How did electrification change American cities and American?
American industry and, soon, home life, was also transformed by electrification in the late nineteenth century. Inventor Thomas Edison, the creator of the phonograph, stock market ticker, and, later, the motion picture camera, became the nation's most famous inventor in the 1870s. Edison's perfected his most famous invention, the electric light bulb, in 1879. The light bulb became the very symbol of genius, and Edison became known as "the Wizard of Menlo Park," since his laboratory was located in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Charles Brush began building electric generation stations in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York in 1879 and 1880. In 1882, Edison opened his first station in New York City. Factories and other businesses became the first customers for electric companies, but homes and apartment buildings were soon wired as well. Electric street lighting transformed cities, giving rise to a much busier nightlife. Electric generating stations supplied electricity for street railways, which soon transformed mass transportation in cities and towns across the nation. By 1900, more than 90 percent of American street railways were powered by electricity, replacing horse-drawn trolleys and noisy, smoky fuel-powered trains.