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Article: Electrification, Household
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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ELECTRIFICATION, HOUSEHOLD
ELECTRIFICATION, HOUSEHOLD.
The electrification of the American household was a complicated social and technological phenomenon. The basic scientific knowledge dated to the early nineteenth century; but this knowledge could find no practical application until a number of economic, industrial, and social prerequisites
had been established. As early as 1832, an Englishman named William Sturgeon established the principle of converting electric energy into mechanical energy. But no commercial domestic-service motors were available until about 1895, when they first began to appear in fans and sewing machines. Similarly, the scientific principle of converting ...