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Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930
Awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology A unique comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems, Networks of Power not only provides an accurate representation of large-scale technological change but also demonstrates that technology itself cannot be understood or directed unless placed in a cultural context. For Thomas Highes, both the invention of the simplest devices (like the lightbuld itself) and the execution of the grandest schemes (such as harnessing the water power of the Bavarian Alps) fit into an overaching model of technological devleopment. His narrative is an absorbing account of the creative genius, scientific achievements, engineering capabilities, managerial skills, and entrepreneurial risks behind one of the most commonplace amenities of the modern age.
488 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1983
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May 17, 2023
Comps reading that was fairly interesting as someone who was an electrical engineering student and worked in power engineering for some years, but I struggle to imagine it would be of interest to many other sorts of people. That being said, Bruno Latour seems to have read it, as in his book We Have Never Been Modern, he cites this book a few times, saying things like “Hughes reconstructs all America around the filament of Edison’s lamp” or “when Hughes analyzes Edison's notebooks, the internal world of Menlo Park is about to become the external world of all America”.
This book is structured around a model Hughes proposes to describe system evolution more generally and electric power systems specifically, honing in on these specific phases: (1) invention and development (involving engineers, managers, and financiers, Hughes focuses on Edison, Chapter 2), (2) technology transfer (e.g. Edison’s electric system from NYC to Berlin and London, Chapter 3), (3) growth (which often depends on dealing with what Hughes calls “reverse salients,” analogous to parts of a military front which have fallen back, Chapters 4-5), (4) momentum (with a mass of machines, structures, and other artifacts combined with a sufficient number of people with skills applicable to the system, Chapters 6).
Hughes first focuses on the period from 1890 to WW1, and narrows in on three countries: the US, Germany, and England. In these two decades leading up to WW1, power utilities in the two countries were mostly focused on highly populated industrialized centers. Hughes argues it was the managers of utilities who shaped these systems, more so than inventors and engineers, and the main challenge to the authority of these managers were local governments. Hughes devotes three chapters to studying how electric power systems developed in Berlin (Chapter 7), Chicago (Chapter 8), and London (Chapter 9). He also takes a quick detour to show how long distance point-to-point transmission arrangements (e.g. in California’s white coal plants or for hydropower plants) were integrated into the expanding grid system.
Finally, Hughes showed that WW1 impacted the course of the technological system’s evolution, moving away from autonomous growth and profit toward cooperative energy production. His point is that even with systems developing at high momentum, external forces like war can drastically change its course (Chapter 11).
The last phase (5) is about how “reverse salients” shift back into the domain of financiers and consulting engineers to both expand the old systems into large regional networks and also to start developing new ones (Chapters 12-14).
A lot of great material on the history of hydropower, especially on Niagara Falls and the Bavarian Alps, and the role of large capital involved.
There are quite a number of mentions of “municipal socialism” throughout this book including the chapter on technology transfer (executives in Edison’s company were very against it) whereas Joseph Chamberlain supported it (unfortunately he was also a leading imperialist), in the Berlin chapter (with a couple mentions of socialists and their allies in Stadtverordnetenversammlung, or City Council), the London chapter (with mention of the Fabian Society, including Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw), and the chapter on WW1.
Also loved that there were quite a few mentions of Charles Steinmetz, who was a socialist electrical engineer who worked for GE, and is perhaps most famously portrayed in Ronald R. Kline’s book Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist. Owen Marshall who runs an online Marx/STS reading group was a student of Kline’s and is now a professor at Cornell also. Anyway he mentions that Kline was most definitely not a Marxist nor a radical and wondered what Kline would’ve thought of his reading group. Anyway, to give a sense of what type of socialist Steinmetz was, he called both Einstein and Lenin the “two greatest minds of our time.” Hughes says he fled Germany out of fear that he would be persecuted because of his participation in the student socialist movement. Hughes later describes Steinmetz’s work at GE including how its consulting engineering department was his brainchild. He later became an electrical engineering professor at Yale.
Perhaps the most amusing mention of Steinmetz was when Hughes details how member of Congress James Francis Burke warned about a legislative rural electrification plan called Giant Power which he said smelled of socialism and was “pregnant with the vicious elements of confiscation.” Others also called it “communistic.” Anyway, Burke then hilariously says: “Is Pennsylvania to lead America in following Russia into the dismal swamp of commercial chaos and Financial disaster? Are we to forget our Franklins, our Westinghouses, our Edisons, our Steinmetzes, and all the geniuses whose names light up the horizon of industrial progress?"
And Hughes puts an amusing parenthetical after the quotation: “(The fact that Steinmetz had run as the Socialist party’s candidate for New York State Engineer seems not to have disturbed Burke.)”
This book is structured around a model Hughes proposes to describe system evolution more generally and electric power systems specifically, honing in on these specific phases: (1) invention and development (involving engineers, managers, and financiers, Hughes focuses on Edison, Chapter 2), (2) technology transfer (e.g. Edison’s electric system from NYC to Berlin and London, Chapter 3), (3) growth (which often depends on dealing with what Hughes calls “reverse salients,” analogous to parts of a military front which have fallen back, Chapters 4-5), (4) momentum (with a mass of machines, structures, and other artifacts combined with a sufficient number of people with skills applicable to the system, Chapters 6).
Hughes first focuses on the period from 1890 to WW1, and narrows in on three countries: the US, Germany, and England. In these two decades leading up to WW1, power utilities in the two countries were mostly focused on highly populated industrialized centers. Hughes argues it was the managers of utilities who shaped these systems, more so than inventors and engineers, and the main challenge to the authority of these managers were local governments. Hughes devotes three chapters to studying how electric power systems developed in Berlin (Chapter 7), Chicago (Chapter 8), and London (Chapter 9). He also takes a quick detour to show how long distance point-to-point transmission arrangements (e.g. in California’s white coal plants or for hydropower plants) were integrated into the expanding grid system.
Finally, Hughes showed that WW1 impacted the course of the technological system’s evolution, moving away from autonomous growth and profit toward cooperative energy production. His point is that even with systems developing at high momentum, external forces like war can drastically change its course (Chapter 11).
The last phase (5) is about how “reverse salients” shift back into the domain of financiers and consulting engineers to both expand the old systems into large regional networks and also to start developing new ones (Chapters 12-14).
A lot of great material on the history of hydropower, especially on Niagara Falls and the Bavarian Alps, and the role of large capital involved.
There are quite a number of mentions of “municipal socialism” throughout this book including the chapter on technology transfer (executives in Edison’s company were very against it) whereas Joseph Chamberlain supported it (unfortunately he was also a leading imperialist), in the Berlin chapter (with a couple mentions of socialists and their allies in Stadtverordnetenversammlung, or City Council), the London chapter (with mention of the Fabian Society, including Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw), and the chapter on WW1.
Also loved that there were quite a few mentions of Charles Steinmetz, who was a socialist electrical engineer who worked for GE, and is perhaps most famously portrayed in Ronald R. Kline’s book Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist. Owen Marshall who runs an online Marx/STS reading group was a student of Kline’s and is now a professor at Cornell also. Anyway he mentions that Kline was most definitely not a Marxist nor a radical and wondered what Kline would’ve thought of his reading group. Anyway, to give a sense of what type of socialist Steinmetz was, he called both Einstein and Lenin the “two greatest minds of our time.” Hughes says he fled Germany out of fear that he would be persecuted because of his participation in the student socialist movement. Hughes later describes Steinmetz’s work at GE including how its consulting engineering department was his brainchild. He later became an electrical engineering professor at Yale.
Perhaps the most amusing mention of Steinmetz was when Hughes details how member of Congress James Francis Burke warned about a legislative rural electrification plan called Giant Power which he said smelled of socialism and was “pregnant with the vicious elements of confiscation.” Others also called it “communistic.” Anyway, Burke then hilariously says: “Is Pennsylvania to lead America in following Russia into the dismal swamp of commercial chaos and Financial disaster? Are we to forget our Franklins, our Westinghouses, our Edisons, our Steinmetzes, and all the geniuses whose names light up the horizon of industrial progress?"
And Hughes puts an amusing parenthetical after the quotation: “(The fact that Steinmetz had run as the Socialist party’s candidate for New York State Engineer seems not to have disturbed Burke.)”
December 19, 2019
Although undoubtedly a tour de force of electric history, this book is also a mess of undigested facts and tangents with little relationship to the main "arguments," such as they are.
Most of all, Thomas Hughes wants to show that different cultures and governments create different "technologies," or applications of technologies, and of course he's right. The United States created an electric industry which, by the 1920s, was based on large power generators and regional "interconnections" between different holding company empires, which themselves were created to finance the purchase of electric equipment for formerly small utilities. The British power industry, however, was divided between hundreds of small municipally-owned distribution units, along with smallish generators with low-voltage transmission, and, after 1926, a National Grid that handled most power dispatching and a Central Electricity Board that decided about the expansion of transmission capacity. German power distribution was more regional than Britain, with very high voltage transmission across long distances, and generators right near coal mine mouths, but it was often controlled by companies that were semi-public, with significant public investment, as well as companies that worked in cartels with local industries.
Much of the book, however, deals with the story of a handful of inventions and how they got brought to market. Of course, Thomas Edison features prominently, as does his work on what Hughes calls "reverse salients," or the areas of a technological system that prohibit broader advances. For Edison, those were weak incandescent lamp filaments, the high-resistance generators that worked for arc-lights but not incandescent lights, and the problem of high-cost feeder and main distribution wires (the final problem he and Frank Sprague solved by poaching the British inventor's John Hopkinson ideas of a three wire system with one neutral, which Wilhelm von Siemans patented in Germany at the same time). Later, the reverse salient was the problem of low-voltage direct current transmission. This was solved by the creation of a new alternating current system, cemented around the Gibbs and Gaulard transformer, which allowed alternating current to step up or step down according to a system's needs. (They created this transformer due to the 1882 Lighting Act in Britain, which prevented British lighting companies from using only their own products, and led to an excessive diversity of voltages and loads for end-products.) Later, William Stanley of Westinghouse perfected the transformer, and Nikola Tesla, also for Westinghouse, perfected the induction polyphase motor, which allowed AC current to be used for all sorts of power products. Even later issues were more likely to be simple economic dilemmas, such as the problem of low "load factor" caused by high use of traction load during rush hours, and low usage at night, which Samuel Insull in Chicago and the RWE company in the Ruhr solved by expanding sales to a wider variety of customers and offering different rates for steady loads and weekend uses, as well as by complementing water-storage power with steam power turbo-generators, both of which could work at different times.
I can't even begin to talk about Hughes's analyses of MITs electric course catalog, or the string of names around three-phase current (well, Micheal Osipowitch von Dolivo-Dobrowolsky, a German, helped cement it over Tesla's two-phase version, but we never hear about him because the history of technology remains surprisingly nationalistic). This book could have been cut in half a rearranged, and it would have been much the better for it, but I'm still glad I plowed through it.
Most of all, Thomas Hughes wants to show that different cultures and governments create different "technologies," or applications of technologies, and of course he's right. The United States created an electric industry which, by the 1920s, was based on large power generators and regional "interconnections" between different holding company empires, which themselves were created to finance the purchase of electric equipment for formerly small utilities. The British power industry, however, was divided between hundreds of small municipally-owned distribution units, along with smallish generators with low-voltage transmission, and, after 1926, a National Grid that handled most power dispatching and a Central Electricity Board that decided about the expansion of transmission capacity. German power distribution was more regional than Britain, with very high voltage transmission across long distances, and generators right near coal mine mouths, but it was often controlled by companies that were semi-public, with significant public investment, as well as companies that worked in cartels with local industries.
Much of the book, however, deals with the story of a handful of inventions and how they got brought to market. Of course, Thomas Edison features prominently, as does his work on what Hughes calls "reverse salients," or the areas of a technological system that prohibit broader advances. For Edison, those were weak incandescent lamp filaments, the high-resistance generators that worked for arc-lights but not incandescent lights, and the problem of high-cost feeder and main distribution wires (the final problem he and Frank Sprague solved by poaching the British inventor's John Hopkinson ideas of a three wire system with one neutral, which Wilhelm von Siemans patented in Germany at the same time). Later, the reverse salient was the problem of low-voltage direct current transmission. This was solved by the creation of a new alternating current system, cemented around the Gibbs and Gaulard transformer, which allowed alternating current to step up or step down according to a system's needs. (They created this transformer due to the 1882 Lighting Act in Britain, which prevented British lighting companies from using only their own products, and led to an excessive diversity of voltages and loads for end-products.) Later, William Stanley of Westinghouse perfected the transformer, and Nikola Tesla, also for Westinghouse, perfected the induction polyphase motor, which allowed AC current to be used for all sorts of power products. Even later issues were more likely to be simple economic dilemmas, such as the problem of low "load factor" caused by high use of traction load during rush hours, and low usage at night, which Samuel Insull in Chicago and the RWE company in the Ruhr solved by expanding sales to a wider variety of customers and offering different rates for steady loads and weekend uses, as well as by complementing water-storage power with steam power turbo-generators, both of which could work at different times.
I can't even begin to talk about Hughes's analyses of MITs electric course catalog, or the string of names around three-phase current (well, Micheal Osipowitch von Dolivo-Dobrowolsky, a German, helped cement it over Tesla's two-phase version, but we never hear about him because the history of technology remains surprisingly nationalistic). This book could have been cut in half a rearranged, and it would have been much the better for it, but I'm still glad I plowed through it.
June 27, 2020
Un ejercicio histórico muy detallado, con fuerte énfasis en lo técnico. Sin embargo corto en en el análisis; las categorías de análisis propuestas en un inicio se diluyen demasiado en el relato para mi gusto. Sin embargo, es el primer trabajo de esta envergadura y tema realizado lo cual lo convierte en un punto de paso obligado para acercarse a relatos de infraestructuras socio-técnicas. Además, es supremamente hegemónico en términos de las infraestructuras que sigue y los lugares en los que se centra: Pensilvania, Berlín y Londres. El relato que hace de Edison al inicio es muy interesante aunque sigue recayendo en los estilos epopeyicos de héroes genios.
August 31, 2014
A. Key items to remember: model of systems development, contextual history (design over ambience), comparative
B. Synopsis: This book attempts to explain the “change in the configuration of electric power systems during the half-century between 1880 and 1930. (2)” These power systems are “cultural artifacts” and are socially constructed. Merrit Roe Smith and Steven Reber, in “Contextual Contrasts” classified this book as a contextual history, but on the end of the spectrum that emphasizes design over ambience. Thus, Hughes examines the context (the influence on politics on technology), as well as the “internal dynamics of technology.” Besides developing his 5 stage model of systems development, this book is also a comparative history of the electrical systems of Chicago, Berlin, and London. While the electric power systems had a different history in each of these cities, they were all related by a general model of systems evolution.
C. Definition of system
1. A system is a series of related parts or components. These components are connected by a network, often centrally controlled, to achieve some larger goal. The components are interconnected so that a change in one will impact all other components.
D. Hughes model of systems development
1. Invention and development: Performed by inventor-entrepreneurs who create a new idea (invention) and see it through to the stage when it is ready to be used (development). The example here is Edison who does not merely invent one item like the incandescent lamp. Edison invented with the system in mind and first developed power generators, wiring networks, and light fixtures.
2. Technology transfer: The example here is the transfer of Edison’s electric system from New York to Chicago to Berlin to London. Political and economic forces influence the shaping of the systems as the technology is transferred from country to country. In England, the regulatory impulses of the government, resulted in legislation that priced electricity out of the lighting market. In Germany, the transfer of technology from America occurred only after German nationalism was put aside. Technology transfer failed in London but was a success in Berlin.
3. System growth: The growth analysis used here involves reverse salients and critical problems. After the system tenders identify the reverse salients (cultural and political), they analyze them as a series of critical problems. The correction of these critical problems allows the system to grow. Systems growth also is shaped by politics. In Berlin political and business forces compromised and systems growth resulted from this cooperation. In Chicago, the dominance of Insull over local political authority resulted in an absence of political limitations of growth. In London the reverse was true: political forces restricted technological growth.
4. Momentum: As a system grows it acquires momentum. The momentum is added to by the professionals who work on the machines, and the organizations (electrical manufacturing firms, electrical engineering education, professional engineering societies) that come in contact with the system and invest in it. Contingencies can push this momentum in different directions. For example, WWI changes the electrical production systems from one based on profit to the cooperative production of energy.
5. The rise of financiers and consulting engineers: This last phase occurs when the major reverse salients have become problems of funding. This critical problem was solved by the holding company (a company with controlling stockholding in one or more companies).
E. The growth and success of electrical power systems in these three cities is based on their relationship between technology and politics. In Chicago technology dominated over politics, in Berlin there was a cooperation between technology and politics, and in London politics dominated technology.
B. Synopsis: This book attempts to explain the “change in the configuration of electric power systems during the half-century between 1880 and 1930. (2)” These power systems are “cultural artifacts” and are socially constructed. Merrit Roe Smith and Steven Reber, in “Contextual Contrasts” classified this book as a contextual history, but on the end of the spectrum that emphasizes design over ambience. Thus, Hughes examines the context (the influence on politics on technology), as well as the “internal dynamics of technology.” Besides developing his 5 stage model of systems development, this book is also a comparative history of the electrical systems of Chicago, Berlin, and London. While the electric power systems had a different history in each of these cities, they were all related by a general model of systems evolution.
C. Definition of system
1. A system is a series of related parts or components. These components are connected by a network, often centrally controlled, to achieve some larger goal. The components are interconnected so that a change in one will impact all other components.
D. Hughes model of systems development
1. Invention and development: Performed by inventor-entrepreneurs who create a new idea (invention) and see it through to the stage when it is ready to be used (development). The example here is Edison who does not merely invent one item like the incandescent lamp. Edison invented with the system in mind and first developed power generators, wiring networks, and light fixtures.
2. Technology transfer: The example here is the transfer of Edison’s electric system from New York to Chicago to Berlin to London. Political and economic forces influence the shaping of the systems as the technology is transferred from country to country. In England, the regulatory impulses of the government, resulted in legislation that priced electricity out of the lighting market. In Germany, the transfer of technology from America occurred only after German nationalism was put aside. Technology transfer failed in London but was a success in Berlin.
3. System growth: The growth analysis used here involves reverse salients and critical problems. After the system tenders identify the reverse salients (cultural and political), they analyze them as a series of critical problems. The correction of these critical problems allows the system to grow. Systems growth also is shaped by politics. In Berlin political and business forces compromised and systems growth resulted from this cooperation. In Chicago, the dominance of Insull over local political authority resulted in an absence of political limitations of growth. In London the reverse was true: political forces restricted technological growth.
4. Momentum: As a system grows it acquires momentum. The momentum is added to by the professionals who work on the machines, and the organizations (electrical manufacturing firms, electrical engineering education, professional engineering societies) that come in contact with the system and invest in it. Contingencies can push this momentum in different directions. For example, WWI changes the electrical production systems from one based on profit to the cooperative production of energy.
5. The rise of financiers and consulting engineers: This last phase occurs when the major reverse salients have become problems of funding. This critical problem was solved by the holding company (a company with controlling stockholding in one or more companies).
E. The growth and success of electrical power systems in these three cities is based on their relationship between technology and politics. In Chicago technology dominated over politics, in Berlin there was a cooperation between technology and politics, and in London politics dominated technology.
February 19, 2014
Hughes looks at the production of electricity to understand the social institutions and structures that made the complex system possible. Hughes three phases of adoption are helpful for thinking about the patterns of technological development and adoption. And Hughes' military analogy of the "reverse salient" to describe the "complex situation in which indiivudals, groups, material forces, historical influences, and other factors have idosyncratic, causal roles, and in which accidents as well as trends play a part" in impeding the progress of a technological system.
August 27, 2013
Long, dry, and completely fascinating. The focus on industrial logic and tangible consumer benefits in business plans seems anachronistic compared with businesses today where shareholder profits are mentioned first, last, and only.
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