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The Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York was a lighting and electrical distribution company organized in 1878. The company held the patents for the first practical system of incandescent electric lighting. It was the first company formally established to provided electric lightning and was the first company organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs.
Contents
History
Albon Man, a New York attorney, and William E. Sawyer, an electrical engineer, officially formed the Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York on July 8, 1878. This was by way of a partnership with Man supplying money for experiments. Sources in the late 19th century claimed it to be the first formally established electric-lighting company.
The Electro-Dynamic Light Company was the first organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs. Man and Sawyer patented the first practical system of incandescent electric lighting and gave the patents to the company. The United States Electric Lighting Company was organized in 1878, weeks after the Electro-Dynamic Company.
The names of other investor-partners of the company besides Man and Sawyer were: Hugh McCulloch (Man's uncle), William Hercules Hays, James P. Kernochan, Lawrence Myers, and Jacob Hays. Sawyer was about 28 years old and Man about 52 years old at the time the company was formed. They planned on lighting New York City with electricity for one-fortieth the cost of gas lighting. The new company started with capital of $10,000 cash and $290,000 of scrip. It was formed for the purpose of the production of light and power by means of electricity for the lighting of streets and buildings. The company was to make all the equipment necessary to generate and distribute electricity. The distribution of electricity produced by the company was not only for lighting, but for other purposes as well.
In 1878, the Electro-Dynamic Light Company demonstrated an electric light that was the invention of Sawyer and Man. An exhibition was set up in New York City on October 29, 1878. The same exhibition was mentioned several weeks later in a newspaper of Princeton, Minnesota, and Bismarck, North Dakota. The lamp was described as a strip of pencil carbon graphite connected with two wires to an electric generator. The carbon strip was in a hermetically sealed glass bulb that was filled with nitrogen gas. When electricity was applied, the internal strip developed a temperature of between 30,000 and 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Since there was no oxygen in the glass globe the carbon filament did not burn out and produced light instead.
The demonstration consisted of five electric light bulbs hanging from chandeliers in an office building at the corner of Elm and Walker Streets. Wires came from the electric lights and went to an adjacent room where there was a generator set up to produce electricity. The wires passed through keyholes to the adjoining room. A key was put into the keyhole and turned to switch on the electric current. As the key was turned further around, the electric lights got brighter. This switch idea was demonstrated with all five chandeliers with the electric lamps. An electric meter to measure the amount of electricity used in an office or house for billing purposes was also demonstrated.
Thomas Edison's electric lighting discoveries were first shown in September 1878. The Edison Electric-Light Company of New York was organized on October 17, three months after the Electro-Dynamic Company was formally established. The United States Electric-Lighting Company of New York was formed shortly after this to introduce the inventions of Hiram S. Maxim and Edward Weston.
Legal
Patents were taken out by Man and Sawyer for all the items needed for electric current distribution. The patents were for the benefit of the Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York. Man and Sawyer were involved in many legal actions between 1880 and 1884 to protect these patents for electric lighting.
Demise
The Electro-Dynamic Light Company ceased to exist after 1881.