The Turn Of the Century Electrotherapy Museum

Fascinating site run by Jeff Behary devoted to all kinds of old electrotherapy devices.

The Boston Museum Of Science

If you are ever in Boston you must visit BMOS.  This museum house the world’s largest air insulated Van De Graaff generator and they demonstrate it daily in their Theater Of Electricity.  [...]

In the late 1870′s Professors Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston began experimenting with and patenting improvements on existing arc lamp and dynamo designs. In 1880 after being approached by a group of businessmen from New Britain CT, Thomson & Houston agreed to the formation of a company that would engage in the commercial manufacture of [...]

Philadelphia 1878

“Miniature moons on carbon points, held captive in glass globes”
A description of the “wonder of 1878″: an installation of Brush arc lamps in the window of Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia.

Cleveland Ohio 1879

“Thousands of people gathered…and as the light shot around and through the Park a shout was raised. [...]

by Charles Brush

The General Electric Company was formed in 1892. It was the result of a meger between the Edison General electric Company and the Thomson-Houston Company, which themselves incorporated several other companies. The late 1880′s had been a period of fragmentation and widespread patent disputes that were threatening the industry as a whole. Just [...]

High Voltage “Lifter”

Electrostatic lifters are fascinating devices that have become popular construction projects for experimenters all over the world.   NASA’s recent patent on a type of lifter design has  spurred further  interest in these devices.

What is a lifter?

The basic device merely consists of a lightweight (typically balsa wood) frame, [...]