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![A Life of George Westinghouse](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
![A Life of George Westinghouse](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
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Overview
In the last part of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century, George Westinghouse made pioneering advances in transportation and the manufacture of power, with his work on the air brake, power signaling and switching, the friction draft gear, and the use of alternating current for the transmission and employment of electrical energy. This biography details his work and its impact and examines his involvement in industry. This reprint is identical to the original book published in 1921. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781587981043 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Beard Books, Incorporated |
Publication date: | 11/01/2001 |
Series: | Business Biographies |
Pages: | 408 |
Product dimensions: | 6.48(w) x 8.32(h) x 1.00(d) |
Table of Contents
I. | Introductory | 1 |
Birth and birthplace | ||
Ancestry | ||
His brothers | ||
In the Civil War | ||
Inherited qualities | ||
Education in school and shop | ||
Early inventions | ||
Marriage and home | ||
Principal enterprises | ||
Decade of greatest output | ||
The last years | ||
II. | The Air Brake | 21 |
Some early notions | ||
He turns to the air-brake | ||
Who invented the air-brake? | ||
Creates a new art | ||
First air-braked trains | ||
The automatic brake comes | ||
The Scott model, Franklin Institute | ||
Fundamentals of the automatic brake | ||
Development of the triple valve | ||
Some accessories | ||
The Burlington brake trials | ||
The quickaction triple | ||
The triumph after Burlington | ||
English experiences | ||
The Galton-Westinghouse experiments and some lessons | ||
The education of the users | ||
III. | Friction Draft Gear | 77 |
A new principle introduced | ||
Genesis of the friction gear | ||
First patent, 1888 | ||
First commercial use nine years later | ||
Its various functions | ||
Effects in starting trains | ||
Its comparative importance | ||
IV. | A General Sketch of Electric Activities | 87 |
Some elementary explanations | ||
Early interest in electric lighting | ||
Early railway work | ||
His interest in alternating current is aroused | ||
Buys the Gaulard and Gibbs patents | ||
The transformer is developed | ||
Westinghouse Electric Company chartered | ||
Opposition to alternating current | ||
Ninety-five per cent of electric energy used now alternating current | ||
The central power-station idea | ||
V. | The Induction Motor and Meter | 121 |
Tesla's invention | ||
Seven years developing to usefulness | ||
A great chapter in electrical history | ||
Steps in development of the motor | ||
Shallenberger invents a meter | ||
VI. | The Rotary Converter | 130 |
The economic place of the rotary converter | ||
Its first serious commercial development at East Pittsburgh | ||
Effect on the electric art | ||
VII. | The Chicago World's Fair | 134 |
Westinghouse takes the lighting contract | ||
And then develops a lamp | ||
And the means of making it | ||
Exhibits alternating-current machinery | ||
A historical moment | ||
VIII. | Niagara Falls | 141 |
The Cataract Construction Company | ||
An international commission | ||
Decision reached to distribute power by electricity | ||
And to use alternating current | ||
The Telluride plant and its effects | ||
Compressed-air transmission | ||
Studies of frequency | ||
The contract awarded October 1893 | ||
Magnitude of the enterprise and some results | ||
Certain local enterprises | ||
IX. | Electric Traction | 159 |
Early trolley roads | ||
Westinghouse foresaw heavy electrification with alternating current | ||
But had first to enter the street-railway field | ||
Development of direct-current apparatus | ||
State of the art | ||
Slow and difficult growth of alternating-current systems | ||
St. Clair Tunnel | ||
New Haven Railroad | ||
Milwaukee and St. Paul | ||
Regeneration | ||
Load balancing | ||
Some effects of railroad electrification | ||
X. | Steam and Gas Engines | 179 |
Patents a rotary engine | ||
Designs a reciprocating engine with radial cylinders | ||
And gas engines | ||
The turbine | ||
Patents the single-double-flow turbine | ||
And a reaction-impulse type | ||
The reduction gear | ||
Some by-products | ||
Propeller experiments | ||
Condenser improvements | ||
XI. | The Turbo-Generator | 201 |
Its industrial importance | ||
Some details | ||
Displaces the engine-type generator | ||
The course of development | ||
Some of the difficulties | ||
XII. | Signalling and Interlocking | 212 |
What they are and what they do | ||
Westinghouse brought in the use of power | ||
Hydropneumatic systems | ||
Electropneumatic | ||
The first power interlocking | ||
Slow progress in the United States | ||
Effects of power signalling and interlocking | ||
XIII. | Natural Gas | 224 |
Westinghouse begins in 1883 | ||
Takes out thirty-eight patents | ||
Special dangers in the use of natural gas | ||
The Philadelphia Company | ||
Results | ||
Pittsburgh without smoke | ||
Fuel gas | ||
XIV. | Various Interests and Activities | 233 |
Lamps | ||
Nernst lamp | ||
Cooper Hewitt lamp | ||
Rectifier | ||
Multiple-unit control | ||
Car, Air, and Electric Coupler | ||
Research | ||
Telephone | ||
Board of Patent Control | ||
Air spring | ||
The steel car | ||
Copper | ||
XV. | European Enterprises | 262 |
World-wide plans | ||
British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company | ||
The underlying idea correct but too early | ||
The Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company | ||
The central-station idea in practice | ||
Making brakes in France | ||
The Italian company | ||
The Russian Brake Company | ||
Ten or a dozen lesser companies | ||
The broad results | ||
XVI. | Financial Methods--Reorganization--Equitable-Life Episode | 273 |
Westinghouse and the bankers | ||
Did his own financing | ||
Risked his own money | ||
The influence of personality | ||
An idealist | ||
Never speculated | ||
The receiverships of 1907 | ||
The reorganization | ||
Equitable Life episode | ||
The trusteeship | ||
XVII. | The Personality of George Westinghouse | 287 |
Relations with his men | ||
The family spirit | ||
The Amber Club | ||
His ethical influence | ||
An enlightened humanitarian | ||
The Air Brake Company as an example of his policies | ||
Personal characteristics | ||
More than a genius | ||
Education | ||
Some encounters with the laws of nature | ||
Not a sceptic | ||
XVIII. | The Meaning of George Westinghouse | 320 |
His life was history: an agent of civilization | ||
Transportation and progress | ||
Brakes and signals and transportation | ||
The first four names in the evolution of transportation | ||
The manufacture of power and the New Era | ||
An ethnical epoch | ||
Effect of the alternating current in the New Era | ||
Appendix | Patents | 331 |
Index | 369 |
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