George Westinghouse with Lord Kelvin, 1897

George Westinghouse with Lord Kelvin, 1897

George Westinghouse (left) with Lord Kelvin (center) visiting Westinghouse Electric Company, August 1897. The International Niagara Falls Commission, headed by Lord Kelvin, created a contract for the job to harness the power from the Niagara Falls. Many companies came up with different ideas, including Edison, but they were all rejected. Kelvin had always been against the idea of AC, but after attending the World's Fair, he asked the Westinghouse Corporation to use AC power for the harnessing of Niagara Falls. Westinghouse was awarded the contract in 1893 and funding was provided by some of the wealthiest men in America including J.P. Morgan, Lord Rothschild, and W.K. Vanderbilt. Construction finished and the switch was thrown on November 16th, 1896 and to the investor's relief, the plant worked perfectly. Ten more generators were built in the years to follow, and Niagara Falls was eventually powering much of New York. George Westinghouse, Jr. (October 6, 1846 - March 12, 1914) was an American entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry. No photographer credited, the man on the right was not identified, August 1897.

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