Volume 11 , Issue 38

1882 - Memories & Energy

Many things happened in 1882! It was October 20, 1882, that a young girl, an oldest child was born in Monterey, Virginia to John Robert and Signora Belle (Guinn) Warwick. Eleven years later, 1893 John and Signora Warwick packed up their young family (Constance, 11 years, and Robert, 6 years) and moved westward settling in the Coldwater, Kansas area where John R. Warwick taught school while waiting for the Oklahoma Run of 1893.

Also ? Energy and electricity was illuminating parts of London, England beginning January 12, 1882 as power from the Edison Electric light Company at 57 Hoblurn Viaduct turns on street lights between Holborn Circus and the Old Bailey and incandescent bulbs go on in at least 30 buildings.

Electricity also illuminated parts of New York beginning September 4 as Thomas Edison throws a switch in the offices of financier J. P. Morgan to light the offices and to inaugurate commercial transmission of electric power format he Morgan-financed Edison Illuminating Company power plant on Pearl Street. The company would soon supply current to all of Manhattan and it would develop into the Consolidated Edison Company, prototype of all central-station U.S. power companies.

The Electric Light Act passed by Parliament empowered local British authorities to take over privately run power stations in their areas after 21 years. By making it virtually impossible for a private electric company to recoup its investment, the new law would discourage development of power stations (no private company would generate electricity for the next 6 years and although the new law would be amended in 1888 to permit private ownership for 43 years such major cities as Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, and Nottingham would still have no power stations in 1890.

A draper's shop at Newcastle yon Tyne, England, was lighted by Swan lamps and became the world's first shop to be lighted by incandescent bulbs.

The world's first electric fan was devised by the chief engineer of New York's Crocker and Curtis Electric Motor Company. The two-bladed desk fan was the work of 22 year old Schuyler Skaats Wheeler.

The world's first electric flatiron was patented by H. W. Seely.

The world's first electrically lighted Christmas tree was installed in December in the New or house of Thomas Edison's associate Edward H. Johnson.

An internal combustion engine powered by gasoline was invented by German engineer Gottlieb Daimler, 48, who had worked with Eugen Langen.

The Standard Oil trust incorporated by John D. Rockefeller and his associates to circumvent state corporation laws brought 95% of the U.S. petroleum industry under the control of a nine-man directorate. Pennsylvania lawyer Samuel C. T. Dodd had shown Rockefeller how the idea of a trust employed in personal estate law could be applied to industry and the oil trust would soon be followed by other trusts. The richest company of any kind in the world, the Standard Oil trust controlled 14,000 miles of underground pipeline and all the oil cars of the Pennsylvania railroad.
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