The Electric City

Download or read book The Electric City written by Harold L. Platt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1991-04-09 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes consumers' shifting habits of fuel consumption, tracing how use of wood led to burning coal and coal gas, to the arrival, to the arrival of the arc lamp, and then the coming of electricity. Shows that the city government and utility brokers faced two problems: how to generate a cheap supply of electricity, and how to sell electrical energy to people who were already enjoying gas services. The solutions were found by Samuel Insull, president of Commonwealth Edison Company, who put electrical technology on a sound economic footing.