Edison lights the night

Edison's Menlo Park lab delivered a practical incandescent lamp, then the Pearl Street station (1882) to power it — light sold as a service.

Why it matters

Electrification reorganized cities, factories and sleep itself; the utility model — generation, grid, meter — became the template for every networked infrastructure, including the one this site's author works in.

People

Thomas Edison

Threads

This event sits on Energy.

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Sources

• Encyclopædia Britannica — Thomas Edison