Electrical Giant Started Here

By Don Rittner, Schenectady County and City Historian

You probably have used an electrical device made by the Westinghouse Electric Company in recent years: televisions, monitors, light bulbs, vacuum cleaners and a host of other items. What you probably don't know is that company founder George Westinghouse, Jr, grew up right across the street from SCCC.

His father George Senior operated a successful agricultural machinery business in Central Bridge, NY. Junior was born there in 1846. George Sr. moved his operation to Schenectady in 1856 locating along the Erie Canal in the area that I-890 passes over, in front of the present GE buildings, at the end of Erie Bvld. Westinghouse threshers were top quality and the firm did well here until the early 20th century.

George Senior and family lived on 16-18 State Street directly across from where the YMCA now stands in a two story, two family house. George Jr. fought in the Civil War and returned to attend Union for a short time, but went back and worked at his father's foundry until he received his first patent, for a rotary steam engine, in 1865. He also invented a device for getting derailed freight cars back on the railroad tracks the same year.

One of his most important inventions was conceived while riding the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad and saw a train wreck. On the third floor of the building known as the Furman Block (NE corner of State and Ferry, still there), he envisioned the air brake. In April 1869 he received a patent for the device that enabled trains to be stopped with fail-safe accuracy by the locomotive engineer for the first time. It was eventually adopted on the majority of the world's railroads. He created the Westinghouse Air Brake Company in July 1869. He also was a big proponent of alternating current. Ironic that he moved to Pennsylvania to begin his many companies, while his chief rival Thomas Edison moved to Schenectady, and so began the "battle of the currents."

Westinghouse saw the potential for electricity and formed the Westinghouse Electric Company in 1884, later known as the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company (he founded 59 other companies including the first radio station in the world, Westinghouse KDKA in Pittsburgh). He obtained exclusive rights to Nikola Tesla's patents for a polyphase system of alternating current in 1888, and convinced Tesla to join the Westinghouse Electric Company. Edison on the other hand was promoting direct current.

Westinghouse's promotion of AC power led him into an extended fight with Edison and his DC power system. Edison rightfully claimed that high voltage systems were dangerous. Westinghouse defended AC as manageable so Edison attempted unsuccessfully to pass legislation in several states to limit power transmission voltages to 800 volts.

In 1887, a board appointed by the state of New York consulted Edison on the best way to execute condemned prisoners. Although he was against capital punishment he saw it as a way to get his chief rival, Westinghouse, since AC current was winning popularity. Edison hired engineer Harold P. Brown, to perform public demonstrations of animal electrocution using AC power. Edison then told the state board that AC was so deadly that it would kill instantly, making it the perfect way to execute. His recommendation was adopted. Brown became the inventor of the electric chair.

In August 1890, convict William Kemmler became the first person to be executed by electrocution. Westinghouse hired the best lawyer to defend him and denounced electrocution as a form of "cruel and unusual punishment." It certainly was in this first case as the execution was messy and took a while. Westinghouse declared they could have done a better job with an axe. Even though it was botched, the electric chair became a common form of execution, but Edison's attempts to have the procedure called "Westinghousing" failed.

Westinghouse had the last laugh as AC power won out, and even Edison's chief genius Charles Steinmetz, gave AC some good theoretical explanation. George remained an icon of American industry until 1907, when a financial panic led to his loosing control of the Westinghouse Company. By 1911, he was no longer active in business, and his health declined. He died on March 12 1914, in New York City, at age 67. He had 361 patents.

Edison did get some revenge on George Jr. GE purchased and tore down his dad’s agriculture company buildings in 1932 to build a new studio for WGY, one of New York's first radio stations.

Westinghouse was purchased CBS in 1995 and was renamed CBS Corporation in 1997. In 1998, CBS Corporation created a new subsidiary called Westinghouse Electric Corporation to manage the Westinghouse brand. The following year they sold it to Viacom, Inc.