Essay 19-A: Nikola Tesla, Electricity, and the People

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

Americans have been fascinated with the power and possibilities associated with electricity since well before we declared our independence from the British. In June 1752, Benjamin Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment in Philadelphia during a thunderstorm. With the help of his son William, he attached a wire to the top of his silk kite and a key on the other end. In the midst of a storm cloud, the kite captured an electrical current sending it to the key near the ground. Through his sensational experiment, he demonstrated the connection between lightning and electricity in a dramatic fashion. 

Franklin’s kite experiment captured the imagination of his then fellow colonists and the broader scientific community alike. As he continued to study and experiment with electrical properties, he often presented his findings to the general public to their great amusement, employing parlor tricks to demonstrate his fantastic discoveries. However, his study of electricity resulted in more than just entertainment. One of his inventions, the lightning rod, redirected lightning to the ground rather than having it strike homes during thunderstorms. Benjamin Franklin’s invention still protects structures from damage today. He wanted to protect lives, and did not take out a patent for his invention for the common benefit. 

It’s no mistake that an explosion of innovation and scientific discovery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by scientists like Franklin coincided with the American Revolution. As the scientific community sought a better understanding of the invisible forces holding the world together, like gravity and electricity, many of our preconceived ideas about the natural world were uprooted. For Americans, it was a short jump from scientific inquiry to an upheaval in political thinking. The American colonists not only severed their political bands with Great Britain in 1776, they also abandoned the political concepts of the old world. Monarchy and aristocracy were replaced with democracy and meritocracy. 

After the revolution, Franklin’s spirit of innovation and discovery loomed large in the new nation. Throughout the early 1800s, the young nation exploded with transformational inventions and new industries. There was a general belief that this kind of economic progress would empower the people, equipping them to best govern themselves. Technological leaps in the industries of transportation, mechanics, agriculture, and communication helped bind the country together into a more powerful Union. 

This was especially true in the wake of the Civil War. With the Union victory and the abolition of slavery, the nation underwent yet another explosion in technology and innovation. This time, the prior technological transformations of the nineteenth century intersected with the practical application of electricity. On November 4, 1879, Thomas Edison filed a patent for the first commercially visible incandescent lightbulb. With this milestone invention, homes, factories, and businesses could be lit with electricity, replacing kerosene lamps. It accelerated people’s productivity, and made for safer working and living conditions. 

It was not a seamless transition, however. Such a seismic shift in energy consumption required infrastructure. Edison opened the Pearl Street Station, the first commercial electric utility plant, in New York City in 1882. It was a coal-fired power plant that produced direct current electricity. Direct current (DC) electricity was reliable at a low voltage, but ultimately could not travel very far, requiring an electric plant within a few miles. 

Nikola Tesla, who worked for Edison in 1884, believed that alternating current (AC) was the superior mode of transmitting electricity across large stretches of land using just one power plant. It was a point of disagreement between Edison and Tesla that grew into a heated rivalry as Tesla went to work with Edison’s competitor, George Westinghouse, in 1888. 

Ultimately, Tesla was proven correct in his assessment that alternating current was far more efficient for widespread usage. During the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893, Tesla and Westinghouse demonstrated the efficacy of alternating current over Edison’s direct current by powering the fair with it. To further put the debate to rest, Westinghouse built a hydroelectric power plant using Tesla alternating current system at Niagara Falls, which provided power over 25 miles away to the people of Buffalo, New York. 

Following the successful demonstrations of Tesla’s system, the country was transformed in a way few could have imagined when Franklin was presenting his electric parlor tricks to curious colonists nearly 150 years earlier. The widespread adoption of alternating current benefitted the people with more efficient travel and communication, and helped build America into a global economic superpower in the 20th century. 

Caleb Franz has served as Program Manager at Young Voices since 2021 and is a scholar with the Bluegrass Institute. He’s also the author of THE CONDUCTOR: The Story of Rev. John Rankin, Abolitionism’s Essential Founding Father, released on October 15, 2024 through Post Hill Press. He’s currently working on a forthcoming biography about the early years of Ulysses S. Grant, set for release in 2028. Caleb’s work has been featured in various outlets including TIME, RealClear History, the Washington Examiner, the Independent, Religion and Liberty, and the Louisville Courier Journal, among others. Before this work, Caleb served in the U.S. Army through the Ohio National Guard for six years, which included one tour in Kuwait.

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