1889 the Edison franchisees
were calling out for the technology meet the threat from
Westinghouse and Edison was told that "the call for some sort
of direct current transformer getting louder and louder
every day." Later that year the annual meeting the Edison
utility companies ended with appeal for high voltage
system. Yet he
did have aptitude for mathematics and the alternating
current technology the 1880s was far from scientifically
complex. Moreover, his laboratory had all the apparatus and
trained staff develop alternating current equipment.
Kennelly, for example, was highly competent electrical
engineer who went teach the subject and make several
important contributions high voltage technology. Edison might not have had the
mathematical education understand the complexities of
alternating current and this could have deterred him from
working with it, some his biographers have argued. The development high voltage direct current system
(the municipal system) was underway the laboratory this
time and Edison was reported "not only willing but
anxious that something should done arc light as
.
The tempo research into alternating current the
West Orange laboratory quickened the competition with
Westinghouse grew more intense.V-30
Edison's laboratory was leading three-pronged attack on
Westinghouse: development high voltage d/c, development a
competing a/c system, and campaign discredit the "death
current" Westinghouse
