Home Electricity History
By Chris Petry
As I typed this piece, on a MacBook in the year 2025, I couldn’t help but feel the air of the room exuded a time and place far removed from the technocentric present. It was somewhere in the distant past, where scribes and scribblers of invariable numbers took to rolltop desks with quill pins and dip ink, words faintly illuminated by breeze-kissed candle flame. Of course, what I mean to say by way of all this Dickens-ian parlance is that the power was out. Leave it to me to find a way to be so dramatic!
As a man of modern conveniences weeps over the inability to make a piece of toast without manually lighting the gas range, the ghosts of the 19th century shuffle restless, having gone to their graves without ever experiencing such luxury. Factually speaking, it took until the mid-1940s before the majority of homes had electricity. The first electrified house belonged to none other than Thomas Edison. Mr. Edison, most famed for his patent of the incandescent lightbulb, had a fully electrified residence in 1878. It took almost another 70 years for that to become the norm.
On April 29th, 1879, Cleveland, Ohio became the first city to install electric street lamps (courtesy of Charles Brush, credited with inventing the first operational electrical arc lights). The first city to be fully operational was Buffalo, New York. Famed Inventor and scientist Nikola Tesla designed AC turbines (AC stands for alternating current) to generate electricity from nearby tourist attraction, Niagara Falls. The date? November 16, 1896.
The first residential homes to install electricity took advantage of the now infamous knob and tube wiring method. Knob and tube wiring featured single-insulated copper conductors that were run through joists and support beams in homes and held in place by porcelain knob insulators. The two downsides were the prohibitive cost and the tendency to overheat, increasing the risk of fire. Knob and tube electric was mostly phased out in the 1930s but a large number of homes erected before 1940 may still feature it, whether it’s actively in use or not. Most have been retrofitted with modern electrical systems but evidence of the prior wiring may still be visible.
Today, the most common electrical wire found in homes in known as NM (Non-Metallic) Cable or “Romex” cable. It consists of multiple well-insulated wires wrapped together in a protective sheath. Metal and PVC tubing may be added for extra safety. It’s recommended that properly-installed cable be secured and supported every 4-4 ½ feet and bends or kinks in the wire should be avoided to prevent sharp edges from compromising conductors. Modern wire, in general, is less susceptible to overheating than old methods like knob and tube. The materials used in its construction have higher temperature ratings and the wires themselves are much better insulated than they were in antiquity.
Earlier, we mentioned Nikola Tesla’s AC turbines and how they were used to harness the power of the mighty Niagara to generate electricity for the city of Buffalo. AC, as stated, means Alternating Current. So, what does THAT mean? AC Currents are capable of switching directions, going backward and forward on the line. DC, or Direct Currents, only flow one way and require a much more expansive, and expensive, infrastructure to support. The primary reason AC currents are used in homes is because they can be easily directed over long distances, such as from a communal power station. It’s also much easier to convert to a lower voltage, making it a lot safer. DC Currents are more akin to what you encounter in your smartphone or other electronic devices. The device is powered by a battery (the source of the current) which lies within a close distance of the receiver. The little block you use to charge your phone is an AC converter, allowing the battery to receive charge from an Alternating Current source like a power outlet. You may have also inferred that Australian Hard Rock superstars did, in fact, get their name from combining the two current types of electrical current.
How do you know if the electrical systems in your home are up to snuff? Well, that’s where a licensed electrician comes in. It’s currently recommended that homes be rewired every 25-40 years, depending on the age of the home and condition of the electrical system. Lucky for me, right now, none of its working anyway. Didn’t people used to burn whale blubber in times like these? Anyone know where one can acquire some locally?
