“At the highly visible headquarters for the Edison Electric Illumination Company, Edison quickly rigged up a steam engine generator and by mid-April (1881) had equipped its tall-ceilinged rooms with numerous “electroliers” (electric chandeliers) and other attractive light fixtures. Illuminated every evening and long into the wee hours, 65 Fifth Avenue was the glorious and radiant new electrical reality, where Edison held court most nights.”
*
“…Tesla rapturously gestured to his simple designs in the dirt and declared to Szigety, ‘Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it sublime? Isn’t it simple? I have solved the problem. Now I can die happy. But I must live, I must return to work so I can build this motor so I can give it to the world. No more will man be a slave to hard tasks. My motor will set them free, it will do the hard work of the world.”
*
“Electrical power made possible the important and the frivolous, the noble and the idiotic.”
Quotes from Empires of Light, by Jill Jonnes.