Westinghouse, George

Westinghouse, George (1846–1914), inventor, industrialist.Born in Central Bridge, New York, Westinghouse worked as an apprentice in his father's machine shop. During the Civil War, he served as an engineering officer in the U.S. Navy. After the war, Westinghouse devoted himself to invention, and in 1869 he patented the railroad air brake. Until then, brakemen stopped trains by manually applying brakes in each car. Westinghouse perfected a compressed air system; by operating a valve in the locomotive, the engineer could now brake all cars simultaneously. To manufacture and market this invention, Westinghouse moved to Pittsburgh where, over the next four decades, he became a major industrialist, establishing sixty firms that produced railway signals and heavy machinery.

Westinghouse entered the electrical field in 1884. Because the electrical industry was dominated by Thomas Edison's direct‐current (DC) system, Westinghouse focused on alternating current (AC). Employing a transformer designed by William Stanley and a motor invented by the Croatian immigrant Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), the Westinghouse system enabled utilities to serve more customers over a wider area and hence lowered the cost of electricity. Threatened by AC, the Edison company attacked Westinghouse's system, claiming that high‐voltage AC would electrocute people. Insisting that AC was safe, Westinghouse used it at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair to power 100,000 electric lights. AC ultimately prevailed when Westinghouse engineers employed it to transmit power from Niagara Falls in 1896. Thanks to Westinghouse's vision, America enjoyed the benefits of low‐cost electric power and he grew wealthy as the founder of one of the nation's great industrial corporations.
See also Electricity and Electrification; Illumination; Industrialization; Railroads; World's Fairs and Expositions.

Bibliography

Henry G. Leupp , A Life of George Westinghouse, 1922.
Thomas P. Hughes , Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930, 1982.

W. Bernard Carlson