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Author: William D. Middleton
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253023599
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
“[This] biography of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ details the life and times of an exceptional engineer, maverick innovator, [and] entrepreneur.” —NMRA Magazine Frank Julian Sprague invented a system for distributing electricity to streetcars from overhead wires. Within a year, electric streetcars had begun to replace horsecars, sparking a revolution in urban transportation. Sprague (1857–1934) was an American naval officer turned inventor who worked briefly for Thomas Edison before striking out on his own. Sprague contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators. His innovations would help transform the urban space of the 20th century, enabling cities to grow larger and skyscrapers taller. The Middletons’ generously illustrated biography is an engrossing study of the life and times of a maverick innovator. “The authors weave this biography through time, with technological and political details that make Sprague human, a creative soul pressing his ideas with a sports-like outcome—some wins, some losses, and some ties . . . I recommend this well-written book detailing the life of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ to explain the development of what we so casually take for granted.” —Trains “No one has previously used Sprague’s personal papers in a published biography . . . Recommended.” —Choice “Frank Sprague . . . is a major historical figure who for decades lacked a significant biography. This void has been ably and engagingly filled in this book by the dean of electric traction authors, William D. Middleton, and his son, William III.” —Classic Trains
Author: William D. Middleton
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253023599
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Get Book Here
Book Description
“[This] biography of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ details the life and times of an exceptional engineer, maverick innovator, [and] entrepreneur.” —NMRA Magazine Frank Julian Sprague invented a system for distributing electricity to streetcars from overhead wires. Within a year, electric streetcars had begun to replace horsecars, sparking a revolution in urban transportation. Sprague (1857–1934) was an American naval officer turned inventor who worked briefly for Thomas Edison before striking out on his own. Sprague contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators. His innovations would help transform the urban space of the 20th century, enabling cities to grow larger and skyscrapers taller. The Middletons’ generously illustrated biography is an engrossing study of the life and times of a maverick innovator. “The authors weave this biography through time, with technological and political details that make Sprague human, a creative soul pressing his ideas with a sports-like outcome—some wins, some losses, and some ties . . . I recommend this well-written book detailing the life of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ to explain the development of what we so casually take for granted.” —Trains “No one has previously used Sprague’s personal papers in a published biography . . . Recommended.” —Choice “Frank Sprague . . . is a major historical figure who for decades lacked a significant biography. This void has been ably and engagingly filled in this book by the dean of electric traction authors, William D. Middleton, and his son, William III.” —Classic Trains
Author: William D. Middleton
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253023599
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Get Book Here
Book Description
“[This] biography of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ details the life and times of an exceptional engineer, maverick innovator, [and] entrepreneur.” —NMRA Magazine Frank Julian Sprague invented a system for distributing electricity to streetcars from overhead wires. Within a year, electric streetcars had begun to replace horsecars, sparking a revolution in urban transportation. Sprague (1857–1934) was an American naval officer turned inventor who worked briefly for Thomas Edison before striking out on his own. Sprague contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators. His innovations would help transform the urban space of the 20th century, enabling cities to grow larger and skyscrapers taller. The Middletons’ generously illustrated biography is an engrossing study of the life and times of a maverick innovator. “The authors weave this biography through time, with technological and political details that make Sprague human, a creative soul pressing his ideas with a sports-like outcome—some wins, some losses, and some ties . . . I recommend this well-written book detailing the life of the ‘Father of Electric Traction’ to explain the development of what we so casually take for granted.” —Trains “No one has previously used Sprague’s personal papers in a published biography . . . Recommended.” —Choice “Frank Sprague . . . is a major historical figure who for decades lacked a significant biography. This void has been ably and engagingly filled in this book by the dean of electric traction authors, William D. Middleton, and his son, William III.” —Classic Trains
Author: Frank Rowsome
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781490955346
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
Frank J. Sprague was renowned in electrical circles around the world as “The Father of Electric Traction.” The control and safety systems which make railroads and mass transit work today are his. He was the first to design electric motors capable of earning their way in industry, and helped perfect the high-speed electric elevators that made skyscrapers possible. He created the basic circuitry that ran, and still runs, subways, elevators, and electrified railroads. Sprague was among the first men to bring rigorous mathematical discipline to replace cut-and-try research, making him the life-long rival of Thomas Edison. Sprague helped change electricity from a laboratory and lecture-platform oddity to a vital part of the modern world. Almost single-handedly he wired electricity into the second industrial revolution as a basic source of power and transportation.
Author: William D. Middleton
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253336996
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking.... Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going. —Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Travel" "Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take" is a collection of stories about favorite train journeys by an inveterate railway enthusiast and train traveler. A half century career as an engineer, Naval officer, and university administrator took Bill Middleton to almost every part of the globe, and everywhere he took with him an abiding interest in railways, and a notebook and camera to record his experiences. His North American journeys have included experiences as diverse as the long journey north through Manitoba to polar bear country on Hudson Bay, a trip to Minnesota's Mesabi Range to haul a boatload of iron ore to Lake Superior behind a giant Yellowstone articulated steam locomotive, and the trip between Costa Rica's Atlantic and Pacific coasts by narrow gauge railway. His European travels have ranged from a Pullman seat on the crack London-Paris Golden Arrow to the slow trip across Thrace on one of the last runs of the celebrated Simplon-Orient Express. In Asia he traveled through the Toros Mountains of Turkey on the famous Istanbul-Baghdad Toros Express, experienced modern high-speed railroading in the cab of Japan's Bullet Train, and rode to Asia's highest mountain east of the Himalayas on the little trains of Taiwan's Ali Shan Forestry Railway.
Author: Maurer Maurer
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428915850
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 520
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Book Description
Author: David Sadowski
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439672911
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
Chicago's system of elevated railways, known locally as the "L," has run continuously since 1892 and, like the city, has never stood still. It helped neighborhoods grow, brought their increasingly diverse populations together, and gave the famous Loop its name. But today's system has changed radically over the years. Chicago's Lost "L"s tells the story of former lines such as Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Kenwood, Stockyards, Normal Park, Westchester, and Niles Center. It was once possible to take high-speed trains on the L directly to Aurora, Elgin, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The L started out as four different companies, two starting out using steam engines instead of electricity. Eventually, all four came together via the Union Loop. The L is more than a way of getting around. Its trains are a place where people meet and interact. Some say the best way to experience the city is via the L, with its second-story view. Chicago's Lost "L"s is virtually a "secret history" of Chicago, and this is your ticket.
Author: Maury Klein
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596918349
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538
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Book Description
Maury Klein is one of America's most acclaimed historians of business and society. In The Power Makers, he offers an epic narrative of his greatest subject yet - the "power revolution" that transformed American life in the course of the nineteenth century. The steam engine; the incandescent bulb; the electric motor-inventions such as these replaced backbreaking toil with machine labor and changed every aspect of daily life in the span of a few generations. The cast of characters includes inventors like James Watt, Elihu Thomson, and Nikola Tesla; entrepreneurs like George Westinghouse; savvy businessmen like J.P. Morgan, Samuel Insull, and Charles Coffin of General Electric. Striding among them like a colossus is the figure of Thomas Edison, who was creative genius and business visionary at once. With consummate skill, Klein recreates their discoveries, their stunning triumphs and frequent failures, and their unceasing, bare-knuckled battles in the marketplace. In Klein's hands, their personalities and discoveries leap off the page. The Power Makers is a dazzling saga of inspired invention, dogged persistence, and business competition at its most naked and cutthroat--a biography of America in its most astonishing decades.
Author: George Woodman Hilton
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804740142
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 500
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Book Description
One of the most colorful yet neglected eras in American transportation history is re-created in this definitive history of the electric interurbans. Built with the idea of attracting short-distance passenger traffic and light freight, the interurbans were largely constructed in the early 1900s. The rise of the automobile and motor transport caused the industry to decline after World War I, and the depression virtually annihilated the industry by the middle 1930s. Part I describes interurban construction, technology, passenger and freight traffic, financial history, and final decline and abandonment. Part II presents individual histories (with route maps) of the more than 300 companies of the interurban industry. Reviews "A first-rate work of such detail and discernment that it might well serve as a model for all corporate biographies. . . . A wonderfully capable job of distillation." Trains "Few economic, social, and business historians can afford to miss this definitive study." Mississippi Valley Historical Review "All seekers after nostalgia will be interested in this encyclopedic volume on the days when the clang, clang of the trolley was the most exciting travel sound the suburbs knew." Harper's Magazine "A fascinating and instructive chapter in the history of American transportation." Journal of Economic History "The hint that behind the grand facade of scholarship lies an expanse of boyish enthusiasm is strengthened by a lovingly amassed and beautifully reproduced collection of 37 photographs." The Nation
Author: Frederick Dalzell
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262258129
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 303
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Book Description
The technological breakthroughs and entrepreneurial adventures of Frank J. Sprague during the transformative years of the early electrical industry. Over the course of a little less than twenty years, inventor Frank J. Sprague (1857-1934) achieved an astonishing series of technological breakthroughs—from pioneering work in self-governing motors to developing the first full-scale operational electric railway system—all while commercializing his inventions and promoting them (and himself as their inventor) to financial backers and the public. In Engineering Invention, Frederick Dalzell tells Sprague's story, setting it against the backdrop of one of the most dynamic periods in the history of technology. In a burst of innovation during these years, Sprague and his contemporaries—Thomas Edison, Nicolas Tesla, Elmer Sperry, George Westinghouse, and others—transformed the technologies of electricity and reshaped modern life. After working briefly for Edison, Sprague started the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company; designed and built an electric railroad system for Richmond, Virginia; sold his company to Edison and went into the field of electric elevators; almost accidentally discovered a multiple-control system that could equip electric train systems for mass transit; started a third company to commercialize this; then sold this company to Edison and retired (temporarily). Throughout his career, Dalzell tells us, Sprague framed technology as invention, cast himself as hero, and staged his technologies as dramas. He toiled against the odds, scraped together resources to found companies, bet those companies on technical feats—and pulled it off, multiple times. The idea of the “heroic inventor” is not, of course, the only way to frame the history of technology. Nevertheless, as Dalzell shows, Sprague, Edison, and others crafted the role consciously and actively, using it to generate vital impetus behind the process of innovation.
Author: William D. Middleton
Publisher: Railroads Past and Present (Pa
ISBN: 9780253223609
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
"This book, for the first time, calls adequate attention to the physical plant over which railroads operate - the roadbeds, tracks, bridges, and tunnels, subjects that are often taken for granted. It is a book no rail fan or student of engineering can be without."--BOOK JACKET.
