s was very di

ﬀerent. 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 mul-

tiple plants, thousands of workers, and extensive networks of ﬁ eld agents

who handled marketing, service, and support functions. These enter-

prises 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 con-

vinced that he possessed a breakthrough technology that his com-

petitors 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

ELUSIVE CONTROL

177

ﬁ nds 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.”

In e

ﬀect, Sprague was arguing (to borrow anachronistically once again

from modern business vocabulary) that the MU system was so dis-

ruptive 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 an-

other 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 ﬁ eld, of the required technical knowledge.”

He was misreading his competition, however, and underestimating

the increasingly robust possibilities for rapid technological develop-

ment 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 inno-

vation 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 ﬁ rst corporate labs devoted to basic scien-

tiﬁ c research, under the direction of MIT professor Willis Whitney.

anything, GE’s corporate scale of operation made it even more tech-

nologically 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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178

IMPATIENT CAPITAL

On Sprague Electric Company’s side of the contest, Sprague’s part-

ners had also grown wary of irrational entrepreneurial excess, and

that development a

ﬀected the strategic development of his multiple-

unit 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 “ﬁ rst vice president.” Then, to his

“surprise and chagrin,” Sprague found himself left o

ﬀ of the com-

pany’s executive committee. “I had supposed that when I yielded

to your advice in the matter of the ﬁ rst vice- presidency,” he com-

plained to Chandler after learning of the news, “it did not mean so

much of an end to my o

ﬃcial activity.” To Sprague, the makeup of

the new committee seemed “ﬁ nancially top- heavy, and technically

one- sided,” and he warned that a stronger technical voice would be

needed if SEC hoped “to e

ﬀectively 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 sti

ﬄy requested to

be relieved of the title of “Second Vice President” and made simply a

“consulting engineer.”

He was hurt (“I cannot but feel this very strongly,” he informed

Chandler), but Sprague had little choice but to reconcile himself to

ﬁ nancial realities. With roughly one- quarter of SEC’s stock, he was

the company’s largest shareholder, as well as its namesake and techno-

logical heart and soul. But he still needed ﬁ nancial backing to see the

venture through, and by 1898, his backers were losing patience. In-

vestors like Edward Johnson (SEC’s second- largest shareholder, with

ELUSIVE CONTROL

179

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 di

ﬀerent 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

proﬁ tability in the company’s other lines of business. When account-

ing 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 ﬁ rst year’s operation, and that the extent of

this loss is a serious menace to us.” The fact that the company’s eleva-

tor projects were coming in over budget exacerbated the ﬁ nanciers’

concerns: “instead of feeling that we have built up a proﬁ table as well

as a useful business in that direction, our e

ﬀorts thus far have resulted,

from a ﬁ nancial standpoint, most unsatisfactorily.”

Sprague responded by pointing to SEC’s progress in establishing

its MU technology. Chandler’s reply was blunt and bottom- line ori-

ented. He recognized “the merit which I still conﬁ dently believe be-

longs 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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180

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 ﬁ nan-

cially 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 dol-

lar in it. For myself, I deeply regret having had anything whatever to

do with it.”

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 Rail-

road project intensiﬁ ed, “I shall be able to tender to this company a

contract of such importance that it will not only insure a large and

safe proﬁ t, but will have such a coercive inﬂ uence upon the present

situation as will make it absolutely necessary for both the General

Electric and the Westinghouse companies to ﬁ nd some way to make

a working arrangement.”

The contract that Sprague had in mind was

the Manhattan Elevated Railway—a prize large enough to confer

“coercive inﬂ uence” (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, in-

deed, the most heavily traveled urban line in the world. Still a steam-

powered 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

ELUSIVE CONTROL

181

1891, swelling to nearly 200 million.

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 eleva-

tors—made downtown New York even denser in the daytime, fur-

ther 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 mu-

nicipally owned, privately operated subway system.

In the mean-

time, the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company (which passed from

Jay Gould to his son George when the former died in 1892) repre-

sented 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

ﬁ rst, 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 speciﬁ c 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 in-

vestment, of about $1,300,000 per annum, or allowing interest on

investment, of about $750,000.”

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

CHAPTER 6

182

and best in electric railroading.”

When rumors surfaced that the

Manhattan Elevated Railway planned to electrify its trains, Sprague

again pressed the claim, urging on Gould the importance of equip-

ping 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 e

ﬃciencies.

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 ﬁ rmer than this rather vague

assurance could be extracted. Anxiously, Sprague cast about for indi-

cations as to which way the Manhattan was leaning. If the decision

came down to performance, he was conﬁ dent that MU would win.

“What I want to prevent,” he informed Crane, “is some snap judg-

ment and the closing of some contract by reason of political or inside

ﬁ nancial inﬂ uences.” Over the coming months, it became clear that

the Manhattan would resist a “snap judgment” but also that all kinds

of “political or inside ﬁ nancial inﬂ uences” 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.”

THE BROOKLYN ELEVATED RAILWAY

While the Manhattan Elevated Railway hung ﬁ re, another oppor-

tunity arose just across (or more precisely, astride) the river, on the

ELUSIVE CONTROL

183

Brooklyn Elevated Railway line. The project was relatively small. The

line was looking to electrify the switch trains that it used to move reg-

ular 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 Gen-

eral 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 en-

trant. 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 conﬁ ne themselves to

bidding on the motors.” Sprague replied guardedly. SEC would bid

only on the controls, he informed Zimmerman, “leaving the motor

manufacturers to ﬁ ght 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 mo-

tor should be used.” SEC would “occupy an entirely neutral posi-

tion until further developments” so far as its motor recommendation

stood. On the other hand, if another company included an MU con-

trol in its bid, “we should at once do anything in our power against

CHAPTER 6

184

him.”

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 con-

trol,” 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 o

ﬀered in the interim to install single controllers electrically op-

erated from each platform, which Sprague characterized as “a half

way measure, which is one step in the multiple unit control.”

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 ﬁ rst section of the Brooklyn equipment,” he wrote

one colleague.

“‘Thus endeth the ﬁ rst 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.”

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 o

ﬃces and stole

conﬁ dential internal documents, including a set of MU blueprints

that had been prepared by the Brooklyn Elevated’s consulting engi-

neer. 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 o

ﬀering a $1,000

reward for the papers. The culprit was never caught.

ELUSIVE CONTROL

185

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 re-

spond to multiple- unit control. Over the next few months, the scene

shifted back to Illinois, where the Kings County Elevated Railroad

solicited bids for electriﬁ cation and MU control. Sprague detected

“an all- powerful inﬂ uence” there in the form of August Belmont,

“whose interests of course are distinctly Westinghouse” and who was

playing a large role in the ﬁ nancing of the road.

By August, the

technical outlines of Westinghouse’s competitive o

ﬀering were tak-

ing form. “Imitation is the sincerest form of ﬂ attery, and I hear that

George Westinghouse is now deﬁ nitely attempting installation of a

partial multiple unit system on the Kings County ‘L’, using com-

pressed air as a means of handling the controllers,” Sprague reported

to Albert Chandler in August 1898.

This apparatus, a sort of hybrid

MU device, proved prone to glitches and took several months to

bring into workable condition.

Sprague judged it “a complicated

and cumbersome system,” operated “initially by locomotive, then by

air, then by electricity through another step.”

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 blu

ﬀ proceedings with the Brooklyn Elevated, and I have sent

them a polite little note, the tenor of which you may probably sur-

mise.”

In June, he warned F. H. Shepard, who was working on in-

stalling the Brooklyn equipment, that “di

ﬀerences between ourselves

CHAPTER 6

186

and the General Electric” were “apt to be a little sharp.” GE had cut

ﬀ a shipment of circuit breakers, and Sprague immediately retaliated

by canceling an order for $44,000 worth of motors for the Lon-

don elevator project.

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 rail-

way type of motor by fall,” he informed Shepard, adding “I think we

could turn one out which would not infringe my old patent.”

The great object of all of these maneuvers remained the Man-

hattan Elevated Railway, and the prospects for getting the Manhat-

tan 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, “be-

cause every day’s run [in Chicago] makes stronger the impression

of the multiple unit system, and its soundness from an engineering

and railroad standpoint.”

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 No-

vember, 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 ﬁ gures as to

the cost of an equipment.” From what he could gather, the road was

waiting for an opportune timing to ﬂ oat “an increased stock issue” to

fund the conversion.

Eight months later, SEC was still “in a wait-

ELUSIVE CONTROL

187

ing position,” Sprague reported, “doing a certain amount of pioneer

work, and laying pipe.”

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.”

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 Man-

hattan Elevated Railway and Boston’s West End Street Railway to

witness trial runs.

Sprague remained conﬁ dent in his ﬁ rst- 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 Com-

pany without months of most comprehensive and rigid experimental

development under actual working conditions.”

Nevertheless, vi-

able 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 ca-

pacity. “I learned sometime ago,” he wrote to SEC President Albert

Chandler, “that two or three propositions had been made to the Stan-

ley Company for its control by other interests, had a frank talk with

General Manager Hine, and got his promise to have temporarily held

CHAPTER 6

188

in abeyance any proposition which had been made until we had an

opportunity to consider some proposition for control of his com-

pany.”

Stanley Company was a midtier manufacturer of alternating-

current electrical equipment, primarily transmission equipment, that

was based in Pittsﬁ eld, Massachusetts. The acquisition would round

out SEC’s product line and broaden the company’s plant potential.

Sprague was proposing, in e

ﬀect, to scale up to meet, if not match,

General Electric and Westinghouse as a fully integrated and indepen-

dently viable competitor.

It was a bold proposal, even a reckless one, given SEC’s position.

The company’s competitors were much more solidly ﬁ nanced 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 conﬁ dent that he would be able to pro-

tect his multiple- unit technology in the legal arena, but the outcome

of that contest was entirely uncertain. SEC’s existing ﬁ nancial re-

sources were already stretched thin. Sprague must have sensed that

he was appealing to impatient investors and a skeptical set of execu-

tives. 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 ut-

most importance that we should get control of the Stanley Com-

pany 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 capitaliza-

tion to $10 million would ﬁ nance the move, putting the company

ELUSIVE CONTROL

189

“in a position . . . to e

ﬀectually cope with the General Electric [and]

Westinghouse Companies.”

He knew that he was appealing to stockholders who were de-

manding proﬁ tability 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 in-

sisted to Chandler, “and the career of the Postal Telegraph and Com-

mercial Cable companies [which Chandler and Mackay had been

instrumental in building] duplicated with the present Sprague Com-

pany as a nucleus properly enlarged and backed. . . . There is at pres-

ent at our hand the opportunity for the greatest possible successful

development which will ever occur to us.”

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 consolidat-

ing a position for SEC as a vertically integrated, diversiﬁ ed electri-

cal manufacturer.

Meanwhile, Sprague prepared a parallel report

recommending a $750,000 program of expansion at the company’s

Watsessing, New Jersey, plant.

If he had his way, SEC was going

to equip itself, “at the earliest possible moment, to build the larg-

est sizes of continuous and alternating current machinery and rail-

way apparatus.”

By this point, though, Sprague had lost executive and strategic con-

trol 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.

CHAPTER 6

190

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 ﬁ rst front, in the marketplace, Sprague Electric Company met

with mixed results. The Manhattan Elevated Railway, now being as-

siduously courted by both SEC and General Electric,

moved slowly

toward a solicitation of proposals. Sprague sensed that Manhattan en-

gineers 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, how-

ever. 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.

Bids were formally solicited in November.

To sort out the various proposals that came in, the Boston line de-

cided 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 proliﬁ c as can be man-

ufactured on a typewriter, and attractive as bookbinding can make

them.” In e

ﬀect, 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 de-

vise and put into operation for this kind of service a system which

ELUSIVE CONTROL

191

departs radically from that developed by the Sprague Company with-

out months of most comprehensive and rigid development under

actually working conditions.”

More to the point, SEC by this point was scrambling to develop mo-

tors 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 (uninten-

tionally 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.

Boston Elevated Railroad o

ﬃcials insisted on going through with

the trials. Despite Sprague’s apprehensions about being able to com-

pete 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.

Other developments were more ominous, however. In Boston, SEC’s

strong ﬁ nancial 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 Co

ﬃn and company

were better connected and, it became clear by early 1900, were work-

ing behind the scenes to structure contract terms and speciﬁ cations

in ways that would favor GE. The prospects for getting the Manhat-

tan project were clouding.

THE PATENT FIGHT AND RESOLUTION

The fate of Sprague Electric Company, it was becoming clear, de-

pended on Sprague’s ability to protect his legal claim to the multiple-

unit technology. By 1900, with major contracts like the Boston Elevated

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192

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 coun-

tersuing GE for violating his MU patent.

Legal attacks and counterattacks followed, carrying the patent con-

test 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 mo-

tors take out large bonds against potential infringement judgments.

In Chicago, South Side Elevated Railroad executive Leslie Carter

received similar notiﬁ cation and responded (naturally enough) by

demanding a bond from SEC indemnifying his road before he placed

orders for new equipment.

The struggle escalated a few months

later when GE managed to get a court order that blocked SEC ship-

ments of any equipment to either Chicago or Boston that might

infringe on GE patents. SEC managed to obtain a restraining order

suspending the move,

but the pressure was growing intense. In Au-

gust 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 lim-

ited amount of business that is not subject to a great deal of proﬁ t and

ELUSIVE CONTROL

193

you have cash losses . . . and expensive litigation yet to be met, so for

the next few years you cannot expect any great results.”

Everything hinged on successfully defending the patent. “You have

recently indicated,” Sprague’s lawyer Thomas Ewing wrote him in Oc-

tober 1899, “that there are strong commercial reasons impelling you to

have the patents issued immediately.”

Indeed, through 1899 and into

early 1900, Sprague and Ewing poured exhaustive e

ﬀorts into crafting

a patent that would be airtight, unimpeachable, and broad enough to

fortify MU against the assault that would come from General Elec-

tric’s notoriously skilled patent department. The e

ﬀort 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.”

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.”

The fruit of this arduous and anxious work was a weighty docu-

ment 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 deﬁ nitively laid claim to the speciﬁ c apparatus

that the inventor had built and to the basic concept of multiple- unit

control. Painstakingly and repeatedly, the claim spelled out the gen-

eral 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

CHAPTER 6

194

a number of similarly- equipped cars is also a unit.” Finally, the patent

enumerated 263 speciﬁ c claims, breaking down and putting together

the components of the invention as inclusively and interchangeably

as one of Sprague’s MU trains.

Such was the document that eventually brought General Electric

to terms. By late 1900, behind its legal blu

ﬀ and bluster, GE’s patent

department was growing concerned about the MU case and advising

GE executives that the company’s position looked dubious. Co

ﬃn

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- a

ﬀord

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 ﬁ nancial backing for one more bid at re-

taking 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.”

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.

ELUSIVE CONTROL

195

Meanwhile, negotiations between SEC and General Electric re-

sumed. With executives in both camps anxious to reach a settlement,

Sprague came under considerable pressure to acquiesce to a mutu-

ally 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 o

ﬀers. 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 Wil-

liam Crane one meeting.

Finally, in May 1902, when General Elec-

tric agreed to increase its royalty o

ﬀer, 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 electriﬁ ed

mass transit. “The multiple unit control,” General Electric executive

Eugene Gri

ﬃn declared in announcing the acquisition, “is the most

important recent development in electric traction work.”

Several

years later, another GE executive went even further, describing the

patent (in internal correspondence) as being “absolutely necessary to

our business.”

Sprague had assumed that this fact would force Gen-

eral Electric to terms. In the end, it had forced Sprague to terms.

CONTROL, IN PERSPECTIVE

Striking parallels link Sprague’s ﬁ rst venture, the Sprague Elec-

tric Railway and Motor Company (1884–1890), and his third, the

CHAPTER 6

196

Sprague Electric Company (1896–1902). In both cases, Sprague de-

veloped 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 ﬁ rst of SERM in 1890

and then of SEC in 1902.

But if the two ventures followed a parallel sequence, they unfolded

in very di

ﬀerent contexts and marked two distinct stages in the de-

velopment 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 build-

ing a cluster of allied but unintegrated businesses in incandescent

lighting, equipment manufacturing, and power generation. Inventors

held sway, working independently or in loose organizations, attract-

ing the interest of prominent ﬁ nanciers but operating largely as free

agents in a churning ﬁ eld 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 ﬁ eld, 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 Edi-

son’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

ELUSIVE CONTROL

197

that Edison General Electric absorbed SERM. Indeed, the acquisi-

tion 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 di

ﬀerent 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 o

ﬀ the ground (or, more literally

in the latter cases, in the ground), Sprague had scrambled and scraped

for funds. He had found ﬁ nancial 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 a

ﬃliated with EGE), Henry

Villard, and J. P. Morgan. The latter signiﬁ ed early interest in electri-

cal investments on the part of prominent capitalists. Even so, in the

1880s, ﬁ nanciers such as Morgan were still unaccustomed to making

major industrial investments. In e

ﬀect, 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 e

ﬀorts 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, Al-

bert Chandler, and the Crane family (paper manufacturers from west-

ern Massachusetts) had been drawn into the promise and prospects of

CHAPTER 6

198

the technology and the e

ﬀort 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

ﬀerent 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 syn-

dicate that bought out Andrew Carnegie and formed U.S. Steel, the

ﬁ rst billion- dollar corporation.

The electrical industry was thus by no means the ﬁ rst or the only

ﬁ eld in which transformation was occurring. In fact, a wave of U.S.

industries underwent similar transitions over the same period.

What

was unique about General Electric and other leading ﬁ rms 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 ﬁ gure out how to

control forces like Frank Sprague—either by coopting and internal-

izing 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 pro-

vocateur in this drama. The dynamics at work here, as the multiple-

unit control process took technological form, were highly complex,

and Sprague’s role went well beyond designing the idea. He also be-

gan and largely accomplished the engineering and staging of the

technology—that is, the process of installing it in the economic, geo-

graphic, and material landscape. He did not simply sketch up an in-

vention and hand it o

ﬀ to General Electric. Sprague mocked up MU,

ELUSIVE CONTROL

199

built it out as a prototype and a pilot demonstration, and exhibited

it as a full- scale operational system. These dimensions of engineer-

ing the technology entailed assembling the wherewithal to ﬁ nance

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, resource-

fulness, 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 extra-

corporate 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 Elec-

tric Railway and Motor Company had in relation to Edison General

Electric Company—as a spin- o

ﬀ venture or partnership that eventu-

ally was folded more organically into the corporate whole.

Within this environment, still ﬂ exibly structured because the tech-

nology was still ﬂ uid, 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 proﬁ table sale when the time came. That accomplish-

ment is testimony to Sprague’s contributions as an inventor and to his

201

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 inven-

tions as compelling technologies and engineer them as viable com-

mercial prospects. He was forty- ﬁ ve 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 ﬁ fteen

years. Because Sprague was a major shareholder of SEC and because

GE also assumed SEC’s obligation to pay Sprague royalties for MU

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION: EMINENCE AND THE

CHALLENGES OF “RETIREMENT”

CHAPTER 7

202

apparatus manufactured and sold, the inventor emerged from the

settle ment with a fortune worth well over $1 million (a sum worth

ﬁ fty times as much a century later in terms of consumer value).

The achievement of the multiple- unit control system fame so-

lidiﬁ ed his public status as a major inventor and an internationally

eminent electrical engineer. The SEC- GE outcome, he noted, “ob-

ligated” General Electric to pay him royalties on the invention and

“to maintain the Sprague name as describing the multiple unit rail-

way system, this latter a condition which I considered of the utmost

importance.”

His electric motors and railways had been shorn of

the Sprague name soon after Sprague Electric Railway and Motor

Company, his ﬁ rst company, was acquired by Edison General Electric

Company in 1889—a blow that Sprague felt bitterly for years after. He

had made sure to a

ﬃx 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, contrib-

uting to a noticeable mellowing in the man. In 1895, Sprague and

his ﬁ rst 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 bet-

ter 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

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION

203

in Sharon, Connecticut. Sprague became an avid gardener and culti-

vated 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 ﬁ eld of electrical innovation, though.

He remained busily and actively engaged in the ongoing extension,

reﬁ nement, 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 electriﬁ cation); pat-

ented 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 anti-

submarine 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 tech-

nological 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 self-

consciously 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

CHAPTER 7

204

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 contin-

ued 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 ﬁ nancial results or the aura of

heroic invention that his early work had generated. At best unevenly

productive, Sprague’s restless later career became an e

ﬀort to recap-

ture 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 ﬁ tfully 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 electriﬁ cation of the New York Central Railroad, including Grand

Central Station.

Mainline electriﬁ cation 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 ﬁ fteen 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 signiﬁ cantly. Electrifying the New

York Central eventually created a system spanning more than thirty

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION

205

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 transmis-

sion 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 signiﬁ cantly 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 di

ﬃcult problem” and at the same

time “a new technical condition . . . the operation of a large terminal

division of a ﬁ rst- rank trunk line by electricity, with equal regard to

a heavy through tra

ﬃc at all hours of the day and a heavy suburban

or commuter tra

ﬃc concentrated in the morning and evening hours.

This condition, both in its operation and its constructional aspect, is

new in the transportation art.”

The technological uncertainties (and the substantial capital invest-

ment) initially made mainline railroads (which as of 1900 remained

steam driven) wary of electriﬁ cation.

In Manhattan in 1902, how-

ever, a catalyst for innovation struck violently when two trains col-

lided in a tunnel below 54th Street, claiming the lives of ﬁ fteen (or

seventeen, depending on varying press accounts) passengers. “The

tunnel, the dreadful smoke- ﬁ lled tunnel against which all New York

has long stormed and protested, is responsible for the murderous col-

lision 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.”

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206

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 o

ﬃcial investigation into the accident and sum-

moned the Central’s o

ﬃcers to Albany for hearings) was soon sending

signals that it would compel electriﬁ cation of at least the urban por-

tions of the line. Rather than resist the impending mandate, manage-

ment decided to meet it head on. Here the central ﬁ gure 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 electriﬁ cation. As an

engineer, Wilgus was self- taught and joined his ﬁ rst railroad with only

the equivalent of a high school education. Nevertheless, he proved a

capable engineer and railroad operator, rising through the manage-

rial ranks of the New York Central Railroad to become, by 1902, the

company’s ﬁ fth vice president. Wilgus lacked experience and expertise

in electrical engineering, but he grasped the theoretical commercial

beneﬁ ts of electriﬁ cation.

For Wilgus was beginning to recognize

that electriﬁ cation might provide a larger engineering solution for

the railroad. By this point, metropolitan and (more particularly) sub-

urban 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 mi-

gration to points north and east, particularly by middle- class families

that could not a

ﬀord 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 installa-

tion of a functional commuting infrastructure would create a poten-

tially vast market of fare- paying commuters. Migration had already

begun in the late nineteenth century, but the New York Central Rail-

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION

207

road’s e

ﬀorts 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 tra

ﬃc. Grasping the situation and perceiving the open-

ing created by the 1902 tunnel accident, Wilgus drew up an ambi-

tious plan that proposed overhauling the railway’s metropolitan map

of operations and electrifying the Manhattan portions of the line.

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)

became the ﬁ nancial

underpinning of an ambitious project that aimed to exploit the pos-

sibilities of electriﬁ cation. By burying its tracks, the New York Cen-

tral Railroad would in e

ﬀect create a sizeable and valuable corridor

of real estate running right through the middle of the city. Expand-

ing 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 o

ﬃce buildings, a hotel, and perhaps a theater).

The plan hinged on access to capital, but the 1902 accident and sub-

sequent legislative investigation gave Wilgus the impetus to put his

plans in motion. In May 1903, the New York state legislature man-

dated electriﬁ cation 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

electriﬁ cation. Sprague’s counsel was characteristically optimistic and

CHAPTER 7

208

unequivocal. “Every train movement connected with the terminal

and suburban service of the New York Central can be safely and e

ﬃ-

ciently made electrically,” Sprague assured Wilgus. Since state action

compelling electriﬁ cation appeared certain, the railroad, “instead of

waiting for compulsion,” should “acquiesce in the matter,” bargain-

ing only for enough time to implement the conversion under “safe

limitations,” Sprague advised.

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.”

Sprague’s involvement deepened as the New York Central Rail-

road 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 di-

rect 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 func-

tions 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: “In-

stead, the responsibility should mainly rest upon them for the detail

plans and speciﬁ cations. The problem before you is a somewhat com-

plicated one, and consultants would need to draw largely upon the

resources of their own o

ﬃces as to information and methods, and

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION

209

they would not be justiﬁ ed in relieving themselves of direct responsi-

bility. They should be in constant touch with the work.”

Wilgus was thinking along the same lines. Sprague’s proposal ﬁ t

“precisely with what I have had mapped out in my mind,” he replied:

“We already have in this Department a ﬁ rst class electrical and me-

chanical 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 conﬁ -

dent we can secure the best results.”

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 electriﬁ cation and by extension to authorize the estab-

lishment of a new electrical department and attendant board of con-

sulting 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 electriﬁ cation, took form much

as Sprague and Wilgus had envisioned.

Two other outside consulting engineers joined Sprague and Wilgus

on the Electric Traction Commission. The ﬁ rst was Bion Arnold, who

had also been advising the Central on the feasibility of electriﬁ cation.

George Gibbs, who had ﬁ rst 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 commis-

sion. To round out the group, E. B. Katte, the New York Central Rail-

road’s electrical engineer, joined Wilgus (the railroad’s chief engineer

and vice president) in representing the railroad’s management.

The Electric Traction Commission was thus “composed of strong

men,” in the assessment of Western Electrician, ensuring that “the best

CHAPTER 7

210

possible solution of the problem presented, in the present state of the

art of electric railroading, should be arrived at.”

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 e

ﬀort to promote the project in

the political arena. The Railway Age captured the general tenor of cov-

erage in a detailed feature on the project in January 1906. Describing

electriﬁ cation 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 engineer-

ing and technical work encoded in these maps, plans, and diagrams.

“Organization is placed ﬁ rst,” 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 electriﬁ cation project was notable ﬁ rst as a method

of designing and developing the needed technologies.

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 speci-

ﬁ cations, handled bids by equipment providers, oversaw the testing

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of equipment, and shaped the technology that would make mainline

electriﬁ cation work. The work was detailed and taxing, demanding

major commitments from ETC members. The body met weekly and

developed highly detailed processes (speciﬁ cations, proposals, and test

data) itself internally. For example, commission members plotted max-

imum load curves; drew up train schedules; developed speciﬁ cations

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 commis-

sion to sort out the technological possibilities and come up with the

best solutions. Sprague and his colleagues were given a largely free

hand technologically.

As an episode of technological innovation, the electriﬁ cation of

the New York Central Railroad thus unfolded very di

ﬀerently 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 Elec-

tric Traction Commission as a whole was going to “invent” mainline

electriﬁ cation. On the other hand, Sprague and his fellow ETC com-

missioners 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 ﬁ nancial, economic, and production resources, all of which had

strained Sprague in Richmond in 1887, in New York 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 conﬁ dence

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 tech-

nological 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 ﬁ nancing to fund it) was

comfortable putting things in the hands of “the experts” indicated

that the underlying technology was coming of age. For experts, pro-

fessional and reliable (from a ﬁ nancial point of view), had by now es-

tablished the viability of the technology, both functionally and (from

an operational point of view) ﬁ nancially. Electrical engineering had

become a series of educational programs, a cluster of professional au-

thorities, and an article of popular faith. The technology had achieved

solid momentum. Electriﬁ cation had indeed become a “mainline”

project.

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 electriﬁ cation (map out how much of the

railroad should be electriﬁ ed) and determine the means of deliv-

ering 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 e

ﬀect 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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213

superior capability for long- distance transmission was becoming in-

disputable. 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 trans-

mission. “With a tra

ﬃc 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 electriﬁ cation, on the other hand, put

larger, heavier trains in motion “at considerable intervals of time,” re-

quiring a system that was capable of transmitting momentary maxi-

mum loads that would vary much more widely than those needed in

street railway networks.

The technologies at hand were therefore inadequate. Even so, Wil-

gus, in particular, pushed to electrify all train tra

ﬃc that moved through

a core zone that encompassed Manhattan and extended to Croton on

the Central’s mainline (thirty- three miles from Grand Central Sta-

tion) and North White Plains on the Harlem line (twenty- two miles

from Grand Central). This plan was ambitious, anticipating the devel-

opment of substantial suburban service outside Manhattan. Should

this development succeed, suburban service looked likely to become

proﬁ table—and electriﬁ ed operation would quickly become imper-

ative, given the operational limitations of steam trains. Wilgus’s plans

for Grand Central Station, with its buried tracks and “air rights” over-

head, severely limited the amount of available space in midtown New

York. There would be no room for the facilities that were needed to

hand o

ﬀ or switch electric and steam- driven trains. Realizing the New

York Central Railroad’s larger commercial ambitions would there-

fore require either solving the technical limitations of direct- current

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214

transmission, developing alternating- current equipment, or ﬁ nding

some way to harness AC transmission to DC operation.

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.

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 sur-

prised 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 es-

tate transactions . . . to build a terminal there. Arnold responded that

he and Gibbs “did not feel that they were su

ﬃciently informed at the

present time to enable them to vote in the a

ﬃrmative on such a broad

question.” They were still waiting for data, he explained, “on the rela-

tive cost of alternating vs. direct current electric traction systems.”

The next day, en route from Chicago (where the Electric Traction

Commission had traveled to inspect a General Electric turbo genera-

tor plant), the commissioners continued their discussion informally,

agreeing to draw up individual “general statements” on the inter-

twined questions of how widely the zone of electriﬁ cation should

extend and whether the New York Central Railroad should adopt al-

ternating or direct current equipment. On November 3, after listening

to Westinghouse present plans for gearless motors and an alternating-

current 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 o

ﬀered Gibbs and Arnold the op-

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portunity to put individual reservations on record. The motion car-

ried unanimously, giving the hesitant commissioners the chance to

express their qualms without impeding the impetus of the project.

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 tempo-

rary 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.”

Under the circum-

stances, 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 signiﬁ cant

work to date in the ﬁ eld had been in direct current, so it was per-

haps 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 let-

ter to Wilgus in January 1904, was revealing. The vital question,

Sprague reasoned, was the electriﬁ cation 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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216

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 o

ﬀered tantalizing

technological possibilities, Sprague conceded, but not yet reliable ap-

paratus. And here an uncharacteristic note of technological caution

entered his tone. True, promising AC experiments were underway.

“But hopeful and conﬁ dent 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. Alternating-

current equipment had “not yet passed through the crucial ﬁ re of

commercial reduction to practice on a scale large enough to com-

mand adherence for this equipment.”

THE TERMS OF TECHNOLOGY, THE TONE OF INVENTION

Sprague approached his Grand Central Station responsibilities as

sti

ﬄy and stridently as ever, with the same studied regard for what

he considered to be technologically dictated ﬁ rst 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 ad-

vocated ﬁ ercely for his technical ideas and convictions, relishing the

opportunity to tilt against rival designs and (in his view) ﬂ awed as-

sumptions. 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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217

modiﬁ ed 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 e

ﬀorts 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 out-

set 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.”

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 o

ﬃcers 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 de-

nounced the interference as “tending to grave limitations in deciding

broader and more momentous questions.” Management’s meddling,

Sprague declared, threatened the commission’s technological prerog-

ative: “let us have a free hand, untrammeled by an attempt to meet

the assumed convenience of a minority of travelers.”

Taken aback (and, one senses, bemused), Wilgus hastened to clarify

the New York Central Railroad’s position. Sprague’s protest had been

“the ﬁ rst intimation” that he had received that the railroad might be

“trammeling the full exercise by the Commission of its judgment in ar-

riving at a ﬁ nal conclusion,” the chief engineer assured Sprague in a let-

ter that he also sent the other commission members. Interchangeability

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218

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 po-

sition that you think proper to bring about the best results for the

interests of the Company.”

Another commission- related exchange, this one with George West-

inghouse, 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 elec-

triﬁ cation project, took issue with the technological mediation that

Sprague and his fellow commissioners interposed—and did so pub-

licly in a letter to Engineering magazine in January 1903. Westinghouse

observed that one of the commissioners (Sprague) remained con-

nected with and interested in a rival bidder (General Electric Com-

pany, 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 in-

sisted. 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 con-

tinued, “may well take exception to the assumption that all the essen-

tials of a railway contract . . . shall be turned over to the representatives,

no matter however able individually, of a special manufacturing in-

terest.”

Of course, just a few years before, Sprague himself had en-

gineered 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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219

ing Engineer” (the capitalization in the title was his), a ﬁ gure 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 identiﬁ ed 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 ﬁ gures

such as Frederick Taylor and Herbert Hoover embodied the arche-

type. And Sprague, with his technical training and engineering abili-

ties, was already claiming membership in this club. (Years later, the

same company praised Sprague’s accomplishments.)

But Sprague was relinquishing old habits and assumptions as he

joined the New York Central Railroad’s mainline electriﬁ cation proj-

ect and refashioned himself as “The Consulting Engineer.” Innovation

in this case was not going to require heroic invention or a bold entre-

preneurial gambit. By this point, both the technology and the under-

lying 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 conﬁ dence of investment capital (signi-

ﬁ ed by the compliant backing of the Central’s board of directors and

investors) and achieved su

ﬃcient 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 ﬁ nancial 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, Vir-

ginia, in 1887, in New York in 1893 and 1894, or in Chicago in the

late 1890s. Signiﬁ cant technical problems required skillful technical

solutions. But electriﬁ cation was distinctly ready to go mainline in

New York City in 1903—which is to say that electriﬁ cation was al-

ready 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 gratiﬁ ed and vindicated. His expert counsel

could and did shape the technical decisions at hand. His expertise

was recognized; his inﬂ uence 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 mo-

ment put me in the position of critic and engineer instead of investor

and constructor,” he observed in 1904.

Several years later, at a 1909

dinner of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Sprague (by

now ﬁ fty- 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 as-

sociates, and having no further o

ﬃcial ambitions, should be proud of

the opportunity, as well as content in its employment, of abiding, by

unselﬁ sh counsel and with mature judgment, in the administration

of its a

ﬀairs.”

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 Rich-

mond Union Passenger Railway story. In 1905, he prepared an ex-

panded 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 develop-

ment of the trolley,” Century’s editors stated in an editorial introduc-

tion, “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 ﬁ rst 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.”

Now addressing a popular, nonprofessional audience (of educated,

upscale readers that Century cultivated with o

ﬀerings such as “With

Perry in Japan: Personal Recollections of the Expedition of 1853–54”

and “Notable Women: The Late Princess Mathilde”),

Sprague pro-

vided some technical drawings and explanations but kept the account

colorful and accessible. The ﬁ rst article described early iterations of

the technology (Davenport, Farmer, Field, etc.) as well as e

ﬀorts at de-

sign, 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 prop-

osition, deliver an e

ﬀective speech, and write lively prose. By 1905,

electric railways no longer required much technological or com-

mercial promotion, but Sprague evidently felt that the story needed

further framing and deﬁ nition. He wanted the episode to be widely

understood as part of a technological process and also as the result of

a heroic e

ﬀort of invention. Part 1 of the essay recounted the incre-

mental evolution of preceding versions and described the iterative

technological development that had led up to (and in Sprague’s ac-

count, 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 realiza-

tion and the initiative required to overcome them as he and his team

struggled to (more or less simultaneously) develop, reﬁ ne, 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 di

ﬃculties, 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 ma-

chine and some rough experimental apparatus, and a hundred and

one essential details were undetermined”).

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Speciﬁ c incidents within the episode heightened the drama and

underscored the individual e

ﬀort of invention, the urgency of im-

provisation, and the seeming unlikelihood of success. Sprague told of

ﬁ rst encountering the hills that his railway would have to scale and

made the most of the larger metaphor: “I shall never forget my feel-

ings when . . . I reached the foot of the steepest hill.” (An accompa-

nying photograph, taken from the crest of one hill as a trolley makes

its way up, illustrated the point.) He recounted burning out the ﬁ rst

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 devel-

opment; to my own future, as well as to that of my associates, fail-

ure in Richmond meant blasted hopes and ﬁ nancial ruin.”

Among

the technical drawings and photographs, several lithograph illustra-

tions made the point graphically: one depicted Pat O’Shaughnessy

(Sprague’s mechanic) perched precariously on the roof of a railway

car, knocking sleet o

ﬀ of the overhead line with a broom; another

showed a crowd of Richmond citizens, backs bent, shoulders strain-

ing as they worked a derailed car back onto the tracks.

The Century articles framed the Richmond narrative as one of

heroic invention. Sprague himself was undergoing a professional tran-

sition, 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 electriﬁ cation of the New York Central

Railroad was one indication of his professional status as a leading au-

thority in the ﬁ eld of electrical technologies. Another came as World

War I spread toward American waters (literally, in the form of Ger-

man submarines). In 1915, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels

invited prominent civilian American inventors to lend their exper-

tise 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 ex-

perts in machines.” Plans for a Naval Consulting Board of the United

States took shape behind this impetus. Observers anticipated the ap-

pointment of famous inventors (Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford, Alexan-

der Graham Bell, Hiram Maxim). Daniels took a somewhat di

ﬀerent

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 (Hi-

ram’s brother, nominated by the Aeronautical Society), Elmer Sperry

(American Society of Aeronautical Engineers), and, on the recom-

mendation of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Frank

Julian Sprague.

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The Naval Consulting Board organized itself in 1916 and began

surveying technical problems and opportunities that were confront-

ing the navy. Various special committees were formed to focus the

board’s e

ﬀorts, and Sprague assumed chairmanships of committees

on electricity and shipbuilding and joined other committees inves-

tigating submarines, ordnance, explosives, and special problems. He

devoted substantial e

ﬀort to several particularly pressing technical

projects. The ﬁ rst 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.

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 develop-

ment initiative to improve the navy’s primitive and largely ine

ﬀective

depth charges. Working in navy laboratories and testing prototypes o

ﬀ

Sandy Hook, New Jersey, Sprague and his colleagues developed a de-

sign incorporating increased explosive charges and pressure- sensitive

ﬁ ring 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

ﬀ Sandy Hook.”

His service on the Naval Consulting Board represented something

of a return to duty for Sprague (in a civilian capacity), given his An-

napolis education and naval background. Other marks of recogni-

tion 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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226

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 funda-

mental inventions and achievements in electrical engineering”), and

the grand prize at the 1905 St. Louis Electrical Exposition (for devel-

opment in electric railways). Engineering societies regularly lauded

Sprague’s accomplishments. The American Institute of Electrical En-

gineers, for example, which Sprague for a time had led as president,

made him an Edison medalist in 1910.

BACK TO VENTURING

Perhaps in an e

ﬀort to help cultivate an aura of distinguished accom-

plishment, Sprague’s appetite for further entrepreneurial adventure

cooled noticeably for a time. In keeping with his new stance as “elder

statesman,” Sprague’s e

ﬀorts to commercialize one component inven-

tion 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 Trac-

tion 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 collabo-

rated 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.

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION

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The partners in e

ﬀect “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.

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 o

ﬀ 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.

ﬀorts 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, includ-

ing extensive testing on General Electric’s Schenectady facilities and

on the New York Central Railroad’s main line near Yonkers, New

York. The ﬁ nancial pressures that were created by this commitment

mounted as litigation and patent disputes bogged business down.

CHAPTER 7

228

The ambiguous results in automatic train control were discourag-

ing, but they did not dampen Sprague’s readiness to undertake new

projects and ventures. In 1927, at age seventy, he returned to the ﬁ eld

of electric elevators when a plan struck him for encasing a coordi-

nated pair of elevator cars in one elevator shaft: one car would run

express to a midlevel ﬂ oor and then make local stops at all ﬂ oors

above, and a second car would make local stops on lower ﬂ oors. The

two cars, Sprague saw, could be put on the same rails but equipped

with separate hoist mechanisms and control systems. This architec-

ture 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 o

ﬀ of the automatic train con-

trol mechanism would prevent collisions.

Inspired, Sprague mapped out the system, secured a series of patents,

and assembled several working models. Again he funded the devel-

opment personally, and again he ran into obstacles as he tried to stage

the technology. Building code o

ﬃcials initially balked at the con-

cept’s safety uncertainties. Then the Great Depression struck, slowing

skyscraper construction and further straining Sprague’s already ex-

tended resources. The dual elevator project, in fact, soon consumed a

substantial share of Sprague’s personal ﬁ nances. Eventually, in 1931,

he cut his losses, licensing the invention to Westinghouse, which in-

stalled 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

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION

229

animated electric signs. After witnessing the sign that ran in a nar-

row 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). Af-

ter preliminary design work, Sprague ﬁ led 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.’”

In that succinct credo lay Sprague’s abiding faith in the powers of

individual technological agency and heroic invention: “Set it up out-

side 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 modiﬁ cations 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 ﬁ lial. In the 1920s, his son Bob launched a twentieth-

century version of his father’s career by founding his own electric (or

more precisely, electronic) venture. Initially focusing on tone controls

CHAPTER 7

230

(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 architec-

tures that stem directly from Sprague’s ideas, and multiple- unit con-

trol remains a core system component in controlling mass transit and

other electrical systems.

The robustness of Sprague’s core technological contributions

certainly are historically important. For the historian of technology,

however, the signiﬁ cance of Sprague’s biography extends beyond his

speciﬁ c 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

deﬁ ne even those technologies that he could legitimately claim to

have invented. Nevertheless, his e

ﬀorts repeatedly catalyzed tech-

nological 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 o

ﬀ of and into that technological momentum, using it to design,

pilot, and construct artifacts and system components that literally re-

shaped the landscape.

Sprague’s enduring signiﬁ cance stemmed in part from his tech-

nological creativity and his resourcefulness as an inventor. But ulti-

MAINLINE ELECTRIFICATION

231

mately, Sprague made himself a force to be reckoned with because

he managed to engineer his technologies. He built them in proto-

type after he designed them, and then he worked them up as pilot

projects and sustainable businesses. He staged them as viable systems

and proﬁ table 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.

233

My father, Robert C. Sprague (often referred to as “RC” as an adult),

was born in 1900, the ﬁ rst 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 ac-

tive 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 through-

out 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 bril-

liant businessman. In 1926, while serving as a member of the sta

ﬀ

supervising the design and construction of the aircraft carrier USS

AFTERWORD: THE BARN

John Sprague

JOHN SPRAGUE

234

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 Special-

ties Company. Based on a suggestion by RC’s younger brother, Ju-

lian, who had joined the ﬁ rm, 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 Elec-

tric Company, after Frank’s most famous company. Before it was dis-

mantled 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 large-

scale model of one of his early wheelbarrow types of railway motor

suspension systems had been displayed in my father’s o

ﬃce, and my

parents’ home had been ﬁ lled with photographs and other memora-

bilia about him. Still, for reasons I will never understand, my grand-

father 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- ﬁ fth birthday celebration and given to me by my father in

the mid- 1980s. Since graduate school, my own ﬁ eld had been semi-

conductor electronics, and early electric motors held little interest for

me at the time. I certainly didn’t expect to ﬁ nd much in an old barn.

I was wrong.

AFTERWORD

235

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 ﬁ lled with papers; and piles of heavy ply-

wood. Attached to the plywood were rows of lightbulb sockets, some

empty and some with mostly broken bulbs in place. The ﬂ oor 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, Connecti-

cut, 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

JOHN SPRAGUE

236

watched as the remnants of the Sign Company, Frank J. Sprague’s ﬁ nal

inventive e

ﬀort, disappeared into the back of a dump truck headed

for the local landﬁ ll.

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 ﬁ rst stationary electric motors. It had been con-

structed 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 ﬁ rst 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 center-

piece 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 fam-

ily members, including my cousin Peter, Julian’s son, and several of

Frank Sprague’s great- great- grandchildren. One of them had the op-

portunity 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

237

INTRODUCTION

1. “Electric Railways,” Electrical World (May 5, 1883): 276.

2. Ibid.

3. “Invention” here signiﬁ es the conceptualization and design of a tech-
nological idea, while “innovation” signiﬁ es the work of e

ﬀecting successful

adoption of that idea.

4. The seminal work here is Thomas Hughes, Networks of Power: Electriﬁ cation
of Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1983).

5. Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, vol. 3, Wealth and Industry (Wash-
ington, DC: U.S. Government Printing O

ﬃce, 1871), 399ﬀ.

6. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, vol. 2, Manufacturing (Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing O

ﬃce, 1881), 14, 10.

NOTES

238

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

7. Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890, vol. 11, Manufacturing Industries
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing O

ﬃce, 1891), 76. The 1890

ﬁ gures 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 O

ﬃce, 1901), part 1, United States by In-

dustries, 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: Spe-
cialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865–1925 (Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1997), 221–240.

14. See especially Chandler, Scale and Scope, 212–213; Carlson, Innovation as
a Social Process, 269.

239

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

15. 1890 Census, vol. 11, Manufacturing Industries, part 1, 76. The ﬁ gure for
“Electric Light and Power” evidently includes power stations as well as light-
ing equipment manufacturing.

16. See Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 287–289 (for Lee, Higginson’s
ﬁ nancing of Thomson- Houston Electric Company), 293 (for Henry Hig-
ginson’s e

ﬀorts 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 Nine-
teenth 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 e

ﬀect that this ﬁ nancial 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 (Bal-
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 1–2. The railroads remained
conﬁ ned 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 Conceptu-
alize This New Technology?” Business and Economic History 23, no. 2 (Winter
1994): 161–192.

21. Chandler, Visible Hand, 426–433. On structural innovation within Gen-
eral Electric, see also Harold Passer, “Development of Large- Scale Organiza-
tion, 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. Cutcli

ﬀe and Terry S. Reyn-

olds, eds., Technology and American History (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1997), 217–238.

240

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

22. Jill Jones, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Elec-
trify 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
deﬁ ned itself; Nye discusses Sprague brieﬂ y 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- ﬁ fth birth-
day. Sprague Seventy- ﬁ fth 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 ﬁ ftieth 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- ﬁ fth 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 manu-
script sources are in the possession of John Sprague, Williamstown, MA.

2. On the concept of “technological momentum” and the electrical tech-
nologies of the period, see Hughes, Networks of Power, esp. 14–17.

3. Sprague genealogical information compiled by John Sprague and com-
municated 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.

241

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

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- ﬁ fth 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 Fi-
nal Article,” ca. 1934 (in the possession of John Sprague, Williamstown, MA).

9. “Double Ties Bind Noted Inventor to North Adams,” North Adams Tran-
script, July 26, 1932.

10. For an overview of early North Adams industry, see Ridley & Co.’s Direc-
tory 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 contrac-
tor 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.

242

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 (Washing-
ton, 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).

243

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 ﬁ gure, see
Wyn Wachhorst, Thomas Alva Edison, and American Myth (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1981); and David Nye, The Invented Self: An Anti- biography from Docu-
ments 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 O

ﬃce, 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

244

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.

245

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 gener-
ally 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.

246

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

19. Quoted in Rowsome, “The Man Who Invented Commuting,” chap-
ter 4, 12.

20. Certiﬁ cate of Incorporation and minutes from ﬁ rst board meeting, FJS
Papers, box 1, NYPL.

21. “The Van Depoele System at the Exhibition,” Electrical World (Septem-
ber 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 ﬁ nancial involvement, see Edward Johnson to Charles
Batchelor, October 26, 1887; Charles Batchelor to Edward Johnson, Novem-
ber 8, 1887; Edward Johnson to Charles Batchelor, March 8, 1888, Edison
Papers online collection.

25. On Bergmann’s ﬁ nancial 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 op-
portunity 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 Bu

ﬀalo Forge Co., July 2, 1885, FJS Papers, box 7, NYPL.

32. FJS, Statement of A

ﬀairs, January 18, 1886, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL.

33. “A New Sprague Motor,” Electrical World ( January 15, 1887): 29.

247

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, Janu-
ary 10, 1887 (typewritten copy), FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL.

36. Few records of Sprague’s ﬁ rst marriage have survived. This and the fol-
lowing paragraph draw from family records and an account o

ﬀered 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 continu-
ing 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 Pres-
ent State of the Art,” Century Magazine (August 1905): 514.

43. For further discussion of this aspect of Sprague’s career, see below, par-
ticularly chapters 3 and 6.

44. Oscar T. Crosby to FJS, July 22, 1932, Sprague Seventy- ﬁ fth 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.

248

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 ﬁ nancial strains on Sprague Electric Railway and Mo-
tor 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, Wil-
liamstown, 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 place-
ment 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- ﬁ fth Anniversary books, 1932, Sprague Family Pa-
pers, 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.

249

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

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 Elec-
trical 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 in-
dustry 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 Ameri-
can 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, municipal-
ities 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.

250

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

18. “Electricity against Horseﬂ esh” Boston Evening Transcript, April 16, 1889.

19. McKay, “Comparative Perspectives on Transit,” 11. See also George Hil-
ton, “Transportation Technology and the Urban Pattern,” Journal of Contempo-
rary 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 Ham-
mond, 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]: “Su

ﬃcient 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. Hu

ﬀ, “A Concise Statement of the Development of Electric Rail-

roads,” 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 Pat-
tern,” Journal of Contemporary History 4 (1969): 126.

30. FJS to Edward H. Johnson, May 24, 1888, FJS Papers, box 10, NYPL.

251

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

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 re-
organization and consolidation of General Electric operations, see also John
Hammond, Men and Volts: The Story of General Electric (Philadelphia: Lippin-
cott, 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 Anti-
trust 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 Com-
pany, December 2, 1890, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL.

9. FJS to President and Board of Directors of Edison General Electric Com-
pany, 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.

252

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 ﬁ nancing technological development. The historian does list
a series of contributions Sprague speciﬁ cally 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 (Chi-
cago: Dee, 2001), esp. 72–87. This is a strikingly candid account for a cor-
porate history.

19. FJS to Charles Royce, September 8, 1892, FJS Papers, box 12, NYPL.

20. Circular memo, “Electric Elevator Industry, Sprague- Pratt Electric Ele-
vator, 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.

253

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.

254

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 o

ﬀprint 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 (ﬁ led 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.

255

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 Co

ﬃn, December 30, 1897, FJS Papers, box 14, NYPL.

35. For examples of reports from the ﬁ eld in Chicago, see, e.g., FJS telegrams
to Albert B. Chandler, April 20, April 22, 1898, FJS Papers, box 1, NYPL.

256

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 Maga-
zine (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 Indus-
trial 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 Indus-
trial Research; and George Wise, Willis Whitney, General Electric, and the Ori-
gins 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.

257

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 Maga-
zine (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 tele-
graph 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, Febru-
ary 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.

258

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.

259

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 pat-
ent was originally ﬁ led on April 26, 1898, though later amended to its cur-
rent 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 electriﬁ cation proj-
ect when it converted a short (3.75 mile) stretch of track running through
the Baltimore Belt Railroad (in a tunnel running through downtown Bal-
timore between Camden Station and Waverly interlocking tower). But

260

NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

although this entailed signiﬁ cant technological exploration, it remained “a
compromise between steam and electricity” and “an awkward ﬁ rst step” (in
the assessment of historian Carl Condit). Tellingly, the B&O left their steam
locomotives coupled to trains over the electriﬁ ed 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 elec-
triﬁ cation 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 (Novem-
ber 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 Cur-
rent, Wilgus Papers, box 10, NYPL.

261

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
speciﬁ cations for the system’s locomotive motors; minutes for June 23, when
the Commission charged Sprague with preparing a report “on matters per-
taining 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 Pa-
pers, 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 at-
tached 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 Pa-
pers, box 2, NYPL.

28. Sprague

Seventy- ﬁ fth Anniversary books, 1932, Sprague Family Papers,

Williamstown, MA.

29. FJS, “Some Personal Experiences,” Street Railway Journal, October 8,
1904 (o

ﬀprint), 35.

30. Electrical Review and Western Electrician (March 20, 1909): 521.

31. Editorial introduction, Century ( July 1905): 2 (“Advertisements”
pagination).

262

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 o

ﬃcial history of the Naval Board’s eﬀorts, including Sprague’s con-

tributions, appeared as World War I began to wind down: Lloyd N. Scott, Na-
val Consulting Board of the United States (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing O

ﬃce, 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,” Scientiﬁ c 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.”

263

Aeronautical Society, 224
Airplanes, vii
Air rights, 207
Alley L. See South Side Elevated

Railroad

Alloys, 86
Alternating- current power genera-

tion, 4, 13, 95

“Battle of the Currents” and, 212–

216

long- distance transmission capa-

bilities 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 El-

evated Railroads, The” (Sprague),
151

Arc lighting

breakthroughs in, 4, 37
Brush and, 6, 13, 38

INDEX

264

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

Arc lighting (cont.)

INDEX

265

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 Com-

pany (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
Cofﬁ n, Charles A.

arc lighting and, 95
connections of, 95–96
General Electric and, 166, 169–

171, 174, 191, 194

INDEX

266

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 ﬁ eld 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

Cofﬁ n, Charles A. (cont.)

INDEX

267

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
inﬂ uence 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 depart-

ment 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

INDEX

268

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
reﬁ ning 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 Com-

pany (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

INDEX

269

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” (Thom-

son), 99

Electric railways. See also speciﬁ c

railway

adoption dynamics and, 97–100

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

270

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, West-

inghouse, 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 speciﬁ c person

adoption dynamics and, 97–100
corporate absorption and, 100–

105

electric railways and, 59–62 (see

also Electric railways)

Electric railways (cont.)

INDEX

271

entry barriers and, 175–177
expanding application of electric-

ity 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
Cofﬁ n 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

INDEX

272

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

electriﬁ cation of, 204–220

Grand Hotel, 125–127, 132–133
Great Depression, 228
Greene, S. Dana, 82, 84, 88–89, 93
Green Mountain range, 27
Grifﬁ n, 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 Rail-

way 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

INDEX

273

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
ﬂ our 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 Com-

pany (SEEC) and, 127

INDEX

274

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
deﬁ ned, 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 electric-

ity 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 speciﬁ c 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

INDEX

275

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

INDEX

276

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
Pittsﬁ eld, 188
Springﬁ eld, 29

Massachusetts Institute of Technol-

ogy (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 Mo-

tor 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 Mul-
tiple unit [MU] system)

overhauling design of, 85

Markets (cont.)

INDEX

277

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 Mo-

tor 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 Com-

pany 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

INDEX

278

New York Central Railroad, 203

Electric Traction Commission and,

209–212, 214, 216–217, 226

electriﬁ cation 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 Man-
hattan 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 Com-

pany (SEEC) and, 127

third- rail design and, 203

INDEX

279

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–

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 Rail-

way, 3, 55, 162, 204, 220

complicated logistics of, 176
control issues and, 110
driving force behind, 111

INDEX

280

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 Com-

pany (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 electric-

ity and, 11, 22–23

Richmond Union Passenger Rail-

way (cont.)

INDEX

281

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 proﬁ t 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

ﬁ rst 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

INDEX

282

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

Sprague, Frank Julian (cont.)

INDEX

283

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

ﬁ rst 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 Mo-

tor 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

Cofﬁ n 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

INDEX

284

General Electric’s acquisition of,

169–170, 194–195, 202

gradient issues and, 83–87
increased orders of, 95
increased trafﬁ c 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 Rail-

way 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

Sprague Electric Railway and Mo-

tor Company (SERM) (cont.)

INDEX

285

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 under-

ground 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

INDEX

286

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 Com-

pany, 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

Technology (cont.)

INDEX

287

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 Ofﬁ ce, 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 Com-

pany, 64, 70–71

Vaporware, 190
Veblen, Thorstein, 219
Villard, Henry, 10, 123, 197

Edison and, 63–64, 69, 71, 94
ﬁ nancial 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

INDEX

288

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

Pittsﬁ eld 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

Document Outline