George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse
Westinghouse in 1884
Born	(1846-10-06)October 6, 1846 Central Bridge, New York, U.S.
Died	March 12, 1914(1914-03-12) (aged 67) New York City, U.S.
Known for	Founder of the original Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company and others.
Spouse	Marguerite Erskine Walker ​ ​ (m. 1867)​
Children	1
Awards	John Fritz Medal (1906) IEEE Edison Medal (1911)
Signature

George Westinghouse Jr. (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914) was a prolific American inventor, engineer, and entrepreneurial industrialist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is best known for his creation of the railway air brake and for being a pioneer in the development and use of alternating current (AC) electrical power distribution. During his lifetime, he received 362 patents for his inventions, and established 61 companies, many still in existence today.

His invention of a train braking system based on using compressed air transformed the railroad industry around the world. He founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company in 1869. He and his engineers also developed track-switching and signaling systems, leading to the founding of the company Union Switch & Signal in 1881.

In the early 1880s, his interest in and inventions for the safe production, transmission, and use of natural gas spurred a whole new energy industry.

During this same period, Westinghouse recognized the potential of using alternating current (AC) for electric power distribution, and in 1886, he founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Westinghouse's electric business was in direct competition with Thomas Edison's, who was promoting direct current (DC) electricity. Westinghouse Electric won the contract to demonstrate its AC system to illuminate the "White City" at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The company went on to install the world's first, large-scale, AC power generation plant at Niagara Falls, NY which opened in August 1895.

Ironically, among many other honors, Westinghouse received the 1911 Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers "for meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system."

Early years

George Westinghouse was born in 1846 in the village of Central Bridge, New York (see George Westinghouse Jr. Birthplace and Boyhood Home), the son of Emeline (Vedder) and George Westinghouse Sr. a farmer and machine shop owner. The Westinghouse ancestors had come from Westphalia in Germany, who first moved to England and then emigrated to the US. The family name had been anglicized from Westinghausen.

From his youth, Westinghouse displayed a talent with machinery and business. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1862, the then 15-year-old enlisted in the New York National Guard and served until his parents implored him to return home. The following year, he persuaded his parents to let him re-enlist, whereupon he joined Company M of the 16th New York cavalry and earned promotion to the rank of corporal. In December 1864, young Westinghouse resigned from the Army to join the Navy, serving as Acting Third Assistant Engineer on the gunboat USS Muscoota through the end of the war. After his discharge in August 1865, Westinghouse returned to his family and enrolled at Union College in Schenectady, but he quickly lost interest and dropped out during his first term.

Westinghouse was just 19 when he received his first patent, for a rotary steam engine. He also devised the Westinghouse Farm Engine. At age 21, he invented a car replacer, a device used to guide derailed railroad cars back onto the tracks, and a reversible "frog", a rail junction piece used to switch trains between different tracks. In 1868, Westinghouse moved with his wife to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to obtain better and less expensive steel for the manufacture of his railroad frogs, and there he began to develop his recently invented railroad air brake concept.

Railroad air brakes and signaling/switching systems

Main article: Railway air brake § Westinghouse air brake

Westinghouse Steam and Air Brakes (U.S. patent 144,006)

During his travels, Westinghouse had witnessed the aftermath of a collision where engineers on two trains approaching each other on the same track had seen each other but were unable to stop their trains in time, using the existing brake systems.

At that time, brakemen had to run along catwalks on the top of the cars, manually applying the brakes. Coordinating that was tricky and dangerous. It also meant trains could be no longer than ten cars, and thousands of brakemen died or were maimed each year.

In 1869, at age 23, Westinghouse first publicly demonstrated his revolutionary new railroad braking system in Pittsburgh. It stopped trains using a compressed air system. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company was founded that November.

His first braking system used an air compressor in the locomotive, with an air reservoir and a special valve on each car, and a single compressed-steam pipe running the length of the train with flexible connections between cars. That line both refilled the reservoirs and controlled the brakes, allowing the engineer to apply and release the brakes simultaneously on all cars.

Although the system was successful, as demonstrated when it prevented a serious mishap in front of assembled witnesses, it was hardly fail-safe. Any rupture or disconnection in the air line left the train without brakes.

Over the next two years, Westinghouse and his engineers solved the problem by inverting the process, designing valves so that constant pressure in the lines kept the brakes disengaged. With the improved design, any interruption or break in the line would automatically cause the train to stop.

During the next decade, following up on his earliest inventions, Westinghouse also extended his interest to railway signaling and track-switching systems. Previously, signaling was done with oil lamps and track switching was done manually. Westinghouse's designs changed all that. In 1882, Westinghouse founded the Union Switch and Signal Company to manufacture, market, install, and maintain its innovative control systems, which also were eventually adopted by railroads around the world.

Natural gas

Photograph of Westinghouse "Old No.1" natural gas derrick, sometime between June 1884 and end of 1889, located at the Solitude estate in present-day Westinghouse Park. The Westinghouse carriage house/laboratory and the mansion are seen on the right.

By 1883, Westinghouse became interested in natural gas. Gas had been recently discovered at the Haymaker Well in nearby Murrysville, Pennsylvania, and it attracted a lot of attention, in part because of a spectacular flaming blowout of a well. After visiting the well and recognizing its commercial potential, he undertook drilling for gas on his estate Solitude (today's Westinghouse Park) in Pittsburgh.

Early in the morning of May 21, 1884, the drilling crew struck a pocket of gas at 1500 feet deep, the resulting blast of dirt and water blew the top off the derrick. It took Westinghouse a week to find a way to cap the flow of gas. He was encouraged to develop a system to deliver gas to heat and light area homes and businesses. Eventually, several natural gas derricks towered above his estate's Victorian gardens. In modern times there is no above-ground trace left of these derricks.

That year, Westinghouse obtained a utility charter for the Philadelphia Company, and over the next three years, he developed devices and obtained more than 30 patents for this technology. He used the Philadelphia Company to develop gas wells and promote its use both for commercial and residential purposes. By 1886, the Philadelphia Company owned 58 wells and 184 miles of distribution piping in the Pittsburgh area, and by 1887, it served over 12,000 private homes and 582 industrial customers across the state.

Sign in Westinghouse Park describing drilling for natural gas in 1884 on the grounds of the "Solitude" estate.

In 1889, as his involvement with the generation and distribution of electricity was surging, Westinghouse resigned as president of the Philadelphia Company, but he remained on its board. Growth in the natural gas business slowed in the 1890s hampered by supply problems and ongoing safety concerns about gas distribution in homes and businesses. But the Philadelphia Company continued to grow, and spawning such enterprises as Equitable Gas and Duquesne Light.

Electric power distribution

Westinghouse Electric Company 1888 catalog advertising their "Alternating System"

Westinghouse's interests in gas distribution and telephone switching led him to become interested in the then-new field of electrical power distribution in the early 1880s. Electric lighting was a growing business with many companies building outdoor direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) arc lighting based street lighting systems. At the same time, Thomas Edison was launching the first DC electric utility designed to light homes and businesses with his patented incandescent bulb. In 1884, Westinghouse started developing his own DC domestic lighting system and hired physicist William Stanley to work on it. Westinghouse became aware of the new European alternating current systems in 1885 when he read about them in the UK technical journal Engineering. AC had the ability to be "stepped up" in voltage by a transformer for distribution and then "stepped down" by a transformer for consumer use, allowing large centralized power plants to supply electricity long distance in cities with more dispersed populations. This was an advantage over the low voltage DC systems being marketed by Thomas Edison's electric utility which had a limited range due to the low voltages used. Westinghouse saw AC's potential to achieve greater economies of scale as way to build a truly competitive system instead of simply building another barely competitive DC lighting system using patents just different enough to get around the Edison patents.

Westinghouse patent for an AC lighting system with battery backup from 1887 (U.S. patent 373,035)

In 1885 Westinghouse imported several Gaulard–Gibbs transformers and a Siemens AC generator, to begin experimenting with AC networks in Pittsburgh. Stanley, assisted by engineers Albert Schmid and Oliver B. Shallenberger, developed the Gaulard–Gibbs transformer design into the first practical transformer. In 1886, with Westinghouse's backing, Stanley installed the first multiple-voltage AC power system in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a demonstration lighting system driven by a hydroelectric generator that produced 500 volts AC stepped down to 100 volts to light incandescent bulbs in homes and businesses. That same year, Westinghouse formed the "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company"; in 1889 he renamed it as "Westinghouse Electric Corporation".

War of the currents

Main article: War of the currents

The Westinghouse company installed 30 more AC-lighting systems within a year and by the end of 1887 it had 68 alternating current power stations to Edison's 121 DC-based stations. This competition with Edison led in the late 1880s to what has been called the "war of currents" with Thomas Edison and his company joining in with a spreading public perception that the high voltages used in AC distribution were unsafe. Edison even suggested a Westinghouse AC generator be used in the State of New York's new electric chair. Westinghouse also had to deal with an AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, which had built 22 power stations by the end of 1887 and by 1889 had bought out another competitor, the Brush Electric Company. Thomson-Houston was expanding its business while trying to avoid patent conflicts with Westinghouse, arranging deals such as coming to agreements over lighting company territory, paying a royalty to use the Stanley transformer patent, and allowing Westinghouse to use their Sawyer–Man incandescent bulb patent. The Edison company, in collusion with Thomson-Houston, managed to arrange in 1890 that the first electric chair was powered with a Westinghouse AC generator, forcing Westinghouse to try to block this move by hiring the best lawyer of the day to (unsuccessfully) defend William Kemmler, the first man scheduled to die in the chair. The War of Currents ended with financiers, such as J. P. Morgan, pushing Edison Electric towards AC and pushing out Thomas Edison. In 1892 the Edison company was merged with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric, a conglomerate with the board of Thomson-Houston in control.

Development and competition

During this period, Westinghouse continued to pour funds and engineering resources into the goal of building a completely integrated AC system — obtaining the Sawyer–Man lamp by buying Consolidated Electric Light, developing components such as an induction meter, and obtaining the rights to inventor Nikola Tesla's brushless AC induction motor along with patents for a new type of electric power distribution, polyphase alternating current. The acquisition of a feasible AC motor gave Westinghouse a key patent for his system, but the financial strain of buying up patents and hiring the engineers needed to build it meant development of Tesla's motor had to be put on hold for a while.

In 1890 Westinghouse's company was in trouble. The near collapse of Barings Bank in London triggered the financial panic of 1890, causing investors to call in their loans. The sudden cash shortage forced the company to refinance its debts. The new lenders demanded that Westinghouse cut back on what looked like excessive spending on acquisition of other companies, research, and patents.

Workmen with one of the two Westinghouse alternators used in the Ames Hydroelectric AC power installation

In 1891 Westinghouse built a hydroelectric AC power plant, the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado. The plant supplied power to the Gold King Mine 3.5 miles away. This was the first successful demonstration of long-distance transmission of industrial-grade alternating current power and used two 100 hp Westinghouse alternators, one working as a generator producing 3000-volt, 133-Hertz, single-phase AC, and the other used as an AC motor. At the beginning of 1893 Westinghouse engineer Benjamin Lamme had made great progress developing an efficient version of Tesla's induction motor and Westinghouse Electric started branding their complete polyphase AC system as the "Tesla Polyphase System", announcing Tesla's patents gave them patent priority over other AC systems and their intentions to sue patent infringers.

In 1893, George Westinghouse won the bid to light the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago with alternating current, slightly underbidding General Electric to get the contract. This World's Fair devoted a building to electrical exhibits. It was a key event in the history of AC power, as Westinghouse demonstrated the safety, reliability, and efficiency of a fully integrated alternating current system to the American public.

Aerial view of Niagara Falls, with the American Falls at left and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls on the right

Westinghouse's demonstration that they could build a complete AC system at the Columbian Exposition was instrumental in them getting the contract for building a two-phase AC generating system, the Adams Power Plant, at Niagara Falls in 1895. At the same time, a contract to build the three-phase AC distribution system the project needed was awarded to General Electric. The early to mid-1890s saw General Electric, backed by financier J. P. Morgan, involved in costly takeover attempts and patent battles with Westinghouse Electric. The competition was so costly a patent-sharing agreement was signed between the two companies in 1896.

Other projects: steam engines, shock absorbers

Westinghouse was interested in electrical power production. At the outset, the available generating sources were hydroturbines where falling water was available, and reciprocating steam engines where it was not. Westinghouse felt that reciprocating steam engines were clumsy and inefficient, and wanted to develop some class of "rotating" engine that would be more elegant and efficient. One of his first inventions had been a rotary steam engine, but it had proven impractical. The British engineer Charles Algernon Parsons began experimenting with steam turbines in 1884, beginning with a 10-horsepower (7.5 kW) turbine. Westinghouse bought rights to the Parsons turbine in 1885, improved the Parsons technology, and increased its scale. In 1898 Westinghouse demonstrated a 300-kilowatt unit, replacing reciprocating engines in his air-brake factory. The next year he installed a 1.5-megawatt, 1,200 rpm unit for the Hartford Electric Light Company.

Westinghouse then developed steam turbines for maritime propulsion. Large turbines were most efficient at about 3,000 rpm, while an efficient propeller operated at about 100 rpm. That required reduction gearing, but building reduction gearing that could operate at high rpm and at high power was difficult, since a slight misalignment would shake the power train to pieces. Westinghouse and his engineers devised an automatic alignment system that made turbine power practical for large vessels.

In 1889, Westinghouse purchased several mining claims in the Patagonia Mountains of southeastern Arizona and formed the Duquesne Mining & Reduction Company. A year later he founded Duquesne to use as his company headquarters; it is now a ghost town. He lived in a large Victorian frame house, which still stands, but in disrepair. Duquesne grew to over 1,000 residents and the mine reached its peak production in the mid-1910s.

With the introduction of the automobile after the turn of the century, Westinghouse went back to earlier inventions and devised a compressed air shock absorber for automobile suspensions.

At one time, Westinghouse began to work on heat pumps that could provide heating and cooling. Westinghouse was after a perpetual motion machine, and the British physicist Lord Kelvin, one of Westinghouse's correspondents, told him that he would be violating the laws of thermodynamics. Westinghouse replied that might be the case, but it made no difference. If he couldn't build a perpetual-motion machine, he would still have a heat pump system that he could patent and sell.

Labor relations

Westinghouse was the first industrial employer to give his workers a five-and-a half day work week, starting 1881. Saturdays were made half free days to promote community involvement and personal development. The planned community of Wilmerding, PA, was home to many employees, and was also the headquarters of several of the Westinghouse companies, particularly the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. His engineers who obtained patents for inventions were allowed to keep their own names on the patents, rather than put them in the name of the company. American labor and union organizer Samuel Gompers is reputed to have said "if all business leaders and moguls treated their employees as well as George Westinghouse, there’d be no need for any labor unions."

Personal life, later life, and death

George Westinghouse, c. 1906

"Solitude", home of George Westinghouse and family in Pittsburgh, PA, in the 1880s and 1890s, seen from the east. From Ref.

The residence of George Westinghouse in Washington, D.C., from 1901 to 1914

In 1867, Westinghouse met and soon married Marguerite Erskine Walker. They were married for 47 years, and had one son, George Westinghouse III, who in turn had six children.

Westinghouse remained a captain of American industry until 1907, when the financial panic of 1907 led to his resignation from control of the Westinghouse company. By 1911, he was no longer active in business, and his health was in decline.

George and Marguerite Westinghouse maintained a large home in Pittsburgh called Solitude, building up from an existing house and land purchased by George in 1871. They were part of a social class of very rich local industrialists including neighbors Henry Clay Frick, Henry J. Heinz, and Andrew Carnegie. Their guests included Nicola Tesla, Lord Kelvin, and congressman William McKinley. By 1893, they had constructed Erskine Park in Lenox, Massachusetts, which they used as a summer home, in part as a respite from the gritty industrial environment of Pittsburgh. It was named for the family of Marguerite's grandparents. In 1989 they leased and then in 1901 purchased the Blaine House mansion in Washington D.C. Marguerite Westinghouse was reputed to host frequent and lavish entertainments there. In 1918 his former Pittsburgh home, Solitude, was razed and the land given to the City of Pittsburgh to establish Westinghouse Park. The house in Erskine Park was sold by the family in 1917 and subsequently demolished.

George Westinghouse died on March 12, 1914, in New York City at age 67. He was initially interred in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY then removed on December 14, 1915. As a Civil War veteran, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, along with his wife Marguerite, who survived him by three months. She had also been initially interred in Woodlawn and removed and reinterred at the same time as George.

Honors and awards

George Westinghouse was appreciated by his colleagues. For example, Nicola Tesla, with whom he developed the AC polyphase system of electric power distribution spoke of him in 1938 as follows: "George Westinghouse was, in my opinion, the only man on this globe who could take my alternating-current system under the circumstances then existing and win the battle against prejudice and money power. He was a pioneer of imposing stature, one of the world's true noblemen, of whom America may well be proud and to whom humanity owes an immense debt of gratitude."

The George Westinghouse Memorial in Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, PA.

In 1930, the Westinghouse Memorial, funded by his employees, was placed in Schenley Park in Pittsburgh. Also named in his honor, George Westinghouse Bridge is near the site of his Turtle Creek plant. Its plaque reads:

IN BOLDNESS OF CONCEPTION, IN GREATNESS AND IN USEFULNESS TO MANKIND THIS BRIDGE TYPIFIES THE CHARACTER AND CAREER OF GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 1846–1914 IN WHOSE HONOR IT WAS DEDICATED ON SEPTEMBER 10, 1932

The George Westinghouse Jr. Birthplace and Boyhood Home in Central Bridge, New York, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

In 1989, Westinghouse was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

In Pittsburgh, Westinghouse High School, located not far from his former residence, was named in his honor in 1915.

Westinghouse's grave in Arlington National Cemetery

References

Patents

• U.S. patent 34,605, grain and seed winnowers
• U.S. patent 106,899, improvements in steam engine and pump
• U.S. patent 109,695, improvement in atmospheric car-brake pipes
• U.S. patent 136,631, improvement in steam-power-brake couplings
• U.S. patent 149,901, improvement in valves for fluid brake-pipes
• U.S. patent 159,533, pneumatic pump
• U.S. patent 218,149, improvement in fluid-pressure brake apparatus
• U.S. patent 280,269, fluid-pressure regulator
• U.S. patent 366,362, electrical converter
• U.S. patent 399,639, system of electrical distribution
• U.S. patent 314,089, system for the protection of railroad-tracks and gas-pipe lines
• U.S. patent 400,420, fluid-meter
• U.S. patent 425,059, fluid-pressure automatic brake mechanism
• U.S. patent 427,489, alternating current electric meter
• U.S. patent 437,740, fluid-pressure automatic brake
• U.S. patent 446,159, switch and signal apparatus
• U.S. patent 454,129, pipe-coupling
• U.S. patent 497,394, conduit electric railway
• U.S. patent 499,336, draw-gear apparatus for cars
• U.S. patent 543,280, incandescent electric lamp
• U.S. patent 550,465, electric railway
• U.S. patent 579,506, current-collecting device for railway-vehicles
• U.S. patent 595,007, elevator
• U.S. patent 595,008, electric railway
• U.S. patent 609,484, fluid pressure automatic brake
• U.S. patent 672,114, draft appliance for railway cars
• U.S. patent 672,117, draw-gear and buffing apparatus
• U.S. patent 676,108, electric railway system
• U.S. patent 687,468, draw-gear and buffing apparatus
• U.S. patent 727,039, automatic fluid pressure brake apparatus
• U.S. patent 922,827, gearing
• U.S. patent 995,508, elastic-fluid turbine
• U.S. patent 1,119,913, electric railway

Bibliography

• Huber, William R. (2022). George Westinghouse, Powering the World. North Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-1-4766-8692-9
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The electrification of Railways, G. Westinghouse. Page 945+.
• Fraser, J. F. (1903). America at work. London: Cassell. Page 223+.
• Leupp, Francis E. (1918). George Westinghouse; his life and achievements Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
• Hubert, P. G. (1894). Men of achievement. Inventors. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Page 296+.
• Jonnes, Jill (2003). Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-75884-3
• Klein, Maury (2009). The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America. New York: Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1596916777
• Moran, Richard (2002). Executioner's current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the invention of the electric chair. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-72446-6.
• New York Air Brake Company. (1893). Instruction book. 1893.
• Prout, Henry G. A Life of George Westinghouse.
• Westinghouse Air Brake Company. (1882). Westinghouse automatic brake. (ed., Patents on p. 76.)

External links

External videos
Booknotes interview with Jill Jonnes on Empires of Light, October 26, 2003, C-SPAN

• Westinghouse Corporation
• Booknotes interview with Jill Jonnes on Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World, October 26, 2003.
• ANC Explorer – Westinghouse's grave at Arlington National Cemetery
• Westinghouse Park 2nd Century Coalition
• The Westinghouse Legacy 501.c3 organization