Select one invention or innovation from the period under discussion this week.

How did
it transform the daily lives and the worldview of lower class, middle class, and upper
class people, if at all?  
Darkness. An absence of light that once covered civilization and was only
combated with an array of gas and oil lamps was forever changed upon the innovation
of electricity. The application of which would not have been possible without the
innovative minds of people like Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla. Their collective work
was pivotal in the development of inventions we use in our daily lives today. If we take a
look at the surge of electrical application from the beginning, you will see the shift begin
with the change to electric lights. Thomas Edison invented a practical and inexpensive
light bulb that went along with a whole system of electric lighting. That system included
electricity generators, wires to transfer electricity from the power station to the home, as
well as the actual light fixtures such as lamps, sockets, and switches (Pierce, Erin “Top
8 Things You Didn’t Know About Thomas Alva Edison”, para 5). This initial step put us
down a road of transformation in our households and adapted what was known as the
‘housewife’s routine’ into a much more simplified state.
New ways to simplify our daily chores began sprouting up left and right, from the
electric iron, and electric washing machine which forever changed a house wife’s
hardship of keeping the house clean. You begin to see then the innovation that came
not for the ease of chores, but rather a better, safer, more comfortable living
environment. The implementation of central heating which by 1935 Federal Emergency
Relief Administration data indicated that only 22.4 percent of the dwellings valued under
$2000 were still heated by a kitchen stove (Cowan, Ruth “The “Industrial Revolution” in
the Home: Household Technology and Social Change in the 20 th Century” page 7).
These adaptations to the ‘American Kitchen’ were not possible without the
implementation of electricity, and that continued onto almost entire expulsion of the coal
stove which came with it. With only 5 percent of homes valued under $2000 dollars
owning coal or wooden stoves the amount of labor accompanied with cleaning the
kitchen dropped drastically with the presence of coal dust now a thing of the past
(Cowan, page 7). This impacted the views of many as the ‘American Kitchen’ became a
hot commodity. It became a way to assert your social status and economic class on the
kitchen you were able to afford. The housewives who were unable to feel the ease of
technological advances and continued their hard, laborious days became that of “lesser”
compared to the wives whose lives became simplified by these inventions.
You see the early developments of electrical application still come in to play
today in some major ways. Some of the most prevalent in terms of early expansion of
electrical capabilities and future creation a cleaner more efficient electric vehicle is from
that of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Tesla, whose name is forever embedded in
history from the scientific unit of measurement of “Teslas” to Tesla Motors who gave
honors to Tesla for all his work. His design of the first hydroelectric power plant in
Niagara Falls, New York initially provided energy to homes in nearby Buffalo (Newhall,
Marissa “Top 11 Things You Didn’t Know About Nikola Tesla”, para 9). His design now
has enough power for 3.8 million homes. Edison’s battery came back into the spotlight
as a prototype battery for a future power source of electric vehicles a potential change
that could alter not only daily lives but he world as we know it (Pierce, para 8). It is
nearly impossible to imagine a life without electricity today but is important to note the
major impact it has had on our lives. An impact so profound that it shifted the course for
human kind in such a way that it has created essentially unmatched potential.

V/R
Levi O’Neill

References:
Pierce, Erin R., “Top 8 Things You Didn’t Know About Thomas Alva Edison”, November
18th, 2013. Retrieved from https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-8-things-you-didn-t-know-
about-thomas-alva-edison
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz, “The “Industrial Revolution” in the Home: Household
Technology and Social Change in the 20 th Century” Retrieved from https://www-jstor-
org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/stable/3103251?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Newhall, Marissa, “Top 11 Things You Didn’t Know About Nikola Tesla”, November 18 th,
2013. Retrieved from https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-11-things-you-didnt-know-
about-nikola-tesla