000			03416nam a2200265 i 4500
001			011895
005			20231009192151.0
008			131029s2013 nyua b 001 0 eng
010			_a2012039513
020			_a9781594204265
042			_apcc
050	0	0	_aT173.4 _b.F74 2013
082	0	0	_a303.48 FRE
100	1		_aFreeberg, Ernest
245	1	4	_aThe age of Edison _b: electric light and the invention of modern America _c/ Ernest Freeberg
300			_a354 p. _b: illus. _c; 25 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index
504			_aIntroduction: Inventing Edison -- Inventing electric light -- Civic light -- Creative destruction: Edison and the gas companies -- Work light -- Leisure light -- Inventive nation -- Looking at inventions, inventing new ways of looking -- Inventing a profession -- The light of civilization -- Exuberance and order -- Illumination science -- Rural light -- Electric light's golden jubilee.
520			_a"The late nineteenth century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but arguably the most important invention of all was Thomas Edison's incandescent lightbulb. Unveiled in his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory in 1879, the lightbulb overwhelmed the American public with the sense of the birth of a new age. More than any other invention, the electric light marked the arrival of modernity. The lightbulb became a catalyst for the nation's transformation from a rural to an urban-dominated culture. City streetlights defined zones between rich and poor, and the electrical grid sharpened the line between town and country. "Bright lights" meant "big city." Like moths to a flame, millions of Americans migrated to urban centers in these decades, leaving behind the shadow of candle and kerosene lamp in favor of the exciting brilliance of the urban streetscape. The Age of Edison places the story of Edison's invention in the context of a technological revolution that transformed America and Europe in these decades. Edison and his fellow inventors emerged from a culture shaped by broad public education, a lively popular press that took an interest in science and technology, and an American patent system that encouraged innovation and democratized the benefits of invention. And in the end, as Freeberg shows, Edison's greatest invention was not any single technology, but rather his reinvention of the process itself. At Menlo Park he gathered the combination of capital, scientific training, and engineering skill that would evolve into the modern research and development laboratory. His revolutionary electrical grid not only broke the stronghold of gas companies, but also ushered in an era when strong, clear light could become accessible to everyone. In The Age of Edison, Freeberg weaves a narrative that reaches from Coney Island and Broadway to the tiniest towns of rural America, tracing the progress of electric light through the reactions of everyone who saw it. It is a quintessentially American story of ingenuity, ambition, and possibility, in which the greater forces of progress and change are made visible by one of our most humble and ubiquitous objects.
600	1	0	_aEdison, Thomas A. _q(Thomas Alva) _d(, 1847-1931)
650		0	_aTechnological Innovations _x--U.S.A
650		4	_aTechnological innovations _x-Social aspects
650		0	_aElectric lighting _z--United States _x--History
942			_cMO
999			_c230840 _d230840