Oliver B. Shallenberger (nonfiction)
Oliver Blackburn Shallenberger (May 7, 1860 – January 23, 1898) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He is associated with electrical inventions related to alternating current. He is most noted for inventing the first successful alternating current electrical meter, the forerunner of the modern electric meter. This was critical to general acceptance of AC power.
Shallenberger then served the customary two year commitment serving on a government ship, assigned to the U.S. flagship Lancaster in the Mediterranean. He witnessed the Bombardment of Alexandria. He returned to the United States in 1883. Shallenberger then joined the Union Switch and Signal Company of Pittsburgh in 1884 under the management of George Westinghouse. The company was organizing an electric light department using alternating current and he became their Chief Electrician. He then for the next few years spent his winters in Colorado and his summers in Rochester at a research laboratory of the Westinghouse company. Shallenberger ran the experiments of alternating current apparatus which had been imported from Europe. This research was the foundation for the organization of the Westinghouse Electric Company. He was appointed chief electrician, which continued at the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. He was elected an associate member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1888. In 1891, poor health required him to resign from the Westinghouse company but he continued as a Consulting Electrician.
In 1897 he organized the Colorado Electric Power Company, becoming its President until his death. He settled permanently in Colorado Springs in 1897. Shallenberger was recognized as a worldwide authority on electricity. He was one of the promoters of the Rochester Electric Company.
Shallenberger did much in electrical experimentation and original research. He invented a street-lighting system in which each of a series of incandescent lamps is connected to specially designed transformers so that upon the interruption of the current of any lamp, the normal current is allowed to flow through the corresponding transformer to the remaining lamps without a power surge. The design and construction supervision of these specially designed transformer systems were by him. He also was the first in the United States to innovate a method of connecting alternating current generators in a parallel circuit.
Shallenherger was the first to demonstrate in the United States, with the assistance of George Westinghouse, the safety of alternating current and he was primarily responsible for the general usage of that type of current over that of direct current. Through his inventions he showed that the use of alternating current electricity was more efficient and safer to use than direct current.
Shallenberger innovated a device that led to the invention in April 1888 of an induction meter, a paramount apparatus of the Westinghouse alternating current system. It was a motor which recorded watt-hours for the measure of electric energy consumed by a customer. Securing accurate payment for electricity as a commodity had immense practical import.
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External links:
- Oliver B. Shallenberger @ Wikipedia