SCANNING OUR PAST
Electrical Engineering Hall of Fame
CHARLES F. SCOTT
I n 1929, the American Insti-
tute of Electrical Engineers
(AIEE) selected Charles F.
Scott (Fig. 1) as the recipient
of the Edison Medal. He was cited
Bfor his contributions to the science
and art of polyphase transmission of
electrical energy.[ Previously, he had
served as President of the AIEE during
1902–1903. He is remembered espe-
cially for his invention of the BScott
connection[ which enabled a conve-
nient conversion from two-phase
generated power to three phase for
transmission. He devoted the second
half of his 45-year career to electrical
engineering education after spending
the first half working for an electrical
manufacturing company.
I. EDUCATI ON AT
JOHN HOPKINS
The son of a college professor, Charles
Felton Scott was born 19 September
1864 in Athens, OH. He spent two
years as an undergraduate at Ohio
University and then transferred to
Ohio State University where he grad-
uated in 1885. Scott then enrolled in a
two-year program in applied electric-
ity at the Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, MD, where he studied
under Louis Duncan. Johns Hopkins
was one of the first American schools
to offer college training in electrical
engineering. Henry A. Rowland
(Fig. 2), a well-known physicist, had
conducted pioneering research on mag-
netic circuits and the magnetic prop-
erties of materials during the 1870s
before joining the Johns Hopkins fac-
ulty in 1876.
Duncan had graduated from the
U.S. Naval Academy in 1880 and,
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/JPROC.2006.892488
836 Proceedings of the IEEE | Vol. 95, No. 4, April 2007
subsequently, was assigned by the
Navy to take advanced work under
Rowland at Johns Hopkins. He earned
a doctorate in 1885. The following
year, Duncan resigned from the Navy
to become director of the newly orga-
nized program in applied electricity at
Johns Hopkins. Subsequently, he and
his students conducted experimental
tests of an alternating-current (AC)
apparatus and published their results
in several papers in the Transactions of
the AIEE. For example, Duncan and
W. F. C. Hasson were coauthors of a
March 1890 paper reporting on effi-
ciency tests of a large alternator and
some transformers which had been
Fig. 1. Charles F. Scott (IEEE History Center). donated to the university by the
Westinghouse Electric Company.
II. TESLA’S MOTOR
After completing the electrical pro-
gram at Johns Hopkins, Scott joined the
engineering staff of the Westinghouse
Company, Pittsburgh, PA, in 1888.
Fortuitously, he was assigned to as-
Charles F. Scott received sist the legendary engineer-inventor,
the AIEE Edison Medal Nikola Tesla (Fig. 3), in devel-
in 1929, being cited opmental work on Tesla’s AC motor.
The Westinghouse Company had pur-
Bfor his contributions chased the patent rights to Tesla’s
to the science and art motor in May 1888 and arranged for
of polyphase transmission the inventor to continue his work at
the Pittsburgh plant. Scott later wrote
of electrical energy.[ that Bthe Tesla motor in its simple
form required two alternating cur-
rents, differing in phase, and sustain-
ing a relation similar to the two driving
rods of a locomotive which are set at
90 degrees so that, when one is at
its inactive position, the other exerts
maximum effort.[ Their initial efforts
to modify the motor to operate from a
single-phase system proved unsuc-
cessful, resulting in the decision to
develop a two-phase system. By 1892,
0018-9219/$25.00 Ó 2007 IEEE
 Scanning Our Past

Fig. 2. Henry A. Rowland

(IEEE History Center).

Westinghouse reported that it could

build Tesla motors with ratings of
1–1000 hp.
Scott was a member of the group Fig. 4. Commercial power plant near Telluride, CO (IEEE History Center).
of Westinghouse engineers who de-
signed and installed one of the first
commercial power plants to use an AC some experiments on the so-called ported observing Ba hissing or crack-
motor. This was in a mining district Bcorona loss[ which became a serious ling sound[ along with a luminous
near Telluride, CO (Fig. 4), where problem as higher transmission vol- effect as the line voltage approached
power from a hydroelectric gener- tages were used. In a technical paper 20 kV. He concluded that it seemed
ating plant was transmitted over a based on the investigation, Scott re- that a voltage of 40–50 kV might be an
3-mile line to operate a 100-hp AC
motor at a stamp mill. The system
began operation in 1891. Subse-
quently, Scott and his colleagues
used the Telluride line to conduct

Fig. 3. Nikola Tesla (IEEE History Center). Fig. 5. View of main generator room at Niagara Falls (IEEE History Center).

Vol. 95, No. 4, April 2007 | Proceedings of the IEEE 837

Scanning Our Past
Fig. 6. Assembling the Westinghouse generator for the Niagara Falls power plant, 1895
(Lighting a Revolution, Smithsonian Institution, 1979).
upper limit for long-distance trans-
mission unless the corona loss could
be overcome. Further research on the
problem carried out at Cornell Uni-
versity by Harris J. Ryan in the early
20th century demonstrated that coro-
na loss could be minimized even at
much higher voltages by increasing
the diameter and spacing of line
conductors.
III . POWER PLANT AT
NI AGARA FALLS
The Telluride project soon was fol-
lowed by a much more ambitious
undertaking, a giant hydroelectric
power plant at Niagara Falls, NY
(Fig. 5). The Westinghouse Company
submitted a preliminary plan to the
Cataract Construction Company to
supply the AC generators, transfor-
mers, and other electrical equip-
ment for the planned installation in
December 1892, although a final
contract was not signed until October
838 Proceedings of the IEEE | Vol. 95, No. 4, April 2007
1893. The design called for a two-
phase system with the generators
rated at 5000 hp each with a frequency
of 25 Hz (Fig. 6). The first three of ten
units planned were available by
August 1895 when power first was
delivered to an aluminum plant near
the Falls. Since the generating capac-
ity of the power plant was consider-
ably greater than needed locally, a
transmission line was built linking
the central station to Buffalo which
began receiving energy from Niagara
Falls in November 1896. The cost of
the Buffalo line had been reduced
substantially by the adoption of the
BScott connection.[
Scott later recalled that his phase
conversion technique had been in-
spired by a brief conversation with
Lewis B. Stillwell (Fig. 7), a
Westinghouse colleague. Stillwell had
mentioned that the Company was Bat a
decided commercial disadvantage[ be-
cause a competitor had proposed
building a high-voltage transmission
line using three phase. This would
result in a considerably lower cost than
the four-wire, two-phase line proposed
by Westinghouse. Scott had quickly
conceived an ingenious transformer
connection which would convert the
two-phase generated voltage to three
phase for transmission. Scott explained
that Bwhen the commercial necessity
was presented, the engineering prob-
lem was formulated and a simple vector
diagram was the key to the solution.[
(Engineers at the time commonly used
the term vector instead of phasor.)
Scott made the invention while he
was in the process of writing a paper
on another topic for a meeting of the
National Electric Light Association
scheduled for 1 March 1894. He
decided to include a discussion of
his novel transformer connection in
the paper, thus making it available to
other power engineers. In practice,
the connection could be achieved
using two single-phase transformers
known as the Bmain transformer[ and
the Bteaser transformer[ with taps
included at 50% and 86.6% of the full
winding.
Fig. 7. Lewis B. Stillwell was a colleague of
Scott at Westinghouse and later was the
chief engineer during the construction
of the New York City subway in
1904 (IEEE History Center).

IV. INSTI TUTIONAL
INNOVATIONS
The rapid increase in membership of
the AIEE and the changing environ-
ment of engineering practice during
the 1890s produced stresses and
opportunities which Scott confronted
during his tenure as President of the
AIEE in 1902–1903. He undertook a
number of initiatives intended to en-
hance the status of electrical engi-
neers and increase the outreach of the
AIEE. Institutional innovations which
he promoted included the creation of
student branches and technical com-
mittees. He wrote to the immediate
Past President, Charles P. Steinmetz,
that the technical committees should
encourage continued growth of the
AIEE by helping members keep in
Btouch with the latest engineering
practice in new lines.[ Scott saw
student branches as an effective way
to attract young engineers to become
active members after they graduated.
He also favored increased coopera-
tion among the various professional
engineering societies. To further that
goal, he persuaded the philanthropist,
Andrew Carnegie, to donate funds to
construct an engineering societies
building in New York City.
Scott left Westinghouse in 1911 to
become a professor and director of
the electrical engineering department
of the Sheffield Scientific School at
Yale University. He instituted a pro-
gram to invite experienced engineers
to spend short periods in residence at
Yale interacting with faculty and
Vol. 95, No. 4, April 2007 | Proceedings of the IEEE
Scanning Our Past
students. For example, the eminent
General Electric engineer-inventor,
Ernst Alexanderson, spent a week on
the Yale campus in March 1926. He
wrote to Scott that he had found it
interesting and inspiring to observe
how engineering and research were
being taught at Yale. Alexanderson
shared his personal views on connec-
tions among physical science, engi-
neering, and industry.
Scott retired from Yale in 1933
and died 17 December 1944 in
Columbus, OH, at age 80. A collec-
tion of his personal papers, including
correspondence, is located at the Yale
University Library. h
JAMES E. BRITTAIN
839