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From Novelty to Utility: George Westinghouse and the Business of Innovation during the Age of Edison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Steven W. Usselman
Steven W. Usselman
Affiliation:
Steven W. Usselman is associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
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Abstract

This article argues that Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, despite some shared characteristics in their approach to technical problems and a common interest in electric power, pursued distinct markets for innovation. Edison sold novelties to upper-class urbanites, whereas Westinghouse provided equipment to railroads and other industrial customers. As a consequence, the two entrepreneurs consistently exhibited different attitudes toward the process of innovation and different inclinations as businessmen. Westinghouse, more than Edison, foreshadowed the coming of corporate research and development.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , Summer 1992 , pp. 251 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1992

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References

1 For a recent review of this literature, see Smith, John Kenly Jr, “The Scientific Tradition in American Industrial Research,” Technology and Culture 31 (1990): 121–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For an excellent discussion of the motivations behind the founding of two important early laboratories, see Reich, Leonard S., The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876–1926 (New York, 1985)Google Scholar.

3 Ibid. For an insightful discussion of one prominent research director, Charles M. A. Stine, see Hounshell, David A. and Smith, John Kenly Jr, Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R&D, 1902–1980 (New York, 1988), 125–37Google Scholar.

4 Many of the recent treatments of corporate R&D begin with overviews of technical activities at the firms prior to 1900, but these introductory sections seldom examine the connections between technical expertise and business strategy and organization with anything close to the detail and insight they achieve for the period after 1900. For a partial exception, see Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, chaps. 2, 3, and 6. On research during the nineteenth century at Bell, also see Hoddeson, Lillian, “The Emergence of Basic Research in the Bell Telephone System, 1875–1915,” Technology and Culture 22 (1981): 512–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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6 Hughes, Thomas P., American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm (New York, 1989).Google Scholar For a comprehensive, integrated presentation of his ideas, see Hughes, Thomas P., Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore, Md., 1983).Google Scholar On his thinking about invention, see also Hughes, Thomas Parke, Elmer Sperry: Inventor and Engineer (Baltimore, Md., 1971)Google Scholar and Hughes, Thomas P., Thomas Edison: Professional Inventor (London, 1976).Google Scholar

7 Passer, Harold C., The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875–1900: A Study in Competition, Technical Change, and Economic Growth (Cambridge, Mass., 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. chap. 11, quotation from 192.

8 Millard, Andre, Edison and the Business of Innovation (Baltimore, Md., 1990).Google Scholar Although the portrayal of Edison that follows rests heavily on material presented by Millard and at some points shares his interpretations, my account differs substantially in organization and analysis.

9 Ibid., 24–31. For an extensive discussion of Edison and the telegraph business, see Israel, Paul, “Telegraphy and Edison's Invention Factory,” in Working at Inventing: Thomas A. Edison and the Menlo Park Experience, ed. Pretzer, William S. (Dearborn, Mich., 1989), 66–83.Google Scholar Hughes also stresses the importance of shop or Graft culture in the careers of Edison and other independents in his American Genesis, 24–47.

10 Millard, Business of Innovation, 57.

11 Ibid., 18.

12 Ibid., 113.

13 Ibid., 9.

14 Ibid., 140.

15 Hughes, American Genesis, 68.

16 Ibid., 48.

17 Ibid.

18 The following discussion of moving pictures is based on ibid., esp. 135, 140–45, 169–76, and 225.

19 For another recent biography that stresses the connections between Edison and the growth of cities, see Melosi, Martin V., Thomas A. Edison and the Modernization of America (Glenview, Ill., 1990).Google Scholar

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21 This and the following paragraphs on the phonograph are based on ibid., 60–87, 160–69, 186–221, 253–68, and 295–319. “Many remember Edison as the man who brought the wonders of electric light to the world,” writes Millard (220–21). “Yet in terms of the amount of time spent experimenting on the phonograph, Edison should be remembered as the man who labored for years to bring us the clear, faithful reproduction of music. This was his life's work.”

22 In his 1926 testimony about the invention, Edison drew an analogy between his electric lighting system and a complex mechanical machine. Historians of mechanical technology have long recognized the ability to arrange existing components in novel configurations as central to the act of invention. Cf. Hindle, Brooke, Emulation and Invention (New York, 1981), 118–42Google Scholar, and Ferguson, Eugene S., “The Mind's Eye: Nonverbal Thought in Technology,” Science 197 (1977): 827–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

23 Hughes, Networks of Power, 43.

24 Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 97 and 112–18. Isolated plants remained the stock in trade of the electrical manufacturers throughout the nineteenth century. Not until 1896, when the Westinghouse alternating current plant opened at Niagara Falls, did a system approach anything like the dimensions we associate with modem power facilities, and even then most of the power went only a short distance to the electroplating works built along the falls. See Hughes, Networks of Power, 135–39 and 264–65.

25 Millard, Business of Innovation, 90–92, and Hughes, Networks of Power, 43–45.

26 Hughes, Networks of Power, 53–57.

27 Ibid., 73.

28 “Turning Off the Gas in Paris,” Electrical World, 18 Sept. 1886, 4, quoted in Marvin, Carolyn, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York, 1988), 173.Google Scholar Marvin's study presents countless examples of the fascination and awe electric light elicited during its first decades.

29 Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 114.

30 Even when electrical suppliers sold plants to manufacturing interests, they found that qualitative changes made possible by electricity, not simple substitution of an electrical system for a mechanical or gas one, proved the most effective selling point. Many bought electric lighting because the enclosed filament posed less of a fire danger than the exposed flame of gas or arc lights. Some preferred incandescent light because it did not distort the colors of their products. The most attractive feature of electric power was its flexibility. One could run wires and place motors almost anywhere. Factory managers who previously had arranged equipment to conform with rigid shafting that transmitted power from a steam engine or water wheel now could place machines wherever they pleased. Cost advantages flowed from the ability to organize the productive process without constraint, not from a reduction in the cost of power itself. Ibid., 112–18.

31 Hughes, Networks of Power, 73.

32 “I'm going to be a business man,” Edison said in 1883; “I'm a regular contractor for electric lighting plants and I'm going to take a long vacation in the matter of invention.” Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, 45. Significantly, Edison described himself as a contractor, not as a manufacturer.

33 Quoted in Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 104.

34 Francis Jehl, quoted in Hughes, American Genesis, 91.

35 Quoted in Prout, Henry G., A Life of George Westinghouse (1921; Salem, N.H., 1972), 5–6.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., 21–86, and Usselman, Steven W., “Air Brakes for Freight Trains: Technological Innovation on American Railroads, 1869–1900,” Business History Review 58 (Spring 1984): 30–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 The New York Times, 15 March 1891, 16, and 9 April 1891, 4.

38 Prout, Westinghouse, remains the best source on the inventor's activities pertaining to electrical technology.

39 Ibid., 104–10.

40 Ibid., 18.

41 Ibid., 77–86.

42 Quoted in ibid., 254.

43 Quoted in ibid., 308.

44 Quoted in ibid.

45 Quoted in ibid., 253.

46 Ibid., 5.

47 Quoted in ibid., 254–55.

48 Quoted in ibid., 105–6.

49 On his activities with natural gas, see ibid., 224–29.

50 Ibid., 6.

51 On the characteristics of professional engineering, see Sinclair, Bruce, A Centennial History of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1880–1980 (Toronto, Ont., 1980)Google Scholar; Layton, Edwin T. Jr, The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession (Cleveland, Ohio., 1971)Google Scholar; and Usselman, Steven W., “Running the Machine: The Management of Technical Change on American Railroads, 1860–1910” (Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 1985), 228–342.Google Scholar

52 Quoted in Prout, Westinghouse, 255.

53 Quoted in ibid., 162.

54 A product engineer who moved many of IBM's early computer products from the design stage to the marketplace once told me that at the beginning of each assignment he would announce to the assembled team, “There comes a time when every project needs an S.O.B. I'm the S.O.B.”

55 Prout, Westinghouse, 108.

56 Ibid., 109.

57 Hounshell, David A., From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, Md., 1984), 240.Google Scholar

58 Prout, Westinghouse, 264–69.

59 Production of light bulbs constituted something of an exception. Edison designed equipment to produce them and achieved substantial economies as volume increased. Even then, though, the production facilities retained some of the character of a craft shop, with over two hundred pumps employed to evacuate the bulbs. Ibid., 89 and 130, and Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 92–95.

60 Millard, Business of Innovation, 123, and Hughes, Networks of Power, 47–78 and 175–200.

61 When Edison formed Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated, in 1901, ostensibly with the intention of placing greater emphasis on manufacturing, the effort resulted in “a production engineer's nightmare: a do-all general purpose factory, with no central task or stabilized engineering designs, and few long production runs.” Millard, Business of Innovation, 201.

62 “Edison never did grasp the concept of good enough in the process of handing over a prototype to the works,” Millard concludes. Ibid., 78.

63 “Edison's ability lay in starting things,” concludes Millard, “not in finishing them. The history of the lab was littered with half-finished projects that had not held his attention long enough.” Ibid., 318.

64 Quoted in Prout, Westinghouse, 5.

65 “He reminds me in a way of John Adams,” wrote Charles Francis Adams, Jr., who had a long association with Westinghouse and sat on the board of his electrical company, “in essentials a really great man but cursed with a vanity which limits him in every direction.” Quoted in Kirkland, Edward Chase, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., 1835–1915: The Patrician at Bay (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 Cochran, Thomas C., Railroad Leaders, 1845–1890: The Business Mind in Action (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), 147.Google Scholar

67 Fishlow, Albert, “Productivity and Technological Change on American Railroads, 1869–1900,” in National Bureau of Economic Research, Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States after 1800 (New York, 1966), 583–646.Google Scholar

68 Usselman, “Running the Machine.”

69 Usselman, Steven W., “Patents Purloined: Railroads, Inventors, and the Diflusion of Innovation in Nineteenth Century America,” Technology and Culture 32 (1991): 1047–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70 Usselman, Steven W., “The Lure of Technology and the Appeal of Order,” Business and Economic History, 2d ser. 21 (1992)Google Scholar, and Clark, Charles Hugh, “The Railway Safety Movement in the United States, 1869–1893” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1966).Google Scholar The archives of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, located at the Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill. [hereaftre, CBQ Papers], contain numerous examples of executives inquiring into the practices of other lines before taking action on prospective safety devices and several references to the use of safety in advertising.

71 George Westinghouse, Jr. to E. H. Williams, 13 Nov. 1869, and David H. Williams to J. Edgar Thomson, 12 Dec. 1869; Board Papers of the Pennsylvania Railroad [hereafter, Board Papers], Pennsylvania Railroad Papers, Hagley Museum and Library, Ace. 1807 [hereafter, PRR Papers].

72 R. Harris to C. E. Perkins, 25 April 1870, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 20:26–27.

73 Usselman, “Air Brakes.”

74 Annual Reports of the Block Signal and Train Control Board of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 1908–1910 [hereafter, ICC Signal Board Reports].

75 For some examples, see the Papers of John Work Garrett, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MS 2003, box 82, subject 7130, and the letters of Robert Harris, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1. One exception to the preponderance of mechanical arrangements, devised by the Burlington's superintendent of the telegraph with the assistance of an outsider named Ohmsted, utilized electromagnetism. R. Harris, to F. H. Tubbs, 17 June 1868, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 12:501; to Mr. Hitchcock, 23 Dec. 1868, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 14:192; and to Whom It May Concern, 29 March 1869, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 15:323.

76 “Air Brake Instruction Cars,” Santa Fe Employees’ Magazine 1 (July 1907): 197Google Scholar.

77 On electrical experts, see Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors, May 17, 1857 and 25 June 1877, PRR Papers, and H. B. Stone to John Clancy, 31 Oct. 1889, CBQ Papers, 3H5.24. Mechanics at the Burlington often showed little trust, or understanding, of devices that made use of electricity. For an example involving electric interlocking signals, see C. E. Perkins to H. B. Stone, 18 March 1882, CBQ Papers, 3P6.21, and H. B. Stone to T. J. Potter, 27 March 1882 and 25 April 1882, CBQ Papers, 3P6.21. When Westinghouse added an electrical activating mechanism to his braking system during the famous brake trials at Burlington in 1886, the railroad technical press chastised him for using a technology with which railroads could not be expected to have any familiarity. For reaction to the electric brakes, see weekly coverage of the Burlington brake trials in Railroad Gazette and Railway Age, April through June 1887 and the Annual Report of the Master Car-Builders’ Association for 1887.

78 George Westinghouse, Jr., to E. H. Williams, 13 Nov. 1869, and David H. Williams to J. Edgar Thomson, 12 Dec. 1869; Board Papers, PRR Papers.

79 R. Harris to J. F. Joy, 16 Nov. 1870, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 21:513–514.

80 Usselman, “Air Brakes.”

81 Documents in the manuscript collections of railroads I have studied consistently quote a price of $325 per locomotive and $100 per car between 1869 and 1875.

82 R. Harris to J. R. Reniff, 15 July 1875, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 37:330.

83 R. Harris to J. B. Reniff, 7 Aug. 1875, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 37:495 and 21 Oct. 1875, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 38:255. Harris put the steam braking system of one S. N. Goodale on a par with Westinghouse and noted that neither was “perfect beyond possible improvement.” R. Harris to F. E. Sickels, 3 Feb. 1873, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 30:174. Goodale had offered his brake for trial to the B&O in 1871. See Garrett Papers, box 82, subject 7130.

84 J. E. Wootten to G. Clinton Gardner, 4 June 1872, Papers of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad [hereafter, Reading Papers], Hagley Museum and Library, Ace. 1451, Letterbook 966, pp. 671–72; J. E. Wootten to H. L. Brown, 10 June 1872, Reading Papers, Letterbook 966, p. 693; J. E. Wootten to H. L. Brown, 20 June 1872, Reading Papers, Letterbook 971, p. 34; and J. E. Wootten to Franklin Gowen, 24 June 1872, Reading Papers, Letterbook 971, pp. 49–55.

85 J. E. Wootten to Franklin Gowen, 9 Dec. 1872, Reading Papers, Letterbook 975, p. 1; J. E. Wootten to R. E. Ricker, 30 Dec. 1872, Reading Papers, Letterbook 975, p. 89; J. E. Wootten to Franklin Gowen, 3 Jan. 1873, Reading Papers, Letterbook 975, p. 260; and H. F. Kenney to G. A. Nicolls, 29 Jan. 1874, Reading Papers, Air Brake File. The Reading began using vacuum brakes in regular service in February 1873. According to statistics Kenney provided from September 1872, the Reading had placed air brakes on only ten of its locomotives and forty-two of its cars. On adoption of the Westinghouse brake at the Reading, see J. E. Wootten to Morris Sellers, 28 June 1871, Reading Papers, Letterbook 966, p. 12; J. E. Wootten to C. M. Cresson, 9 Aug. 1871, Reading Papers, Letterbook 966, p. 50; Mr. Nicolls to J. E. Wootten, 5 Dec. 1871, Reading Papers, Letterbook 704, p. 389; J. E. Wootten to Mr. Nicolls, 6 Dec. 1871, Reading Papers, Letterbook 966, p. 231; J. E. Wootten to Mr. Nicolls, 7 Dec. 1871, Reading Papers, Nicolls in-letters; Nicolls to J. E. Wootten, 9 Dec. 1871, Reading Papers, Letterbook 704, p. 411; and J. E. Wootten to Ralph Bagaley, 20 Dec. 1871, Reading Papers, Letterbook 966, p. 253.

86 J. E. W. to G. A. Nicolls, 27 Jan. 1874, Reading Papers, Air Brake File. Emphasis added.

87 Instead of compressing air and reducing the pressure to activate the brakes, this system created a vacuum and used the pressure of the atmosphere to power the brakes. Vacuum brakes provided the same performance features as air brakes and seemed likely to require less maintenance, since they operated at lower pressure. In Europe, where vacuum brakes would become the standard, railroads showed a preference for the lowpressure system almost immediately.

88 Westinghouse Air Brake Company, printed circular announcing trial, copy in Reading Papers, Air Brake File.

89 Isaac Hinckley to J. E. Wootten, 9 Nov. 1874, Reading Papers, Nicolls in-letters. Hinckley claimed that these companies saved over 50 percent in maintenance costs by switching to the vacuum brake.

90 R. Harris to J. N. A. Griswold, 29 Nov. 1873, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 32:549, and R. Harris to R. E. Ricker, 20 Dec. 1873, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 33:78.

91 J. E. Wootten to Franklin Gowen, 9 Dec. 1872, Reading Papers, Letterbook 975, p. 1.

92 J. E. Wootten to Franklin Gowen, 9 Dec. 1872, Reading Papers, Letterbook 971, p. 687.

93 R. Harris to R. E. Ricker, 23 Dec. 1873, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 33:92.

94 J. E. Wootten to Franklin Gowen, 30 Jan. 1873, Reading Papers, Letterbook 975, p. 260.

95 Copy in Reading Papers, Air Brake File.

96 R. Harris to Geo. Westinghouse, Jr., 26 Aug. 1874, CBQ Papers, 3H4.1, 34:503–504.

97 Railroad Gazette 7 (6 Feb. 1875): 36Google Scholar.

98 Annual Report of the Master Car-Builders' Association for 1875.

99 Railroad Gazette 8 (14 April 1876): 159–61Google Scholar and (21 April 1876): 176.

100 For a variety of reasons, few railroads had placed air brakes on their freight equipment. See Usselman, “Air Brakes.”

101 Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Eastern Railroad Association 22 (1888): 27Google Scholar.

102 On negotiations between Westinghouse and the Pennsylvania, see Minutes of the Meetings of the Committee on Supplies, May 1879 through August 1880, accompanying Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors, PRR Papers. On similar negotiations at the Burlington, see Usselman, “Air Brakes.”

103 Godfrey Rhodes to C. M. Higginson, 18 Sept. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3R2.1; Geo. Harris to C. E. Perkins, 19, 21 Sept. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.51; Geo. Harris to T. S. Howland, 28 Sept. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.51; Geo. Harris to C. E. Perkins, 3 Oct. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.51; H. H. Westinghouse to C. E. Perkins, 7 Dec. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.51; Godfrey Rhodes to Geo. Harris, 10 Dec. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.51; C. E. Perkins to Geo. Harris, 11 Dec. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.1, 31:240; C. E. Perkins to Geo. Westinghouse, 11 Dec. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.1, 31:241; Geo. Westinghouse to C. E. Perkins, 14 Dec. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.51; Godfrey Rhodes to Geo. Harris, 14 Dec. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3R2.1; Mr. Quereaux to Mr. Forsyth, 24 Dec. 1891, CBQ Papers, Lab Books, A10:325–331; Geo. Harris to C. E. Perkins, 28 Dec. 1891, CBQ Papers, 3P4.51; and Godfrey Rhodes to Geo. Harris, 26 Jan. 1892, CBQ Papers, 3R2.1.

104 Statistical Reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 1893–1901.

105 Signal Section of the American Railroad Association, The Invention of the Electric Track Circuit (New York, 1922)Google Scholar; Brignano, Mary and McCullough, Hax, The Search for Safety: A History of Railroad Signals and the People Who Made Them (Swissvale, Pa., 1981)Google Scholar; and Union Switch and Signal Company (F. S. Guerber, agent) to T. J. Potter, 23 Aug. 1881, CBQ Papers, 3P6.21.

106 Condit, Carl W., The Railroad and the City: A Technological and Urbanistic History of Cincinnati (Columbus, Ohio, 1977)Google Scholar and The Port of New York: The History of the Rail and Terminal System from the Beginnings to Pennsylvania Station (Chicago, Ill., 1980)Google Scholar, provides detailed accounts of custom signaling installations at some major stations.

107 Prout, Westinghouse, lists and describes many patents pertaining to signaling taken out by Westinghouse during the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century, when one might expect the inventor's energies to have been monopolized by electric power.

108 As late as 1892, the experts at Scientific American still considered compressed air a serious alternative to electrical distribution. The committee responsible for acquiring the pioneer alternating current plant at Niagara Falls seriously considered a plan that called for the electricity generated to drive air compressors, which would then distribute power at a distance.

109 Mumford, Lewis, The Brown Decades: A Study of the Arts in America, 1865–1895 (1931; New York, 1955), 35.Google Scholar

110 Even in the corporate environment, the business of innovation has frequently involved the careful cultivation of relations with outside institutions. DuPont, for example, has often worked closely with manufacturers of finished products to educate them about new materials, while simultaneously advertising those products to the general public. See Hounshell and Smith, Science and Corporate Strategy.

111 The breakthrough plant at Niagara Falls was a contract job organized by a consortium of industrialists who were financed with the assistance of J. P. Morgan. Its power flowed primarily to large electroplating facilities built nearby. On Westinghouse and the development of the pioneer alternating current generating plants, see Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers and Hughes, Networks of Power, chap. 5.

112 Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 192 and 326. For additional information on the roles of Morgan and Coffin in the electrical industry, see Carlson, W. Bernard, Innovation as a Social Policy: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870–1900 (New York, 1991).Google Scholar