ITEM DETAILS

Boston, [ MA ]: American Electric and Illuminating Company of Boston 1883. Hard Cover. First Edition. Wrapper title: Electricity and Electric Illumination. The Arc and Incandescent Systems. Their Origin and History. 71 pages. Cloth boards with original wrappers bound in. Nicely illustrated covers, tape repair to front cover at top partialy obscuring original price of 25 cents. An early treatise on arc lighting, published one year after the first public lighting was installed in Boston's Scully Square (boston.gov). The stated goals from the Preface were to "diffuse among the people of New England a more general knowledge of electricity, especially as applied to electric lighting..." and "To bring to their notice what is believed to be best of the many systems of electric lighting yet invented." It is an interesting treatise at least in part because it positions the American Electric and Illuminating Company's arc lighting against Edison's incandescent system: "Mr. Edison will, we think, find a field of usefulness in which he will have ample room and opportunity to develop his system of incandescent lighting, while for the arc light there is an equally useful and wide field which it will occupy, and from which it cannot be driven." Me thinks they do protest too much, even at this early point in the game! Illustrated in the section where they propose their own system. Generally bright and clean, noting previous owners' inked name on front endpaper (before wrappers) and 2 penned marginal brackets highlighting specific paragraphs. Scarce, with no copies online and only 6 noted in OCLC/Worldcat as of this writing. The work must have met with some success as a larger treatise was published by the same company the following year. The American Electric and IIluminating Company bought the assets and entire business of Thomson and Houston Electric Light Company of Canada in 1884 (NY Times) - Thomson/Houston had competing standards for incandescent lighting (different bases among other things) further supporting the competitive nature of this company with Edison. Very Good.

[Book #18411]