The Unknown Story Behind General Electric Creation

Back in history: 

  In ancient times, electricity was a matter of curiosity. For instance, ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Arabs noticed electricity in the catfish‘s electric shocks. Therefore, they knew that there is certain unknown power and it is transferrable. Later, the Arabs referred to and noticed electricity through lighting.   

Ancient civilizations tried to grasp the notion of electric power. The beginning was when they remarked that when you rub sticks of amber, they might attract light weighed things.  

Thales was a pioneer who conveyed a series of static electric observations. After centuries, in late 17th century, the book De Magnete was a witness that electricity is going to become an established field of studies. The book is wrote by William Gilbert, an English scientist.   

In that book, he tried to study and explain the rubbing of amber rods effect. Then, he discovered that there is a wide distinction between magnetic field of static electricity and lodestone magnetism. William Gilbert was the first to coin the word “electricus”.   

The word is in Latin and literally means “amber” or “of amber”. The word has a reference to the amber sticks’ effect which attracted light objects when rubbed. The first appearance of the word electricity was in the seven books of Thomas Browne’s tome entitled Pseudodoxia Epidemica in 1646.   

Later, other experiments and books succeeded, and the discoveries led Benjamin Franklin to write History and Present Status of Electricity in which he laid the foundation electrical engineering field. Far ahead, the names and the discoveries recurred and names like André Marie Ampére, Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell, in the 18th century and Thomas Edison, Heinrich Hertz, Albert Einstein in the 19th and others have changed the face of history.   

Electricity is a complicated phenomenon, which is not considered a human invention. It is rather existent in nature through lightning for example. Electricity by definition is simply the flux of electrons through a conductive wire or substance.   

However, electricity is related to numerous other phenomena. Electricity and magnetism, at first separated and then linked and called electromagnetism, electric heating, static electricity, electric discharges, and other topics to be studied in this respect.   

· 18th century onward:

  Under these circumstances, and for so long, people have been trying to understand, to show and to tame this absurd power called electricity. For years, lightning and other natural wonders captivated scientists. Benjamin Franklin, was the first to prove that lightening is really full of electric power. He almost paid his life in return to prove that fact. In 1752, he conducted a simple but very dangerous experiment. He simply created a flying kite.   

He attached it to an iron bar during a thunderstorm and grabbed the wet bar waiting. What Benjamin Franklin expected, happened. Lightening flowed down from the kite to the bar and to Franklin who was terribly electrified! The electric shock Franklin got was the evidence that lightning got power in it and that power must be tamed.   

This was a turning point in the electricity industry until today. 

  During the next hundreds of years, inventions and scientific experiments have recurred. The History of power generation and the evolution of the electrical equipment industry. The world shifted from darkness to light. Meaning that the discovery of electricity was the benchmark of the era. However, the history of invention is so much complicated and long.   

The myth of Thomas Adison has been denied. Notably, the inventions of electrical equipment have started long ago before Thomas Adison invented the incandescent lamp in 1879. In fact, the inventions array have started exactly around 1740 and had a starting point as explained earlier with Benjamin franklin.   

Eventually, by the 1880s small-sized power plants were built upon Edison’s schemes and designs. Then, these power stations were spreading all over America. In 1942, electrical equipment companies’ made their first appearance through the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA).  

The ancestry of General Electric:

  Even though we said that in 1942 was the first establishment of electrical corporations under the umbrella of NRECA. However way before, exactly in 1882, the sponsor of Thomas Adison, Sir John Pierpont Morgan has initiated what is going to be later known as General Electric. Hence, during the same year, J.P Morgan initiated the first central electric plant in the United States, exactly named the Pearl Street Station.   

The technique was really innovative but simple. Edison tried to link huge banks of generators to domestic utilities, commercial and industrial facilities. He connected generators and linked them because back then, there was no “electric grid” that is why at that era people relied totally on generators. Later came Mr. Samuel Insull.   

The latter was at first the assistant then a managerial counterpart for the inventor. Edison was a brilliant inventor but not a successful businessman, thus, S.Insull played the role of the investor when it comes to business.   

The efforts of Samuel Insull, the shrewdness of J.P Morgan and the brilliance of Thomas Edison fruited in General Electric first appearance in New York City. This electrical equipment company is the nucleus change in the industrial history of electricity.   

The saying of Christopher Flavin that “the real potential of electricity lies not in providing social amenities but in stimulating long-term economic development” is totally true. The creation of General Electric NY was just the beginning of a bulky and large industry. That huge corporation of today traced the economic development sustainability in the electricity sector once and for all.   

Now General Electric is a huge corporation with multiple segments and subsidiaries. The value market of General Electric Company, also known GE is astonishing. It has a value of $147.300 billion net in 2018. The company has undergone various changes and mergers and this is one of their secret ingredients.  

Now the corporation includes the following specialties: GE Power, Aviation, Healthcare, Digital, Baker Hughes, Transportation, Renewable Energy, Metal Additive, Current, Lighting, Capital, and Global Research. These were the segments of the giant called General Electric. To Find more electrical equipment companies Visit E-electricity.com.